Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1086: Dan Infalt’s Week by Week Approach to Hunting the Prime of Whitetail Season

Transcript

Ep. 1086: Dan Infalt’s Week by Week Approach to Hunting the Prime of Whitetail Season · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired2Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel for
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the stand, saddle, or blind. First Light, go farther, stay longer.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by the Dan Infault to talk
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: through how his DIY whitetail strategy evolves week by week
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: through the prime weeks of the whitetail hunting season. All right,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast brought to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: you by Moultrie.com. We've got a great episode for you today,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: just in time for this most exciting time of year.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: The rut is just about here. If you're listening to
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: this in real time, we are ramping up into late
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: October and then into sweet, sweet November. And so I
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: have a special episode planned for you with one of
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: our best guests that we've had on, you know, of
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: all time. This is Dan Infault. He is, of course,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: a Whitetail fan. bowhunting legend that many of you have
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: heard on this show and others, and I wanted to
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: bring him back today to talk through some of his
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: approaches in more detail than we have in the past
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: on a week-to-week basis. So what does the Dan Infault
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: approach look like, you know, the third week of October,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the fourth week of October, one, two, three, four weeks
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: into November? What does that look like? How does that change?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: How might there be small differences or tweaks that he
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: makes to his style of hunting throughout this whole period
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: of the season? So that's the game plan for today.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: We discuss how he thinks about bedding areas, wind, thermals,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: terrain features, cover types, calling, and much, much more. If
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: you are getting ready for your big hunting trip, your ruckcation,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: whatever it is that you've been looking forward to all
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: season long, this episode should help. And I want to
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: give one quick plug. If you're looking for more, definitely
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: tune into, you know, Tony's foundation episodes or our rut
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: fresh radio episodes to get up to date week by week,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: you know, advice from deer hunters all over the nation,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: which is what the rut fresh podcast is all about.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So without any further ado, let's get to my chat
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: with Dan infault and good luck out there.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Here with me now on the line is Dan infault for, uh,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Another great return. I don't know how many we've done now,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: but I'm glad we're doing it again. Thanks for making
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: time for this, Dan.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: No problem.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: And I want to be respectful of your time. It's
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: October right now. The good stuff is upon us here
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: pretty soon. So my idea for today, you tell me
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: if this is a good one or not, but my
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: thought was to actually go week by week. over these
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: next six weeks that I think most whitetail hunters consider
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the prime of the season and talk through if at
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: all and how at all your approach changes over this
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: six-week period. Because I imagine there's a lot of stuff
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: that people have heard about that's like the Dan Infault
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: approach to whitetail hunting. But I'm not sure all of
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: us know how the Dan Infault approach would be different
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: during the third week of October versus maybe the first
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: week of November or the second week. So what do
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: you think about kind of going week by week and
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: talking through some of these details?
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, we can do it.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Perfect. So tell me this. Let's just jump right into
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the deep end. The week of October 19th, which is
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: coming up here pretty soon. Some people, and we've talked
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: about this in the past, some people would say, oh,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: that's the October lull. But I know you've always had
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: a different approach and a different mindset. This third week
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of October, give me like a cliff notes version of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: what Dan Infault does the third week of October. What's
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: that game plan?
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, first off, I want to say that
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: deer movement varies across the country. You know, and for
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: up here, third week of October is really starting to
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: show some rut activity. For us, the lull is around
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: the beginning of October. If there is even a lull.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: And it seems to me it's more of like a
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: shift in movement and a lack of sign. And people
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: still using either early season tactics or switching to rut
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: too early. And at early season part, you know, the
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: first couple weeks of October is what I always looked
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: at as a slow period. For me, it starts to
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: ramp up around the 15th of October. And what happens
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: at about that time frame is, is that the bucks
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: start leaving a lot of sign and they start getting
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: easier to find. So that fresh sign, if you're on it,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: when it's fresh is good. And in that period of pre-rut,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you can, um, wander through the woods, check funnels coming
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: out of bedding or, you know, tight areas and see
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: that fresh sign and know, okay, they're here right now
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: and they're on a pattern. Um, So you can set
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: up on fresh signs still. Generally, for me, that goes
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: from about the 15th of October till almost the end
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: of October. That's a pretty good time frame. But I
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: would say that when I get down to, say, mid-Illinois
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: or Kansas or something like that, that seems to be
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: like a two-week shift later. or at least a week later,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: maybe 10 days later. So like I'm saying, the timing
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: is different wherever you go. But it seems specific to areas, right?
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: So as soon as you start seeing that sign, for me,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: it's setting up on the sign. But for me, everything
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: kind of revolves around betting. I'm always pushing those betting limits.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: So I want to see that sign coming out of
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: something I think they're betting in. So I see that
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: daylight movement. And you're going to get those younger bucks
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: moving further. You're going to get even the older bucks
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: moving further. But it just seems to me like you're
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: still not getting those mature bucks, especially on public land
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: where I hunt, which is going to differ from your
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: guests that have large managed ranches or large leases. I'm
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: hunting public. You're just not going to get that movement
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: out of the big animals unless you get close to
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: where they're living in daylight.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was talking to a friend of mine
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the other day, and I mentioned that I was going
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: to be talking to you to do this podcast. And
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: we kind of jokingly said, oh yeah, well, we're going
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: to talk about the Dan Infault approach, but try to
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: kind of peel back some new layers of the onion.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: And then he said, well, you know, what is the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Dan Infault approach? Like, how would you define it? And
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I said to him, I was like, well, if I
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: were to like oversimplify the Dan Infault approach, it would be,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: you know, scout like crazy till, you know, a bunch
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: of buck bedrooms and then push in close, you know,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: looking at sign and different things like you just mentioned,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: like if I had to like simplify as much as
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I possibly could. And, and I thought that I could
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: do that relatively accurately because I've been listening to you
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: for 15 years or more. And like, people have been
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: doing the same. You have shared your approach in a
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: lot of places. A lot of people have become you know,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: almost disciples of this hunting style. How have people gotten
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: it wrong though? Like, do you see anything now after
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: having shared your approach for, you know, almost two decades,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: are there any common mistakes people are making or, or
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: interpreting wrongly or just completely missing the point on what
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: you are trying to tell people here?
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think the biggest, uh, um, error people make in,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: in my approach is that they're afraid, like they, they
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: know where a good buck is or they, they find
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: a good bedding area and they really don't have the
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: scouting in that I have. I think they look at
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: what I do on video and they think it's simple.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: They think you just go out and kill a buck
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: every year. And that's why I kind of do a
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: lot of videos where I show a week of hunting
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: without killing something is I want them to see the
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: work involved. Um, because it's not, it's not easy. And, and,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: they'll find that one spot and they'll think they're going
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: to ruin it if they go in there and push
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: up close and hunt it. So they'll sit back a
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: little too far. And that sounds good and dandy on
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: the outside surface, but they're going to like stage their
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: way in. And by doing that, that deer is going
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: to know that they were there. And it's going to
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: be the preferable slap them on the ass and tell
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: them you're coming. And now when you move in, you're
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: not going to have that opportunity because a mature buck, um,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: really needs to be taken by complete and utter surprise. If,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: if you try to take him by letting them know
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: you're hunting them, good luck. So, um, with that said,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: most of the really big bucks I've taken on public land,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: it's been the first set. If not the first set
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: in that tree is the first set of that season
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: where you catch him by surprise. Um, and I think
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of guys, um, can't leave an area alone. So,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: They do find a buck. They get an opportunity to
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: spook it, and that buck learns where they're at and
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: learns where they set up and stuff. And then they
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: start just– they can't help but go back the next
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: week and the next week after that and the next
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: week after that.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: And for me, I know I'm not going to kill
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: him there no more. Now he's going to check to
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: see if I'm there. I'm going to back out and
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: let them just completely forget about me or come at
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: him from a different way or figure out a different
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: one of his bedding areas. Cause they don't bed in
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: the same spots every day. And they're certainly not going
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: to bed in a spot right away. Again, after you
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: bump them usually. They'll do one of two things. They'll
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: completely ignore you and come right back the next day.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Or they ain't coming back anymore that season. Sometimes not, period.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, I can't remember ever bumping a mature buck
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: in a spot and then killing it in that spot.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: For me, it's always been, I have to readjust. He
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: knows that spot. So I think a lot of people
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: kind of Don't take it to the degree I do,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: you know, about how they treat that animal. Everybody kind
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: of looks at it like I'm a, like haphazard, just
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: stumble around, busting into these bedding areas and stuff, kicking
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: deer around. And it's not really true. There's a method
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: to the madness. I'm very aggressive on those approaches and
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: I do damage when I do them. But the first
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: day I'm in there, I don't. And then I either
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: kill them or I don't. And then I move on
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: to the next spot he bets and the next spot
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: he bets.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Could you almost like paint the picture for
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: me of a hunt? Let's say it's like October 21st
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: or October 22nd, somewhere in that window. You have one
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: of these buck bedrooms that you've identified earlier in the
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: year through scouting or past years through scouting. Can you
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: walk me through like the details of how you would
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: move into a location like that? What you are exactly
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: looking for? Because again, like what you're saying is it
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: comes down to the details. People assume you go in haphazardly.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: But to your point, not so much. Could you kind
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: of share what that actually looks like, what it would
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: be that would cause you to say like, oh, I
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: got to stop. Now's the time to stop. This is
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: the place. Or no, I'm not quite close enough. I
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: can get away with a little bit further.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: We've had a.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Little bit of this conversation a few years ago, but
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I'd like to revisit it and just kind of see
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: what that looks like today in 2026.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because there's a couple different variances of that.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: One is I've pre-scouted the whole area and I know
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: those bedding areas. Then I kind of know which trees
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: to be in based on the wind. Some of them,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: there's one tree you can be in, you know, and
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: then there's areas you go in because you find out
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: about a new buck and you've never been in there
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: or you have no idea what's going on. And you're
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: guessing bedding based on terrain, based on thickness, stem count,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: terrain features. And then, what I fall back on is,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: is the knowledge of all the bedding areas I've looked
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: at and what they've taught me about how bucks bed
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: at those timeframes. So I'm going to slip into the
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: point where I think I need to be. And when
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I'm doing that, I'm trying to, um, if possible, keep
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: the wind directly in my nose. Um, because by doing that,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I only have one scent trail, you know, and then
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: if a deer does come out a little screwy comes around,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: there's only one place he can spell you because you're,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: your scent, your ground scent and your airborne scent is
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: the same. So I'm trying to do that if I can,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: sometimes you can't, but then I'm, as I'm getting in there,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I stop a little bit back, you know, looking at
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: this scenario where I think the buck is, you know,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: I look at exactly where I would think he would
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: be and could he see me if I move forward
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: or whatever. And then I'm looking at the trees and
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I'm picking a tree from a distance. And that sounds
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: great in theory, but but seldom works, but it gets
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: you in the right direction. You get about halfway to
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: that tree and you stop again and you reevaluate and
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: you see something different because of the, um, the angles
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of the trees and stuff will look different. It sounds funny.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I know, but really when you do it, as soon
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: as you change angles and stuff in those trees, you
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: start to see something like, oh, I'd have a hard
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: time getting a stand in that. I'd have a hard
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: time doing that. And, and I'm picking trees.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I can relate way too much.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I'm doing that all the way up to six feet
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: from it. And I'm really going in slow. And I'm
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: thinking about, I want to stay downhill from the deer
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: when he, when he comes out of exit because your
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: thermals in the evenings and the early mornings almost always
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: drop downhill. So I want to be below him because
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: the thermals will usually beat the wind because it's, you
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: get that calm period in the mornings and in the evenings,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: and then the thermals kick up, you know, and when
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: you feel the wind, that's going to be a certain direction,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: but when it gets calm, That's what you've got to
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: worry about. That's going to be thermals, and that's going
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: to usually drop downhill or move to stagnant water that's
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: warm from the day or something like that. But if
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: you understand how thermals work, I'm going to try and
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: stay below. So I'm looking at the terrain, I'm looking
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: for that tree, and I'm really putting some thought process
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: into exactly what tree I want to get into. And
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: it might seem a little extreme to some people, but.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: You only get so many opportunities at mature bucks. You
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: pick the wrong tree, you pick the wrong spot, and
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: you're screwed for that day. And that day might have
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: been your day. So when I get to the tree,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I'm usually hunting as close as possible because being back
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: 75 yards in a swamp or 150 yards in hill
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: or open woods kind of terrain, generally when I do
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: kill a mature buck, probably eight out of 10 of them,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: that buck is right at closing time, even though I'm
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: that close to the bedding area. So I want to
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: push that limit as close as possible to get into
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: that daylight window of movement. And when I do that,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be looking at the, from the behind
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: the tree towards the bedding area. And I'm going to
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: climb the backside of that tree. My sticks are going
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: to go on the backside. So I'm looking around that tree.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: We use the tree as cover. looking around at that
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: bed in there and determining how high I can get
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: as I go based on, is that deer going to
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: spot me based on cover? And then I'm, I'm also gonna, um,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: as I'm going up, I'm looking at my windows of shooting.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Can I get higher? Do I have to stay lower?
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Because you only got certain windows you can shoot through.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: You can't sit there with a saw hacking through a branch.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Um, which, uh, an apprentice friend of mine learned the
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: other day, you can't saw for a branch, uh, Well,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: there's a deer that's 70 yards away, right? So when
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: I get to the spot where I want to be,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I reach around the tree and I set the stand
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: on on the deer side and I'm watching as I
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: do it. And I put the stand on and I
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: get the sticks up so that I can just roll
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: around the tree, get into the stand with as much,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: as little movement on the side of the tree as possible.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: And I use the back of the tree as my cover.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: And that's basically how I pick a tree.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: So you've done this, Dan, hundreds of times over decades.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: You've done some version of that over and over and
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: over again. Sometimes it works. Probably most of the time
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: it doesn't. Have you, you know, from all of those attempts,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: have you found that you have now gotten more aggressive
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: as you've done this.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: More and more?
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Or have you realized, oh, I need to be a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: little bit more conservative than I used to be? Which
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: direction have you been going? as you become more and
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: more experienced.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I think that the, I I've had the, um, distance
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: from the bed thing pinned down for quite a while. However, um,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: I have gotten a little more, uh, lenient on, on
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: hunting spots a few more times than I have in
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: the past. It used to be one and done and
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I'd move on. But, um, dropping cameras and testing theories,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I found some of those bucks, you can't push them
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: out of an area and you're, You can hunt it
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: over and over and kill the buck. So, and there
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: are cases where I'll stick to it and push to it.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: And I've really found that, uh, um, this is sound
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: weird to people. Um, what mature bucks seem easier to
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: hunt in certain ways. And when you get to be
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: six or seven in a lot of hunting areas, you
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: don't do it by moving around. And those deer find
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: and hole up in really tight areas, uh, So you
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: can hunt that area over and over again. You can't
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: push that deer out of there. He'll just lock down.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: He'll hide. He won't move in daylight, but he won't
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: leave the area. So you can hunt them over and
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: over again and keep trying. And that sounds great on theory.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: And it sounds like, well, you're making it sound easy.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: It's not easy because usually they pick that spot for
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: a reason. It's an almost impossible spot to kill them.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: But that's where a lot of my mature bucks have
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: come from. We call it the overlook spot. We call
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: it the spots with no trees. um, the fat girl spots. Um,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: but it's the spots where you have a hard time
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: getting in there, but that buck just stays there and
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: lives there. Um, it seems to me that when you
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: find a big buck, that's, um, of a younger age,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: like a, like a very large three-year-old or something you'd
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: like to shoot. Those deer are a little more flighty.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: They're a little more likely to relocate someplace else. And
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: then you got to go find them again. The mature
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: bucks seem to really lock down in places.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So how do you know when you have a buck
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: that you can keep hunting it over and over again
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: in one spot versus the one and done is it
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: simply like i know it's a really old buck i'm
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: going to assume he's here for a reason wants to
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: stay so i'm going to try it a few more
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: times or do you always try to have a camera
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: now to verify if he's sticking around and then you'll
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: keep coming back?
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: How do you make that decision? I don't do a
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: lot with cameras as you, as you are probably aware.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I do a little bit. Usually my camera work is,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: is done as a, um, testing theories. I like to
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: use it to educate me. Like you run a camera
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: in a season, a spot I don't even intend to hunt,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: but sometimes I have them in areas and there's bucks
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: in here and the I want to kill and I
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: will hunt around them. Um, but as far as knowing
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: whether or not that buck is going to be a
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: flighty or if he's going to stay there, he's a
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: little home body in that section. Your guess is as
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: good as mine. I guess I figured it out because
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: if I hunt a buck and I see a big buck,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: I'm going to, I'm going to keep him honest by
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: keep hunting it until he tells me I ain't coming back.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? I'm going to go after
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: him a few times. I'm not just going to give
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: up when I find a big buck. So, um, some
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: of them do leave, some of them don't. And, uh,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: the only way to know it is to hunt them
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: or maybe you could run cameras or something.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So, so back to another thing you said there, you
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: talked about how, you know, those really old bucks can,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: can act differently than those younger deer. You also said
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to me a number of years ago, and you've said
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: this in other places too. You said that, you know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: hunting mature bucks and hunting deer are two totally different things, right?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: It's like a different species. But you said that to
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: me like 13 years ago. Has your opinion on that
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: changed at all since then? Or is it strengthened in
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: some kind of way?
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: I would say it's strengthened.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: What's changed when it comes to mature buck behavior?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I think those bucks are still two different animals. I mean,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: there's such a change in whitetails every year of their life.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: And when they get into that you know, old age period,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, they are not the same animals as those
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: younger animals. They're more, um, they're going to hole up
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: in certain areas. They're going to pick treeless areas. They
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: learn a lot of life lessons. And I might, I
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: might add that that's probably not across the board, but
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: it's across the board. Most of the areas I hunt
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: that are public. Now, when I have hunted or visited
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: like managed lands, I've seen a whole different aspect where like,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: four or five, six year old deer kind of act
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: like a two or three year old on the public.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: If you might say by not exposing that thing to
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the dangers and stuff that the public land deer are
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: exposed to. You got to remember most of the time
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: when I do get one, that's of a older age class,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I find projectiles and it has broken legs, you know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: that have healed over. They've got scars in them, broadheads
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: in them. Um, it's seldom that you get a mature
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: buck on public land. It isn't wounded in some port,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: some timeframe in its life. Um, so they learn life
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: lessons a little harder than the private lands. So I'm
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: not going to say it's across the board, but I
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: will say that, you know, the older bucks on public
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: land are a little harder to hunt and more like
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: a whole different animal than the younger ones. They just,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: they just act different. Um, It really is like hunting
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: a different species. Now you can go, like on the
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: public land, you can go sit over, like some of
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: the properties I hunt have cornfields on the public. Some
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: of them have beans. There's always acorn flats. There's openings
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: that have like a jewel weed that's just so grazed
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: anybody could see it. And you can go just sit
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: over the top of that and you'll probably see way
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: more deer than I'll see. So if somebody just out
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: there hunting deer would kill deer in those situations. They
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: can sit to the downwind side, deer come in, you
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: just shoot them, but they're not going to see the
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: mature animals very often. They might get there once or
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: twice in a lifetime on most of the public lands
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: that I hunt, get an opportunity at something like that
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: where I'm going to get opportunities on a regular basis
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: and maybe get one of those bucks every two or
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: three years. That's, you know, um, and they're not because
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: the way I, I hunt them, knowing how they react
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: and how they move differently, how they don't move in daylight.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: You know, most guys, uh, hunt deer, or at least
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: they did in the past. I think there's some change
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: going on, but they would, they would take those rut
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: phases you're talking about and they would be hunting in the,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: in the chase phase. They'd be in a funnel, you know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: they'd be on a scrape line and they'd be in
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: a rub line or whatever. And they would consistently, you know,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: if they want to get video, they want to be
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: a YouTuber or something, they would consistently get two and
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: three-year-old deer. You know, the three-year-olds being a little bit iffy,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: but they'd get a lot of two-year-old deers that could
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: good racks and they could do it year after year
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: after year. They could go state to state and do that.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: And they could out hunt a guy like me doing that.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: But I'm getting opportunities at really big older bucks more
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: often by locking into those And I still get opportunities
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: at the good bucks.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Have you had an aha moment in recent years where
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: something new came to you about mature buck behavior? Has
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: there been a new discovery recently at all that you
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: can point to and be like, you know, that is
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: a thing that now I think about differently. Um, it's
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: so easy. I know for us to kind of fall into,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: this is what we think deer do. And then you
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: kind of always think that, but then every once in
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: a while you have these moments where you have like an,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: like an epiphany. Have you had one of those in
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: recent years that now all of a sudden you see
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: something different?
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: There's a couple of them. One of them has nothing
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: to do with, with, um, with your act. Um, one
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: of them was that, uh, um, a few years back,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I went on a trip to Iowa hunting and, uh,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I came back and I was going to spend, uh,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the birthday with, with my wife. And, uh, we went
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: out to eat. And when we left, we went by
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: one of the public lands that I, my hunt frequently.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: And it's a small area and it has like two
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: parking spots. And we go by and there's like two
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: trucks in those spots. And there's like, six or eight
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: trucks parked on the grass, pulled to the side. I'm like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: holy crap, what's going on there? And my wife says, Dan,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: it's been like that since you left. There's been all
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: those trucks there. And it dawned on me that everybody's
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: using cell cameras and they must have, they must be
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: seeing something. And I know where they'd be hunting and
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I know where they wouldn't be hunting. And I cut
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: that dinner short and I went out hunting that night
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: to that spot specifically because of all that pressure. And
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I shot 170 inch buck. And I knew where it
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: would be if those guys are getting it on picture.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And sure enough, my email had just filled up with
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: all the pictures that people had. You shot the buck
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: I was hunting. You shot the buck I was hunting.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I got video of it and all kinds of stuff.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: But it really was a game changer for me to
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: realize that literally everywhere I go on public land, there's
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: cell cameras. I can't walk a hundred yards without somebody
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: getting my picture. And if that's the case, any place
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: there's a giant buck, people are getting those pictures and
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: they're not, not hunting if they're seeing something like that.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: So if you see like a rise, I'm not saying
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: go hunt their trees or hunt their spots. I'm saying
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: figure out what that deer is doing around them, why
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: they're not killing them and hunt that buck where they're
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: not going. You know, most of them I'm finding the
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: mature bucks are not in the tree areas. They're not
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: in the ridges where these guys hunt. They're not in
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: the typical deer spots. The mature bucks are down in
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: the treeless little grassy area next to the parking lot.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: They're in the little overlooked spots. You know, if you
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: kind of look at it like if you were an
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: army soldier and you looked at it like all these
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: guys are here to hunt me and put yourself in
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: a deer's shoes.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Where on that property would you hide where those guys
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: wouldn't go? And if you can find any deer terrain
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: in there, that's where those bucks are going to be,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: the mature bucks. They're going to go where they never
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: smell people or rarely smell people. During rut, last year,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: I decided to run my cameras in doe bedding areas
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: that were heavy with does. And I ran eight different
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: doe bedding areas with cameras and was not going to
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: hunt them at all. And didn't. I tagged out right
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: off the bat last year. And I let the cameras
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: sit there all year and watch what happened. And every
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: one of these... doe bedding areas, you know, you'd occasionally
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: anywhere you get a buck or two to float through.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: But when pre-rut started happening and when one of these
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: does would go in estrus, which you'd see would be
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: a flock, a young bucks would come in and be
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: all over following her around, chasing her and stuff. And
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: the next day and the day after that, the big
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: buck would be there. And as soon as you saw those,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: those young bucks, uh, Just about every time, 12 hours later,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: a big buck would show. It was like the younger
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: bucks kept showing up a day early. And it was
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: really like, okay, you see that young buck activity move in.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: It was pretty consistent and pretty surprising to me. um,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: more consistent than I would have thought.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Interesting. So, so what does that mean for you when
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: we get to, let's say that last week of October,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: continuing kind of through our calendar last week of October,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: definitely pre-rut for most parts of the country. Um, how
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: does your approach shift F at all? Now that we're
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: getting really close to November, but not quite there. And
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: given some of this new stuff you've learned, what would
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: you do differently now?
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Really for me, it's been about that timeframe pushing right
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: into doe bedding areas. And one of the things I've
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: keyed in on is buck rut beds, which I found
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: about 15 years ago. I started figuring this out. I
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: found these beds where they'd be near a doe bedding
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: area and the, the trees around the bed would be
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: tore up, but the bed would be hard to see
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: because they're only bedding there about five or six times
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: a year.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: But the, the, the beds would be situated where they're
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: either watching the does come in and out of the
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: bedding area or it'd be situated downwind smelling them. And there's,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: these bucks would bed there and monitor these does, but
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: they wouldn't go into the bedding area and harass them
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: until they were ready per se. I would hunt those
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: spots and, um, Hunt buck bedding areas that are actual
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: buck bedding areas that are adjacent to doe bedding areas
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: that you see aggressive sign in. So say when I'm
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: out scouting beds in spring, some bedding areas that are
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: buck bedding areas are tore up with rubs. And they
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: look like they're late October-ish rubs. That's generally what it is,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: is that right before rut, they're in there. And if
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: that's near a doe bed, which is quite often the case,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of times the bucks and does bed adjacent
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: to each other. They don't bed together, but they're close.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: And if you get right in between them, that's a
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: really good spot for me. But like I've said a
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: million times, and I know you've heard me say it,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: where I hunt on public land, I can't walk around
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: in any phase of the rut for more than five
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: minutes without walking under a tree stand. So there are no...
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: you know, seven or eight year old bucks that are
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: walking around on these rut funnels in daylight. Like people
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: are perceiving, they're perceiving or chasing those running through all
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: these funnels. Sure. Your odds are higher. And I mean,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: if you look at radio studies and stuff, you see
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: these bucks get up and take off after those and
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: out all day, run through some of these funnels, but
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: it's a day or two of the season. And you
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: just got to get lucky where every day they're moving
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: in on these does and stuff. And you just, and,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: you can put yourself in between them and you can
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: hunt them every day and not get the luckiness of,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: you know, they ran through your funnel one day. I
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: think the thing about the early, late October, early November,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: like that Halloween has been really good for me. Is
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: there kind of still on that pattern, still in your area,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: still right at home, just very, very active in daylight.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: So it makes them very vulnerable. But it's the tail
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: end of it. They're just about to start taking off
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: and be real random.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So at that time of year, there's a lot of, oh,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know, a lot of hubbub every single year
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: when we ever get a cold front right around there.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Like the Halloween cold front, the last week of October
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: cold front. People get really jazzed up about that, very excited.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: And oftentimes they're saying, you know, because of what you
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: just mentioned, right? You've got these bucks that are still
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: kind of on a pattern, but now that cold front
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: might get them up and moving in daylight, just a
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: little bit more, just a little bit earlier. And so
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: you can take advantage of that vulnerability that's maybe, you know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: exaggerated because of the weather. I heard you recently say though,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: that you don't get too excited about cold fronts anymore,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: especially at that time of year.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yes. Is that right?
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: Why is that? Well, I've, you know, I hunt every
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: day and I've never really, and a lot of your
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: listeners are going to raise an eyebrow at this, but
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I've never seen a rise in activity because of a
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: cold front. Or a time preference, like they're coming that
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: much earlier or anything. And it's kind of funny because
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I was talking with a few people, like a guy
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: who tracks them with drones and watches them during a rut,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: and a guy that radio collars them, a researcher. And
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: both those guys told me that they can't find in
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: all the research any data that shows that there's any
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: increase in activity to do with cold fronts. However... The, the,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: the collar guy said he tried to find it and
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: he said he could find some trends that showed a
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: little bit more activity. He said, but it was so minute,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: it wouldn't make a difference to Hunter distance wise. And, and, uh, yeah,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: that was always my belief in the past. And it
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: kind of confirmed to me that it wasn't nuts because
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: everybody out there says cold front, cold front, cold front.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: And I was talking to the researcher and, um, he's
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: from Mississippi, I think. I think you know who I'm
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: talking about. He said, uh, yeah, probably Bronson. Yes. Yes. He, he, he,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: he made it funny. He said, I said, why do
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: you think that people think they move so much during
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: the cold front? He says, Dan, drive around during a
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: cold front. Look at all the trucks out. If they're
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: hunting during cold fronts, they're killing deer during cold fronts.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And he goes in the hunting pressure. We're seeing it.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: Everybody's seeing it goes up so much during a cold
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: front that there's so many more people out there. Hell yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: They're going to kill a lot more deer in a
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: cold front.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Are there any other factors, though,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: that you do think influence deer movement these days? I
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: remember our very first episode together back in 2013 or 14.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I think we spent a decent bit of time talking
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: about the moon. Where do you stand on the moon
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: or any other weather or conditional factors? Is there anything
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: today in 2026 that's different?
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I kind of really gave up on the whole moon thing.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I did a lot of following it back in the
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: time frame you're talking about. And I know we talked
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: about this. I documented, I charted all the time frames
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: when I saw deer, how it related to the moon
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: phase and stuff. And I was out there anyways. And
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I did see some correlation with moon overhead and movement
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: in hill country. but I could not mimic that at
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: all back home in the marshes. I could, I I'd
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: have to create it. I could not, my data would
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: not show that it worked. And, uh, again, if you
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: fall back on the researchers who don't care one way
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: or another, how the research lands, they just check it out.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: They're saying that it doesn't make a difference.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: So maybe I was wrong there.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I feel like you're not alone in that. There's
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of people who, uh, A lot of people
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: have believed in the moon. That's for sure. What about, okay.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: So we're, we've, we've talked about those last two weeks
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: of October. You're pretty, you're pretty tight on the buck
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: bedding areas as you would. You, you move in as
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: close as you can. Maybe at the end of October,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: you're shifting a little bit more towards like rut related bedding,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: getting in between the doe bedding and the buck bedding.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: What about now we're into November? And as you just mentioned,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: right at the end of October, you're right about to
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: having some randomness. Now it's the first week of November.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Randomness is upon us across many parts of the country,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: at least. How are you adjusting now? First week of November.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: A lot of people love that week, but I know
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: some guys who are targeting specific bucks don't like it
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: as much because things go kind of haywire. What are
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: you doing then?
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: It is a little harder for me and it does
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: get a little more random. It gets harder to kill
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: a specific buck. What has worked best for me at
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: that time frame is hunting right in doe bedding areas.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Like some of the better doe bedding areas. And also
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: historical data. Like if I'm hunting a certain buck and
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: he showed up in a certain doe bedding area the
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: year prior at that time frame, I'll be there. They
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: seem to repeat themselves. The Rome Legend buck that I
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: know me and you have discussed... That buck, for whatever reason,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: right around Halloween day, for three years in a row,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: he showed up at the same doe bedding area that
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: was a long ways from his actual home range. It
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: actually made him huntable for me, and I killed him
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: because of that pattern, because I observed that pattern and
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: moved in on it. I do think they repeat themselves,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: but it seems random because it might be they move
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: distances to do it. But it does get tough when
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: there's does popping and heat all over the place and
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: you're trying to predict movement. It gets a little more
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: about using rut tactics and less about actually hunting a
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: certain buck. Which for me, I really enjoy the one-on-one thing,
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: at least in your mind, of hunting this particular animal
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: and figuring out what tree is going to walk past
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: and that kind of thing. But it gets more about
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: getting into doe bedding areas. You know, everybody talks about
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: the downwind side. I don't necessarily think it has to
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: be the downwind side. However, I try to hunt the
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: downwind side because then you're not blowing the does out.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: But a lot of times they will cruise around the
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: backside of these doe bedding areas. And they're just checking. See,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: they might check the wind and they might check the
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: scent trails of the deer does coming in and out.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: It could be either one. It doesn't necessarily have to
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: be that they go downwind of them. Uh, they can,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: you know, they can smell where they walk and tell
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: if they're in estrus or whatever. So, um, and if
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: you've got to be upwind or whatever, you get off
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: the points of the bed and you don't, you don't
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: want your wind blowing right into the doe bedding area
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: because even the buck's likely to go in there after
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: a doe. But you usually tell which side because it erupts, right?
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, they lay down some sign when they're aggressive
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: and rut.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Is there any significant difference in how you move in
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: on and set up on a doe bedding area versus
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: a buck bedding area? So if you're going in on
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: October 21st on a buck bedding area, and then you're
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: doing a doe bedding area hunt on November 4th, how
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: do those look different? Oh.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Doe bedding area, I probably don't have as much of
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: a planned tree or whatever. I'm just going in and
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: maybe they're over here because these does are here or whatever.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: I'm probably a little more random at that time frame.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to find an animal to hunt usually because
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: they're moving around, right? If I'm onto a buck in
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: an area, I'm going to hop from doe bedding area
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: to doe bedding area. Sometimes there's ones that I've hunted
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: a few years that I know this is the tree
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: I need to be in or this is the area
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: I need to be in. But I'll generally go in there,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: creep it, look for signs. And try to hunt it.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: A lot of times you blow the does out of
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: there getting close inadvertently. And that's never really bothered me
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: too much unless you blow the buck out with them,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: which happens here and there. But the does don't have
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: to be there. The buck's going to be their cousin
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: of does. I don't think they generally bed right with
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: the does. It doesn't seem like that to me. It
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: seems like they bed off to the side because the
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: does won't tolerate them there right next to them. So
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: they get up and they come into it. And they
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: can do that anytime during the day. especially if they
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: got good cover, you know? So a lot of it
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: just revolves around just hitting each doe bedding area that
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I'm aware of until I run into the buck, but
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: I'm certainly not hunting funnels and stuff.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: When you're, when you're looking to set up around one
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: of these doe bedding years, how is the sign that
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: you're looking for different than your buck bedroom sign? Like,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: is there, is there, you mentioned rubs being important still.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: But are you looking and interpreting rubs differently at this
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: time of year or scrapes? Is there anything that's more
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: important now than it would have been or important in
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: a different kind of way or the opposite? Is there
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: something that's not important now?
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Well, like in the buck bedding areas, when they're aggressive
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: towards does, they're rubbing usually right in their beds. They're
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: marking their bed. And the rubs in a doe bedding
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: area are going to be on the sides of it
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: where they're working around the does, you're going to be
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: in the trails coming in and out. They're not going
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: to be necessarily right in the beds. Right. And, um,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: so that they'll, when they mark doe bedding areas, you're
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: generally marking the actual does. So if you look at
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: the rubs, they're marking a trail intersection, like where they
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: come across a doe trail, um, or they're, it's usually
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: like the trails. So a lot of guys will get
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: fooled because there'll be a heavy trail. There don't be
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: a rub on it. But if they go down a
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: little ways, the next trail has a rub on it too.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: That's in line with the buck trail. But you're not
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: really going to see that buck trail like you see
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: the doe trail because the doe trail has been used
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: for a long time. That buck trail is just getting
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: used during rut. So you might not even be able
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: to see the trail. So you really got to, you
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: can't back off too far down those trails because generally
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: that buck trail is crisscrossing the doe trail and he's
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: marking it where he crosses it. You know what I mean?
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: So I think people misinterpret why a rub's there or
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: how it's placed.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Speaking of that, you mentioned earlier how a lot of
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: guys want to be downwind of doe bedding years because
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: they're assuming the bucks want to be cruising the downwind
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: side to send check. But as you mentioned, sometimes they're
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: actually going to do something different and they're going to
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: instead cross the trails and, and scent check trails. Um,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: but we've also, you know, you and I have talked
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: a lot in the past about other aspects of how
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: you think about wind, right? Like thermal tunnels and, you know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: everybody talks about thermal hubs now and all these different
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: ways that, that deer are using terrain and wind to
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: stay alive or to find does or whatever it might be. Um,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: has your thinking, yeah. Has your thinking evolved at all
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: on those aspects on the wind side of things, or
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: have you learned anything? recently that's like fine-tuned your approach.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah one of the things i i really like their
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: rut and hill country is coming up a thermal hub
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: where you got all those draws coming together to one
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: draw that goes down i find you almost have to
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: have the wind blowing straight down that draw though or
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: you're gonna get busted but if you if you you
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: find one on a map that has the wind blowing
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: down it i come in from the bottom wind a
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: nose and come up to the point where you get
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: to the base of everything And usually, if it's a
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: good area, there'll be a big scrape right there, and
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: I'll hunt right over the top of that scrape. Because
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: that buck will come in there, and he'll smell every
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: one of those points as the thermals drop in the evening.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: And then he's marking that scrape for the does or whatever.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: And then he can decide which ridge point, which bedding
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: point he wants to go to based on what he smells.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: Because he's going to get order from all of it
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: coming down them hills and down those draws. When you
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: think about thermals, think about if you poured water up
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: on top of those hills. It would run down all
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: those draws to that point. Well, the thermals are heavy
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: air that's just going to flow right down them tunnels
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: to that spot. It's kind of like when you look
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: at a, if you ever see a buck, a big
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: buck enter a field, nine out of 10 times, it's
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: in the lowest spot in the field. It's because it
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: can smell everything around that whole field. That's why it
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: had the balls to walk into the field. So that
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: thermal hub, that base down at the bottom, It's not
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: the complete bottom. I mean, you're not way down at
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: the bottom of the main draw, but right where everything
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: kind of starts to come together and you got to
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: come in from the bottom. There's usually some cross trails,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: there's some drop trails and stuff. You get right in there.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: That has been really good to me too. Speaking of
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: scrapes too, I mean- And is that something- I was
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: going to say when you're by the dough bed and
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: we're talking about rubs, I got distracted. If you have
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: a scrape there, having that scrape in range is a
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: good thing because those blocks- They lay down that scrape
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: and the does will go mark the scrape when they're ready.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: So the buck will want to check that scrape. So
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: usually a scrape is a good spot to have a position.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: And that's probably because that just is, it's there because
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: that's a high concentration pass-through point for those bucks checking
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: the does, right? Yeah. So another thing that we've talked about,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: is that you have historically had a disregard for any
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: kind of scent control. And it's always been forget scent control.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to be smart about my wind, play
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: the wind smart. You can't beat a deer's nose anyways.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: So just play the wind. Well, my buddy that I
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: was talking to yesterday asked me to ask you if
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: that has changed in any way at all in recent years,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: or if you are still 100% that way and still
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: believe you just need to master the wind. Don't worry
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: about the scent. Yeah.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: There's this company that offered me some money. No, nothing's changed. Um,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: I really believe that you cannot fool a deer's nose.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: You can't fool it with ground scent. You can't fool
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: it with a airborne scent. Um, and, and I've had
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: plenty of deer downwind of me and drop milkweed. It
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: hits them and they ignore you. I've had plenty of
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: deer that smell your scent and take off. Um, I've
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: had it both ways. Um, I don't really think that
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: you can beat a deer's nose. There's been plenty of
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: testing and stuff done. All the testing that proves I'm
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: wrong is done by people paid to have the results
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: for a scent company. Everybody that does it independently finds
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: that you cannot beat a deer's nose. They can't do
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: it with a dog and a dog don't smell as
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: good as a deer.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All right. So scent control, that's a product. And
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: as you just mentioned, people selling products oftentimes like to
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: promote the use of that, uh, something that we have
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: not talked a lot about has been calling. I don't
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: think I've, I've heard you spend a whole lot of
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: time talking about that in the past. What about during
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: this week, you know, this first week of November, or
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: maybe even the second week of November, will you ever
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: pull out that grunt tube in a situation where you
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: see a buck that's just out of range, but he's
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: in your zone? Um, is that something you've, you've considered?
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I've actually killed a lot of bucks with grown calls. Um,
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: But I don't call blindly. I do exactly what you
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: just said. If I see one and he's not going
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: to make it to me, I'll call him. And I'd
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: say probably one out of four during the peak rut
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: will come in. Most of them won't, but I'll give
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: it a try. But you won't see me out there
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: tooting a horn on them. I'm going to believe in
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: my setup. But if I see something, it's coming by,
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: and I know I'm not going to get a shot,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try and turn it around. And grunt
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: calls have worked the best for me. I have called
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: them in with rattling and stuff like that.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: What's your grunt approach?
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: My grunt approach? I see them. I grunt at them.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: I don't really do dough grunts. I don't do the bleats.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: I just do a couple low grunts. And generally, I
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: will not grunt at a deer that's looking in my direction.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: They will pin you in the tree like you wouldn't believe.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: I will grunt at him. If he looks, I stop.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: And as soon as he looks away, I hit it again.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: So they'll do that stare like, what's going on over there?
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: What was that? And then they get kind of bored
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: of it. And they're like, I don't know what that was.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: And they turn like that. And then you grunt again.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: And generally, if they're going to come, that's when they're
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: going to come. But if they keep looking and they're
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: looking away, you're probably just going to play that game
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: for a couple minutes and they're going to walk away.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to rewind a second to something we
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: were talking about a little bit ago that just a
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: thought triggered in my mind now related to it. And that's,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: you know, this idea of hunting a new spot versus,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: you know, giving a location a little bit more time. Right. And,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: and as you mentioned earlier, you've seen where historically a
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: lot of us thought, you know, first it's the best
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: sit and you got to bounce around a lot. Right.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: And the mobile hunting thing that has taken off over
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: the last 10, 15 years has led to a lot
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: of us bouncing around all over the place. And for
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: good reason in many cases, but as you mentioned, sometimes
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: these mature bucks actually do want to stay true to
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: a place. Or another thing that I've started to kind
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: of notice more often is deer density can make a
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: big difference. At least in some of the places I've
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: hunted where I've realized in some spots, especially during the rut,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: if you're hunting a low deer density place, you might
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: not have a buck pass through more than once every
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: three days. And if you only give that spot one
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: evening or one day, you maybe never gave it a
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: shot or never would have had a shot at all.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I'm curious if you have had that experience at all.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I know, you know, you're in Wisconsin. A lot of
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: the times you're in this more higher deer density ish area,
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I think, and then like the Northern part of the state,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: but have you ever found times during the rut where
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: it makes sense to play it longer in one place to,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: to kind of play that long game, to give enough
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: time for a low deer density type situation to play out?
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: I think regardless of density, there's a high likelihood that
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: there's a certain buck that hasn't come through yet. Regardless
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: of density. You might have some that do. What I
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: have noticed is that when I do give a spot
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: a few days because I want to give it a chance.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: Because see, I know it's a kill spot. So I
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: want to give it a fair and equal chance. So
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: I hunted a few days. Pretty consistently, I notice the
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: first day I see the most deer, second day I
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: see less, the third day I see less, and I
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: see less and less for a while. And then there'll
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: be the certain deer that just come by no matter
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: what every time. But there's also ways of using terrain
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: and using obstacles to be able to hunt a spot
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: over and over again. Like to have a fallen tree,
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: you hunt the area where you can go shoot over
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: this fallen tree. So the deer never walk where you're at.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: You keep the wind on your side. So then those
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: deer that come through there never know you were there
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: or you're shooting across the creek or something. You know,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: you get some obstacle where those deer don't go to
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: the other side. If you can shoot over it, that's
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: been good for reusable spots. But to me, like if
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: he doesn't come by in a day or two, you know,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: are you in the right spot or is he someplace else?
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: Is there someplace where he's hanging more often? You know,
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: and I think that floating around and keeping him off
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: guard has just been better for me. I'm not saying
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: you can't kill them over and over again. I mean,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: right now I'm tagged out in Wisconsin, as you know. Um, but, um,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: right after I tagged out, one of my target deer
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: showed up on a camera that I got out and, uh,
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: it's an 18 pointer, um, real nice buck. Um, I
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: figured it'd probably go into high one nineties and I'm
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: sitting here without a tag. Oh boy. So I have
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: a good friend. And I sent him in to hunt it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: Buck was coming in. He goes in and hunts it.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you didn't get it. Next day, the
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: thing's on camera. Next day, he's on camera. So he
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: goes back in the next day. Deer disappears for two days.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Then he's back again. And then some other guy comes
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: walking by and waiters. Deer disappears for a day. Then
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: he's back again. And this deer just keeps coming back
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again. And now there's been
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: a whole bunch of activity because there's duck hunters there.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: And it's got them being a little nocturnal, but there's
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: been duck hunters there like the last few days. And
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: he's coming in just after dark. And those duck hunters
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: got to be just down from him. And he's still
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: coming in through past this camera. And the camera ain't
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: even near bedding. It's not even close to the bedding.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: It was in a spot just to monitor deer activity.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: But this thing is coming in around daylight stuff. And
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: there's only so many places you can bed. So I'm
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: trying to help my friend, uh, kill this thing. And
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of questioning if I should just wait till
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: next year and kill him myself. Yeah. Or gun season.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: It's a tough one. Right.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: But you don't know if he'll be there next year
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: or whatever, you know, that goes, but, um, but that deer,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: you cannot push them out of that spot. Um, you
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: can make them nocturnal for a day or two, but
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: you can't push them out of the spot.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: So if you still had your archery tag there, Dan, today, um,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: what would you do given what you've seen him do
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: over the last couple of weeks on trail camera? What
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: would be the move? We're, we're, we're rewinding the clock
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit cause we've, we're going back to October,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: but how would you try to kill that deer right now?
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Cause I'm very intrigued now.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: You've been watching this from afar, but you can't.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Do anything about it.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: It's a very small area. And my conflict is I
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: could probably hop around and get an opportunity maybe, but
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: there's very few trees and I could do damage, but
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: he's getting more and more closer to daylight. And I
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: think there's going to be a window here in a
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: week or so when that deer should be moving in
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: daylight pretty often. And it seems like he's really nosing
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: around a doe. There's a doe that comes through and
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: whenever that doe comes through, he's there. So I think
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: that if that place doesn't get impacted by other people,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: which it could, it's already getting impacted by duck hunters.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: If it doesn't get impacted by people, which this is
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: a brand new spot, just kind of stumbled into it.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: But if it doesn't get impacted by people, it's, you know,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: that deer should be moving in daylight in a week
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: or so, just based on timing. And, uh, like today
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: I got pictures of them, um, or yesterday I got
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: pictures of them at seven o'clock at night. And I
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: think we're, we're dark at six 45 or something like that,
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: or we're closing. So I mean, he's right there, you know,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: So I think being patient is probably the right answer. Um,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: but there is a part of me that just like
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: wants to go now, wants to go now. You know
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: what I mean? When, when I have stuff like that happen.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: So, okay. So let's go back to our current timeframe,
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: back to like mid November. We're in that second week
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: of November ish. We'll say we'll combine the second and
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: third week. Cause I feel like a lot of people
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: think about maybe like November 9th to the 18th, 19th, 20th,
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: somewhere around there. Um, a lot of people would refer
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: to that as like maybe like the lockdown. If you
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: want to overgeneralize a time period, they'll call that sort
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: of the lockdown period of mid November. Um, what do
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: you do in that time of the year? If you
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: were hunting a buck like this, like if you had
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: one buck that you were really wanting to get, we've
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: reached mid November. Um, you just told me how you
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: will hunt and bounce from bedding area to bedding area
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: in early November. Uh, but what about in a situation
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: like this where we're now kind of in the middle
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: and there's really one deer you only want, What would
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: you do then?
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I kind of got to look for those does that
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: are in heat and find that doe bedding again. I
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: don't think my method is really going to change in
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: the doe bedding thing at that timeframe. I just think
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: that you're going to see less deer, but they're still
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: with the does. That's why they're locking down. It's just,
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: they're even locking down in the early part that people
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: are thinking is the great rut with the does that
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: are in heat first. It's just there's still more of
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: them running around, right?
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: I don't think that rut is really changing that much
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: except for there's less does or more does in heat,
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: so more bucks are locked down. So it's kind of,
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: you know, at any time that buck could be done
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: with that doe and going to the next. So it
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: gets kind of hard. But if you had an area
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: and those does keep showing up, I mean, waiting for
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: him to come to that group of does might not
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: be the bad idea either.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Especially if it's a large type of like an area
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: would you focus on?
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: So, so imagine, right. If there's like a thousand acre
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: chunk of public land, I don't know, there might be
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: in the kind of places that I, you know, hunt
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: in Southern Michigan, there might be a doe bedding area every,
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: you know, in every 30 acre chunk or 40 acre
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: chunk or 20, maybe even less than that. There might
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: be like a little family group here and a doe
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: family group there and a doe family group there. So
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: if you were trying to kill one particular buck, by
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: hunting dill bedding areas in mid-November, like, are you going to,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: how wide of a net would you be casting? Would
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: you just bounce from bedding area to bedding area within
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: like his core hundred acres? Or would you stretch out
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: more than that? Like what's your radius?
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of used to less does because I'm hunting public.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: So there's less groups. So my hunting might be a
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: little different than that. But if there was a lot
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: of does around, I'd probably be concentrating on the areas
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: that got the best big buck sign historically. Because I
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: know they repeat the same doe bedding areas year after year.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: So if I know of a doe bedding area that's
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: got a lot of historical big rubs, that's where I'm
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: expecting that animal to show up. By big, I mean high.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: They're high off the ground. Not diameter.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Okay. I follow you.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: What if you see him? What if you are on
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: one of these hunts in mid-November and you see the
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: buck you're after and he is on a doe? He
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: is locked down himself at this moment. What's your next
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: 48 hours look like in that situation?
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try and figure out where that doe
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: is going to go. If she's going to make little movements,
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: where is she going to go? And how can I
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: get in front of her? That's going to be my
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: biggest thing, and it's going to be keeping track, keeping
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: watch as much as I can, having very little with me,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: being a minimalist, so that if that buck gets up
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: and moves and doesn't go in my direction, and he's
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: with her or leaves her or whatever he does, as
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: long as he's not aware of me, I want to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: have an idea of the direction that he's going and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: get in front of him. So I want to be
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: able to drop and move quick. So I don't want
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: to have a whole bunch of crap with me. I
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: know rut people tend to start bringing giant backpacks full
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: of crap and they can't really be mobile. Um, I'm
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: trying to be as mobile as possible where I can
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: just jump down and run, you know, um, maybe just
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: grab my stand and sticks and, and, and be able
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: to run around, maybe even just abandon them and get
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: in front of the thing with on foot.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: If I had to.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: Have you done that kind of thing more often in general?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll share that for a long time, I
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: felt that if I wasn't in a tree, I was
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: out of the game. And then over the last 10 years,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: I've steadily just experimented more and more with different setups,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: like sometimes doing stuff like I've seen you do, like
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: pretty low in a tree, but I've got great cover.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: I'm just above the cattails or I'm in a cedar.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: And so even though I'm only seven feet up, it's
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: the right place to be Or other times, abandoning the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: tree and stand altogether because actually the right place to be,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: you just have to hide in the cattails themselves or
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: hide in the grass and lay down and then be
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: ready to get up on your knees and get the
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: shot when they come. I found personally that those kinds
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: of things actually can work sometimes if you're willing to
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: try it. What about you?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: Have you experimented more and more with that? Yeah, you've
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: seen me hunt out of bushes and Trees as big
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: around as my leg. I've pulled three trees together to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: make a tree big enough to not shake when I
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: put a stand in it. Bushes, basically.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: But getting up above their eye level is so important.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, you get busted so easy at ground level.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: And it's more than just getting busted. It's the seeing
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: and hearing them come. People don't realize how much more
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: vision and sound you get from a tree. Like I've
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: been on the ground in cattails and all of a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: sudden that guy comes busting out pheasant hunting next to me.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: And you're like, how did this guy and his dog
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: come up on me without me hearing them? But you
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: get up in a tree, you'll hear that guy for
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: a mile. Those, those cattails will block that sound. You know,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: so those deer will get right up on you on
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: the ground really quick and kind of bust you. But
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: if you get up above their eyesight where they're looking,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: you do so much better if you can, um, But
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: I'm having a, you know, we're going to do confessions
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: here because you just did yours. So I'll do mine.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: I always had a belief you had to be in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: a tree. And I thought it's nuts to hunt on
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: the ground because every time I try, you know, you
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: get busted and stuff. Maybe you get away with it,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: you know, one out of five times or you got
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: to have the perfect setup or whatever. And then along
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: came Zach Firnboe and started doing this thing he does
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: on video. And I'm like, oh my God, it's real.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: They can actually kill these things on the ground on foot.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: This guy's amazing. So, I mean, there's ways to do it,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: but it's probably not me. I probably don't have the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: patience he has for that. I'm just so used to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: my whole lifetime being in a tree that I really
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: prefer and kind of maybe the tree's a pacifier for me,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: you know? That little tree hug.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: It's working for you. I don't think if it's not broke,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: don't fix it. What about the final week of November?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: This is a period where a lot of guys just
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: aren't hunting anymore, but you hear from a lot of
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: people that target really old deer that this is like
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: a sneaky good time of year. Have you seen that yourself?
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Have you found that very late part of November is
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: surprisingly good or not?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: It depends on where you're at. I hunted in the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: south last year in a late period of rut. Nobody
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: else was out, and I had an incredible hunt. Um,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: but up here, um, we just had our gun season,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: but at last week of November, that's, it's actually muzzleloader
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: season right after gun the last week and guns the
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: third week. So we have rut right up until about
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: gun season and then gun just shuts it down. But
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: even the third week of, of November for us, isn't
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: very ruddish. It's like, it's really tapering down. Um, and
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: then we have that little splurge like the first week
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: of December because our rut is like 30 days after that,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: you have that little where the fawns come into heat
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: and stuff, you know? But that last end, when it's
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: tapering down, which is what you're talking about, regardless of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: what the date is, I'm out there hunting, but it's hard.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: I actually probably start concentrating a little more back onto
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: the normal bedding food patterns. And they're still acting, you know,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: they still have rut tendencies. Um, and if they're showing it,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: I'm going after that, you know, you know, but if,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: if let the deer decide what you're going to do,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: you know, if they're, if they're going back to feeding,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: go back to, to, to the bed hunting near the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: food sources. If they're sticking to the does and there's some,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: still some does going to eat, use that, but you
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: gotta be able to read that and determine for yourself
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: at that timeframe. Yeah.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: So much of this stuff comes down to that, right? It's,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: it's reading the situation. It's being able to have that
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: kind of database of experience to pull back on and
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: to be able to say, oh, yeah, I saw this
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: three years ago. Now I know this is something similar
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: to that. I'm going to do this. Or I did
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: this 15 years ago and it didn't work. Or I
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: interpreted it wrong. Now I'm going to do the right
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: thing now, right?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: It is. That's the luxury. Not to pick on you,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: but so many people do what you're doing and get
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: specific about dates. And those dates where you're at might
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: be real accurate, but a state over or half a
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: state over, they can be drastically different, like a week
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: or two different. Um, so you really got to kind
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: of fall back into what's it doing exactly where you're
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: hunting and, and remember those dates. Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: That's a great point. And in the historical, you know,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: that past context, being able to look back and say, Hey,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: what did I see here last year? What did I
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: see here five years ago? So, so important. And I think,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: you know, I think that's a perfect place for us
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: to wrap this up, Dan, in that in many ways,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: you know, leading up to this conversation, I've just been
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: trying to think back on, okay, these past conversations that
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: we've had and what were these key things that Dan
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: talked about during that 2014 episode and then in that
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: 2016 episode and then in that 2022 episode, right? And
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: there's some things that have stayed true throughout the whole period.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: There's some things that have evolved a little bit. But
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: what about, like, nobody's interested in what I think has
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: changed for you. What about you yourself? If you were
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: to look back over this period of time, we'll say
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: 15 years, and you look at how you yourself have
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: changed your hunting approach or your beliefs or the style
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: that you take in the woods, what stands out to
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: you is that biggest evolution that has made a big
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: difference for you? I.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: I have to say it's probably really just that so
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: many people have started hunting B-style that all the islands, points,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: things like that I've always talked about all have cameras
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: and people on them and stuff where in the past,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: those spots were kind of vacant and you could go
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: in there and easily pick. And I've had to kind
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: of fine tune to what are the deer doing now
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: versus what they were doing. And I'm finding them more
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: like in treeless spots, you know, or buckthorn thickets, places
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: you can't get a tree stand in, especially if you
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: can't get a tree stand in it and you can't
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: ground hunt it because the brush is too high to
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: shoot off the ground and you can't get in a tree.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: People just avoid those areas and it just seems like
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: as they avoid them, the mature bucks move into them.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: What I do for our approach is instead of avoiding
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: an area or not hunting something or saying it's unhuntable,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: is to figure out where that deer is and it
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter where he's at, find a way to kill him.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: He lives here and he moves in this window. I
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: don't have a choice. If I want to kill him
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: in that window, I have to be in that window.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: So I find a way to prop myself up in
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: a bush or on a stepladder or whatever I have
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: to do to kill that animal. I think that's changed
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: a little bit. It's always been that way a little bit,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: as you know from talking to me. But it's really
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: gone that way pretty heavily lately because of the pressure
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: everywhere else. Public land hunting has become cool again. And
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people out there. There's a lot
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: of pressure everywhere. And what you got to do is
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: look at where everybody is and the deer are going
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: to be where they're not, you know, and you just
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: have to move to it. And that's what's been working
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember in one of our chats, you had
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: told the story of, I think I'm 99% sure that
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: this is the story you share. You talked about some
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: like young kid, or I think you just more generally
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: said like, why is it that every year some young
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: kid who's never hunted before goes out there and kills
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: a giant buck, like the biggest buck in the state.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: And it's because, and you explain it's probably because this
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: guy doesn't know what everybody else is doing. And so
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: he just goes out there and sat randomly in some
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: place that no serious deer hunter would go hunt.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: Because they know better. And then of course that's where
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: the big deer is.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Um, and I think that that is now an approach
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: that might actually work better than ever, because there's so
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: many people that know the right thing to do.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Um, That everybody's doing it and it's making the right
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: thing to do the wrong thing now. And so we're
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: having to adjust to that, which is a really interesting
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: new phase of the deer hunting, uh, I don't know,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: journey that we're all on is, uh, how do we
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: now adjust to, yeah.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: It used to be like, that's where people went when
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: they didn't know what they're doing. And when they got better,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: then they'd go get a lease or something, you know, now,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: now it, Um, you run into some pretty smart dudes
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: out there.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: And then for some reason though, Dan, you, you just
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: keep teaching people how to get better. Why is that?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: To make your life worse. But, uh, really, um, for me, um,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: I guess when I was younger, I was a little
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: more greedy. I wanted to be the man maybe, you know,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: I think we all do a little bit when we
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: start out, if we want to be honest, we want
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: to be the guy that kills all the big bucks
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: and everybody looks up to us.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: That kind of lost its shine long time ago. And I,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: I kind of reflected, you know, I think it happens
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: to a lot of people when they have kids, you
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: get your kids into it and stuff and you start
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: seeing things from, you want to see other people succeed,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: whether it's the kids or what. Right. And I always
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: felt like, you know, hunting kind of saved me. Like
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: when I grew up in, um, eighties, you know, as
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: a teenager, um, I graduated high school in 85 and, Um,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: everybody in high school smoke pot, everybody did drugs and
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: everybody drank and there really wasn't anything to do. There
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: was no organized anything. And it was like, you know,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: after school, there's some party someplace. Right. And it was like,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: I watched the destruction of a lot of my friends
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: and I didn't want to go down that route. And
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: I really didn't have anybody to turn on. It was like,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: everybody did that. And I kind of went on and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: became a loner and just haunted. you know, and that
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: was my thing. And I kind of always felt like
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: that saved me. It was like the, the kid that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: didn't get along with anybody, like, like I was the,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: always the outcast, a weird kid, you know, the kid
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: with birds in his hair and, and, you know, hair
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: to his ass. And, you know, people would be like,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: you know, he's weird. And what saved me was the, the,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: the hunting and stuff. And I always feel like there's
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: other kids like that out there. And I just like
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: to bring more people into hunting. And I think if
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: everybody hunted, this world would be a hell of a
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: lot better place. And for me, I see a lot
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: of these young guys get into hunting and I would
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: see them struggle. They wouldn't know where to go or
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: what to do. They didn't have a good mentor. They
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: had somebody who would just say, go sit over there.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: You know, they go sit on the edge of a cornfield.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: They'd watch some TV show and think they can go
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: sit on the edge of a hayfield and shoot 150
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: inch buck. And they would struggle and they couldn't even
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: kill a fawn. And they're wondering what they're doing wrong.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: And they're on the verge of giving up. What I
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: did was I gave him the plan. Here it is.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: You follow my plan. You're at least going to kill deer.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: You know, you might not put the degree that I
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: put into it where I scout all the time and
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: hunt all the time, but if you do it to
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: any degree, you can have what much more success you're
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: going to be able to read the woods more. And
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: up until the time, like in the nineties, when I
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: released those DVDs, everybody, you know, kept it as a
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: secret to people that knew it was a secret. The
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: only thing they would do is share the hunt, they'd
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: share the kill, but they wouldn't talk about how they
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: got there. And I always wanted to give that plan out.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: And I got a lot of hate for that when
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: I did that, but that's always been it for me.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: And I actually made a goal for myself and I
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: stick to that goal to this day. Even when I'm
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: taking a sponsor or anything, I read that goal to
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: myself and I say, is this fit within this? And
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: the goal is I am here to make people better
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: hunters and hunters better people. And if it doesn't fit
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: that goal, I'm not doing it. So what I'm doing
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: now is really giving back to all these people that
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: I look up to and just society. I want to
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: see all of our kids grow up in hunting. I
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: want to see them be better. I don't like what
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: I see when I watch the news. And I just
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: think if we brought more people into the outdoors, they'd
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: be more like me and you and more common, good folk.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: then that's why I do that.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Dan, I will speak for many tens of
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: thousands of deer hunters out there who you have influenced
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: and who appreciate all you have taught us and the
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: plan you have shared. Uh, it's, it's helped. It has
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: benefited is improved the lives of many. So you are,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: you are achieving that goal, um, in spades. So thanks
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: for that. And, For people that want to follow what
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: you're doing right now, this is a good place to
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: wrap it up, I think. What's the latest, greatest place
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: that people should be subscribing to or checking back on
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: to keep tabs and to continue learning from you?
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: My YouTube channel is probably the best. It's The Hunting Beast.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: I do have a website, The Hunting Beast, where I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: regularly get on there and we have conversations with people. Facebook.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: You can find me, Dan Infault, on Facebook. You can
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: find the Hunting Beasts Forum on Facebook. The one I
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: have on the website I think is better because we
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: get rid of all the weirdos. It's just common folks
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: like me and you. But the YouTube channel is probably
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: the best.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, Dan, appreciate you making time to do this.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: We had a couple technical difficulties along the way, but
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: we made it happen, and I'm glad we did.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am too. It was fun.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: All right, and that's going to do it for us today.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: Appreciate you joining me. Best of luck on your upcoming hunts.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: Enjoy this most wonderful time of year. And until next time,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: stay wired to hunt.