Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #220: Mobile and Saddle Hunting Strategies w/John Eberhart

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #220: Mobile and Saddle Hunting Strategies w/John Eberhart · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon, and this is episode number two
0:19
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty and Tay in the show, I'm joined
0:21
Speaker 1: by outdoor writer, author in d I Y Public and
0:25
Speaker 1: pressured land deer hunter John Eberhart, and we're discussing a
0:29
Speaker 1: bunch of different interesting strategies and tools for becoming a
0:33
Speaker 1: more mobile deer hunter. All right, welcome back to the
0:49
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. And
0:52
Speaker 1: today on the show, we've got John Eberhart back with
0:56
Speaker 1: us again. And I mentioned this on previous episodes that
0:58
Speaker 1: we've done with him, but if you're new, I do
1:00
Speaker 1: think this is worth saying again. You know, John has
1:03
Speaker 1: been possibly the most important influence on me as a hunter.
1:08
Speaker 1: He is a writer in Deer and Deer Hunting magazine.
1:10
Speaker 1: He's the host of a web video series for them.
1:12
Speaker 1: He's the co author of books such as Bow Hunting
1:15
Speaker 1: Pressured white Tails, Precision bow Hunting, and Bow Hunting White
1:18
Speaker 1: Tails eber heart Way. He has a series of DVDs.
1:21
Speaker 1: He puts on white Tailed workshops in Michigan, and he's
1:24
Speaker 1: just widely considered one of the most successful and well
1:27
Speaker 1: known d I Y deer hunters on pressured land or
1:30
Speaker 1: public land. And for me, it was a light switch
1:33
Speaker 1: moment when I picked up his book that's called Precision
1:36
Speaker 1: Bow Hunt, and when I picked that up and read
1:38
Speaker 1: it somewhere around it a little over a decade ago,
1:40
Speaker 1: I think it just changed things for me. And I've
1:42
Speaker 1: been on this very different, much more successful trajectory ever
1:46
Speaker 1: since then. So would that being the case. I'm always
1:48
Speaker 1: excited to have him on the podcast and to share
1:50
Speaker 1: his experiences with you guys, and today it's no different.
1:54
Speaker 1: We're diving into one particular aspect of his hunting kind
1:57
Speaker 1: of repertoire, which is this idea of being a mobile hunter.
2:01
Speaker 1: And it's something that Dan and I am previous guests,
2:04
Speaker 1: have talked about a lot in the past, but but
2:06
Speaker 1: John is a master of this, so I wanted to
2:09
Speaker 1: pick his brain a bit about this today, about you know,
2:12
Speaker 1: why being mobile and agile and adaptable as a deer
2:15
Speaker 1: hunter is so important. And when I say this, I
2:18
Speaker 1: don't mean, you know, being agile in the tree. I
2:21
Speaker 1: mean being mobile or agile, as in your ability to
2:25
Speaker 1: hunt different places, to move from location to location, to
2:28
Speaker 1: be able adapt based off of new intel or scouting
2:30
Speaker 1: or observation. So in today's episode, I'm grilling John on
2:34
Speaker 1: this topic. I pick his brain about his two thousand
2:36
Speaker 1: and seventeen hunting season, and we end up focusing in
2:40
Speaker 1: particular on a tool he uses to be a more
2:42
Speaker 1: effective mobile deer hunter, which is a tree saddle. Now
2:46
Speaker 1: really quick, if you're not familiar. Essentially this this tree
2:49
Speaker 1: saddle or sling or harness, whatever you wanna call it,
2:52
Speaker 1: it's it's an alternative to a tree stand. Essentially, it
2:55
Speaker 1: allows you to hang from the tree in this type
2:57
Speaker 1: of harness without needing to have a pre set up
3:00
Speaker 1: tree standard having to tote hang on stand or climbing
3:03
Speaker 1: stand around with you when you're trying to hunt new spots.
3:05
Speaker 1: So it's a really intriguing option for anybody who wants
3:08
Speaker 1: to hunt a lot of different locations or new property
3:11
Speaker 1: or public land, etcetera, etcetera. So we dive into that stuff.
3:16
Speaker 1: Very interesting. I'm excited for you to hear, so I
3:19
Speaker 1: think we should probably just get right to it. So
3:22
Speaker 1: we will take a very quick break here to thank
3:24
Speaker 1: our partners at Onyx, and then we will move on
3:26
Speaker 1: to the rest of the show, so quickly here. If
3:29
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with Onyx, they produce a hunting GPS
3:32
Speaker 1: app and GPS chips that provide detailed digital maps for hunters.
3:37
Speaker 1: These include property lines and owner information, public land borders
3:42
Speaker 1: and designations, topo lines, satellite imagery, just about anything you
3:46
Speaker 1: would want to see from a hunting perspective. And right
3:49
Speaker 1: now I'm in the process of planning my two thousand
3:52
Speaker 1: eighteen Montana whitetail hunt, for which I'm actually gonna be
3:55
Speaker 1: returning to a spot that I found last year using
3:59
Speaker 1: the Onyx app. Not to do that, I just pulled
4:02
Speaker 1: up Onyx and I looked at maps for the area
4:05
Speaker 1: I generally knew I wanted to focus on, and I
4:08
Speaker 1: overlaid the public and private land borders and satellite imagery,
4:11
Speaker 1: and then I looked at this river corridor that I
4:13
Speaker 1: wanted to hunt and just scrolled along the map until
4:16
Speaker 1: I found different pieces of public land that intersected with
4:19
Speaker 1: the quality cover along the river. From there, I put
4:22
Speaker 1: together this list of the best looking spots, and I
4:25
Speaker 1: then got property owner names and addresses for the adjacent
4:28
Speaker 1: private land. So when I made it there to Montana
4:31
Speaker 1: in September, I was able to drive around the back
4:34
Speaker 1: roads take a look at these properties, you know, in person,
4:36
Speaker 1: and then I actually went and chatted with some of
4:38
Speaker 1: the neighboring landowners based off of the information I got
4:41
Speaker 1: from Onyx. And this ended up being crucially important because
4:45
Speaker 1: it led to some permission to cross private land access
4:49
Speaker 1: some of this hard to get to public land, and
4:51
Speaker 1: then the spring, it led to shed hunting permission. And
4:53
Speaker 1: if you listen to my episodes the spring, you know
4:55
Speaker 1: that my Montana shed hunting went very well. And uh,
4:59
Speaker 1: none of that would have happened if it wasn't for
5:01
Speaker 1: the app that I used to locate these areas. So
5:03
Speaker 1: if you're interested in learning more about Onyx yourself, you
5:06
Speaker 1: can visit onyx maps dot com or search for Onyx
5:10
Speaker 1: on your phone's app store. So with that said, then
5:13
Speaker 1: let's get right to the show and get chatting with
5:16
Speaker 1: John Eberhart. All right, we're back today with John Eberhardt.
5:21
Speaker 1: And John, you've been on the show twice before, so
5:24
Speaker 1: thanks now for making it lucky number three. Mark. I
5:28
Speaker 1: am grateful for the opportunity. Thank you very much. Hey,
5:32
Speaker 1: it's my it's my pleasure. I've said it many times before,
5:35
Speaker 1: but I've always been able to point to you as
5:37
Speaker 1: being one of the most important influences on me as
5:41
Speaker 1: a deer hunter. So so it's it's always a treat
5:44
Speaker 1: to get to actually chat with you in person. And
5:46
Speaker 1: the first couple of times we had you on the show,
5:48
Speaker 1: we kind of dived deep across area. Maybe let me
5:52
Speaker 1: take you that back. We didn't dive deep. We kind
5:54
Speaker 1: of did like a full spectrum look at how you
5:56
Speaker 1: approach deer hunting and heavily pressured places and in public lands,
6:00
Speaker 1: and we kind of touched on a whole slew of
6:02
Speaker 1: different topics that that you focus on, But today I
6:05
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to focus on just one piece of that,
6:08
Speaker 1: and that was how you were able to be a
6:12
Speaker 1: mobile deer hunter. So the importance of being mobile and
6:16
Speaker 1: flexible and being able to hunt and make changes on
6:19
Speaker 1: the fly. I know that's something you talk a lot about,
6:22
Speaker 1: and you also talk a lot about how you use
6:24
Speaker 1: a saddle to do that. So so kind of my
6:27
Speaker 1: goal here John, today was to cover that topic in depth.
6:31
Speaker 1: Before we get to that, though, I know that you
6:34
Speaker 1: had an interesting two thousand seventeen season. I always like
6:37
Speaker 1: to hear about how your recent hunts went. Last time
6:40
Speaker 1: we talked, you just came off of a two thousand
6:42
Speaker 1: sixteen season where I think, I think you said, I
6:44
Speaker 1: think you killed two hundred forty plus bucks. It's sounds
6:48
Speaker 1: like that was an incredible year. In two thousand and seventeen,
6:51
Speaker 1: I did read a story of a frustrating hunt of
6:53
Speaker 1: yours and then a cool hunt of yours. Um, would
6:57
Speaker 1: you be up for telling us those two stories? Absolutely?
7:01
Speaker 1: The first one was in Michigan and it was a
7:05
Speaker 1: it was kind of a hunt where I had these
7:09
Speaker 1: preset locations on thirty seven acres. I think I have
7:13
Speaker 1: sixteen different trees prepared on this thirty seven acre parcel,
7:16
Speaker 1: which I hunt with two other hunters um free permission property.
7:22
Speaker 1: And uh I went in on an evening hunt to
7:25
Speaker 1: hunt A specific tree was a red oak tree behind
7:28
Speaker 1: a standing cornfield and it had I'm sorry sorry interrupted.
7:33
Speaker 1: When was this? What time of year? It was October? October?
7:37
Speaker 1: Mid October, Yeah, yep, mid kind of a little later
7:42
Speaker 1: than mid October. I can I think it was October?
7:46
Speaker 1: Memory serves me correctly, and anyway, I went and there
7:49
Speaker 1: was this red oak and it had several scrapes under
7:51
Speaker 1: it from the twenty sixteen season when I prepared the tree,
7:56
Speaker 1: and uh, when I went to this tree, I knew
8:00
Speaker 1: that if those scrapes were not going to be active,
8:03
Speaker 1: that I was going to have to go to another tree,
8:05
Speaker 1: in which I would have had to cross a river,
8:08
Speaker 1: and the actual river, not a creek. So I took
8:10
Speaker 1: my waiters with me, and when I got to the tree,
8:14
Speaker 1: the red oak with the scrapes underneath, that the scrapes
8:16
Speaker 1: were inactive. So I walked down the edge of the
8:20
Speaker 1: cornfield and then went through a little cattail marsh area
8:24
Speaker 1: of forty yards and crossed the river. And I had
8:26
Speaker 1: another tree prepped just across the river, maybe fifty yards
8:31
Speaker 1: from the water, and it was bedding area all around it.
8:36
Speaker 1: So that's what I did. I crossed the river, set
8:38
Speaker 1: up on that tree, and Uh. On that evening hunt,
8:42
Speaker 1: there was a dough that came which was actually kind
8:45
Speaker 1: of early in the year for this, but October nineteenth,
8:47
Speaker 1: this dough came out of the bedding area, ran across
8:51
Speaker 1: the river, I mean, didn't stop hesitate, ran across the
8:54
Speaker 1: river through that forty yard gap of marsh and into
8:58
Speaker 1: the standing cornfield. So I knew for her to run
9:00
Speaker 1: across the river like that something was behind her. And
9:03
Speaker 1: within several seconds I heard of, you know, a grunt,
9:07
Speaker 1: and sure enough, here comes this buck that I knew
9:11
Speaker 1: was in the area. I had, I actually had a
9:13
Speaker 1: picture of him that another hunter on the property had
9:16
Speaker 1: a picture which he showed me, and it was a
9:18
Speaker 1: big nine point in uh. I stopped him at about
9:23
Speaker 1: fourteen yards and took the shot and killed him. And
9:27
Speaker 1: so that was the That was the good hunt. And
9:29
Speaker 1: I kind of look at that as a you know,
9:32
Speaker 1: not really a freelance hunt, because I wasn't freelancing to
9:34
Speaker 1: another location, you know, just looking for a new spot.
9:38
Speaker 1: But I did go to a preset location that was
9:40
Speaker 1: not active, so I I became proactive and went to
9:44
Speaker 1: a different location where I had to actually use waiters
9:47
Speaker 1: to cross the river for my for my entry. So
9:50
Speaker 1: why why did you why did you choose to go
9:52
Speaker 1: into that first location, Like what was the rationale? Why
9:55
Speaker 1: did you say okay, today's October? What conditions or factors
10:00
Speaker 1: pointed you to say, okay, I'm gonna head to this tree,
10:02
Speaker 1: check it out, and then if that doesn't work out,
10:04
Speaker 1: then I've got to plan b. What what pointed you
10:07
Speaker 1: in that direction, Well, it was, you know, October nineteenth,
10:11
Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of getting close to the beginning
10:15
Speaker 1: of that pre rut phase where mature bucks start checking
10:18
Speaker 1: their you know, checking their scrape areas during daylight hours.
10:23
Speaker 1: You know, it's pretty common during that October law to
10:29
Speaker 1: have scraped be very very active. But if it's if
10:33
Speaker 1: they're being checked by a mature buck there typically in
10:36
Speaker 1: a state like Michigan with so much hunting pressure, it's
10:38
Speaker 1: usually during the security of darkness. So October nineteenth is
10:42
Speaker 1: getting about the time frame, you know, twentieth somewhere near
10:46
Speaker 1: where bucks start to break that nocturnal time frame and
10:51
Speaker 1: start sent checking for early estus does and obviously their
10:55
Speaker 1: scrape areas are on that routine. So that's why I
10:59
Speaker 1: went to that don't because it had scrapes there from
11:01
Speaker 1: the previous fall when I prepared it, and I was
11:04
Speaker 1: going into check and if the scrapes were active, I
11:08
Speaker 1: was going to hunt that tree. And if they were inactive,
11:10
Speaker 1: my plan was to go over to the edge of
11:12
Speaker 1: this betting area right on the edge of the river
11:14
Speaker 1: where you know, that's just going to be a natural
11:17
Speaker 1: flow for deer, and that's that's exactly what I did.
11:21
Speaker 1: And obviously, you know, the pre route was starting to
11:25
Speaker 1: kick in because this buck pushed this dough out of
11:29
Speaker 1: the betting area and he was going to follow her
11:31
Speaker 1: across the river into that standing corn. So she must
11:34
Speaker 1: have been very close to or possibly even you know,
11:38
Speaker 1: been one of those early does that come into Astros early.
11:42
Speaker 1: That's interesting to see that happened so early. Curious before
11:47
Speaker 1: we before we fast forward all the way to the
11:49
Speaker 1: late season in that other hunt I mentioned as as
11:52
Speaker 1: I'm as I'm hearing you talk about this October nineteenth hunt,
11:55
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of curious, like, what does your season
11:58
Speaker 1: look like in you know, in the Michigan hunting season
12:01
Speaker 1: or during your typical year. Are you going out and
12:03
Speaker 1: hunting somewhere almost every day or you just hunting you know,
12:07
Speaker 1: the weekends, or do you sit do you have you know,
12:10
Speaker 1: forty different locations and you just look at you know, okay,
12:12
Speaker 1: what factors point me here? Or do you just say okay.
12:15
Speaker 1: In the early season, I know I've got fifteen stands
12:18
Speaker 1: and have some kind of apples tree, or some kind
12:20
Speaker 1: of food source. I'm just gonna cycle through each of
12:22
Speaker 1: these until i find the hot sign. I'm just kind
12:24
Speaker 1: of at a high level. What does your mindset in
12:28
Speaker 1: season look like as it begins and shifts through the
12:31
Speaker 1: year when you're just making your decisions of when and
12:33
Speaker 1: where to hunt. Well, keeping in keeping in mind that
12:37
Speaker 1: I'm from Michigan, which is the most heavily bonded state
12:40
Speaker 1: in the country. Uh, most of the bucks that I'm
12:44
Speaker 1: trying to kill, because I hunt strictly public land and
12:47
Speaker 1: free knock on doors for permission properties, they get a
12:50
Speaker 1: lot of pressure the whole area. Even on the free
12:52
Speaker 1: permission properties. You know, all of the hunters in the
12:55
Speaker 1: area surrounding properties, you know, they all boon. So there
12:59
Speaker 1: could be anywhere from fifteen to possibly thirty bow hunters
13:03
Speaker 1: that are hunting in a six or forty acre section.
13:06
Speaker 1: So most of them mature bucks are nocturnal prior to
13:09
Speaker 1: the season even opening because of all the other hunters.
13:13
Speaker 1: Preseason scouting and location prep, that's what I do all
13:16
Speaker 1: my stuff to a postseason um. So typically I'll hunt
13:21
Speaker 1: the first three days of the season, and that would
13:24
Speaker 1: be mornings and evenings, no matter what the dates are.
13:27
Speaker 1: It's not just a weekend deal. I have the luxury
13:29
Speaker 1: of having a job where I can hunt some week
13:33
Speaker 1: days and then typically after the like the third, possibly
13:37
Speaker 1: even the fourth fourth day of season, I might hunt,
13:39
Speaker 1: depending on weather conditions. If it's you know, drizzly rain
13:42
Speaker 1: or nasty weather, I will hunt, Whereas if it's a nice, sunny,
13:45
Speaker 1: bloo bird day, usually after the third I'm done, and
13:49
Speaker 1: then I typically don't hunt until around the twentieth of October.
13:55
Speaker 1: And then again it's going to dictate on weather conditions,
14:00
Speaker 1: and deer are gonna move a lot. A mature buck
14:02
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to pursue and kill is gonna be
14:05
Speaker 1: more apt to move during inclement weather conditions around the
14:10
Speaker 1: twentieth of October. You know, if it's rainy or cold
14:13
Speaker 1: or something like that, then he's gonna do on a
14:15
Speaker 1: you know, seventy five degree blue bird day, You're going
14:19
Speaker 1: to see a lot of other types of deers sporting
14:22
Speaker 1: of bucks and doze and stuff on blue bird days.
14:24
Speaker 1: But for a mature buck to move that early in October,
14:29
Speaker 1: you know, which is the kind of the somewhat the
14:31
Speaker 1: beginning of the pre run. It's got a very pretty
14:34
Speaker 1: nasty weather for him to do that. Um in which
14:37
Speaker 1: what's kind of weird is this particular day, it was
14:41
Speaker 1: actually a pretty nice day, and I spent it and
14:44
Speaker 1: I was still successful, but I was just I was
14:47
Speaker 1: just getting to the point where I was, you know,
14:49
Speaker 1: got you guts start hunting, you know, as a as
14:51
Speaker 1: a deer hunter. When you totally quit hunting for two weeks,
14:56
Speaker 1: you know, there's just something internally that says you're missing out,
15:00
Speaker 1: you know. And and this was a location. It was
15:03
Speaker 1: in central Michigan where there's not typically a lot of
15:06
Speaker 1: big Bucks and and uh, you know, my better spots
15:10
Speaker 1: are in southern Michigan where there's more egg and swamp.
15:13
Speaker 1: And I said, what the heck, I'll just go out
15:15
Speaker 1: this evening and see what's going on because I had
15:17
Speaker 1: some free time. How many different yea, this is something
15:21
Speaker 1: I always struggle with. I'm always wondering, you know, do
15:24
Speaker 1: I have enough different options as far as properties. Every year,
15:27
Speaker 1: I inevitably find myself at some point during the season
15:29
Speaker 1: wishing that I had more places that I had ready
15:32
Speaker 1: to go or that I could check out. And I
15:34
Speaker 1: was when I when we talked to all these different people.
15:36
Speaker 1: You find typically two different types of successful deer hunters.
15:39
Speaker 1: You've got one that owns some land and they're able
15:42
Speaker 1: to control it. So those guys have got their own
15:43
Speaker 1: thing going on they can control. But for the people
15:45
Speaker 1: that don't own land, for folks like you that are
15:48
Speaker 1: hunting either public land or private by permission, usually the
15:51
Speaker 1: most consistent ones seem to have a bunch of spots
15:55
Speaker 1: lined up so that they can on any given year
15:57
Speaker 1: they have many, many different options, so that if one's
16:00
Speaker 1: messed up because of other hunters or because some type
16:03
Speaker 1: of conditions aren't right, or whatever might be, they have
16:05
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of backups in any given year. How
16:08
Speaker 1: many different properties or areas do you have kind of
16:12
Speaker 1: available to to to go hunt during a given year,
16:17
Speaker 1: during a typical year, and I'm going back, maybe let's
16:19
Speaker 1: say over the last I've been belonging over fifty years,
16:21
Speaker 1: and over the last thirty five years, I'll typically have
16:24
Speaker 1: two to three private parcels where I've acquired free hunting permission,
16:29
Speaker 1: and several public land parcels. And it's extremely rare that
16:34
Speaker 1: I will not have at least forty trees prepped during season.
16:42
Speaker 1: You know, during post season is when I do all
16:44
Speaker 1: that stuff, and I'll usually have forty trees prepped every
16:47
Speaker 1: year before season starts. And some are going to be
16:50
Speaker 1: some are early season trees. Some are gonna be you know,
16:54
Speaker 1: viewing secondary trees for that October wall where I may
16:57
Speaker 1: just go sit where I can have a viewing area.
17:01
Speaker 1: Others are going to be pre ret locations Sothers are
17:03
Speaker 1: gonna be rut phase locations of you know, peak rout locations.
17:06
Speaker 1: Primarily those are going to be embedding areas where deer
17:08
Speaker 1: chasing and actually doing the breeding. Uh. Some are going
17:12
Speaker 1: to be morning locations, Some are midday locations. Some are
17:14
Speaker 1: strictly evening locations. You know, if you're if you're preparatory,
17:18
Speaker 1: let's they have a couple of apple trees. Prep Those
17:20
Speaker 1: are strictly evening locations because if you enter them in
17:23
Speaker 1: a morning, you're gonna spook deer feeding at them with
17:26
Speaker 1: your entry. And typically they're great early season locations if
17:30
Speaker 1: they've been left alone during preseason. They're good at early
17:33
Speaker 1: season locations where you might possibly catch them. Ature buck,
17:37
Speaker 1: you know, on his early season pattern, he hasn't turned
17:39
Speaker 1: nocturnal yet um. You know, so that's a feeding location
17:43
Speaker 1: because the early season everything revolves around food, whereas when
17:46
Speaker 1: it gets closer to the rut phases, everything revolves around
17:48
Speaker 1: sex and dough activity. So you know, everything has a
17:52
Speaker 1: rhyme and a reason, and the more options of hunter has,
17:56
Speaker 1: the more successful he will be. It's rare that I
18:00
Speaker 1: hunt any location more than three times during the course
18:03
Speaker 1: of the season, any specific stand location. You're saying, yes, correct,
18:08
Speaker 1: And it's extremely rare I hunt any specific tree more
18:13
Speaker 1: than three hunts per season. And you know, and you prep.
18:17
Speaker 1: You know, if I have forty fifty trees prepped, you
18:19
Speaker 1: know in summer at white oak summer at apple trees,
18:21
Speaker 1: uh summer at primary scrape areas, you know, those were
18:25
Speaker 1: pre set from the previous season sign or just re
18:29
Speaker 1: readdressed and recleaned up because there stands up hunted for years.
18:33
Speaker 1: And obviously the years the apple trees are not producing
18:36
Speaker 1: or white oaks aren't producing acorns, or red oaks or whatever,
18:39
Speaker 1: or crop rotations changed the scrape areas. Those those trees,
18:43
Speaker 1: even though there maybe forty or fifty total, you know,
18:46
Speaker 1: twenty five of them, five of them are going to
18:49
Speaker 1: become totally irrelevant just because of the food sources. Would
18:53
Speaker 1: you would you say that the majority of the days
18:57
Speaker 1: and you actually kill a deer are happening on a
19:00
Speaker 1: sit in a tree for that year. So many people
19:03
Speaker 1: talk about Yeah, so many people we talked to. It's
19:05
Speaker 1: that that power of the very first set seems to
19:08
Speaker 1: be disproportionately. Those are the those are the times we
19:11
Speaker 1: end up killing something. Well, well, I look at I
19:15
Speaker 1: look at myself a little bit different than most most
19:17
Speaker 1: hunters because my set control is pretty much perfect. I
19:21
Speaker 1: paid zero attention to the wind, so I feel very
19:25
Speaker 1: comfortable sitting. Let's say it's November one, pre rd. You know,
19:30
Speaker 1: it's right in the middle of pre right, and I'm
19:32
Speaker 1: let's say, hunting over a primary scrape area. You know,
19:35
Speaker 1: as long as i'm or let's say I'm hunting in
19:37
Speaker 1: an apple tree that's still dropping apples, where I know
19:41
Speaker 1: dear going to come in and I'm going to physically
19:44
Speaker 1: see dear, as long as I'm not seeing a change
19:47
Speaker 1: in the number of deer I'm seeing or the activity
19:51
Speaker 1: let's say the scrape area. You know, it's remaining active,
19:54
Speaker 1: and I know I'm not spooking anything with my entries
19:56
Speaker 1: and exits. I'm not spooking anything on stand because nothing
19:59
Speaker 1: can win me. Um, I will hunt that several times
20:03
Speaker 1: in a row, you know, two to three times in
20:05
Speaker 1: a row, and that will be my three three hunts
20:07
Speaker 1: from that location, because um, I'm not I'm not concerned
20:12
Speaker 1: about spook and stuff. Most hunters don't have a very
20:15
Speaker 1: good scent control, even the TV. I've never seen a
20:18
Speaker 1: TV guy with a decent scent control regiment. And so
20:21
Speaker 1: every time they go in and hunt a location, they're
20:23
Speaker 1: leaving residual order on the ground from their entries, from
20:26
Speaker 1: their exits, and deer spook because they're down wind of them,
20:29
Speaker 1: and so they're as soon as they start hunting a location,
20:34
Speaker 1: they're altering deer traffic at that location because of their
20:37
Speaker 1: human odor. I don't view it that way because I
20:41
Speaker 1: don't get winded, and I can have deer walk through
20:44
Speaker 1: a weed field that I've walked through, you know, prior
20:48
Speaker 1: with my entry and not spook. So to me, that's
20:52
Speaker 1: a little bit different than me than most hunters because
20:55
Speaker 1: of my scent control. So I think I can get
20:57
Speaker 1: away with hunting something several times without altering it, whereas
21:02
Speaker 1: most hunters can't. And that's really important during the rut
21:06
Speaker 1: phases because when you're hunting mature bucks in a state
21:10
Speaker 1: like Michigan where there's very very few mature bucks and
21:13
Speaker 1: they're typically with dose during the breeding cycle period. You know,
21:17
Speaker 1: during the main run um, you know, you may hunt
21:21
Speaker 1: over a primary scrape area and not see anything, but
21:25
Speaker 1: the mature buck you're trying to kill is doted up.
21:29
Speaker 1: He's someplace else. You know, he's with the dolls. So
21:31
Speaker 1: once she's finished with that cycle, Uh, he's going to
21:35
Speaker 1: have to go out and search for another estrus dolls.
21:39
Speaker 1: So then he may possibly come and visit that scrape
21:42
Speaker 1: area because that's in his routine of searching for dose.
21:45
Speaker 1: So when you know, so because of my secontrol, I'm
21:49
Speaker 1: I'm able to hunt a specific location, a destination location,
21:54
Speaker 1: several hunts in a row without concern. And that way,
21:58
Speaker 1: you know when he does come back, that traffic is
22:00
Speaker 1: still coming in and out of that spot and that's
22:03
Speaker 1: where he's going to continue to search for his next
22:05
Speaker 1: test still because the first hunt or two I wanted, Derek,
22:07
Speaker 1: he may have been built up right, right, So speaking
22:10
Speaker 1: of that time frame, then you killed your buck on
22:13
Speaker 1: October nineteenth last year. Any any other notable encounters or
22:17
Speaker 1: hunts in the in the following two weeks, then for
22:20
Speaker 1: you in Michigan, anything that stands out, I never saw
22:23
Speaker 1: another shooter. Wow, the only good buck I saw during
22:27
Speaker 1: the entire season. Anything you can attribute to did you
22:31
Speaker 1: have something happen on a property that screwed things up,
22:34
Speaker 1: or just just kind of how it goes in Michigan.
22:38
Speaker 1: That's just kind of how it goes in Michigan because
22:40
Speaker 1: you can't beat up your stands a lot and uh,
22:44
Speaker 1: you know, I move, I move around a lot, and
22:47
Speaker 1: nobody that was the only buck that any of the
22:50
Speaker 1: other hunters on any of the properties that I want
22:52
Speaker 1: at any pictures of it, I would kill. So I
22:58
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like us, you know, where you're
23:01
Speaker 1: going to have half a dozen eight eight mature bucks
23:04
Speaker 1: that a person might shoot in a section in Michigan
23:07
Speaker 1: because there's so few mature bucks, you know, there some
23:11
Speaker 1: some stats put it in you know, like there's one
23:15
Speaker 1: percent of the bucks in an area are you know,
23:17
Speaker 1: three and a half years and older. So you know,
23:19
Speaker 1: you if you had twenty bucks per section, you know,
23:22
Speaker 1: there may be five sections where You've only got one
23:24
Speaker 1: buck that I one buck that I would want to kill.
23:26
Speaker 1: So it's not like out west where there's just lots
23:29
Speaker 1: mature bucks, and uh, you know, in in Michigan, there's
23:35
Speaker 1: just years. There's been years I've never seen a shooter
23:38
Speaker 1: you know that I want to shoot. So it's it's
23:41
Speaker 1: just got a lot to do the properties. You know,
23:44
Speaker 1: fifteen and sixteen, I think all three of those years
23:47
Speaker 1: I killed two book Bucks in Michigan. Uh, so you
23:50
Speaker 1: know they were there and I had the opportunity to
23:52
Speaker 1: kill them. Um, and in seventeen that just didn't seem
23:56
Speaker 1: to be the case. Obviously, de you're going to move
23:58
Speaker 1: in from other areas are in the main rut. But
24:02
Speaker 1: I just wasn't on the stand at the right time.
24:04
Speaker 1: And I don't use cameras, so like, I don't really
24:07
Speaker 1: I can't really tell what was there, you know, when
24:10
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I don't use cameras in Michigan. Yeah. A
24:13
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, when we first had you on
24:15
Speaker 1: the podcast, you talked about why it is that you
24:18
Speaker 1: At that time you said that you used camera sparingly.
24:20
Speaker 1: I think, UM, have you have your thoughts on cameras
24:23
Speaker 1: evolved at all recently. It sounds like now you're using
24:26
Speaker 1: them not at all. Is there a particular reason why
24:28
Speaker 1: you've gone completely zero use on that now? One of
24:33
Speaker 1: that big buck ey shot in and opening morning, I
24:36
Speaker 1: had used a camera there because it was a location
24:38
Speaker 1: that I had went back to because somebody else had
24:41
Speaker 1: seen this fucking told me about it. It was properly
24:43
Speaker 1: I hundred years ago, very tiny little parcel. So I
24:48
Speaker 1: used a camera in that specific location, on that specific
24:53
Speaker 1: property because I could put a camera in an invasive
24:57
Speaker 1: location and take a survey elements of what the buck
25:01
Speaker 1: he's talking about, how actually big it was. But most
25:05
Speaker 1: of the properties I hunt are not close to my house.
25:08
Speaker 1: This one was relatively close to where I live. Um,
25:11
Speaker 1: and I just don't I don't add the time, and
25:13
Speaker 1: I don't like making the physical intrusions of a you know,
25:16
Speaker 1: to check cameras. I think that's very invasive in a
25:20
Speaker 1: highly pressured state where mature bucks don't allow a lot
25:24
Speaker 1: of invasiveness. You know, they avoid those areas until after dark.
25:29
Speaker 1: And that's why I don't use cameras very very infrequently.
25:33
Speaker 1: In Michigan. Last year, I did not have a camera
25:36
Speaker 1: out Now I totally hunt cameras. When I hunt out
25:38
Speaker 1: of state, I put a camera at every single location,
25:41
Speaker 1: because dear just aren't that smart. And and when I
25:45
Speaker 1: say out of state, obviously i'm I'm going to the
25:48
Speaker 1: iwas in Kansas, and you know, southern Illinois, where you know,
25:53
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of mature bucks and
25:55
Speaker 1: very very little cunning competition, and and you can be
25:58
Speaker 1: relativetively in true sieve, and it doesn't really mean a
26:02
Speaker 1: lot to deer still do what they do. So, speaking
26:05
Speaker 1: of those odd state hunts, then you did you did
26:08
Speaker 1: another one of your late season Ohio hunts. I heard
26:11
Speaker 1: about last year. How how did that all go down?
26:15
Speaker 1: That was really interesting that that was a major mistake
26:21
Speaker 1: got my part and I wrote an article about it. Um,
26:25
Speaker 1: I didn't look at the weather. I've done very well
26:28
Speaker 1: out of state in December after you know, like Illinois
26:31
Speaker 1: gun season or after the Ohio gun season, go out
26:34
Speaker 1: there and bowl on and I've had a pretty decent
26:37
Speaker 1: success rate. And but I always looked at the weather,
26:41
Speaker 1: and this time I didn't. I had a specific open
26:43
Speaker 1: time that I could go, and I just went. And
26:48
Speaker 1: it was kind of in the mid thirties, and then
26:53
Speaker 1: got a little bit of snow, got like two inches
26:54
Speaker 1: of snow, and then it got down into the teams
26:57
Speaker 1: the rest of the week, and and everything was so crunchy.
27:02
Speaker 1: I mean you could look as soon as I would
27:05
Speaker 1: get out of my minivan and take a step, take
27:09
Speaker 1: a couple of steps towards the woods, I could hear
27:11
Speaker 1: deer running. I mean they could literally hear crunching snow
27:16
Speaker 1: or crunching leaves, probably for a quarter mile. Because it
27:20
Speaker 1: was also no win that week. It was just dead calm,
27:22
Speaker 1: and obviously in December there's no foliage to to kind
27:26
Speaker 1: of absorb absorb the noise, you know, my walking noise.
27:29
Speaker 1: So um, I made a big mistake by not checking
27:34
Speaker 1: the weather. You know, typically on my out of state
27:37
Speaker 1: hunts in December, I wait till there's a decent amount
27:40
Speaker 1: of snow where I can walk quietly and I'm looking
27:43
Speaker 1: at you know, deer sign within twenty four hours of
27:46
Speaker 1: when it was made. And on this hunt, I didn't.
27:49
Speaker 1: And I wrote an article about how stupid I was
27:52
Speaker 1: because that was doubled me not to check the weather.
27:55
Speaker 1: So so you had this crispy, crunchy leaves everywhere. How
28:00
Speaker 1: did you try to. I mean, it sounds like when
28:02
Speaker 1: you try to go into stands you were spooking, dear,
28:04
Speaker 1: But how did you try to adjust to that? We're
28:05
Speaker 1: able to find any way to pull it off to
28:08
Speaker 1: make a dooble hunt? I did on one of the locations,
28:12
Speaker 1: probably the best location. It was there was a huge cutover,
28:17
Speaker 1: probably a quarter of a mile from my tree stand,
28:20
Speaker 1: and it was not on the property I could hunt.
28:21
Speaker 1: The cutover wasn't they cut it over like five years ago,
28:24
Speaker 1: so it was just dense saplings. And the first time
28:28
Speaker 1: I went in there to hunt, I remember I started
28:31
Speaker 1: walking and it was an evening hunt. I totally abandoned
28:33
Speaker 1: morning hunts because morning hunts there was no way. And
28:37
Speaker 1: I started walking and within twenty yards of the end,
28:39
Speaker 1: I could hear deer running at least a quarter mile
28:42
Speaker 1: in front of me leaving the property I was hunting,
28:45
Speaker 1: going into wards and then taken off into that sampling
28:49
Speaker 1: area to cut over. So what I started doing on
28:53
Speaker 1: I only had three locations prepared total, and they were
28:55
Speaker 1: all on different properties, free permission properties. So what I
29:00
Speaker 1: started doing is I started getting up at eight o'clock
29:03
Speaker 1: in the morning because I wasn't gonna hunt. And I
29:05
Speaker 1: went to each three of those locations and I physically
29:10
Speaker 1: walked to the trees so that I would spook any
29:14
Speaker 1: deer that were betted back away from the location with
29:19
Speaker 1: the thought that hopefully in the evening when I went
29:24
Speaker 1: back to hunt, you know, they would have been calmed
29:26
Speaker 1: down enough for me going in at eight and they
29:30
Speaker 1: would filter back out, uh, you know, in in the
29:34
Speaker 1: evening before dark. And I did have one ten inch
29:39
Speaker 1: eight point walk under my tree that I passed on.
29:43
Speaker 1: He was just too small. So that that's what I did,
29:48
Speaker 1: is I just went into those locations earlier in the
29:51
Speaker 1: morning to spook any deer way beyond where I was
29:54
Speaker 1: going to hunt where they couldn't hopefully hear me come
29:56
Speaker 1: in the evening, and then they would filter back in
29:58
Speaker 1: because I was hunting and play is where there was food.
30:01
Speaker 1: Either I was either in a saddle transition saddle from
30:05
Speaker 1: from a bedding area to a feeding location, where I
30:08
Speaker 1: was in some at a location where there were some oaks,
30:11
Speaker 1: was some still some acorns on the ground. Interesting, So
30:16
Speaker 1: future hunts now late season, what's the big takeaway here?
30:19
Speaker 1: And wait again for the snow or anything else there yep, always, yes,
30:24
Speaker 1: I will always always look at the weather and wait
30:27
Speaker 1: for snow. That I killed two monster bucks in Illinois
30:31
Speaker 1: on public land. One was in two thousand and eight
30:34
Speaker 1: and one was in two thousand seven, two thousand seven
30:39
Speaker 1: and two thousand eight, and both times, uh, you know,
30:43
Speaker 1: I waited for there to be you know, unactu whether
30:46
Speaker 1: I waited for there to be a snow coming through,
30:48
Speaker 1: and then after it looked like it went through, I
30:52
Speaker 1: called the park rangers because those parks down there had
30:54
Speaker 1: park rangers, and asked them if they got the snow,
30:58
Speaker 1: and both times they did so. They had six to
31:00
Speaker 1: eight inches of fresh powder snow on the ground. So
31:05
Speaker 1: I left immediately. My vehicle was packed, and I had
31:09
Speaker 1: I had the luxury of having time, you know, whatever
31:12
Speaker 1: time we had snow, I could go. I had all
31:14
Speaker 1: of December open pretty much and U And so now
31:19
Speaker 1: when I get there, I'm there within twenty four hours
31:21
Speaker 1: of the snow. And when I'm scouting, I'm looking at
31:24
Speaker 1: sign that was made within the last twenty four hours,
31:26
Speaker 1: so it's all fresh sign. It's not like you're looking
31:28
Speaker 1: at bare ground or snow that's been on the ground
31:30
Speaker 1: for three weeks and you know, you can't you can't
31:33
Speaker 1: disseminate between fresh tracks and old tracks, or you know,
31:36
Speaker 1: fresh runaways and old runways. And so now I'm looking
31:39
Speaker 1: at Sinna was made immediately within the last twenty four hours,
31:43
Speaker 1: and that just made hunting easy. Both of those hunts
31:46
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, two th eight I killed I killed
31:49
Speaker 1: book Bucks. One was a D sixty twelve point on
31:53
Speaker 1: my very first evening hunt after scouting a day and
31:56
Speaker 1: a half and prepping, prepping a couple of locations, and
31:59
Speaker 1: then un hunting that first evening gun. I killed at
32:02
Speaker 1: nine point on the first hunt in two thousand seven
32:05
Speaker 1: and a twelve point two eight. This this is a
32:08
Speaker 1: perfect segue because you're you're talking here about a situation
32:12
Speaker 1: where you're going in, you're looking at brand new, fresh
32:15
Speaker 1: sign and then right away being able to react to
32:19
Speaker 1: that and set up stands and they're set up a
32:21
Speaker 1: hunting location right then and there. And I know there's
32:24
Speaker 1: many other examples of this kind of thing that I've
32:26
Speaker 1: heard you talk about, and it seems to come down
32:29
Speaker 1: to your ability to be mobile. You're able to go
32:31
Speaker 1: into a place and hunt somewhere, somewhere new quickly. You
32:35
Speaker 1: can adjust quickly. You can change your setup quickly. Um,
32:39
Speaker 1: why do you think being mobile as a deer hunter
32:42
Speaker 1: is important? Can you can you talk through some of
32:44
Speaker 1: the benefits there? Well? Yeah, being mobile is extremely important
32:50
Speaker 1: because first first off, when I say mobile, you know
32:54
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about you watch some of these TV
32:57
Speaker 1: commercials and you get somebody walking down a nice a
33:00
Speaker 1: steam to trick with a climber on their back and
33:02
Speaker 1: their bow and their backpack. You know that to me,
33:05
Speaker 1: that's not mobile, you know, And they're setting up in
33:08
Speaker 1: a tree on the fly, in an open timber because
33:12
Speaker 1: there in areas where there's so many venture bucks are
33:13
Speaker 1: going to get an opportunity pretty much no matter what
33:16
Speaker 1: they do. Um, when I'm talking mobile, I'm talking about
33:19
Speaker 1: you got a backpack, your bow, and I hunt out
33:23
Speaker 1: of something called the harness, uh saddle type harness. So
33:27
Speaker 1: I'm extremely mobile and being mobile is very important. All
33:31
Speaker 1: the trees I have prepped in Michigan because I've been
33:33
Speaker 1: hunting out of this harness system since they're all set
33:37
Speaker 1: up for this harness. So I can have forty fifty
33:40
Speaker 1: trees prepped and I can hunt out of all of
33:43
Speaker 1: them with this harness. That weighs about a pound and
33:46
Speaker 1: a half. So I just walked to the tree and
33:49
Speaker 1: jump up it and hunt it. So I you know,
33:51
Speaker 1: I can go from tree to tree and if the
33:53
Speaker 1: sign is not there, you know I hunt. I just
33:56
Speaker 1: wait until I hit a tree where the sign is there.
33:59
Speaker 1: It's it's there for me to hunt. Or for freelance hunting.
34:03
Speaker 1: You know, if you're freelance hunting on public land. My
34:06
Speaker 1: biggest buck I ever killed with hunter eight incher on
34:08
Speaker 1: a freelance hunt. Well, if you're freelancing on public land
34:11
Speaker 1: or in a pressured area, you're not walking down a
34:14
Speaker 1: two track and you're not walking through open timber. You've
34:16
Speaker 1: got to go through areas where you know there's security cover.
34:20
Speaker 1: And you're not going to do that with a climber
34:22
Speaker 1: on your back or hang on with a bunch of sticks.
34:25
Speaker 1: It's just too cumbersome. You just can't do it. It's
34:27
Speaker 1: physically impossible to buck brush and go through swamps and
34:31
Speaker 1: marshes and stuff. So the more mobile you are, the
34:35
Speaker 1: more opportunities you're gonna get because you can get back
34:39
Speaker 1: in the brush and in the cover where the mature
34:41
Speaker 1: mature bucks are actually at and feel comfortable moving during
34:45
Speaker 1: daylight hours. Um, and the more mobile you are, the
34:48
Speaker 1: more opportunities you're gonna get. And another thing that's cool
34:51
Speaker 1: about that is the harnesses. You know, it's dead quiet.
34:54
Speaker 1: It's all made out of fabrics, so there's no noise
34:56
Speaker 1: or anything during the hunt. Yeah. Do you ever a
35:01
Speaker 1: situation where you're heading in to hunt a prepared location
35:05
Speaker 1: but you see something that you realize is like a
35:09
Speaker 1: flashing light that says you need to hunt here right now,
35:12
Speaker 1: and you just set up a brain new spout right
35:14
Speaker 1: then and there and hunt. Is that something you ever
35:16
Speaker 1: do just based on recent intel, Yes, that's something I
35:20
Speaker 1: have done. Um, only one time have I done that successfully,
35:26
Speaker 1: But there's been several occasions. In fact, I just wrote
35:29
Speaker 1: an article about it, which will probably be in deer
35:32
Speaker 1: deer hunting before the end of the year, where I
35:35
Speaker 1: will go to a location that's not then a location
35:41
Speaker 1: just doesn't have the deer sign because I prepped it
35:43
Speaker 1: in postseason. You know, maybe there was a lot of
35:46
Speaker 1: runways in the area or whatever, and those runways are
35:49
Speaker 1: inactive because there's no acorns in that area anymore. Where
35:52
Speaker 1: I've went to a location with my freelance Fannie pack
35:56
Speaker 1: on full of steps and my harness is always in
35:59
Speaker 1: my backpack. One a son at the time, and I'm like, well,
36:02
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna hunt here, so I'm just gonna go freelance.
36:04
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened on this I killed by
36:08
Speaker 1: physically hunted a location early in the morning and it
36:11
Speaker 1: and it was going to be an all day sit
36:13
Speaker 1: and it wasn't panning out, so I moved to another
36:17
Speaker 1: I just pulled my stuff as I came down the
36:19
Speaker 1: tree and just freelanced about a quarter mile away to
36:22
Speaker 1: a huge primary scrape area that I found and set
36:25
Speaker 1: up on that and shot that buck in the evening.
36:27
Speaker 1: And in Michigan v I think it was six, I
36:32
Speaker 1: kind of did the same thing. I went to a tree,
36:34
Speaker 1: a preset tree, and the sign was this one. I
36:37
Speaker 1: didn't actually hunt them the sign and it was an
36:39
Speaker 1: evening hunt. The sign was just not there from the
36:42
Speaker 1: previous falls. So I just freelanced I don't know, that
36:45
Speaker 1: was probably three hundred yards maybe four hundred yards away,
36:48
Speaker 1: and I found an oak tree, white oak tree, on
36:50
Speaker 1: the edge of some saplings, uh. And it it didn't
36:54
Speaker 1: have any scrapes underneath it, but it had several runways
36:57
Speaker 1: coming out of the saplings to this white oak in
37:00
Speaker 1: and there was some other runways coming through the timbers
37:03
Speaker 1: that fed to this white oak because it had a
37:04
Speaker 1: lot of acorns on the ground and a lot of droppings.
37:06
Speaker 1: And I and this was way before I hunted out
37:09
Speaker 1: of a harness. This was back when you just climbed
37:12
Speaker 1: up a tree and sat on a branch. And I
37:14
Speaker 1: climbed the tree and I shot at ten point on
37:17
Speaker 1: that particular hunt. So that was a freelance hunt as well.
37:20
Speaker 1: And freelance hunting works really good if you're mobile. And
37:26
Speaker 1: also another big aspect of freelance hunting nowadays is sent
37:31
Speaker 1: You know, you've gotta be sent free because if you're
37:33
Speaker 1: winding around through the woods leaving your human odor, you
37:37
Speaker 1: know you're you're setting up stages where a mature bucks
37:41
Speaker 1: not going to move through that area because you left
37:44
Speaker 1: so much human odor, he's gonna probably turn around and leave. So,
37:48
Speaker 1: you know, being scent free is another big aspect of
37:50
Speaker 1: freelance hunting as well. Yeah, when you when you say
37:53
Speaker 1: freelance hunting, when you when you hunted a spot didn't
37:55
Speaker 1: go on the morning and then you take off for
37:57
Speaker 1: the rest of the day and your freelance hunting. Can
37:59
Speaker 1: you can you just explain them more what you mean
38:00
Speaker 1: by that. Sure, Okay, Like the let's let's say the
38:05
Speaker 1: one time I killed that big buck. I hunted a
38:08
Speaker 1: tree and I was in the tree probably an hour
38:10
Speaker 1: and a half our daylight. It was an all day
38:12
Speaker 1: it was going to be an all day set um
38:15
Speaker 1: by about nine thirty maybe, you know, I just wasn't
38:19
Speaker 1: seeing anything, and I just wasn't getting a good vibe
38:23
Speaker 1: on this location. And I was seeing deer in the distance,
38:29
Speaker 1: you know, because this was in mid November. This was
38:32
Speaker 1: Dangniard in the gun almost gun season, so all the
38:34
Speaker 1: folds was down, and I did see dear cruising through
38:37
Speaker 1: in the distance. So I got down out of the tree,
38:40
Speaker 1: pulled all my steps as I went down. I had
38:42
Speaker 1: a dough decoy out, so I put the decoy back
38:45
Speaker 1: in her her bag, you know, a military duffle bag,
38:49
Speaker 1: and I just laid her under the tree. I wasn't
38:51
Speaker 1: gonna use the decoy. I wasn't gonna tote that around,
38:54
Speaker 1: and I just kind of slowly wandered through the timber
38:59
Speaker 1: and back towards this big river, which is where I
39:03
Speaker 1: was seeing the deer activity and again I found I
39:07
Speaker 1: found a monstrous primary scrape area. There was four huge
39:11
Speaker 1: scrapes and it was in a terrain feature dump, so
39:16
Speaker 1: there there was no food there. There was no crop trees,
39:18
Speaker 1: mass trees or anything like that there. I was in
39:21
Speaker 1: a total temporary There was no crops anywhere around and
39:25
Speaker 1: U but there was some train features dumps. There was
39:27
Speaker 1: a little open weed field and then this one patch
39:30
Speaker 1: of trees came here, and then there was a little
39:32
Speaker 1: saddle over here which kind of was by the river,
39:36
Speaker 1: and it was a train feature dump, which meant there
39:39
Speaker 1: was a lot of dough activity in that spot. And
39:41
Speaker 1: that's why that primary scrape area was there, because there
39:43
Speaker 1: was a lot of dough activity. And one of the
39:45
Speaker 1: scrapes had two monstrous clumps of deer droppings. They were
39:52
Speaker 1: all clumped together, which is typically a sign of a
39:54
Speaker 1: big buck in The pelts were huge, and uh so
39:59
Speaker 1: I prepped it free next to it and shut that
40:03
Speaker 1: buck of Hannah about rattled him in twenty minutes before dark. Mhm. Wow.
40:12
Speaker 1: You mentioned that on this particular hunt, you've been seeing
40:14
Speaker 1: deer activity from your original stand in the direction that
40:18
Speaker 1: you eventually headed uh. And it makes me think. A
40:22
Speaker 1: dilemma I find myself in sometimes is I'll be sitting
40:26
Speaker 1: in a given stand location. Let's say it's the morning,
40:29
Speaker 1: and I see let's let's say a mature buck, a
40:32
Speaker 1: buck that i'd like to target. I see that buck
40:34
Speaker 1: moving somewhere else. I can watch him. He's out of range,
40:36
Speaker 1: though I see him go do something. He passes through.
40:40
Speaker 1: He's cruising past the bedding area or something like that.
40:42
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm now realizing, oh man, he's he's cruising
40:45
Speaker 1: seventy yards away and I thought he was going to
40:47
Speaker 1: cruise by thirty yards or whatever. And I'm always sitting
40:50
Speaker 1: here in these situations like how soon should you make
40:54
Speaker 1: a move? Do you? Do you? If you see a
40:56
Speaker 1: mature buck do something today? Should you be switching to
40:59
Speaker 1: try a hunt in that new spot tomorrow? Or do
41:02
Speaker 1: you need to see that deer? Do it twice to
41:04
Speaker 1: determine it's it's not an anomaly, but it's a pattern. Um,
41:07
Speaker 1: how you know how quickly do you move on an
41:09
Speaker 1: observation like that? Um, it's an It's an interesting scenario
41:14
Speaker 1: because that happened to me in two thousand h one.
41:22
Speaker 1: I think Uh. The first off, you've got to consider
41:25
Speaker 1: where is this deer moving through? Is it through ample
41:30
Speaker 1: or adequate security cover? Because if if there's a deer
41:33
Speaker 1: just walking across a big opening, I would never ever
41:36
Speaker 1: even consider in Michigan moving to that location on the
41:41
Speaker 1: next day's hunt at the same time, because the odds
41:44
Speaker 1: of the deer doing he might have been on hot
41:46
Speaker 1: door or something in the odds of that happening again
41:49
Speaker 1: the next day are pretty skinny because typically mature bucks
41:52
Speaker 1: are not going to cross through vulnerable areas during daylight hours.
41:55
Speaker 1: So I would look at that as an anomaly. But
41:58
Speaker 1: if I've seen a deer and fishing yards away and
42:03
Speaker 1: he's going through some good security cover and he's sticking
42:07
Speaker 1: his nose down to the ground once in a while,
42:09
Speaker 1: absolutely I would move. There is no question about it,
42:12
Speaker 1: because there's an excellent chance that that's his routine, especially
42:16
Speaker 1: if it's during pre ride. And I did that in
42:19
Speaker 1: two thousand one with my son, Chris. Myke son, Chris
42:22
Speaker 1: was actually hunting with me and we wrote the three
42:25
Speaker 1: books together, and I had seen this buck the day
42:30
Speaker 1: before and he was I was probably eighty I found
42:36
Speaker 1: similar to what you're talking about about the eighty yards
42:38
Speaker 1: probably he was cruising along the edge of this uh
42:42
Speaker 1: crop field through some heavy cover, probably twenty yards inside
42:46
Speaker 1: of the edge of the crop field in the timber,
42:49
Speaker 1: and he's kept sticking his nose to the ground. So
42:51
Speaker 1: I knew I had I had to move over there
42:54
Speaker 1: for the next day at the same to be there
42:56
Speaker 1: in that spot on the same time frame, and Chris
43:01
Speaker 1: was home from Germany, so I set up. I set
43:05
Speaker 1: him up in a tree over there, and he ended
43:10
Speaker 1: up getting a shot at that buck. I'm the same
43:14
Speaker 1: exact route almost at the same exact time, and early
43:18
Speaker 1: early afternoon, late October fact, I think I think it
43:21
Speaker 1: was November. It was in November. I take that back
43:23
Speaker 1: early November. And he he didn't make that particular kill,
43:31
Speaker 1: but when he shot, he spoke the deer over by me,
43:33
Speaker 1: and I ended up killing that. That deer came over
43:37
Speaker 1: me on his exit route, circling around back to go
43:40
Speaker 1: back into his bedding area, went right by me and
43:42
Speaker 1: play twelve yards. That worked out, yeah, But I mean
43:48
Speaker 1: it worked out. I mean it was the sact situation
43:51
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Chris moved over to where that buck
43:55
Speaker 1: was the day before, and that buck had that same
43:57
Speaker 1: exact route the next day, So so you're you typically
44:02
Speaker 1: you'd make the move right away. You wouldn't wait and
44:05
Speaker 1: try to see that multiple times to confirm if if
44:07
Speaker 1: he's moving within an area of cover that seems to
44:10
Speaker 1: be you know, a reasonable place to to move again
44:14
Speaker 1: in the future, you're you're gonna go there. Yeah. Yeah,
44:17
Speaker 1: unless unless I saw him go through with a dough.
44:20
Speaker 1: If he went through following a dough, which usually if
44:22
Speaker 1: they're with a hot dough, you know, there's no rhyme,
44:25
Speaker 1: no reason to their traffic, you know, you know, unless
44:28
Speaker 1: they're within a secure betting area, they're just transitioning through
44:32
Speaker 1: someplace and he's with a hot dough, No, I doubt
44:35
Speaker 1: I would make that move. But if he's going through
44:38
Speaker 1: on a search process by himself, yeah, I definitely would
44:41
Speaker 1: make that move. So so you're able to make these
44:45
Speaker 1: kinds of moves pretty quickly because of your specific setup. Now,
44:49
Speaker 1: you definitely can be mobile in things like a climbing
44:51
Speaker 1: tree stand or hang on tree stand with sticks, and
44:54
Speaker 1: a lot of people use that stuff, but I know
44:56
Speaker 1: that you personally, you're using this saddle and it's something
45:00
Speaker 1: that you've mentioned in previous podcasts with us and in
45:02
Speaker 1: your books and talking with other people, but at least
45:06
Speaker 1: the two of us on this show, we've never been
45:08
Speaker 1: able to dive deep into the ins and outs of
45:12
Speaker 1: your setup. And and saddle hunting is becoming a little
45:15
Speaker 1: more popular, more and more people are talking about it's
45:17
Speaker 1: starting to pick up some buzz um much in part
45:20
Speaker 1: probably because you've been talking about it for a long
45:22
Speaker 1: time and people are starting to catch onto it. UM.
45:24
Speaker 1: So I wanted to kind of dive into that. Um,
45:27
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about what this is?
45:29
Speaker 1: I mean, at the highest level, what is what is
45:31
Speaker 1: a saddle? Why do you use that? Well, first off,
45:36
Speaker 1: it's more of an arborist style harness. There was a
45:40
Speaker 1: company called the Tree Saddle and that's where the saddle
45:42
Speaker 1: word came out. But it's it's very similar. They're very
45:46
Speaker 1: similar to what a tree climber uses, you know that
45:50
Speaker 1: cuts branches and stuff. UM an arborius harness and it's
45:54
Speaker 1: basically it's made out of fabric. You climb the tree
45:57
Speaker 1: with tree steps or sticks or whatever you do to
46:01
Speaker 1: hunt out of the hang on. I prefer steps because
46:04
Speaker 1: I can put eighteen steps in a small Fannie pack,
46:08
Speaker 1: so they're not cumbersome. To me, cumbersome really is a
46:12
Speaker 1: hindrance because I'm hunting pressured properties where everything revolves around
46:16
Speaker 1: some semblance and security cover and with sticks. That's adding
46:20
Speaker 1: cumbersome and it makes it difficult to access some of
46:23
Speaker 1: these areas. UM. But it's basically it's a harness. You
46:27
Speaker 1: climb the tree, you wrap a leads, you're always tethered
46:31
Speaker 1: to the tree. There is nothing safer than a harness.
46:35
Speaker 1: Nothing they've nobody's ever fell from a harness, and they've
46:38
Speaker 1: been out since the early eighties. UM. So you're always
46:42
Speaker 1: deather to the tree with a safety harness. And then
46:44
Speaker 1: once you get up to where you're going to physically hunt,
46:47
Speaker 1: you hook up your lead strap and then you disattach
46:50
Speaker 1: your safety harness and then you basically hunt. So you're
46:53
Speaker 1: gonna have a ring of steps, whether they're strap ons
46:56
Speaker 1: for public land or screw ins on private around the tree,
47:00
Speaker 1: so you can move around the tree and you can
47:02
Speaker 1: shoot three sixty degrees. You can use the tree as
47:05
Speaker 1: a blocker. You know, when you're hunting at a destination location,
47:08
Speaker 1: let's say at a scrape area or at a white
47:11
Speaker 1: oak or at an apple tree, where there's gonna be
47:13
Speaker 1: multiple deer does and sporting. The bucks come in probably
47:16
Speaker 1: prior to you ever getting an opportunity at a mature buck,
47:20
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be loitering there for a while, you know,
47:22
Speaker 1: ten fifteen, twenty minutes oftentimes, and if you're in a
47:27
Speaker 1: tree stand, and typically with the tree stand, you're gonna
47:29
Speaker 1: be kicked off a little bit to the side of
47:31
Speaker 1: the tree so that you can shoot to the actual
47:34
Speaker 1: destination apple tree or whatever, or primary scrape area. And
47:39
Speaker 1: typically those opportunities happened during the rough phases when the
47:42
Speaker 1: foliage is down. Your odds of getting picked with four
47:45
Speaker 1: or five deer hanging around there for a period of
47:48
Speaker 1: time is really really high because you're kicked off to
47:51
Speaker 1: the side of the tree, so you can shoot directly
47:52
Speaker 1: to your left if you're right handed, whereas with a
47:55
Speaker 1: harness you are typically hunt a little bit higher because
47:59
Speaker 1: they're so safe, but you are tethered on the opposite
48:01
Speaker 1: side of the tree, so you've got the tree trunk
48:04
Speaker 1: blocking your visual and then when the opportunity happens, you
48:08
Speaker 1: know you're just peeking around the corner of the tree.
48:11
Speaker 1: You just swing around, swing around a little bit to
48:14
Speaker 1: the side and take your take your shot. So you've
48:17
Speaker 1: got something that's totally quiet because it's made out of fabric. Uh.
48:21
Speaker 1: It's safer than anything out there because you are one
48:25
Speaker 1: tethered to the tree of the time was during your
48:29
Speaker 1: ascension and descension. Uh. It's very comfortable once you learn
48:33
Speaker 1: how to use it for all day sits uh. Unsurpassed
48:37
Speaker 1: mobility for transitioning through cover. No cumbersome sticks, no cumbersome
48:42
Speaker 1: stand uh. Depending on the model. You know, there's a
48:45
Speaker 1: couple of different models out They can weigh anywhere from
48:47
Speaker 1: one to three pounds, which is extremely light, and they
48:50
Speaker 1: roll up and they fit in your backpack, so you're
48:52
Speaker 1: not having anything cumbersome on your back. You've got three
48:55
Speaker 1: sixty degree shooting mobility, so you can shoot around any
48:58
Speaker 1: tree you hunt from and uh, you know that's a
49:01
Speaker 1: huge factor in itself. You know, a lot of times
49:04
Speaker 1: you with the tree stands and I hunt it out
49:06
Speaker 1: of tree stands a few years back in the late seventies.
49:09
Speaker 1: You know, if you get a deer on the back
49:10
Speaker 1: side of the tree, you just can't shoot through the
49:12
Speaker 1: tree and you miss that opportunity. So with this thing,
49:14
Speaker 1: you can move around the tree and shoot any direction.
49:16
Speaker 1: You can use the tree as the blocker at a
49:19
Speaker 1: destination site. Um, you can hunt any size tree, you know,
49:23
Speaker 1: unlike a climber where you have to have a tree
49:26
Speaker 1: that's a devoid of branches. With this, you can hunt
49:29
Speaker 1: trees with branches. You can hunt leaning trees. Trees can
49:33
Speaker 1: be leaning up to fifteen degrees and you can still
49:36
Speaker 1: comfortably hunt them. Uh doubles the harness doubles as a
49:40
Speaker 1: hands free location proper. You know, a tree preparation harness. Uh.
49:45
Speaker 1: You can have as many trees prepared as you would like,
49:48
Speaker 1: and you only have one harness to hunt out of
49:50
Speaker 1: all of them. So nobody's gonna hunt your tree when
49:52
Speaker 1: you're not there. Nobody's gonna steal your stand because it's
49:54
Speaker 1: in your backpack. Um, it's always with you. Um, it's
50:00
Speaker 1: just for freelance hunting, you know, the mobility factor for
50:04
Speaker 1: freelance hunting. Because it's in your backpack and your steps
50:06
Speaker 1: are in a Fannie pick. You are the only thing
50:09
Speaker 1: that's really cumbersome on your entire body is carrying your bow.
50:12
Speaker 1: The only thing with a frame that could be cumbersome.
50:15
Speaker 1: And I've exclusively hunted out of harness, and and I
50:20
Speaker 1: would say I could safely state that at least the
50:25
Speaker 1: deer bucks, that the fifty book bucks I have at
50:28
Speaker 1: least fifty exactly fifty. Actually at least half of those
50:32
Speaker 1: bucks would not have been killed if I would have
50:34
Speaker 1: been using any type of a conventional stand. They're just
50:37
Speaker 1: not even comparable. So that there's all these I mean,
50:42
Speaker 1: those all sound like very uh compelling benefits, but I'm
50:47
Speaker 1: curious of what are the downsides. And a couple of
50:50
Speaker 1: things that have always stood up to me that always
50:52
Speaker 1: kind of made me apprehensive a little bit would be,
50:56
Speaker 1: for example, it seems like to be able to move
51:00
Speaker 1: into position in different shots, you have to move a
51:02
Speaker 1: lot like those that swinging motion you talked about. Is
51:05
Speaker 1: that something that ever gets you in trouble? Or or
51:08
Speaker 1: number two? In order to be able to swing around
51:10
Speaker 1: the tree and get shots, it seems like you'd have
51:12
Speaker 1: to have a lot of branches down, like you have
51:14
Speaker 1: to cut a lot of If you're in a tree
51:15
Speaker 1: that has a lot of branches, do you need to
51:17
Speaker 1: cut a bunch of branches that you're able to maneuver
51:19
Speaker 1: and then does that end up leaving you you know,
51:22
Speaker 1: hung out to dry with do your being able to
51:24
Speaker 1: see you? Are those really downsides there? Am I just
51:27
Speaker 1: kind of um making that up? No, none of those
51:32
Speaker 1: are downside because none of them really mean anything. First off,
51:36
Speaker 1: if you do if let's say you are in a
51:39
Speaker 1: pine tree, okay, and you do, I feel like you're
51:43
Speaker 1: gonna have shooting options. You know, not not all trees
51:46
Speaker 1: you get in. Do you assume you're gonna have shooting
51:49
Speaker 1: options three and or sixty degrees? But a lot of
51:51
Speaker 1: a lot of trees, you do. You know, when I'm
51:54
Speaker 1: hunting into destination location, I only clear a shooting lane
51:56
Speaker 1: to the actual destination location because I know that's where
51:59
Speaker 1: the deerically coming. I don't have to have five four
52:02
Speaker 1: shooting lanes behind me or to the sides. I just
52:05
Speaker 1: make it to that spot. But a lot of locations
52:07
Speaker 1: you want three sixty degrees shooting diameter. And if and
52:10
Speaker 1: in that particular case, yeah, you may have to private ground, uh,
52:16
Speaker 1: rape the tree a little bit. You gotta cut branches
52:18
Speaker 1: so you can swing around. But your other option is
52:22
Speaker 1: hunting from a tree stand where you're losing under any
52:24
Speaker 1: degrees of shooting around the tree because you're hunting in
52:27
Speaker 1: a tree standing, you can't shoot through the tree and
52:29
Speaker 1: you can't lean to the side. If you're hunting in
52:31
Speaker 1: a bigger you know, anything with a decent diameter, And
52:34
Speaker 1: that's another huge option. I can hunt a tree that's
52:37
Speaker 1: I can have a flat wall if I wanted to,
52:40
Speaker 1: as long as I can climb it. I've I've shot
52:42
Speaker 1: bucks out of trees that there is no way on
52:45
Speaker 1: God's green earth you can put a climber or hang
52:47
Speaker 1: on in. They're just too big a I ameter. And
52:49
Speaker 1: I've also shot shot bucks out of trees that were
52:52
Speaker 1: four ininges in diameter, where they're too small really for
52:55
Speaker 1: hang on. But I had other clumps of trees around
52:57
Speaker 1: me for you know, to give my give me some
52:59
Speaker 1: sort of and seal on the cover. Um what we're
53:03
Speaker 1: what was you said a couple of other things. Three
53:05
Speaker 1: sixties is a huge deal. You said something else, Well,
53:10
Speaker 1: what about the movement? So in order to position yourself
53:13
Speaker 1: for shots, do you do you have to do anything
53:15
Speaker 1: to to account for that movement? It sounds like you
53:18
Speaker 1: would have to move more often in the saddle than
53:21
Speaker 1: in a tree stand. But absolutely not, absolutely not, no way.
53:26
Speaker 1: When you set up in a harness, you set up
53:28
Speaker 1: exactly the same as you would with a tree stand.
53:31
Speaker 1: If you're gonna if you're gonna put up a tree stand,
53:33
Speaker 1: you're gonna put it up. If you're right handed, where
53:36
Speaker 1: your most opportune shots going to be someplace in front
53:39
Speaker 1: of you to D twenty degrees to year left, so
53:44
Speaker 1: that's gonna be your opportune shooting place. That's where you
53:48
Speaker 1: assume your shots are going to be. You do the
53:51
Speaker 1: exact same thing with the harness. You get up in
53:53
Speaker 1: the tree and you hook up your lead. If you're
53:56
Speaker 1: right handed, where you're gonna be hanging facing the tree,
54:00
Speaker 1: and your most opportune shots are going to be to
54:04
Speaker 1: your left. But with a harness, without even moving off
54:09
Speaker 1: the two steps that your feet are perched on, you're
54:12
Speaker 1: going to be able to shoot at least a hundred
54:14
Speaker 1: eighty degrees without moving at all, because you're gonna be
54:18
Speaker 1: able to just lean a little bit and shoot pretty
54:20
Speaker 1: much directly behind the tree, you know, just by leaning
54:25
Speaker 1: out a little bit, and then you can twist at
54:27
Speaker 1: your waist while your feet are still planted right where
54:30
Speaker 1: you were sitting. You can twist at your waist and
54:32
Speaker 1: you can shoot pretty far behind you, well well more
54:36
Speaker 1: than well farther behind you than just straight behind your back.
54:40
Speaker 1: You can shoot it actually a little farther left and
54:42
Speaker 1: straight behind your back. So and then let's say you're
54:46
Speaker 1: in a harness and I see that I'm a right
54:50
Speaker 1: handed guy, I see a deer, I see an opportunity
54:53
Speaker 1: that it's going to take place, and it's gonna be
54:56
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty degrees off to my right, so
54:59
Speaker 1: it's gonna be b basically on the back side of
55:01
Speaker 1: the tree and off a little bit even more to
55:03
Speaker 1: the right where I have to make a movement. What
55:06
Speaker 1: I will do as I usually have a bow hanger
55:08
Speaker 1: directly to my left, nine degrees to my left, and
55:10
Speaker 1: I always put a bow hanger on the back side
55:12
Speaker 1: of the tree. So if I see something that's coming together,
55:16
Speaker 1: I will lift the bow up, put it on the
55:18
Speaker 1: back side of the tree hook, and then I'll move
55:20
Speaker 1: slowly move around the tree. Usually it's only you know,
55:24
Speaker 1: one step. I moved one step left with my left
55:26
Speaker 1: foot and then put my right foot on the tree
55:28
Speaker 1: that maybe my left foot had been on it. So
55:31
Speaker 1: now my bow still hanging there, and now I'm waiting
55:34
Speaker 1: for that shot opportunity to take place, and then I
55:36
Speaker 1: just pick up the bow and make the shot, very
55:39
Speaker 1: very minimal movement. Interesting, do you have any is shooting
55:45
Speaker 1: a bow in this kind of position challenging at all?
55:48
Speaker 1: I imagine you know we talked so much when it
55:50
Speaker 1: comes to archery form, how important it is to have
55:53
Speaker 1: consistent you know, consistently placed your feet in the same
55:56
Speaker 1: kind of way I have the same kind of foundation,
55:57
Speaker 1: and making sure when you draw back you've got this
56:00
Speaker 1: consistent t formation. Um do you need to I imagine
56:05
Speaker 1: you need to practice a lot with in a sling
56:08
Speaker 1: to get used to it. Is that true or not true?
56:11
Speaker 1: Or that's not true? The tree sling or sling the
56:16
Speaker 1: harness system, You've got a three three points of your
56:20
Speaker 1: body are in contact holding supporting weight. Each one of
56:23
Speaker 1: your fee is on a step and your butts in them.
56:26
Speaker 1: It's basically a hammock style seat. And typically in a
56:30
Speaker 1: normal hunting situation, you know they're all equally. You're carrying
56:34
Speaker 1: equal weight on your button each foot, so and your
56:38
Speaker 1: knees are going to be slightly bent to maybe even
56:41
Speaker 1: straight when you physically do take a shot. So it's
56:43
Speaker 1: gonna be very similar to standing and taking a shot,
56:49
Speaker 1: you're it's it's much simpler, and you have a lot
56:54
Speaker 1: more support for your shooting style shooting from a harness
56:59
Speaker 1: than a tree stand because the tree stand, if you
57:02
Speaker 1: stand up basically all your weights on two feet, or
57:05
Speaker 1: if you sit down, your knees are bent ninety degrees
57:08
Speaker 1: and it's very difficult to move. Let's sake, let's say
57:10
Speaker 1: take a shot, you know, in front of you, because
57:13
Speaker 1: your knees are bent so much, you know, they're kind
57:16
Speaker 1: of almost in your way. With the harness, your knees
57:19
Speaker 1: are just slightly bent, or maybe your legs are even straight,
57:22
Speaker 1: so you've got total support on each foot and in
57:25
Speaker 1: your butt. And I mean it, you are solid as
57:29
Speaker 1: a rock. And if you're a gun hunter, it's even
57:32
Speaker 1: more so because now you've got a tree in front
57:34
Speaker 1: of you. You just and I'm not a gun hunter,
57:37
Speaker 1: by the way, but you just propped the gun against
57:39
Speaker 1: the side of the tree and you've got the tree
57:41
Speaker 1: is basically a rest where you're you know, your forearm
57:45
Speaker 1: of your gun in your hand is against the tree.
57:48
Speaker 1: So you've got to rest as opposed to just you know,
57:51
Speaker 1: holding a gun free hand, you know, and the excitement level.
57:56
Speaker 1: Maybe your barrel's waving a little bit. You just got
57:59
Speaker 1: a lot more solid rust with the tree being in
58:02
Speaker 1: front of you to rest the gun against. And a
58:05
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of guys I know shoot recurves
58:08
Speaker 1: and long goes out of a harness. That's yeah there,
58:11
Speaker 1: And I don't practice out of a harness. I practice
58:14
Speaker 1: off the roof of my house. I've got a platform
58:15
Speaker 1: on the roof of my house which replicates the heights
58:18
Speaker 1: that I hunt from. And you know, the try the
58:21
Speaker 1: shooting triangle that you mentioned is very, very critical, and
58:25
Speaker 1: that's why I practice from from a height similar to
58:28
Speaker 1: what I hunt from. Because if you practice on the
58:31
Speaker 1: ground where everything's straight up and down, your body straight
58:35
Speaker 1: up and down, your arms are perpendicular or parallels to
58:39
Speaker 1: the ground, your your left arms parallel to the ground,
58:42
Speaker 1: and your head is straight upright your bow triangle, which
58:45
Speaker 1: is from your eye to your anchor point to your
58:48
Speaker 1: bow grip. That's that's called your triangle. Now, when you
58:54
Speaker 1: practice like that and you site in like that, as
58:56
Speaker 1: soon as you get up in an elevation and then
58:59
Speaker 1: you be end, you're tipping your head down and then
59:03
Speaker 1: you draw your bow back on a deer. You've totally
59:06
Speaker 1: changed your eye to anchor point angle or distance because
59:10
Speaker 1: you're leaning your head forward, and you will almost always
59:13
Speaker 1: shoot high. If you practice from the ground and then
59:16
Speaker 1: you shoot from a tree, you're gonna almost always shoot high.
59:21
Speaker 1: You know. The only way you can practice from the
59:23
Speaker 1: ground and properly shoot from a tree is when you're
59:25
Speaker 1: in the tree. Hold your left arm parallel to the ground,
59:29
Speaker 1: just like you would just like if you were on
59:31
Speaker 1: the ground, draw your bow back with your head straight up,
59:34
Speaker 1: and then bend at the waist where you're keeping that
59:36
Speaker 1: triangle exactly the same all the time. But if you
59:39
Speaker 1: lean down, tilt your head forward, and then draw your
59:42
Speaker 1: bow back, your eye to anchor is shortening up. It's
59:46
Speaker 1: very minimal, but your your triangle is changing and you're
59:49
Speaker 1: gonna shoot high. Mhm. So's it sounds like my concerns
59:55
Speaker 1: may not be valid. But are there any are there
59:58
Speaker 1: any valid downsides in your eye or if if you're
1:00:01
Speaker 1: going to say no, is there anybody that a saddle
1:00:04
Speaker 1: isn't a good fit for, Because it sounds like we're
1:00:07
Speaker 1: talking through there's a lot of situations where saddle style
1:00:10
Speaker 1: set up is a good thing. Is there any type
1:00:12
Speaker 1: of person or type of situation where it's not no.
1:00:17
Speaker 1: But let me clarify that. You know, it's kind of
1:00:20
Speaker 1: like stlack. There's been probably a hundred thousand plus people
1:00:25
Speaker 1: that have bought suntlack and got winded because they have
1:00:28
Speaker 1: no clue out of you how to use it and
1:00:29
Speaker 1: properly care for it and store it. And I don't
1:00:32
Speaker 1: blame those people because I don't think the manufacturer has
1:00:35
Speaker 1: done a great job of relaying proper care instructions. It's
1:00:38
Speaker 1: the same deal with a harness. If you buy a
1:00:41
Speaker 1: harness and you don't use it correctly, you're probably going
1:00:48
Speaker 1: to be uncomfortable with it, and you're not gonna end
1:00:50
Speaker 1: up hunting out of it for very long before you
1:00:51
Speaker 1: sell it to somebody. There is death. There's a site
1:00:55
Speaker 1: called saddle hunter dot com. It's been around for several
1:00:58
Speaker 1: years now. There's tons of people on that site and
1:01:01
Speaker 1: they're willing to help anybody that wants to get into
1:01:03
Speaker 1: this style hunting. But if you were to take let's
1:01:06
Speaker 1: say the old trophy line saddle which I heard is
1:01:09
Speaker 1: going to be coming back out in uh if you
1:01:13
Speaker 1: were to watch their old DVD on how to hunt
1:01:15
Speaker 1: from a harness. You would be very uncomfortable and I
1:01:19
Speaker 1: would be shocked if you hunt it out of it
1:01:20
Speaker 1: more than one time before you set it off to
1:01:22
Speaker 1: the side and point back to your tree stand. There's
1:01:25
Speaker 1: a proper way to use it. There's a proper way
1:01:27
Speaker 1: to hang from it. There's how much weight you have
1:01:30
Speaker 1: in your butt, how much weight do you have on
1:01:31
Speaker 1: your feet. You know there is a drape adjustment for
1:01:34
Speaker 1: within so within two to three seconds, at any point
1:01:37
Speaker 1: in time, you can change your drape adjustment to put
1:01:40
Speaker 1: more weight on your feet or put more weight in
1:01:41
Speaker 1: your butt. You know you can lower or length in
1:01:44
Speaker 1: the lead strap. Um, So how you hunt out out
1:01:47
Speaker 1: of it has everything to do with how comfortable it was,
1:01:50
Speaker 1: because they used to show hooking the lead strap off
1:01:53
Speaker 1: at arm's length. And then your body. You never want
1:01:57
Speaker 1: your body to be beyond parallel to the free You
1:02:00
Speaker 1: always want your body either leaning a little bit forward
1:02:02
Speaker 1: into the tree or at worst case scenario, parallel to
1:02:06
Speaker 1: the tree. Well, when you got that lead trip hanging
1:02:09
Speaker 1: almost straight down in front of your face, it almost
1:02:11
Speaker 1: forces your upper body to lean backwards. And if your
1:02:14
Speaker 1: upper bodies leaning backwards for very long, your back is
1:02:16
Speaker 1: going to get sore and it's gonna be very uncomfortable.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: So you know how you hook up the lead and
1:02:21
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And I'm making this sound a lot
1:02:23
Speaker 1: more complicated than it is. It's very simple. You just
1:02:26
Speaker 1: need to get a little bit of feedback from somebody
1:02:28
Speaker 1: that knows. I get emails on this every day on
1:02:32
Speaker 1: how to properly hook it up and set it up.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: But once you once you know how to hook it up,
1:02:36
Speaker 1: and it's very very simple. No, there is absolutely zero downside.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: All right, Well, John is making a compelling case for
1:02:45
Speaker 1: his favorite hunting tool here, but we're gonna have to
1:02:48
Speaker 1: put time out on this conversation because I want to
1:02:51
Speaker 1: take a quick break to think our partners at white
1:02:55
Speaker 1: Tail Properties, So Spencer will take it from here. The
1:03:00
Speaker 1: sweak with white Tail Properties. We are joined by Neil Hogger,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: a land specialist out of Wisconsin, and Neil is going
1:03:06
Speaker 1: to be talking to us about how the shopping process
1:03:08
Speaker 1: is different in areas that are famous for big deer. Well,
1:03:13
Speaker 1: Buffalo County is a nationally known county. Obviously, um a
1:03:18
Speaker 1: lot of the land there that comes on the market
1:03:21
Speaker 1: and sold really never make it makes it to the market,
1:03:24
Speaker 1: so that's a major difference. So kind of like Polk
1:03:27
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, it's a top ten Pope and Young County
1:03:30
Speaker 1: excellent hunting, but it just doesn't have the uh notoriety
1:03:34
Speaker 1: that Buffalo County ass So to find property in Buffalo County,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: I think the approach needs to be you've got to
1:03:40
Speaker 1: get as close to the center of influence as you can.
1:03:42
Speaker 1: Working with an agent like myself with white tail properties. Uh,
1:03:46
Speaker 1: you know, we're moving and shaking in these counties all time.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: We're constantly talking to people or people are approaching us.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: So if you're looking for quality land, I think you've
1:03:53
Speaker 1: got to get to the center of influence, and that's
1:03:55
Speaker 1: a guy like me Um and kind of like Polk,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: which is just as good hunting. You could you could
1:04:02
Speaker 1: search the typical avenues of of white tail properties real
1:04:05
Speaker 1: estate websites, land Watch, type property real estate websites, Zillo
1:04:11
Speaker 1: even and you can find property there um just as easy.
1:04:14
Speaker 1: But in an area like that, and probably for a
1:04:17
Speaker 1: buffaloot too, I'd say get to a guy that is
1:04:19
Speaker 1: selling land. You want to land specialists, not necessarily a
1:04:23
Speaker 1: residential real estate because they'll have the insights that you
1:04:26
Speaker 1: need if you'd like to learn more and to see
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the properties that Neil currently has listed for sale. Is
1:04:33
Speaker 1: it white tail properties dot com backslash hogger that's h
1:04:38
Speaker 1: A U G E R. Okay, So if we're speaking
1:04:43
Speaker 1: of that, then the proper way. Is there anything else
1:04:45
Speaker 1: you would add as far as the proper way to
1:04:48
Speaker 1: use or set one of these up? So let's say, okay,
1:04:51
Speaker 1: you've sold me on it. I'm convinced I'm trying to saddle.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: I pick up a saddle in the second here, I
1:04:55
Speaker 1: want I want you to talk a little bit about
1:04:57
Speaker 1: our different saddle options. But before that, let's say I
1:05:00
Speaker 1: bought a saddle. Now I'm going to go out and
1:05:02
Speaker 1: actually try using it. What would you tell me to
1:05:04
Speaker 1: make sure I don't use it the wrong way and
1:05:06
Speaker 1: have a bad experience. Probably the number one thing I
1:05:10
Speaker 1: would say is when you're standing on your ring of
1:05:13
Speaker 1: steps and you're actually gonna hook up your lead strap
1:05:16
Speaker 1: your safety straps around the tree, so you're you're you're
1:05:19
Speaker 1: safely in the tree, but now you want to hook
1:05:21
Speaker 1: up your lead strap, wrap the rope around the tree
1:05:26
Speaker 1: at about forehead level, not above forehead level, because if
1:05:31
Speaker 1: you wrap the lead up at arms reach, that leads
1:05:34
Speaker 1: going to be right in front of your face, Whereas
1:05:36
Speaker 1: if you hook it at forehead level, that lead once
1:05:40
Speaker 1: you actually sit down in the seat and disattach your
1:05:44
Speaker 1: safety belt, it's gonna be coming down to your waistline
1:05:46
Speaker 1: at about a forty five degree angle. So then when
1:05:49
Speaker 1: you go to shoot, you know your arm is gonna go,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: your elbow is going to go right over top of
1:05:53
Speaker 1: the lead leads, not even going to be in the
1:05:54
Speaker 1: way of anything, and you're in a lot more comfortable
1:05:57
Speaker 1: shooting position or sitting position. Uh. That's because that's another
1:06:02
Speaker 1: downside of hooking your tether reel high, is with that
1:06:06
Speaker 1: lead strap coming down in front of your face. If
1:06:08
Speaker 1: you want to take a shot ninety degrees to your left,
1:06:10
Speaker 1: if you're right handed, which is typically what you set
1:06:12
Speaker 1: up for, is the shot right to your left, your
1:06:15
Speaker 1: elbow hits the lead strap. So by hooking it too high,
1:06:18
Speaker 1: it's not only uncomfortable, it's also a detriment to your
1:06:22
Speaker 1: drawing your bow back. So you want to keep that
1:06:25
Speaker 1: lead strap down a lot lower. And I've been doing
1:06:27
Speaker 1: this since there isn't anybody in the country that's funded
1:06:33
Speaker 1: out of a harness more than me period end of discussion,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: and I've you know, just like when I first bought
1:06:39
Speaker 1: us a sling, I I was extremely uncomfortable, but I
1:06:45
Speaker 1: am always looking to move forward in my success rate,
1:06:48
Speaker 1: and I could see the massive potential of this thing
1:06:51
Speaker 1: over any ty type of a tree stand. So I
1:06:55
Speaker 1: worked on it and got it worked on it, so
1:06:58
Speaker 1: it was it worked for me. You know, I figured
1:07:01
Speaker 1: out how to make this thing work for me, because
1:07:03
Speaker 1: what I'm hunting out of now is a hybrid. It's
1:07:06
Speaker 1: got little pieces of several different companies harnesses that have
1:07:10
Speaker 1: been out there, and mind is really really small. It's
1:07:12
Speaker 1: got a phenomenal adjustment ability, which all of them have
1:07:16
Speaker 1: adjustmentabilities now. But but yeah, I'd say the number one
1:07:21
Speaker 1: thing would be keep keep your lead strapped down at
1:07:23
Speaker 1: ie to Ford at level when you when you wrap
1:07:26
Speaker 1: it around the tree. Speaking of you've got a hybrid
1:07:29
Speaker 1: option that you're using. But what are the commercially available
1:07:32
Speaker 1: options if we want to go out and try something
1:07:34
Speaker 1: like this? What is out there right now? Can you
1:07:37
Speaker 1: can you talk through maybe some of the options pros
1:07:39
Speaker 1: and cons, what you might recommend anything like that. Both
1:07:43
Speaker 1: options out there right now are really really good Um,
1:07:48
Speaker 1: the my personal preference is one that just came out
1:07:51
Speaker 1: now jeff Or Graham, sorry, Greg Godfrey, who's one of
1:07:56
Speaker 1: the main people at saddle hunter dot com. He's been
1:07:59
Speaker 1: hunting out of a harness for quite a long time
1:08:02
Speaker 1: and he's came out with this new and it's called
1:08:04
Speaker 1: the Mantis M A and T I S and the
1:08:07
Speaker 1: only place you can buy any harnesses online. You can't
1:08:09
Speaker 1: buy him in stores right now. So his is available
1:08:13
Speaker 1: at www dot p E t h r D so
1:08:20
Speaker 1: tethered t E t h r D Nation and a
1:08:24
Speaker 1: T A and a t i o N dot com.
1:08:27
Speaker 1: So www dot t E t h r D nation
1:08:30
Speaker 1: dot com. And his only ways about a pound. I
1:08:35
Speaker 1: think it's fifteen ounces. Um. So it's it's a minimalist
1:08:39
Speaker 1: which is, once you pointed out of a harness for
1:08:41
Speaker 1: very long, you want as minimalist as you can get.
1:08:45
Speaker 1: And he also has his his site has options of
1:08:49
Speaker 1: using a small platform to put pet on as opposed
1:08:51
Speaker 1: to stops. You know, if you're hunting public land, you
1:08:54
Speaker 1: know it's a strap on a platform, very very small
1:08:58
Speaker 1: loan you Lone Wolf used to make one fore harness
1:09:01
Speaker 1: hunting and what's called the Assassin, and this one is
1:09:03
Speaker 1: similar but it's smaller. Um. And then the other harnessed
1:09:07
Speaker 1: company out there is uh It's New Tribe is the company,
1:09:12
Speaker 1: and they've been in the recreational arborous style harness business
1:09:17
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. They're based out west
1:09:20
Speaker 1: where recreational tree climbing is actually a hobby. Uh So
1:09:26
Speaker 1: the one that they have on their site is called
1:09:28
Speaker 1: the Kestral, like a hot k E S t R
1:09:31
Speaker 1: e L, and that one can be bought at new
1:09:34
Speaker 1: Tribe dot com. Now my preference is the Mantis because
1:09:38
Speaker 1: they're very similar in style. The Kestral and the Mantis
1:09:41
Speaker 1: are extremely similar. They have the same safety options, they
1:09:45
Speaker 1: have the same lead strap options. Um The only difference
1:09:48
Speaker 1: is the Kestral is a solid fabric, so it's it's
1:09:53
Speaker 1: it's a heavier fabric. When I say heavier, they're both
1:09:57
Speaker 1: heavy enough to be safe. Um bit's a heavier solid fabric,
1:10:02
Speaker 1: whereas the Mantis has the heavy outside nylon strap. But
1:10:08
Speaker 1: then the actual seat is made out of mesh, so
1:10:11
Speaker 1: it rolls up pretty close to the size of a softball.
1:10:14
Speaker 1: When it's all rolled up, it's very small and ways
1:10:16
Speaker 1: about a pound. I think the Kestral is about three pounds.
1:10:19
Speaker 1: And the only difference is that the Kestral is a
1:10:21
Speaker 1: solid seat and the other one is a is a
1:10:24
Speaker 1: mesh seat. And also the Mantis, the one that's made
1:10:28
Speaker 1: out of mesh, the seat is a little bit shallower,
1:10:31
Speaker 1: which I prefer I just wanted cradling my butt. The
1:10:34
Speaker 1: the Kestral is a little bit deeper seat, so it
1:10:38
Speaker 1: it it's up about where your belt would be as
1:10:41
Speaker 1: the top, and then the bottom is down maybe a
1:10:44
Speaker 1: tad bit into your thigh. Is there comfort? Mantis just
1:10:47
Speaker 1: covers your butt cheek. Is there comfort difference there? Then?
1:10:50
Speaker 1: You know, with that bigger seat, is that going to
1:10:52
Speaker 1: be more comfortable for some people or maybe for bigger
1:10:54
Speaker 1: body types or anything like that. Um, well, they make
1:10:59
Speaker 1: them in size, so you know that that wouldn't be
1:11:01
Speaker 1: an issue as far as comfort. No, I don't think
1:11:04
Speaker 1: it's any more comfortable. Okay, what about accessories and stuff?
1:11:08
Speaker 1: I know when you and I had talked in the
1:11:10
Speaker 1: past about getting a saddle set up for me to
1:11:13
Speaker 1: you someday, there were a whole bunch of different options
1:11:16
Speaker 1: that you could include. You kind of talked about you
1:11:18
Speaker 1: use this minimalist option but there's a whole bunch of
1:11:20
Speaker 1: other kind of bells and whistles that some of these
1:11:22
Speaker 1: saddles have. Can you speak to any of those things
1:11:25
Speaker 1: that you might recommend her that are out there that
1:11:27
Speaker 1: people could consider well when you when you buy these harnesses.
1:11:31
Speaker 1: Now back in the day, you know the old tree saddle,
1:11:34
Speaker 1: it came with everything. Uh, these harnesses because saddle Hunter,
1:11:38
Speaker 1: the saddle hunter website, there's so many people with so
1:11:41
Speaker 1: many different types of lead straps and adjustment drape you know,
1:11:47
Speaker 1: prusick not for address adjustment drapes or wrote me in
1:11:50
Speaker 1: for an adjustment drape and different types of bridge straps
1:11:55
Speaker 1: um both of these harnesses. Basically you can put whatever
1:12:01
Speaker 1: type you want on them, and I think that's a
1:12:03
Speaker 1: very very unique because you can kind of custom fit
1:12:06
Speaker 1: it to whatever you are doing. Or you have the
1:12:09
Speaker 1: option of awarding the entire kit which comes with you know,
1:12:13
Speaker 1: a factory leads trap, a factory safety belt, um, you
1:12:18
Speaker 1: know like that where you get what they they you know,
1:12:22
Speaker 1: whatever they're they've put in this kit. So you have
1:12:26
Speaker 1: I have a lot of different options. Now my preference is, uh,
1:12:30
Speaker 1: I like using the Ropeman adjustment for my adjustment drapes
1:12:35
Speaker 1: because it's so quick and simple. Uh. The other option
1:12:39
Speaker 1: would be a Pruf signot. You know, that's how you
1:12:41
Speaker 1: adjust your drape. The proofs ignots. You know, when you
1:12:44
Speaker 1: want to make a quick adjustment drape, A lot of
1:12:46
Speaker 1: times a PRUSI knot it binds. I don't know if
1:12:49
Speaker 1: everybody knows what a Pruf signot is, but a prufs
1:12:51
Speaker 1: I knot will Actually they actually binds on the rope,
1:12:55
Speaker 1: so you have to loosen it up sometimes to make
1:12:57
Speaker 1: it slide to adjust your drape, whereas a ropeman it's
1:13:00
Speaker 1: it's a they're made for the arborist industry and they're
1:13:04
Speaker 1: very quick adjustment drape just I mean literally two seconds
1:13:08
Speaker 1: to adjust your grape how you're sitting. And when I
1:13:11
Speaker 1: say two seconds, I'm not talking about twenty seconds that
1:13:14
Speaker 1: I'm saying is too I'm talking about two seconds, one two.
1:13:18
Speaker 1: Something just popped in my head as you're talking through
1:13:20
Speaker 1: this and making adjustments and stuff, is what if you
1:13:24
Speaker 1: have to adjust what you're wearing? You know, I imagine
1:13:27
Speaker 1: like you head out on a hunt. It's warm in
1:13:28
Speaker 1: the afternoon, but the sun sets and get temperatures drop
1:13:32
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen degrees and you want to add another layer. Um,
1:13:35
Speaker 1: does the harness make it a struggle at all to
1:13:38
Speaker 1: add clothing? Or maybe a rainstorm comes then you want
1:13:41
Speaker 1: to pull on your rain gear. Do you have to
1:13:43
Speaker 1: get out of the tree to do that? No? I
1:13:45
Speaker 1: changed my clothes almost every single time island, and I
1:13:50
Speaker 1: do it in the tree. I always, I never because
1:13:53
Speaker 1: I want my entries to be as cool as possible.
1:13:57
Speaker 1: I'm going in as lightweight as feasibly possible. So it
1:14:00
Speaker 1: f it's cold out, I've got all my layer garments
1:14:02
Speaker 1: in my backpack. So once I get up on stea
1:14:04
Speaker 1: and I take off my silt like jacket, throw it
1:14:07
Speaker 1: over a branch or whatever, let my body cool down,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: and then I your whole upper body is exposed. There's
1:14:13
Speaker 1: nothing on your upper body whatsoever. So basically just take
1:14:17
Speaker 1: off your jacket, put on your layers, and put your
1:14:20
Speaker 1: jacket back on, and you're hunting. You know it's it's
1:14:24
Speaker 1: nothing to change your glows. You can't. You can't fall
1:14:26
Speaker 1: out of this thing. I mean, your upper body is
1:14:28
Speaker 1: totally exposed. You're you're basically like sitting in a hammocks
1:14:31
Speaker 1: seat with your feet on steps. So yeah, now you
1:14:35
Speaker 1: can't change your lower your lower garments, your lower garments,
1:14:38
Speaker 1: whatever you wear in typically you're tied to that. Okay,
1:14:42
Speaker 1: could you slip brain pants over top of the harness
1:14:44
Speaker 1: around your waist or is it to with the with
1:14:47
Speaker 1: the straps coming out of it keep that from being possible?
1:14:51
Speaker 1: Could you? You're gonna have to run that by me again. Sorry,
1:14:54
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to envision this. So if I had
1:14:57
Speaker 1: like a pair of rain pants that normally I'd slip
1:14:59
Speaker 1: over and you could, may you put that over top
1:15:01
Speaker 1: of a harness or something? Would that be able to
1:15:03
Speaker 1: slide over this? Or no? Because of the straps coming
1:15:06
Speaker 1: on the front. I'm guessing no, Yeah, you couldn't. You
1:15:10
Speaker 1: couldn't put rain pants over top of the harness because
1:15:13
Speaker 1: you got the straps coming out of the front. But
1:15:15
Speaker 1: let me let me back up a little bit. If
1:15:17
Speaker 1: you wanted to put on a pair of rain pants
1:15:20
Speaker 1: while you're on stand, yeah you could. Basically what you'd
1:15:23
Speaker 1: have to do is get your pants out, get the
1:15:25
Speaker 1: rain pants out of your backpack, you know, while you've
1:15:28
Speaker 1: got all your weight pretty much in your butt, lift
1:15:31
Speaker 1: up your left leg, put put the pant on that one,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: then lift up your right while your left back on
1:15:36
Speaker 1: another step, put it on that one, and you you
1:15:38
Speaker 1: could lift your weight up, you know, then you pretty
1:15:41
Speaker 1: much stand up where you don't have any weight in
1:15:43
Speaker 1: your button. You could slide your pants up underneath the harness,
1:15:47
Speaker 1: you know, and then buckle them up and put them
1:15:49
Speaker 1: back on. I'm just saying it's it's just not a
1:15:51
Speaker 1: typical thing to change any of your bottom layers. But yeah,
1:15:54
Speaker 1: you could definitely put on pants, that wouldn't be an issue.
1:15:57
Speaker 1: But to take pants off and put on long johns
1:16:00
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, yeah, that's you could do it.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: It's just not simple. It's extremely simple to change your
1:16:07
Speaker 1: upper body garments. But typically weather related, not rain related,
1:16:12
Speaker 1: but weather related. Your lower body usually has doesn't get
1:16:17
Speaker 1: cold like your upper body. You know. If if if
1:16:19
Speaker 1: anything is gonna get cold, it's going to be your
1:16:21
Speaker 1: upper body and your extremities. Yeah. Yeah, so you mentioned
1:16:24
Speaker 1: how you would put your weight on certain steps if
1:16:27
Speaker 1: you're trying to get your rain pants on or something
1:16:30
Speaker 1: like that. That that brings me to my next question,
1:16:32
Speaker 1: which was about your your feet situation when you're in
1:16:35
Speaker 1: these harnesses, both how you climb into it and then
1:16:38
Speaker 1: also how you position your feet or what you use
1:16:42
Speaker 1: to rest your feet on when you're actually up in there.
1:16:43
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of different options people use.
1:16:46
Speaker 1: You have briefly mentioned what it is you use, but
1:16:48
Speaker 1: could you walk through the different options for climbing and
1:16:52
Speaker 1: for standing when you're up there, and then the pros
1:16:54
Speaker 1: and cons of those different options. Okay, well, i'm public land.
1:16:58
Speaker 1: You obviously have to use up on stuff for sending
1:17:01
Speaker 1: the tree. So you know, if if you wanted and
1:17:04
Speaker 1: you had a bunch of sticks, you could use strap
1:17:06
Speaker 1: on sticks, even though they're cumbersome. Or what I tend
1:17:09
Speaker 1: to do is I use strap on steps, which are
1:17:11
Speaker 1: made by Cranford c R A N F O R
1:17:14
Speaker 1: d UM. Now for private land, I use screw ins
1:17:19
Speaker 1: or oftentimes if the farmer lefts me, which I do
1:17:23
Speaker 1: have done this in the past. You know, I'll drill
1:17:26
Speaker 1: holes with a quarterless drill and put three eighths or
1:17:30
Speaker 1: half in spikes in the holes, and you know, use
1:17:33
Speaker 1: those for steps because they're cheaper than buying screwing steps.
1:17:37
Speaker 1: But otherwise, yeah, I screw in steps in my preference.
1:17:42
Speaker 1: Again as Cranford Cranford handed down makes the best steps
1:17:46
Speaker 1: in the marketplace. There's not even anybody that competes with
1:17:48
Speaker 1: them in my opinion. UM, So I use screwing usually
1:17:52
Speaker 1: folding steps to go up the tree and then up
1:17:55
Speaker 1: at the top. For my ring, I will either use
1:17:59
Speaker 1: you know, bay sick rod steps, half inch rod steps,
1:18:02
Speaker 1: or even three eights inch rod steps, you know, the
1:18:04
Speaker 1: conventional steps or the they're called Cranford Deluxe steps is
1:18:10
Speaker 1: my ring, and I'll usually I'll usually space my steps
1:18:13
Speaker 1: around the ring at the tree, you know, up the
1:18:15
Speaker 1: top where my feet are going to be on. I'll
1:18:17
Speaker 1: usually space the steps about eight inches apart eight to
1:18:22
Speaker 1: ten inches max apart, because you don't when you are
1:18:26
Speaker 1: making those movements if you do need to move around
1:18:28
Speaker 1: the tree for a shot opportunity, you don't want to
1:18:30
Speaker 1: make any big, big step, rigid movements. You want them
1:18:33
Speaker 1: to be very subtle and very simple, so you can
1:18:36
Speaker 1: just easily slide around the tree, which typically don't. Typically
1:18:41
Speaker 1: on most times, maybe eighty ninety percent hunch you're gonna
1:18:45
Speaker 1: make your kill from where you're physically standing, where you
1:18:49
Speaker 1: prepped your tree in the first place, you know, from
1:18:51
Speaker 1: the position you're sitting in. UM. But there are occasions
1:18:54
Speaker 1: one you do have to move around the tree, so
1:18:56
Speaker 1: you want to make that as simple and easy as possible,
1:18:59
Speaker 1: and I you screw screwing steps. At the top, there's
1:19:04
Speaker 1: there's a strap on ring of steps bowls something or other,
1:19:08
Speaker 1: I can't quite remember the name that bowls steps maybe,
1:19:13
Speaker 1: And it's basically a bunch of steps that are on
1:19:17
Speaker 1: a ratchet strap. So you can slide the steps wherever
1:19:21
Speaker 1: you want them and put them in place, and then
1:19:24
Speaker 1: you tighten your ratchet down and then you get your steps.
1:19:27
Speaker 1: You know, that's your strap on steps. Cranford is also
1:19:29
Speaker 1: coming out with some of those, and they should be
1:19:31
Speaker 1: available by by October. Cranford's are going to be metal
1:19:37
Speaker 1: steps on a ratchet strap. These bowl steps are plastic steps,
1:19:43
Speaker 1: So I think the metal ones are going to be
1:19:44
Speaker 1: better when they are available. But right now, the only
1:19:47
Speaker 1: thing available for a ring of steps that are strap
1:19:49
Speaker 1: on or those bowl steps. Now, what about those platform options?
1:19:53
Speaker 1: Is that is that more comfortable or is that? Why
1:19:55
Speaker 1: would why would someone go that route rather than the
1:19:57
Speaker 1: ring of steps like you're talking about? I have no clue.
1:20:03
Speaker 1: I own. I had a guy give me a lone
1:20:08
Speaker 1: Wolf Assassin stand, you know, which was made again for
1:20:12
Speaker 1: for harness hunting, and I've never ever used it. I
1:20:14
Speaker 1: just see no purpose because now I'm getting right back
1:20:17
Speaker 1: into carrying something cumbersome with me. You know, I'm carrying
1:20:20
Speaker 1: a framed piece of metal, which I don't like doing
1:20:26
Speaker 1: because where I hunt, that's just not conducive to getting
1:20:31
Speaker 1: to where I want to go. Um. But there are
1:20:35
Speaker 1: guys on saddle hunter dot com that have used this
1:20:38
Speaker 1: assassin and now this uh Tethered Nation company they've got
1:20:42
Speaker 1: one of those platforms coming out, and I don't know,
1:20:45
Speaker 1: maybe because you can move your feet around more. You know,
1:20:47
Speaker 1: they don't go all the way around the tree. They
1:20:49
Speaker 1: just maybe go, you know, a little over ninety degrees
1:20:53
Speaker 1: around the tree, so you've got something flat to put
1:20:55
Speaker 1: your feet on. UM. And I think a lot of people,
1:20:59
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say a lot. I think there's some people
1:21:02
Speaker 1: that I haven't quite figured out how to use their
1:21:06
Speaker 1: adjustment drape where you can adjust to where you don't
1:21:09
Speaker 1: have much pressure on your feet. You know, I'll adjust
1:21:13
Speaker 1: my drape probably two to three times during a hunt,
1:21:18
Speaker 1: but again it only takes three or four seconds. So
1:21:21
Speaker 1: let's say I'm I'm in more of an upright standing
1:21:24
Speaker 1: position where my knees aren't bent that much, and most
1:21:26
Speaker 1: of my weights on my feet. If my legs get
1:21:29
Speaker 1: a little tired, you know, I'll just lift my weight
1:21:32
Speaker 1: up and let a little bit of my leads trap out.
1:21:35
Speaker 1: And now I'm sitting where my knees are bent almost
1:21:37
Speaker 1: ninety degrees and all my weights on my butt. I
1:21:39
Speaker 1: have hardly any weight on my feet, and vice versa.
1:21:42
Speaker 1: I feel like I've got too much weight in my
1:21:44
Speaker 1: seat for too long a period of time. I lift
1:21:47
Speaker 1: up and pull up on my adjustment drape and now
1:21:49
Speaker 1: I'm sitting more upright, where my knees aren't bent much
1:21:52
Speaker 1: and no more my weights on my feet. Um, but
1:21:55
Speaker 1: you gotta you have to have the steps go around
1:21:58
Speaker 1: the tree in certain situations where you see it when
1:22:00
Speaker 1: you prep the tree, You're you're gonna need it, um,
1:22:03
Speaker 1: you know, so that you can move around the tree.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: So even even with that platform, that's gonna be only
1:22:10
Speaker 1: where you're sitting, So you're still going to have to
1:22:14
Speaker 1: put steps beyond that on either side. If you think
1:22:17
Speaker 1: you're going to have a shot option, a shot opportunity
1:22:20
Speaker 1: beyond where you're physically sitting while you're at rest. If
1:22:25
Speaker 1: that made sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. I imagine that
1:22:29
Speaker 1: seeing these things. I think when you're describing the different
1:22:32
Speaker 1: adjustment straps and stuff, that's that's a little bit hard
1:22:35
Speaker 1: to picture in my head right now. But I but
1:22:37
Speaker 1: I think I get what you're saying. So this is
1:22:39
Speaker 1: one of those things I imagine though, people, you know,
1:22:41
Speaker 1: getting your hands on this and actually seeing it will
1:22:44
Speaker 1: make a big difference to right. Oh yeah there. I'm
1:22:48
Speaker 1: making it sound a lot more difficult than it is
1:22:50
Speaker 1: because it's it's really very very simple. I can climb
1:22:55
Speaker 1: on a pre prepared tree, I can climb my tree,
1:23:00
Speaker 1: be hooked up, my leads trap be hooked up in
1:23:07
Speaker 1: I think thirty seconds would be a long time. It's
1:23:11
Speaker 1: that it's that quick, and I've been doing a little
1:23:15
Speaker 1: long time. But I mean you you if you go
1:23:17
Speaker 1: out and saddle hunter dot com to researching this stuff
1:23:20
Speaker 1: before you even buy it, you know, that's that's what
1:23:23
Speaker 1: I would suggest that it It will definitely up your
1:23:28
Speaker 1: kill opportunities. And once you once a person learns how
1:23:32
Speaker 1: to do it by just talking to somebody that's actually
1:23:35
Speaker 1: done it for a couple of years, it's very simple.
1:23:39
Speaker 1: You know. It's just like again, it's just like it's like,
1:23:41
Speaker 1: once you've got the process down of being taking proper
1:23:45
Speaker 1: care of your stuff and keeping it in there containers,
1:23:50
Speaker 1: you know, it's I can park my vehicle and get
1:23:53
Speaker 1: out of my vehicle and be sent free, probably quicker
1:23:56
Speaker 1: than anybody else I would go hunting with if we
1:23:59
Speaker 1: parked at the same time, be out of my vehicle
1:24:00
Speaker 1: ready to go before they are. And because I've got
1:24:04
Speaker 1: the process down and hunting out of harness is the
1:24:07
Speaker 1: same way, and it's it's really simple. I would always
1:24:10
Speaker 1: suggest for anybody to get one, you know, put some
1:24:13
Speaker 1: steps safeteen inches up off the ground in a tree
1:24:15
Speaker 1: in your yard around a telephone pole, and just practice
1:24:18
Speaker 1: from it a little bit. And you know, once you
1:24:20
Speaker 1: get the movement down and you get the you know,
1:24:22
Speaker 1: hide to you know, where you hook your lead strap
1:24:25
Speaker 1: and all that down, then just practice however you practice otherwise,
1:24:29
Speaker 1: and then just you know, climb up your tree and hunt. Yeah,
1:24:34
Speaker 1: do you have Is there anything that you do or
1:24:37
Speaker 1: things that folks should be thinking about as far as
1:24:40
Speaker 1: getting set up in the tree, you know, more efficiently
1:24:44
Speaker 1: or quietly, Because I imagine this is one of those deals.
1:24:47
Speaker 1: As we're talking, if you're freelance hunting or being a
1:24:49
Speaker 1: mobile hunter, when you're going in and getting set up
1:24:52
Speaker 1: right then and there to hunt, and maybe you're tight
1:24:55
Speaker 1: to a bedding area or something where there's gonna be
1:24:57
Speaker 1: deer within earshot. You know, is there anything you do
1:25:00
Speaker 1: make sure that you're not spooking deer that you're able
1:25:01
Speaker 1: to pull this off. It's a little bit more um
1:25:05
Speaker 1: involved than just climbing up a ladder and sitting down
1:25:07
Speaker 1: or something like that. So any advice on that front. Well,
1:25:10
Speaker 1: when I'm freelance hunning with my harness, uh, my concern
1:25:15
Speaker 1: about spooking deers with my physical presence and noise getting
1:25:18
Speaker 1: to the tree. Um, you know, as far as prepping
1:25:21
Speaker 1: the tree, you know, screwing steps don't make any noise. Uh,
1:25:25
Speaker 1: hooking up my harness does not make any noise. You know,
1:25:28
Speaker 1: obviously when the foliage is down. If I'm in a
1:25:30
Speaker 1: bedding areas, you know, as I get up the tree
1:25:33
Speaker 1: twenty you know, with good folds being down, if there's
1:25:37
Speaker 1: something better within forty fifty yards, they may visually see me.
1:25:40
Speaker 1: But other than that, I'm never worried about the noise.
1:25:44
Speaker 1: It's not like a tree stand where you gotta pull
1:25:45
Speaker 1: up a clanky old piece of metal up a tree,
1:25:47
Speaker 1: and you're gonna make noise. I don't care who you are,
1:25:50
Speaker 1: You're gonna make noise with a tree stand either pulling
1:25:52
Speaker 1: it up the tree or hooking it up, you're gonna
1:25:54
Speaker 1: make noise because you're you're altering bark and stuff. If
1:25:57
Speaker 1: you're in a rough bark tree and and a lot
1:26:01
Speaker 1: of them have chains and whatever. So you're or with
1:26:04
Speaker 1: a climber, God use, there's no light and get up
1:26:06
Speaker 1: the tree with a climber without making noise. That's physically
1:26:08
Speaker 1: impossible with the harness. And I'm making it. I'm making
1:26:11
Speaker 1: it sound like this wonderful utopian hunting system, which it
1:26:15
Speaker 1: is once you learn how to do it. Um, But
1:26:18
Speaker 1: it's there is no noise. You know, you don't make noise.
1:26:20
Speaker 1: Screwing in a tree step you don't make noise. Wrapping
1:26:23
Speaker 1: a rope around a tree and and hooking into your
1:26:27
Speaker 1: waist that doesn't make noise. So there is no noise
1:26:30
Speaker 1: other than me physically going up the tree or me
1:26:34
Speaker 1: physically walking to the location. So okay, so let's rewind
1:26:40
Speaker 1: a little bit in this process. Though, let's actually go
1:26:42
Speaker 1: back down we're on the ground, we're freelancing. We found
1:26:45
Speaker 1: a location that we think looks good. Can you walk
1:26:48
Speaker 1: us through what you're thinking about when choosing the actual tree. Um,
1:26:51
Speaker 1: I know you've talked about how the harness gives you
1:26:54
Speaker 1: the ability to hunt a much wider diversity of trees.
1:26:57
Speaker 1: But is there anything in particular that you are looking
1:26:59
Speaker 1: for that's going to help you say, Okay, yes, this
1:27:01
Speaker 1: is a tree that will work, you know, for you know,
1:27:03
Speaker 1: to take a step back for context. For as a
1:27:05
Speaker 1: tree stand hunter, when I'm looking for where i want
1:27:07
Speaker 1: a hunt, I'm looking for a tree stand that's within
1:27:09
Speaker 1: range of the feature or trail or whatever thing I
1:27:13
Speaker 1: think is gonna pull deer within range of me. But
1:27:15
Speaker 1: then I'm also looking for a tree that I can
1:27:17
Speaker 1: get up into with my strap on sticks. I'm also
1:27:20
Speaker 1: looking for a tree that has enough cover at the
1:27:22
Speaker 1: height I want to be at, so so I'll be
1:27:24
Speaker 1: hidden up there. I'm also looking for something that's gonna
1:27:27
Speaker 1: give me um adequate shooting lanes, you know, with minimal trimming,
1:27:32
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm looking for a bunch of different
1:27:33
Speaker 1: things when picking that right tree. What is it you're
1:27:36
Speaker 1: looking for in your situation. Well, I'm looking for the
1:27:40
Speaker 1: exact same things you just mentioned. But when you're hunting
1:27:43
Speaker 1: out of a harness, you open up pretty much every
1:27:48
Speaker 1: tree in the area. I don't know how many times
1:27:52
Speaker 1: I've talked to hunters that find a destination location and
1:27:57
Speaker 1: there is no adequate tree or their climber or their
1:28:02
Speaker 1: hang on because hang on typically have chose you know,
1:28:06
Speaker 1: you're gonna tree because of the strap a specific diameter,
1:28:11
Speaker 1: So they have to actually set up away from the
1:28:13
Speaker 1: destination site on the best routes to it, and that
1:28:17
Speaker 1: negates some of the other outs coming to the destination site,
1:28:21
Speaker 1: and it totally negates the destination site altogether because you're
1:28:26
Speaker 1: the best signed to it. So you're missing out on
1:28:28
Speaker 1: some opportunities with the harness. You know, I can hunt
1:28:31
Speaker 1: a four inch diameter tree, I can undertreat it's three
1:28:33
Speaker 1: foot diameter. I can hunhertreat it's leaning. There's just it
1:28:37
Speaker 1: opens up a lot more tree options for me to
1:28:40
Speaker 1: prep at or closer to the destination site, so I
1:28:44
Speaker 1: can take advantage of all the sign and all the
1:28:47
Speaker 1: runways feeding this destination site as opposed to two or
1:28:50
Speaker 1: three that feed it. You know, old back here where
1:28:54
Speaker 1: I have a suitable tree for a conventional stand. So
1:28:58
Speaker 1: but yeah, I'm all I'm looking for of the same thing.
1:29:00
Speaker 1: I'm looking for the tree that's going to be in
1:29:02
Speaker 1: the best spot to give me the best concealment cover
1:29:05
Speaker 1: up the tree. And that's another thing about a harness.
1:29:07
Speaker 1: You typically will end up hunting igher because you're so
1:29:10
Speaker 1: safe and comfortable once you get used to it. So
1:29:13
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna set up possibly thirty ft when
1:29:17
Speaker 1: the foliage is down during the rod phases, because you
1:29:20
Speaker 1: don't want dear to pick you with their peripheral vision
1:29:23
Speaker 1: like you would in a tree stand. Um, most guys
1:29:25
Speaker 1: that are freelancing with tree stands, you know, they're typically
1:29:29
Speaker 1: carrying sticks in a tree in a tree stands, so
1:29:31
Speaker 1: they've got a lot of stuff on their backs, and
1:29:33
Speaker 1: they're not only limited to the tree, but they're making
1:29:35
Speaker 1: a lot of noise when they're setting the trees up. Um.
1:29:39
Speaker 1: So the harness just opens up a just a lot
1:29:42
Speaker 1: more opportunities and in pretty much every aspect of hunting.
1:29:46
Speaker 1: The only time I could see where and I can't
1:29:51
Speaker 1: even say that, I was gonna say Michigan, as you
1:29:54
Speaker 1: as you well know, Mark probably eight percent of the
1:29:56
Speaker 1: hunters in Michigan hunover bait, which is gonna be interesting
1:29:59
Speaker 1: with a c w D anything going on. Um, But
1:30:03
Speaker 1: so many hunters that hunt over bait, you know, they
1:30:06
Speaker 1: they set up tree stands because they never ever have
1:30:08
Speaker 1: to move, you know, the deer coming to a three
1:30:10
Speaker 1: foot destination spot. The only downside is usually they're they're
1:30:14
Speaker 1: in a position in the tree where you know, in Michigan,
1:30:17
Speaker 1: you hunt that spot a couple of times, and now
1:30:19
Speaker 1: every every mature dough and even subordinate boxing sometimes even
1:30:23
Speaker 1: the fauns after a couple of months, they're they're looking
1:30:25
Speaker 1: at that tree before they even walk into the bait pile.
1:30:28
Speaker 1: I don't bait that. I've heard that a million times.
1:30:31
Speaker 1: You know, they get picked so easy. So so with
1:30:34
Speaker 1: the harness, uh, you know, I was gonna say, you know,
1:30:36
Speaker 1: sitting in a tree stand. A lot of people like
1:30:39
Speaker 1: that because they think it's more comfortable and you're just
1:30:42
Speaker 1: sitting in one location, shooting at one destination spot. But
1:30:45
Speaker 1: with the harness, you could actually be on the back
1:30:47
Speaker 1: side of the tree. In fact, that happened to me once.
1:30:50
Speaker 1: And this is a really great story and it's about
1:30:52
Speaker 1: a do so it's not a mature book. I was.
1:30:55
Speaker 1: I had a friend hunting publicly and and he had
1:30:58
Speaker 1: to hang on and he was hunting over bait and
1:31:00
Speaker 1: this is up by evert and he had this big
1:31:03
Speaker 1: mature dough that was coming through this swampy area. And
1:31:06
Speaker 1: before she would actually exit the swamp and come to
1:31:09
Speaker 1: his daypile, which was maybe ten or fifteen yards out
1:31:12
Speaker 1: into a little opening by this big tree he was
1:31:15
Speaker 1: hunting in. She she would come to the edge and
1:31:20
Speaker 1: she would look at the bait, and she'd look up
1:31:21
Speaker 1: in the tree and she would see him in his
1:31:24
Speaker 1: tree stand, and then she'd start blowing and snorting, and
1:31:28
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much his funk was over for the evening.
1:31:30
Speaker 1: So he called me up one evening and he's talking.
1:31:32
Speaker 1: We're just talking, and he mentioned then, I'm like, we
1:31:35
Speaker 1: want me to go kill her? He said, how are
1:31:37
Speaker 1: you gonna kill her? I said, do you want me
1:31:39
Speaker 1: to go kill her or not? Sure? I'd love the
1:31:42
Speaker 1: kill her because she's ruining all my aunts. So I said, okay,
1:31:47
Speaker 1: you know, and he when showed me where it was
1:31:49
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day and I went back
1:31:50
Speaker 1: and I climbed up into his tree, standing and I
1:31:53
Speaker 1: put another I don't know, four or five steps up
1:31:56
Speaker 1: on the back side of the tree, and then hooked
1:31:59
Speaker 1: up in my harness. WHI, I'm on the back side
1:32:01
Speaker 1: of the tree trunk. And exactly what he said happened.
1:32:06
Speaker 1: This big dog came out, stood on the edge. She
1:32:09
Speaker 1: had two ponds behind her, stood on the edge of that.
1:32:12
Speaker 1: She probably stood there for five minutes, and that's a
1:32:16
Speaker 1: long long time, and she would look to the left
1:32:19
Speaker 1: and look to the right. She looked up in the tree,
1:32:21
Speaker 1: she looked at the bait, and she did that for
1:32:24
Speaker 1: a long time. Finally she felt comfortable because she couldn't
1:32:27
Speaker 1: see anything and she couldn't smell anything. And she walked
1:32:30
Speaker 1: in and started feeding. And first when she was feeding
1:32:32
Speaker 1: on the bait, she was facing the tree. She was
1:32:35
Speaker 1: looking right at the tree. Well, then the fonds came out,
1:32:37
Speaker 1: and after you know, two or three minutes, she became
1:32:40
Speaker 1: comfortable and she moved into a position where I had
1:32:43
Speaker 1: a broadside shot and her attention was focused elsewhere. And
1:32:46
Speaker 1: I just swung around at the side of the the tree
1:32:48
Speaker 1: and shot her. And that was the end of that.
1:32:50
Speaker 1: Um So I mean that. And that guy was a
1:32:54
Speaker 1: good hunter. He was a very good hunter he had.
1:32:57
Speaker 1: He had a lot of cover up there where his
1:32:58
Speaker 1: tree stand was, but he had to be in a
1:33:00
Speaker 1: position because it was a big damn her tree. He
1:33:02
Speaker 1: had to be kicked a little off to the side
1:33:04
Speaker 1: and she could pick him interesting, you know his tree stand. Yeah,
1:33:08
Speaker 1: So so that scenario makes me think of another question. Um,
1:33:11
Speaker 1: you know, related to making the shot from the saddle
1:33:15
Speaker 1: or moving. Is there anything that we haven't covered yet
1:33:18
Speaker 1: as far as you know, advice on how to actually
1:33:21
Speaker 1: handle when you're up in the tree, how to move,
1:33:23
Speaker 1: when to move, how to get set up for certain
1:33:26
Speaker 1: shot situations. Um, Because again it is unique compared to
1:33:29
Speaker 1: sitting down in a tree stands, standing up and making
1:33:32
Speaker 1: a shot. Anything that we haven't touched on yet as
1:33:33
Speaker 1: far as how to correctly maneuver up there, No, it
1:33:36
Speaker 1: would be. It would be identical to maneuvering if you
1:33:40
Speaker 1: were going to hang on or physically sitting in a climber.
1:33:43
Speaker 1: You see stuff coming, you assume your opportunity is going
1:33:48
Speaker 1: to be here when all this stuff culminates together, and
1:33:52
Speaker 1: you move accordingly prior to when that opportunity is going
1:33:57
Speaker 1: to happen. Only differences with a harness you're gonna have
1:34:01
Speaker 1: three sixty degree shot opportunities, So there's gonna be times
1:34:05
Speaker 1: when you need to move to prepare for a specific
1:34:09
Speaker 1: shot opportunity, Whereas if you were hunting out of a stand,
1:34:13
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have that opportunity. You have to hope he
1:34:15
Speaker 1: comes to the side of the some place around the
1:34:17
Speaker 1: tree where you could actually shoot, because you can't shoot
1:34:20
Speaker 1: on the back side of a tree, if a tree
1:34:22
Speaker 1: of any diameter. So but it would be the same
1:34:25
Speaker 1: as a tree stand, you know, the same as a
1:34:27
Speaker 1: tree stand. If if you're in a tree stand and
1:34:31
Speaker 1: you're expecting your shot to be somewhat forward or to
1:34:34
Speaker 1: your left, and a deer you see your shot opportunity
1:34:37
Speaker 1: coming and it's going to be from the right side
1:34:38
Speaker 1: of the tree stand, you have to stand. You have
1:34:41
Speaker 1: to physically stand up before that opportunity gets there because
1:34:44
Speaker 1: you see it coming and you you are in the
1:34:46
Speaker 1: ready position for that shot. So you're basically standing up
1:34:50
Speaker 1: and turn around on an eighty degrees so you can
1:34:52
Speaker 1: have that shot opportunity. Now it's to your left, but
1:34:56
Speaker 1: when you were sitting it was to your right, so
1:34:59
Speaker 1: it's a it's exact same scenario. You know, and obviously
1:35:03
Speaker 1: a novice Funner is gonna have a little bit more
1:35:04
Speaker 1: difficult time. More as a season, Donnor is going to
1:35:07
Speaker 1: know what to do and when to do it. You
1:35:09
Speaker 1: know something I glossed over and I meant to ask
1:35:11
Speaker 1: you about. I want to take us back down to
1:35:13
Speaker 1: the bottom of the tree. Now again, um, back to
1:35:17
Speaker 1: this freelance situation, we're walking around. You talked about how
1:35:20
Speaker 1: you picked a tree and how it's similar to the
1:35:22
Speaker 1: things I was looking for. Um, But the next step
1:35:25
Speaker 1: for me is always Okay, now, what amount of prep
1:35:27
Speaker 1: do I need to do? Because and again this is
1:35:30
Speaker 1: a situation where I haven't already pre prep a tree
1:35:33
Speaker 1: in the spring or summer, but now I'm actually out
1:35:35
Speaker 1: there on the day I want to hunt, and I'm thinking, Okay,
1:35:38
Speaker 1: how much do I need to trim to make this huntable?
1:35:40
Speaker 1: And how much you know, what lanes do I need
1:35:42
Speaker 1: to cut to make sure I have a shot. And
1:35:44
Speaker 1: there's always this careful balancing act between opening up enough
1:35:48
Speaker 1: so I can get a shot, but then also not
1:35:50
Speaker 1: making any more disturbance than I have to. Also don't
1:35:53
Speaker 1: want to open up any more and eliminate any more
1:35:55
Speaker 1: cover than I have to, Um, can you talk us
1:35:58
Speaker 1: through how much of that you do in this type
1:36:00
Speaker 1: of scenario, Um, what your thought processes on that. Yeah,
1:36:04
Speaker 1: it totally depends on where I'm hunting. If I'm if
1:36:06
Speaker 1: I'm hunting out west, uh, and I'm gonna pretend I
1:36:11
Speaker 1: don't have a good sign control regiment, okay, and I'm
1:36:15
Speaker 1: concerned about the wind and deer winded me. I'm gonna
1:36:17
Speaker 1: pretend that's the case, which it's not. If I'm hunting
1:36:20
Speaker 1: out west, I'm going to once I find a tree
1:36:24
Speaker 1: it's within shooting distance of all this sneat cool sign,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: whether it be scrapes or of a rub line or
1:36:29
Speaker 1: a scrape line, or that's there's a white oak over
1:36:31
Speaker 1: there with the acorns on it. Um, I'm gonna probably
1:36:36
Speaker 1: if I need, I'm gonna probably go to the destination
1:36:39
Speaker 1: shots spots where I think I might get a shot
1:36:41
Speaker 1: and look at the tree where I think I'm gonna
1:36:43
Speaker 1: be sitting once I prepare the tree, and I'm gonna
1:36:46
Speaker 1: maybe clear something because out there I'm not concerned so
1:36:50
Speaker 1: much about as as much about older. I'm gonna try
1:36:56
Speaker 1: and still be as free as possible, but I'm not
1:36:57
Speaker 1: as concerned about things as I am in Michigan. In Michigan,
1:37:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk to the tree, prep the tree. I'm
1:37:04
Speaker 1: not going to cut anything unless it's a branch going
1:37:08
Speaker 1: up the tree. Then I'm gonna physically be hunting in
1:37:12
Speaker 1: because a lot of times I'll cut little branches off
1:37:15
Speaker 1: because I don't want to coming down after dark. I
1:37:17
Speaker 1: think I'm stepping on a step when in the actuality
1:37:20
Speaker 1: it's a dead branch or something I don't want to,
1:37:22
Speaker 1: you know, then this branch breaks um. So in Michigan,
1:37:26
Speaker 1: I won't go out if I'm freelancing and clear runways,
1:37:31
Speaker 1: because I personally would because of my sec control. But
1:37:35
Speaker 1: I also in Michigan, I don't want to even have
1:37:39
Speaker 1: the order from cuttings. People that just don't realize what
1:37:44
Speaker 1: a difference it is hunting pressured animals with heavy pressure
1:37:48
Speaker 1: versus lightly hunted or managed areas. When you go in
1:37:51
Speaker 1: and you even cut shooting lanes and you're gonna hunt
1:37:55
Speaker 1: that evening in a state like Michigan, and you're after
1:37:57
Speaker 1: three and a half year old and older bucks or
1:37:59
Speaker 1: pennsylvani you're West Virginia or upstate New York. You know,
1:38:03
Speaker 1: just the odor from what trees you cut could potentially
1:38:08
Speaker 1: make a mature buck not come to that destination site
1:38:12
Speaker 1: because that odor is not supposed to be there, whereas
1:38:16
Speaker 1: in lightly pressured states and manager areas, they're not going
1:38:19
Speaker 1: to pay that much attention to it if they're going
1:38:21
Speaker 1: to do what they do anyway. Um, So, depending on
1:38:25
Speaker 1: where I'm at, it's going to depend on how I
1:38:29
Speaker 1: prepare the site location as far as shooting lanes. I
1:38:33
Speaker 1: guess if that's does that kind of answer your question? Yeah, yeah, no,
1:38:37
Speaker 1: and it makes it makes perfect sense, and I'd say
1:38:40
Speaker 1: it's probably in line with what I've seen to so so,
1:38:44
Speaker 1: so back to this umbrella topic of being a mobile hunter,
1:38:47
Speaker 1: we talked through a lot of things related to what
1:38:49
Speaker 1: you do with the saddle. We talked a little bit
1:38:51
Speaker 1: about some of the ideas that you could, you know,
1:38:54
Speaker 1: use generically no matter what it is, whatever kind of
1:38:57
Speaker 1: hunting setup you have. But is there any major angle
1:39:02
Speaker 1: on this topic that we haven't touched on, John, that
1:39:04
Speaker 1: you think we should as far as how to be
1:39:06
Speaker 1: a mobile hunter or how to use this kind of
1:39:08
Speaker 1: idea of philosophy best, or even anything else on the
1:39:11
Speaker 1: saddle side of things that we haven't covered. Well, no,
1:39:16
Speaker 1: not really. I guess the only thing would be I
1:39:19
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't want your viewers to your listeners to think
1:39:26
Speaker 1: that this is strictly something for mobile freelance hunting. You know,
1:39:30
Speaker 1: this is something I've used exclusively. I haven't hunted out
1:39:33
Speaker 1: of a tree stand in years. Um. So this is
1:39:36
Speaker 1: something I've used exclusively in all my hunting locations, and
1:39:40
Speaker 1: I've I'm probably in Michigan because I I lose property
1:39:45
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, if I kill a big
1:39:46
Speaker 1: buck on somebody's property to gave me permission and they've
1:39:49
Speaker 1: got nephews and stuff, well as soon as they know
1:39:52
Speaker 1: you killed the big buck, they want to hunt there,
1:39:54
Speaker 1: and then you're the one that's out and they're in.
1:39:56
Speaker 1: So I've hunted probably in my fifty plush years of
1:39:59
Speaker 1: Michigan over hundred different private, small private parcels, and I
1:40:03
Speaker 1: think I've wanted nineteen different public land parcels, one of
1:40:06
Speaker 1: which I took a state state record off. Um. But
1:40:10
Speaker 1: I don't want to pigeonhole this harnessed thing into just
1:40:14
Speaker 1: mobile freelance hunting. This is something that you should that
1:40:17
Speaker 1: I've used on all of my tree set up since
1:40:21
Speaker 1: so this is you know, just inline general purpose hunting
1:40:27
Speaker 1: on my hunting stand basically. Yeah, and it just happens
1:40:32
Speaker 1: to Yeah, and it just happens to work phenomenally well
1:40:35
Speaker 1: for any situation, whether it be you know, all my
1:40:38
Speaker 1: prepared locations or a freelance or a mobile. You know,
1:40:42
Speaker 1: it just works well for for everything because because it's
1:40:46
Speaker 1: it's small, it's lightweight, it doesn't make noise. Um. You know,
1:40:50
Speaker 1: you put a bunch of steps in a fanti pack
1:40:52
Speaker 1: you and so you can take off freelancing. It's it's
1:40:55
Speaker 1: not cumbersome. All that stuff matters. Yeah, I'm planning a
1:41:00
Speaker 1: hunt this coming October up into the Boundary Waters Wilderness
1:41:03
Speaker 1: area of Minnesota where you actually have to canoe in
1:41:06
Speaker 1: on the canoe in for a week into the back
1:41:08
Speaker 1: country and try to find some deer. And this set
1:41:12
Speaker 1: up with a saddle just seems like the the absolute
1:41:15
Speaker 1: best way to do that because taking in a stand
1:41:17
Speaker 1: and sticks or multiple stands and sticks, along with everything
1:41:20
Speaker 1: else we need to live out there for a week,
1:41:23
Speaker 1: our bows, food, etcetera, etcetera like that would be really
1:41:26
Speaker 1: difficult to get all that in a canoe and portaging
1:41:29
Speaker 1: from lake to lake. This this saddle thing just seemed
1:41:32
Speaker 1: like the absolute perfect tool for that kind of hunt.
1:41:35
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to r F c T. You're absolutely
1:41:40
Speaker 1: correct that is the hardest thing is going to be
1:41:45
Speaker 1: perfect for that situation. Yeah. Um, I'm excited too. And
1:41:49
Speaker 1: we started to give it a try. And I appreciate John.
1:41:51
Speaker 1: You you're walking us through all these different ideas and
1:41:54
Speaker 1: how you're using this tool and and some of the
1:41:56
Speaker 1: different tactics that you're using that. I think that you
1:41:58
Speaker 1: know a lot of this could be helpful with people,
1:42:00
Speaker 1: even if they don't end up using the saddle. I
1:42:02
Speaker 1: think some of your your higher level philosophies here could
1:42:05
Speaker 1: be applied to whatever kind of hunting tool you want
1:42:07
Speaker 1: to use. So so it's it's good stuff. Is there
1:42:11
Speaker 1: is there anything John, before we wrap this up that
1:42:13
Speaker 1: you could point folks towards, um if they want to
1:42:16
Speaker 1: learn more from you. I know you've got all sorts
1:42:17
Speaker 1: of books saying, you've got some online things going on workshops.
1:42:21
Speaker 1: Can you just kind of give us the rundown of
1:42:23
Speaker 1: how we can learn more from you? Uh? Sure? Um?
1:42:28
Speaker 1: I've written three books co authored him with my son
1:42:30
Speaker 1: Chris Bonding, Pressured White Tails, Precision Bon Hunting and Bonding
1:42:35
Speaker 1: White Tails ebarret Way and there. I'm sure they're still
1:42:39
Speaker 1: available at Amazon, and they're also available on my website
1:42:44
Speaker 1: at d E E R hyphen j o h n
1:42:48
Speaker 1: dot net. And I've also published three instructional DVDs there
1:42:54
Speaker 1: through two hours long. Each one is on postseason scouting
1:42:57
Speaker 1: in location prep, the second ones on in preseason scouting
1:43:01
Speaker 1: in location prep. In the third ones in season hunting
1:43:03
Speaker 1: Techniques and Tactics. Um So, we've got the DVDs and
1:43:08
Speaker 1: the books are all on my website and I'm also
1:43:10
Speaker 1: doing these. Last year I started doing these uh oh
1:43:14
Speaker 1: god ball hunting deals where people come in for two
1:43:19
Speaker 1: days into central Michigan. First days in field, second day
1:43:23
Speaker 1: is at a large sporting goods store in their sinar
1:43:26
Speaker 1: room where we do seminars. I do seminar and do
1:43:29
Speaker 1: a lot of Q and A with the attendees, limit
1:43:33
Speaker 1: them to tend per procession on sund control pretty much
1:43:37
Speaker 1: anything to do with hunting. And on day one in
1:43:38
Speaker 1: the field, we're looking at all my locations on this
1:43:41
Speaker 1: three seven acre piece of piece of property. We're going
1:43:44
Speaker 1: by fourteen locations, explaining entry routes, exit routes to each
1:43:49
Speaker 1: location morning spots, evening spots, midday spots, early season spots, uh,
1:43:54
Speaker 1: you know, pre rut spots, rut phase locations. Basically explaining
1:43:59
Speaker 1: the rye the reason Typically when I get out my
1:44:01
Speaker 1: harness at the first site, people are like, where's your
1:44:04
Speaker 1: tree stand? Because I'm say, I'm gonna get up in
1:44:06
Speaker 1: this tree and I've got my harness in a little
1:44:09
Speaker 1: tiny Fannie pack. I mean it's it's literally discisibles offball.
1:44:13
Speaker 1: When I pull that out and get up in the tree,
1:44:15
Speaker 1: they like freak out, literally freak out at how small
1:44:20
Speaker 1: and and this thing is and how quiet it is
1:44:23
Speaker 1: and how fast I get up in the tree and
1:44:24
Speaker 1: prep it. But anyway, these are called white Tail Workshops.
1:44:27
Speaker 1: They're also on my website and then I'm also doing
1:44:32
Speaker 1: just started these in May. I taped YouTube topic videos.
1:44:40
Speaker 1: They're short videos three or five minutes each for Deer
1:44:42
Speaker 1: and Deer Hunting, the Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, and
1:44:47
Speaker 1: they started airing in May and there's a new one
1:44:50
Speaker 1: being released every Tuesday on the Deer and Deer Hunting
1:44:54
Speaker 1: website through the end of November. So these for the
1:44:59
Speaker 1: title of this series is public and pressured Land Deer
1:45:02
Speaker 1: Hunter with John Eberhardt. And again these were done in
1:45:07
Speaker 1: conjunction with Deer and Deer Hunting magazine. UM, I will
1:45:12
Speaker 1: send you the link mark and people can kind of
1:45:16
Speaker 1: click on these links and basically, once you watch one video, UM,
1:45:23
Speaker 1: it'll there'll be a little pop up where you can
1:45:25
Speaker 1: watch the previous one and so on and so on,
1:45:27
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be a new one released every Tuesday
1:45:29
Speaker 1: through the end of November. UM. And you know my
1:45:34
Speaker 1: criteria for Deer and Deer Hunting asking me to do
1:45:37
Speaker 1: that was again, I've got thirty one bucks in the
1:45:38
Speaker 1: Michigan record book in nineteen from out of states. I've
1:45:41
Speaker 1: got fifty bucks in the record book off from public
1:45:44
Speaker 1: and you know, free permission properties. Uh. So everything I've done,
1:45:48
Speaker 1: ever done in my life has been pressured. I've never owned, released,
1:45:51
Speaker 1: or paid a dime to hunt any place in my life.
1:45:54
Speaker 1: And so that's why they came to me to do this.
1:45:58
Speaker 1: So that's about it, yea. That it's it's all helpful stuff.
1:46:02
Speaker 1: I've seen the videos, I've read the books, I've watched
1:46:04
Speaker 1: the DVDs. UM, it's it's all been very helpful to me.
1:46:08
Speaker 1: So I appreciate everything you've done, John. And actually, the
1:46:11
Speaker 1: last summer um I was speaking at a back Country
1:46:14
Speaker 1: Hunters and Anglers event and you and a bunch of
1:46:18
Speaker 1: the attendees for that weekend's White Tail Workshop were able
1:46:21
Speaker 1: to meet us up there, and I got to talk
1:46:23
Speaker 1: to some of the people that have been with you
1:46:24
Speaker 1: at the workshop, and it seemed like they had learned
1:46:26
Speaker 1: a lot from your event as well. So it seemed
1:46:29
Speaker 1: like that's a that's a great educational opportunity for folks.
1:46:32
Speaker 1: So John, I appreciate you. Know what, I gotta say something.
1:46:37
Speaker 1: I want to tell you thank you too, because you
1:46:41
Speaker 1: and your site has helped so many hunters, and you know,
1:46:45
Speaker 1: I think your goal is like mine. I just want
1:46:48
Speaker 1: to try and educate hunters to be the best that
1:46:50
Speaker 1: they can be and be the most successful they can be.
1:46:53
Speaker 1: And and your site is hands down the best one
1:46:56
Speaker 1: out there as far as podcast and I want to
1:46:58
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing that to the hunting world. I
1:47:01
Speaker 1: appreciate you saying that, John. That means a lot coming
1:47:04
Speaker 1: from someone who who has helped me so much. So
1:47:07
Speaker 1: let's make sure to to do this again. John. It's
1:47:10
Speaker 1: always a good time and I'm really excited to give
1:47:13
Speaker 1: the saddles to try this year and maybe next year
1:47:16
Speaker 1: around this time we can talk about my first season
1:47:18
Speaker 1: trying one and um, I'm sure I'll make some mistakes
1:47:22
Speaker 1: and maybe you can help me figure it out. After that,
1:47:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and help you figure it out before
1:47:26
Speaker 1: you have any opportunity to make any mistakes. That's an
1:47:29
Speaker 1: even better idea. All right, John when holds it? Thank you,
1:47:36
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be a rap. Folks, appreciate you tuning
1:47:38
Speaker 1: into this one. Hopefully you've found it interesting. My usual
1:47:42
Speaker 1: spiel here, I will stick to just asking you to
1:47:46
Speaker 1: rate or review the podcast if you haven't done that yet,
1:47:48
Speaker 1: I'd also encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. And
1:47:52
Speaker 1: while you're subscribing things, i'd say go to the wire
1:47:55
Speaker 1: to Hunt YouTube channel, check out the videos and posting there.
1:47:58
Speaker 1: I just did a whole series analyze in my two
1:48:00
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen Hunt for the Buck I've been calling holy Field.
1:48:04
Speaker 1: It's been a three year process. I'm heading into year four,
1:48:07
Speaker 1: so I just broke that whole thing down in three videos.
1:48:10
Speaker 1: Check those out. Um, hopefully I'll set us up for
1:48:13
Speaker 1: some good stories and some interesting things here in two
1:48:15
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen. So with all that said, I will just
1:48:18
Speaker 1: say one more thing, which is that I appreciate you.
1:48:22
Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking the time to listen. I appreciate
1:48:24
Speaker 1: you supporting Wired to Hunt. And until next time, thank
1:48:29
Speaker 1: you and stay Wired to Hunt.