Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #92: Using Maps To Become A Better Deer Hunter w/Ben Harshyne

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #92: Using Maps To Become A Better Deer Hunter w/Ben Harshyne · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number to
0:20
Speaker 1: the show. We're joined by Matt making expert Ben Harshine
0:23
Speaker 1: to discuss how maps can make you a better deer hunter.
0:45
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought
0:48
Speaker 1: to you by Sick of Gear, and today we're talking
0:51
Speaker 1: about one of the very most important tools a hunter
0:54
Speaker 1: will ever use, a skill set that will without a
0:57
Speaker 1: doubt make you a better deer hunter. And we're talking
0:59
Speaker 1: about maps and aera photos and topography, lines and cover
1:04
Speaker 1: and terrain and funnels and so so much more. I
1:08
Speaker 1: just think this is going to be an awesome episodes.
1:09
Speaker 1: We're going to be discussing the many different things you
1:11
Speaker 1: can see and learn about on maps, and how those
1:15
Speaker 1: various features actually look on the ground, and then finally,
1:17
Speaker 1: how deer use them. So you know, you've probably heard
1:20
Speaker 1: me and Dan talk about how often we stare at maps,
1:22
Speaker 1: and that's for a good reason. It's not just because
1:24
Speaker 1: we're lazy and don't want to do real work. It's
1:26
Speaker 1: because you can learn so much from maps and because
1:29
Speaker 1: they can help you implement a really sound deer hunting strategy.
1:33
Speaker 1: So that's the plan for today. We're going to cover
1:35
Speaker 1: all of these topics I just mentioned and much more
1:38
Speaker 1: and as much detail as we possibly can. And joining
1:41
Speaker 1: us is Ben Harshein, a map making guru with a
1:45
Speaker 1: serious pedigree in cartography at a hardcore white tail attitude,
1:48
Speaker 1: recently moved to the great state of Iowa. So that's
1:51
Speaker 1: the good news. The bad news, though, is that my
1:54
Speaker 1: trustee co host Dan Johnson could not join us today unfortunately,
1:58
Speaker 1: so he's not going to be able to share with
2:00
Speaker 1: you his latest shed hunting exploits as we planned. But
2:03
Speaker 1: I can tell you that both I and Dan put
2:06
Speaker 1: the shed hunting advice that we covered in the last
2:08
Speaker 1: episode to good use, as we actually both found a
2:11
Speaker 1: good hall of sheds this past weekend, and I actually
2:14
Speaker 1: found my two largest Michigan sheds yet, so that was
2:17
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. So nonetheless, next week Dan should be back,
2:21
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing we're both going to have some good
2:23
Speaker 1: stories because I'm heading to Iowa this weekend and I'm
2:26
Speaker 1: gonna have three full days of shed hunting and hopefully
2:29
Speaker 1: he's going to be able to escape some of his
2:31
Speaker 1: adult responsibilities to join me for a little bit of that.
2:34
Speaker 1: And uh, if things go well, we'll hopefully have some
2:37
Speaker 1: good shed hunting stories to share. So so stay tuned
2:39
Speaker 1: for all that. But with all that said, since there's
2:42
Speaker 1: no co host for me to bs with today, we're
2:45
Speaker 1: going to get right into our interview with Ben. But
2:47
Speaker 1: briefly before that, we're going to take a quick second
2:50
Speaker 1: to think our sponsors of this podcast, Sick tod Gear,
2:54
Speaker 1: and this week, as you might have guessed, we've got
2:57
Speaker 1: Sick of Product category leader Dennis is up with us
3:00
Speaker 1: and I wanted to ask Dennis about a program that
3:02
Speaker 1: launched last year for which SICK could create a group
3:04
Speaker 1: called the Sick of white Tail Ambassador Team, which I'm
3:08
Speaker 1: actually part of as well as our guest today, Ben
3:10
Speaker 1: Harsha On. So, Dennis, what's the deal with this Sick
3:14
Speaker 1: of white Tail Ambassador Team? Yeah, and and it's something
3:17
Speaker 1: we're really excited about, you know, because we think about
3:19
Speaker 1: who we're building for and the guys out there that
3:21
Speaker 1: we're trying to create great products for, you know, a
3:24
Speaker 1: lot of them they are those ambassador types of guys.
3:27
Speaker 1: You know, these are people who who are driven, They
3:30
Speaker 1: hunt hard. You know, they care about a lot about
3:32
Speaker 1: their gear, their bow, everything they own. Um. They really
3:36
Speaker 1: analyze all the details. Um. And you know, for us,
3:39
Speaker 1: we want to make sure we're taking we're working with
3:41
Speaker 1: those guys to create great gear and coming up with
3:43
Speaker 1: his next great ideas and and we're helping them understand
3:46
Speaker 1: you know, well why the sick and make products the
3:49
Speaker 1: way they do and and and they become that voice.
3:51
Speaker 1: You know, these guys are are guys who who are
3:54
Speaker 1: going to be able to relay that message, you know,
3:55
Speaker 1: to their buddies, to the other guys that they live
3:58
Speaker 1: around their home with and help them understand you know,
4:01
Speaker 1: how does how does some of the things we talked
4:04
Speaker 1: about these cops podcasts, you know, so why wicking layers,
4:08
Speaker 1: why installation? You know, these are these guys are going
4:11
Speaker 1: to carry that message for us, and we're super excited
4:13
Speaker 1: to have them, and they're going to carry an authentic
4:15
Speaker 1: message back to us around you know what's missing? What else?
4:20
Speaker 1: So for someone who feels like they fit that profile,
4:23
Speaker 1: is there any way for people to proactively possibly become
4:27
Speaker 1: a part of that process or that that type of group. Yeah,
4:30
Speaker 1: I mean so absolutely. You know, we're sick of web
4:32
Speaker 1: page and a lot of our social media and formats,
4:35
Speaker 1: you know, believe it or not, we pay a lot
4:37
Speaker 1: of attention and we're watching the people who are posting
4:39
Speaker 1: and who are active, who are asking questions, very interested. Um.
4:42
Speaker 1: We you know, we seek those folks out. You know,
4:44
Speaker 1: people don't know that we reach out to those folks,
4:46
Speaker 1: but we do. And the ambassadors are are groups of
4:49
Speaker 1: people who will come from that. So if that's something
4:51
Speaker 1: you're interested in, be active, be involved, Um, give your input.
4:56
Speaker 1: Um we do notice. We pay attention. So there you
4:59
Speaker 1: have that. And in addition what Dennis said, if you're
5:02
Speaker 1: interested in seeing what some of the current Sick of
5:04
Speaker 1: White Tail Ambassadors are up to, you can check out
5:07
Speaker 1: on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook the hashtag sitkuss SWAT. That's
5:12
Speaker 1: Sita s I T k A SWAT s w A
5:15
Speaker 1: T That stands for Sick of White Tail Ambassador Teams.
5:18
Speaker 1: So check out hashtag sikas swat for some of the
5:21
Speaker 1: photos and videos that all these guys and gals are posting.
5:24
Speaker 1: There's some great stuff out there, and if you'd just
5:26
Speaker 1: like to learn more about sick of Gear. You can
5:29
Speaker 1: visit sick of gear dot com. So with all that
5:32
Speaker 1: out of the way, it is now time to get
5:34
Speaker 1: Mr Ben Harshine on the line. All right with us
5:39
Speaker 1: Now on the show is Ben harsh On. Welcome the show, Ben.
5:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me Mark. Yeah, I'm excited to to
5:47
Speaker 1: get to chat with you. We've been able to uh
5:49
Speaker 1: talk on the phone and handful of times over the
5:51
Speaker 1: past year or two, and I always get these little
5:54
Speaker 1: snippets of your map. I don't know your map just genius.
6:01
Speaker 1: I hear some things that your your background always intrigues me.
6:04
Speaker 1: And I've wanted to like just like totally pick your
6:07
Speaker 1: brain and geek out on maps, because you know, if
6:10
Speaker 1: Dan was here, I know he'd be feeling the same way.
6:11
Speaker 1: Me and him are just map nuts. We are obsessed
6:15
Speaker 1: with them. We're always looking at them, we're always thinking
6:18
Speaker 1: about them, We're dreaming about them and going through all
6:20
Speaker 1: the various little planning or scouting elements that are tied
6:24
Speaker 1: into maps. So it's something we love and it's nice
6:26
Speaker 1: to be on the line with someone who I who
6:28
Speaker 1: I think shares that same love. So so thank you, Ben.
6:31
Speaker 1: This is gonna be a lot of fun. Um, Yeah,
6:34
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. And that all said. I. You know,
6:38
Speaker 1: just before we got on the phone with you, I
6:39
Speaker 1: did a brief introduction UM for our audience, and I
6:43
Speaker 1: basically explained to basic things that you're a map guru
6:46
Speaker 1: and that you're a white tail nuts. So with that
6:49
Speaker 1: little bit already out of the way, could you just
6:51
Speaker 1: elaborate a little bit force on you know, where your
6:54
Speaker 1: map background came from, what's your education, what do you
6:58
Speaker 1: do now? And how is all that murder in with
7:00
Speaker 1: your love of deer hunting? Yeah? Short things So UM.
7:05
Speaker 1: First off, born and raised in western Pennsylvania, and I
7:09
Speaker 1: went to school at at Penn State UM for actually
7:13
Speaker 1: have a degree in geography. But but my my emphasis
7:16
Speaker 1: and all of my studies UM work towards UM geographic
7:21
Speaker 1: information systems a lot of people know as g I s.
7:23
Speaker 1: But really what I focused on was it was cartography.
7:27
Speaker 1: So the actual UM, the study of the production and
7:33
Speaker 1: the design of maps is really what what uh what?
7:37
Speaker 1: After student college and it took me down to Washington,
7:41
Speaker 1: D C. Area, where I worked as a as a
7:42
Speaker 1: contractor making maps for the military and the National kind
7:48
Speaker 1: of Terrorism Center. Uh, you know, pretty unique experience and
7:52
Speaker 1: in doing that, and and I spent seven years there
7:55
Speaker 1: um making maps for finished intelligence products that were essentially
8:00
Speaker 1: two decision makers on events that were happening around the world.
8:04
Speaker 1: So it is a phenomenal experience for sure. And UM
8:09
Speaker 1: around twenty blew this ten actually made a map of
8:17
Speaker 1: so being in western Pennsylvania. UM. I was basically raised
8:22
Speaker 1: on hunting ground that was all for us. So if
8:25
Speaker 1: you look at the if you look at the image
8:28
Speaker 1: from you know, an online map source, and it would
8:33
Speaker 1: just basically look like nothing but a stea green. So
8:36
Speaker 1: I made a map UM for my dad for Father's
8:39
Speaker 1: Day basically depicted the terrain inside of of on that property.
8:46
Speaker 1: So you know, standard imagery is just going to show
8:48
Speaker 1: you nothing but green and you really can't differentiate what's
8:50
Speaker 1: going on on the property. I figured out a way
8:53
Speaker 1: to actually visualize the terrain there and that was kind
8:55
Speaker 1: of a game changer for us. Is at the time
8:58
Speaker 1: a pretty cool gift for him, and we used it
9:00
Speaker 1: to you know, further to enhance our scouting efforts and
9:04
Speaker 1: hunting success. And uh, you know, terrain plays a big
9:09
Speaker 1: picture in what you look for as a deer hunter,
9:12
Speaker 1: which I'm sure we'll get into But anyways, I made
9:15
Speaker 1: that map, and uh he showed to his buddies, and
9:18
Speaker 1: you know, they're pretty excited about They ordered maps from me,
9:20
Speaker 1: and words just kind of organically spread, and I decided
9:24
Speaker 1: to create a business called Hunt Terror Mapping, and UM,
9:28
Speaker 1: it was awesome. I continued to work as a contractor
9:32
Speaker 1: and uh, in my spare time, made these maps, make
9:36
Speaker 1: some pocket chains for hunting season, you know, and and
9:39
Speaker 1: it just continued to build and grow and I really
9:42
Speaker 1: focused on, um bringing something different to the table from
9:47
Speaker 1: map production, specifically four Hunters, because it was my passion
9:50
Speaker 1: and um, that's will I enjoyed doing in my free time.
9:53
Speaker 1: So UM fast forward to be like the fall of
9:59
Speaker 1: of of routine and my life, and I realized that,
10:03
Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of decision time as far
10:05
Speaker 1: as what we're going to do with it. It was
10:06
Speaker 1: consuming all of our time, all of our all of
10:09
Speaker 1: our spare time. And decided to you know what, let's
10:12
Speaker 1: let's go after this thing. And we packed up and
10:15
Speaker 1: uprooted everything from northern Virginia, moved to the Midwest to
10:19
Speaker 1: give un Terra everything we had in uh to really
10:23
Speaker 1: get into the thick of um where we do a
10:26
Speaker 1: lot of marketing. We've got a lot of partners out
10:28
Speaker 1: here and clients. Um we make maps for all over
10:32
Speaker 1: the country. But aside from that, you know, I'm a
10:35
Speaker 1: white tail hunting fanatic and there's really arguably no better
10:40
Speaker 1: place to be than than an Iowa. So we landed
10:42
Speaker 1: in uh in eastern Iowa and set up shop and
10:45
Speaker 1: that's where we are today. That's awesome then, and I
10:48
Speaker 1: just really love your story because I feel like I
10:51
Speaker 1: can relate to it a lot, being uh, you know,
10:54
Speaker 1: a one man show myself at least starting. You know,
10:56
Speaker 1: I know that you started from the ground up with
10:58
Speaker 1: you and your wife, and I've kind of followed in
11:00
Speaker 1: a similar path, and I know it's a challenge and
11:03
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool though to be able to merge that
11:05
Speaker 1: that background and skills that you have with map making
11:07
Speaker 1: and all that goes into that with your love for
11:09
Speaker 1: white tails. Um So, so I love that story. But
11:14
Speaker 1: here's the here's the real question. Ben. You made the
11:17
Speaker 1: move to Iowa that you know I sit and dream
11:19
Speaker 1: about every day. Um So, you're I think your first
11:22
Speaker 1: full hunting season in Iowa was this past fall. Was
11:25
Speaker 1: that everything you dreamed it? Would be Yeah, you know,
11:29
Speaker 1: it was pretty phenomenal. Um, I got access to the
11:33
Speaker 1: first I've never um got enough points to come hunt
11:37
Speaker 1: Iowa before. We've actually moved here, and I've hunted the Midwest,
11:41
Speaker 1: um behind the Midwest a good bit here over the
11:44
Speaker 1: past decade, UM, but never in the state. So when
11:48
Speaker 1: we landed here and I got to the point where
11:50
Speaker 1: I was a resident long enough for I could buy
11:51
Speaker 1: it a tag and UM, yeah, I got access to
11:55
Speaker 1: a nice property for archery season this past year. And
11:59
Speaker 1: it was funny. It's essentially a combination of the cattle
12:05
Speaker 1: farm and DRP ground and there's a lot of there's
12:09
Speaker 1: a lot of fence on the property. But um, regardless,
12:13
Speaker 1: I had a couple of small food pots that I
12:15
Speaker 1: put in and um, right off the bat, we had
12:18
Speaker 1: a good wind uh October two to hunt a stand
12:23
Speaker 1: in the middle of the property and right off the
12:27
Speaker 1: food plot. And my parents were in town, were actually
12:29
Speaker 1: doing some work on the basements of the house that
12:31
Speaker 1: we bought. And you know, I said to my dad, man,
12:34
Speaker 1: this would be awesome timing to go sit Iowa for
12:37
Speaker 1: my first time with you, you know, with the man
12:39
Speaker 1: who who you know, fueled the introduced me to to
12:44
Speaker 1: hunting and fueled the passion that I have today. So um,
12:48
Speaker 1: it was like perfect timing went down there, and uh,
12:50
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to see, you know, a big deer
12:54
Speaker 1: necessarily right off the bat. The cameras were pretty not
12:57
Speaker 1: not showing too much, um, but sure enough ended up
13:01
Speaker 1: encountering a a really good deer like I'm I'm guessing,
13:05
Speaker 1: uh five and a half years old or older. Um,
13:08
Speaker 1: that first evening and he was just annihilating a tree
13:11
Speaker 1: and he came out to the food plot. You know. Uh,
13:14
Speaker 1: I was thinking, I really want to you know, get
13:17
Speaker 1: a good sit in here in Iowa. This this first,
13:20
Speaker 1: this first, you know, the first year and and and
13:23
Speaker 1: get a whole season in there. But if he comes, fine,
13:24
Speaker 1: we're not to shoot him. And he didn't come by.
13:26
Speaker 1: But I ended up encountering that year eight different times, um,
13:30
Speaker 1: from October two to December four, and I never could
13:33
Speaker 1: catch up to them. So um No, it was awesome though.
13:35
Speaker 1: And it was a lot of high quality, you know,
13:38
Speaker 1: high value sits here, So there's a lot of fun,
13:41
Speaker 1: special place to be. That's awesome. That's that's pretty cool
13:45
Speaker 1: to have one of those first hunts. To have such
13:47
Speaker 1: an experience like that, I that doesn't happen very often,
13:51
Speaker 1: but it happened to me once my first time ever
13:53
Speaker 1: hunting my southern Ahil property that I hunted now a lot.
13:57
Speaker 1: In the very first time I ever hunted it, I
13:58
Speaker 1: saw the huge four year old buck four or five
14:02
Speaker 1: year old buck that I came to call jawbreaker, And
14:04
Speaker 1: I've talked about a lot on the podcast and stuff.
14:06
Speaker 1: So that was kind of cool. So I hope that you,
14:09
Speaker 1: I hope you can continue that story and that hunt
14:11
Speaker 1: next year. Do you know if he made it to
14:13
Speaker 1: the new year. Yeah, pretty sure he did make it.
14:16
Speaker 1: And looking forward to to um, you know, hopefully pursuing
14:22
Speaker 1: him again. And in my eyes, you know, at this
14:24
Speaker 1: point in my career of hunting, UM, I think I
14:28
Speaker 1: spoke to you to you about this before, but it's
14:31
Speaker 1: really um. For me, the ultimate trophy is is creating
14:35
Speaker 1: history with one specific animal and building that you know,
14:39
Speaker 1: that quest to um try to figure him out, and
14:42
Speaker 1: that that chess match between you two is really um,
14:45
Speaker 1: that's the ultimate trophy. And then eventually catching up to
14:47
Speaker 1: him would be icing on the cake. So UM, yeah,
14:51
Speaker 1: I've got a good opportunity to do that. I think
14:53
Speaker 1: he did survive, so we'll see what happens. That's exciting.
14:57
Speaker 1: I uhcent agree with you. That is my favorite thing
15:01
Speaker 1: about you know, as I've kind of moved in my
15:03
Speaker 1: journey as a deer hunter, that my absolute favorite thing
15:06
Speaker 1: now has been this opportunity to get to know a
15:09
Speaker 1: deer over multiple years and have all those all those
15:12
Speaker 1: ups and downs and encounters and challenges and and maybe
15:15
Speaker 1: once it all comes together. So man, that's cool. Is he? Um?
15:19
Speaker 1: You said he was a five year old? How like?
15:21
Speaker 1: What kind of is he? Like? Really? Whall? What's what's
15:24
Speaker 1: his rack story? Yeah? So? Um the reason it kind
15:29
Speaker 1: of gets you know, and there's a lot of athens
15:31
Speaker 1: about aging, beer on the hoofs and whatnot. Um, but
15:35
Speaker 1: you know, he just had this giant, giant body, deep
15:39
Speaker 1: sagging belly, kind of a swooping low low back, almost
15:45
Speaker 1: like a saddle to what we're going to talk about. Um,
15:47
Speaker 1: just had this look of a deer that was fully mature. Um.
15:51
Speaker 1: So not not you know, That's why I was guessed
15:52
Speaker 1: five and a half. But as far as his rack,
15:55
Speaker 1: probably a low sixties deer, just a really high, um decent, heavy,
16:01
Speaker 1: perfectly clean ten, so um, yeah, he need's awesome. He
16:05
Speaker 1: actually named him Cork. My dad's nickname is Pork, and
16:08
Speaker 1: all my buddies, no, my dad is Pork. And it's
16:10
Speaker 1: funny because I was with my dad when I saw
16:13
Speaker 1: this deer and he came out and I was like,
16:15
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, he is this huge body, and so
16:18
Speaker 1: he got does the nickname pork and and uh, it's
16:22
Speaker 1: it's funny. I'm you know, actually looking at the map
16:24
Speaker 1: right now from my farthest you know, if you should
16:28
Speaker 1: take my four stands farthest from each other, kind of
16:32
Speaker 1: the outer edges of what where I chased this deer,
16:34
Speaker 1: You're only looking at probably m m a hundred acres
16:39
Speaker 1: of really good cover and in a couple of variety
16:42
Speaker 1: of food sources. So um, the farm is is larger
16:46
Speaker 1: than that. But I really, between encounters and camera sightings,
16:50
Speaker 1: dialed into him where saw m blanch She just was
16:53
Speaker 1: always one step ahead of you. So it's interesting to
16:55
Speaker 1: kind of it's you know, it's cliche that sounds look
16:58
Speaker 1: at the map and really see where, you know want
17:01
Speaker 1: the story was telling you. Ye, So do you fall
17:05
Speaker 1: prey to the same thing that me and Dan do?
17:08
Speaker 1: Do you ever find yourself not working because you're staring
17:10
Speaker 1: at a map and thinking about that stuff? Yeah, so
17:15
Speaker 1: for sure, in my office here, I've got a big
17:18
Speaker 1: map of that property and and actually so I'm looking
17:23
Speaker 1: at that. You know, all year I was looking at
17:25
Speaker 1: that thing trying to figure out how I'm gonna um
17:28
Speaker 1: intercept pork. But I've also gotten maps of um properties
17:33
Speaker 1: that I probably won't ever hunt again. I've had some
17:35
Speaker 1: really memorable hunts on and and you know, these maps
17:39
Speaker 1: here are just as a hunter, they're they're a tool,
17:42
Speaker 1: but they're also like the perfect way to look at
17:46
Speaker 1: you know, and and bring up and drum up memories. Again,
17:49
Speaker 1: so um un fanatical about maps and fanatical about hunting.
17:53
Speaker 1: But you know the fact is these maps can be
17:56
Speaker 1: trophies in their own right too. So but definitely like
17:59
Speaker 1: the ultimate distraction, you know in a white teller's office.
18:03
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and I agree, And and to your to
18:06
Speaker 1: your point that they're kind of especially you know, really
18:09
Speaker 1: nice maps like yours. It's almost like art itself, you know,
18:12
Speaker 1: just you can stare with that, and it's memories, it's
18:15
Speaker 1: a story, it's a it's a tool too. But in
18:18
Speaker 1: and of itself. It kind of takes you into that
18:20
Speaker 1: world and can kind of transport you to the other place,
18:24
Speaker 1: whether it be looking at your computer in a map
18:26
Speaker 1: or a real map on the on the wall, a
18:27
Speaker 1: great looking map, or whatever it is. Maps kind of
18:29
Speaker 1: have a way of of taking us to that other place.
18:32
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of special in a in a kind
18:34
Speaker 1: of floaty, weird way, I guess, but but it's pretty cool. Um, yeah,
18:40
Speaker 1: I kind of geek out about. So, without getting too
18:42
Speaker 1: far down that path, I suppose you know, given all
18:45
Speaker 1: of your background maps, right, you've got a very unique
18:48
Speaker 1: skill set compared to a lot of people we talked to,
18:51
Speaker 1: you know, myself and Dan and a lot of our guests, Like,
18:54
Speaker 1: we're serious deer hunters, so we use maps, but no
18:57
Speaker 1: one I've talked to has this experiences as as to
19:01
Speaker 1: how maps are made or what are the specifics of
19:04
Speaker 1: a map, what are the details on a map that
19:06
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not noticing or thinking about. So, so kind
19:08
Speaker 1: of before we dive into all the different ways that
19:11
Speaker 1: hunters can use maps, and there's a lot of them,
19:13
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about, you know, what to
19:15
Speaker 1: look for on maps and what those things look like
19:17
Speaker 1: in real life, how to hunters use them, how to
19:19
Speaker 1: deer use them. There's a lot of that kind of
19:20
Speaker 1: stuff I want to cover. But before we get to
19:22
Speaker 1: all that, I think it might be helpful just cover
19:25
Speaker 1: some of the basics, you know, for those of us
19:27
Speaker 1: maybe that are relatively familiar or those that maybe aren't
19:30
Speaker 1: familiar at all with how to use all these different
19:32
Speaker 1: kinds of maps. But could you maybe start us out with,
19:36
Speaker 1: you know, helping us understanding some of the terminology. Are
19:38
Speaker 1: there any basic terms that we need to understand related
19:43
Speaker 1: to maps before we can dive into all the other details. Yeah,
19:48
Speaker 1: for sure, So we'll start right at the top. UM.
19:51
Speaker 1: Sometimes the word cartography, you know, comes up and some
19:54
Speaker 1: people like maw, what is that? So cartography, you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: I've mentioned before, is the just of designing maps. And
20:02
Speaker 1: with maps, we've always got layers of information. UM. There's
20:07
Speaker 1: a lot of different types of maps and charts out there.
20:11
Speaker 1: They've got goals of UM displaying UM, you know, for
20:15
Speaker 1: navigation purposes, UM displaying displaying quantitative and qualitative differences in data.
20:22
Speaker 1: But it's all basically showing geography and location in the
20:28
Speaker 1: story on top of that, So without telling you that
20:31
Speaker 1: the history of mapping. Here. Really what what we want
20:34
Speaker 1: to focus on are a couple of different layers of
20:37
Speaker 1: information and how they relate to the geography of where
20:40
Speaker 1: you're hunting. Um, specifically the two layers. And that's really
20:45
Speaker 1: where huntera And this isn't gonna be a big picture
20:47
Speaker 1: about my company or anything like that, but the important
20:50
Speaker 1: piece of the puddle puzzle here are two factors. You've
20:53
Speaker 1: got topography, which um sometimes that gets twisted around in
21:00
Speaker 1: really what it is. We've got topography, which are essentially
21:04
Speaker 1: the features that comprise elevation changes throughout the property. So
21:09
Speaker 1: anywhere that you have elevation rise or fall, whether it's
21:14
Speaker 1: drastic or gradual, those features like hills, ridges, saddles, valleys,
21:22
Speaker 1: those features are pertaining to topography. Now, in addition to
21:27
Speaker 1: the topography, we talk about land cover, which is the
21:31
Speaker 1: other layer to the to this picture. And land cover
21:34
Speaker 1: is really uh what you see from from pick your
21:39
Speaker 1: online view or whether it's Google or being or whatever. Um,
21:43
Speaker 1: it's going to be the picture of the earth. And
21:45
Speaker 1: the land cover is is the timber versus open ground,
21:49
Speaker 1: versus water versus man made features. So really the picture
21:53
Speaker 1: that you see is typically the land cover and there's
21:56
Speaker 1: things that we look for there as deer hunters. Then
21:58
Speaker 1: there's topography, which are your train features and your elevation changes,
22:01
Speaker 1: which is there's features there that we look forward as well.
22:04
Speaker 1: So and UM, those are really the two main things
22:10
Speaker 1: that we look for and what we design as map makers. UM.
22:15
Speaker 1: We're blending those two to be able to give you
22:17
Speaker 1: the full picture, UM, of how an animal is going
22:21
Speaker 1: to move from A to B to see how you're
22:24
Speaker 1: going to intercept them on the property. So, so you
22:28
Speaker 1: mentioned two different types of maps sort or layers of maps, UM.
22:31
Speaker 1: And what you've got an aerial map which you mentioned
22:34
Speaker 1: maybe it's a Google map or whatever it might be.
22:36
Speaker 1: The shows a picture like cover like a satellite view almost.
22:39
Speaker 1: Then you have a topo map or a topo layer
22:41
Speaker 1: which shows UM, which shows that elevation changes you mentioned.
22:45
Speaker 1: I want to kind of dive into a little more
22:47
Speaker 1: detail on both of those and then I know that
22:49
Speaker 1: you're able to do something a little bit different comparing
22:51
Speaker 1: both of those. If you're okay with that, I'd like
22:54
Speaker 1: to start on the two individuals and with an aerial
22:58
Speaker 1: and then with a topo map into riginally can you say,
23:01
Speaker 1: can you share tho you know, what is that best
23:03
Speaker 1: used for? And then what do you miss with that?
23:06
Speaker 1: And then you know, maybe you can share a little
23:08
Speaker 1: bit with how the maps you're making maybe account for
23:10
Speaker 1: some of those challenges. Yeah, yeah, sure. So we'll start
23:14
Speaker 1: with the aerial and and really that dates back to
23:17
Speaker 1: the oh man I've actually I think there's imagery back
23:22
Speaker 1: into the forties maybe regardless. Essentially, the aerial is a
23:28
Speaker 1: picture from the sky shooting down on your onto the land,
23:33
Speaker 1: and from there you can distinguish, um, you're where you're
23:37
Speaker 1: you're fields are. So you can distinguish agricultural fields, which is,
23:44
Speaker 1: you know, potential food sources to CRP fields, whether it
23:47
Speaker 1: could be covered past your ground meadows that's really your
23:51
Speaker 1: your open ground. You can you can see the timber
23:53
Speaker 1: um Sometimes, depending on whenever that aerial was taken U
23:58
Speaker 1: you can differentiate between whether um that timber is has
24:03
Speaker 1: hardwoods in it, or if it's comprised the conifers or both.
24:06
Speaker 1: Since conifers will hold their needles all year, you can
24:09
Speaker 1: distinguish that in a wintertime aerial shot. UM. Sometimes you
24:14
Speaker 1: can differentiate whether an area is thicker uh than other places. UM.
24:20
Speaker 1: So that's regarding timber. You can see your water features
24:24
Speaker 1: features of times and your streams, ponds, lakes, your swamps,
24:29
Speaker 1: and then of course whatever men made features are are
24:33
Speaker 1: in that area as well, you know, farmsteads and roads,
24:37
Speaker 1: um even fence lines. So that's when an area is
24:40
Speaker 1: going to give you and where typically unless you're in
24:44
Speaker 1: really rugged terrain, where where What that is not going
24:48
Speaker 1: to show you is the elevation changes. So there might
24:52
Speaker 1: be a nice ridgeline going along cutting through the middle
24:56
Speaker 1: of that that that timber that you can't see, or
24:59
Speaker 1: there might be um fingers of timber that are jutting
25:05
Speaker 1: out into agricultural ground and you can't necessarily tell that
25:09
Speaker 1: there are ditches in the middle of that timber, which
25:11
Speaker 1: could really kind of funnel where dey are going to
25:14
Speaker 1: move where you want to potentially set up a stand site.
25:18
Speaker 1: So that's where your tradeoff is going to be with
25:21
Speaker 1: your your aerial photo, but it's going to give you
25:23
Speaker 1: a really good idea of what what is on the
25:25
Speaker 1: ground there. UM Now transition to your traditional topo map
25:32
Speaker 1: originally made by the U S Geological Survey u s
25:36
Speaker 1: G S. U s GS topo maps. A lot of
25:40
Speaker 1: people are familiar for and they're essentially those maps that yeah,
25:44
Speaker 1: have lines, contour lines that cut around the elevation. They
25:51
Speaker 1: represent elevation at certain heights, and those lines, whenever you
25:57
Speaker 1: look at it holistically, can tell you where your gradual
26:01
Speaker 1: elevation changes are, where your steep elevation changes are, and
26:06
Speaker 1: you can actually distinguish. You can look at the top
26:08
Speaker 1: on map and literally distinguished the major and minor terrain
26:14
Speaker 1: features um of of the land. So it's interesting line
26:19
Speaker 1: back in school if you in the reader or the
26:22
Speaker 1: not the readers, but the audience can can do this.
26:25
Speaker 1: If you make a fist like you're gonna punt yourself
26:27
Speaker 1: in the face, believe it or not, and you look
26:30
Speaker 1: at that fist, okay, at the the entire line of
26:34
Speaker 1: your knuckles, that's going to be your ridge line. So
26:37
Speaker 1: this is basically a diagram laying out for the terrain
26:41
Speaker 1: features that we'll be talking about. So it will sometimes
26:44
Speaker 1: help people visualize what exactly what we're looking for. So
26:47
Speaker 1: your your knuckles, those are your ridge lines. And then
26:51
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, all all of the knuckles on your hand
26:53
Speaker 1: is your ridge line. And then the individual knuckles those
26:55
Speaker 1: are hills. So, um, those are going to be the
26:58
Speaker 1: highest points of ground in between your knuckles are going
27:03
Speaker 1: to be your saddles. So the lower points in between
27:08
Speaker 1: your hills and a longer ridge are your saddles. Um.
27:13
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about spurs, which are sometimes considered
27:17
Speaker 1: secondary ridges. Looking at the top of the map, there
27:20
Speaker 1: you've got your main ridge and you've got these other
27:23
Speaker 1: ridges that seem to be coming off of it. Those
27:26
Speaker 1: traditionally are called spurs, and if you're looking at the fist,
27:30
Speaker 1: those are basically your fingers coming off of the ridgeline.
27:35
Speaker 1: And then in between those spurs are draws, which are
27:40
Speaker 1: basically sometimes they're considered ditches as well. They're basically small
27:45
Speaker 1: valleys that come off of your saddles, that from from
27:49
Speaker 1: water eroding, and those are your draws. So those are
27:53
Speaker 1: some of the some of the terrain features that come
27:56
Speaker 1: up in the terminology we use as deer hunters. And
27:58
Speaker 1: I know that's a lot to type us initially, but
28:01
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. You can actually see the diagram online
28:04
Speaker 1: um where that that hand demonstrates all of these different
28:08
Speaker 1: terrain features that are important to us. I love that.
28:12
Speaker 1: That's a great that's a great way to visualize this stuff,
28:14
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of these you hear these terms,
28:17
Speaker 1: and if you're not, if you're not already very familiar
28:19
Speaker 1: with it, it can be kind of difficult to visualize.
28:22
Speaker 1: So that's a really easy it's a really easy way
28:24
Speaker 1: to do it. And uh, I've never heard someone explain
28:27
Speaker 1: it that way. Yeah, so it's it's I know, dam
28:30
Speaker 1: would be if you was here, you could getting a
28:32
Speaker 1: kick out of it, make you know, act like you're
28:35
Speaker 1: gonna punch yourself in the face, but um, yeah, it is. It's. Uh,
28:40
Speaker 1: sometimes that terminology gets um, I don't would say misused,
28:45
Speaker 1: but it's good to kind of call these things what
28:49
Speaker 1: they really are so that as we're talking as deer
28:52
Speaker 1: hunt as we can actually be consistent with you know,
28:55
Speaker 1: whenever we're sharing our information. But um yeah, those terrain features, um,
29:00
Speaker 1: that all kind of come from that that that hand, Um,
29:04
Speaker 1: that is really what we it's going to tell us
29:08
Speaker 1: the story of how dear are are moving just wildless
29:11
Speaker 1: in general moving around around the property. So yeah, and
29:15
Speaker 1: I love that you mentioned all those because because those
29:17
Speaker 1: are some of the things that I definitely wanted to
29:19
Speaker 1: make sure we we go into in detail. But before
29:22
Speaker 1: we get to that one other aspect. You mentioned a
29:24
Speaker 1: lot of these different features that you can that you
29:26
Speaker 1: can see on a topographic map. Um. But one of
29:29
Speaker 1: the challenges I think someone picks up a top of
29:32
Speaker 1: map for the first time is they look at this
29:34
Speaker 1: and it's just all these squiggly lines and it's hard
29:38
Speaker 1: to make sense of if you don't have sort of
29:41
Speaker 1: an education and how to use top of maps. Is it?
29:43
Speaker 1: Can you share us to It's a simple explanation of
29:46
Speaker 1: how to look at a top of map. I understand
29:48
Speaker 1: the analogy used with the fist, UM, but you know
29:51
Speaker 1: when I look at the lines and all that, is
29:53
Speaker 1: there any way to explain that verbally? Yeah? So UM.
29:58
Speaker 1: The simplest one that's going to jump out to you
30:01
Speaker 1: if you if you don't have much experience with a
30:03
Speaker 1: standard top on that is, UM, look for areas that
30:10
Speaker 1: have the lines close together. So a line is essentially
30:17
Speaker 1: a consistent elevation, and then you've got your next line,
30:22
Speaker 1: which is that that next elevation, whether it's a ten
30:26
Speaker 1: ft difference or a fifty ft difference between lines, and
30:29
Speaker 1: each map is going to tell you what that that
30:32
Speaker 1: that that difference in interval is. But whenever you have
30:37
Speaker 1: contour lines that are typed together. That represents a drastic
30:42
Speaker 1: elevation changed in a short amount of time. So UM,
30:47
Speaker 1: a cliff take a cliff for example. Everybody knows what
30:50
Speaker 1: a cliff is, and that's actually considered a officially a
30:53
Speaker 1: minor terrain feature. UM, but a cliff is going to
30:59
Speaker 1: have many lines right on top of each other. It's
31:04
Speaker 1: not right next to each other, symbolizing that the land
31:07
Speaker 1: is coming across and then basically dropping straight down. Now,
31:11
Speaker 1: on the other hand, if you try to find UM,
31:15
Speaker 1: if you see areas where lines are farther apart from
31:20
Speaker 1: each other, that's going to be a gradual flatter area.
31:25
Speaker 1: So longer distances in between elevation change means more gradual slope.
31:32
Speaker 1: So those are the two main things you can get
31:36
Speaker 1: right off the bat off of the top of map.
31:40
Speaker 1: And then there's other things, fancier things you can look for.
31:43
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's kind of hard to describe
31:46
Speaker 1: UM just without visualizing it, you know, with a graphic
31:50
Speaker 1: or something. But UM saddles well of person. We'll start
31:54
Speaker 1: with hills. Hills are gonna be basically the circles as
31:58
Speaker 1: you see these contour lines work. Its way up the slope,
32:02
Speaker 1: and the very very top one essentially is a circle
32:05
Speaker 1: that represents the highest elevation point on that area. So
32:09
Speaker 1: that's gonna be your hill. Well, if you have two
32:12
Speaker 1: hills side by side with a lower area in between,
32:16
Speaker 1: and I think basically that will kind of look like
32:19
Speaker 1: an hour glass, like the skinny part of an hour glass,
32:23
Speaker 1: that's going to be your saddle. Um. So these are
32:27
Speaker 1: features that you can basically pick out with the topo map.
32:31
Speaker 1: They're gonna if you start to study how these contour
32:34
Speaker 1: lines move um and and relate to each other, it's
32:39
Speaker 1: gonna tell you a lot about um, the ruggedness or
32:42
Speaker 1: the lacker of on your your property. So um. Another
32:46
Speaker 1: one that we look for our valleys. So if you
32:51
Speaker 1: can get a grasp on Okay, here's my highest point.
32:54
Speaker 1: Uh here, here, here's my hill, and here's where it's
32:57
Speaker 1: sloping down, and then it basically comes to the bottom, um,
33:03
Speaker 1: and then you can tell it starts to work its
33:05
Speaker 1: way back up. Well, that crease in the middle is
33:07
Speaker 1: going to be your valley. Sometimes a lot of times
33:10
Speaker 1: it's the stream bed, so water naturally flows down because
33:13
Speaker 1: of gravity, and a lot of times you're gonna find
33:15
Speaker 1: your water on that property in that valley. So um,
33:21
Speaker 1: that's something that can really um, you know, help you
33:26
Speaker 1: get a grasp once you really start to understand, Okay,
33:29
Speaker 1: here's an area that has a higher elevation, here's my
33:31
Speaker 1: slopes going downhill. Boom, there's a valley. And then you
33:34
Speaker 1: can look in there and if if the coco top
33:37
Speaker 1: of map is really getting h able to, if it's
33:42
Speaker 1: really able to to be um detailed enough, you'll be
33:48
Speaker 1: able to pick out things like benches. So a bench
33:51
Speaker 1: and this is really our bread and butter back in
33:54
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and with my dad and I had some of
33:56
Speaker 1: our stand locations. A bench is essentially you've got a
33:59
Speaker 1: pretty steep hill coming off of a ridge and you've
34:04
Speaker 1: got um, basically, those lines come farther apart, so they're
34:08
Speaker 1: they're pretty close together, pretty close together, then they're wider
34:13
Speaker 1: for a little while. That represents a flat area on
34:16
Speaker 1: the side of the hill, and then maybe we'll start
34:18
Speaker 1: to drop down again. So it's pretty The top of
34:21
Speaker 1: the map can be kind of tricky to work with
34:24
Speaker 1: it if you don't have familiarity with it. Um on
34:27
Speaker 1: you know, a consistent basis, but uh, that's really whenever
34:32
Speaker 1: we added that feature on top of some of the
34:35
Speaker 1: other relief shading and everything we do with on Terry,
34:38
Speaker 1: it really was a game changer for for for what
34:41
Speaker 1: what we were doing, because not only did you have
34:43
Speaker 1: the aerial photo, you have top of map and is
34:46
Speaker 1: telling you land cover funnels and pinch points and features,
34:50
Speaker 1: is telling you terrain funnels and pinch points and features. Yeah. Yeah,
34:54
Speaker 1: it makes a huge difference. And one of the things
34:56
Speaker 1: the top on maps. I don't know if if this
34:58
Speaker 1: is something other people do, but you know, when when
35:00
Speaker 1: I first started looking at top all maps, it was
35:02
Speaker 1: just like I felt like I was looking at a
35:04
Speaker 1: maze or something that I just did not process it
35:07
Speaker 1: all in my head. But then like I started doing
35:09
Speaker 1: the things like you mentioned, I started looking for the hills.
35:12
Speaker 1: Okay that if that's a hill, then okay, that must
35:14
Speaker 1: be a valley, and that must be a ridge. And
35:17
Speaker 1: as you start to intellectually understand that, it almost feels
35:21
Speaker 1: like did you ever did you ever look at those
35:23
Speaker 1: books back when you're like in school, like these three
35:26
Speaker 1: D books, like you stared an image, and if you
35:28
Speaker 1: stared it long enough in a certain way, all of
35:29
Speaker 1: a sudden this three D image comes out. Do you
35:31
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, optical illusions or
35:35
Speaker 1: something you know like that, Yeah, exactly. So it's almost
35:39
Speaker 1: like that with a top of map. Now for me,
35:40
Speaker 1: where like if I now that I once I figure okay,
35:43
Speaker 1: these are the high points, these are the low points,
35:45
Speaker 1: and I look at it in a certain way, I
35:47
Speaker 1: almost becomes like three dimensional in a way, and you
35:50
Speaker 1: can see it. But that takes a while to like
35:52
Speaker 1: see it that way. Which is why I really like
35:54
Speaker 1: what you're what you're doing with your maps, because you're
35:57
Speaker 1: you're adding the actual relief and shape thing so that
36:01
Speaker 1: it stands out and it actually looks like it's higher
36:03
Speaker 1: or lower. And so you know, even if somebody, even
36:06
Speaker 1: if somebody wasn't going to buy a new map or anything,
36:10
Speaker 1: it would be helpful for people just to almost look
36:13
Speaker 1: at you know. For example, I've got uh maps that
36:17
Speaker 1: you had created Ben for me of some of my
36:18
Speaker 1: hunting propers that I've that I've included on blog posts
36:21
Speaker 1: and things for Wired to Hunt, where it shows this
36:23
Speaker 1: aerial image of a farm with the topography with the terrain, elevation, um,
36:29
Speaker 1: the shading and stuff as you mentioned, shown plus the
36:31
Speaker 1: top of maps, so you can see the topo lines
36:33
Speaker 1: overlaid over the actual relief imaging, which can almost help
36:38
Speaker 1: you align in your head. Okay, those lines like that
36:41
Speaker 1: look like that, and so you can then if you
36:44
Speaker 1: were to separate, then it makes a little bit more sense.
36:46
Speaker 1: It's almost like a training mechanism if you don't have
36:48
Speaker 1: any experience at all. Um, it's helpful to to look
36:51
Speaker 1: at a picture to then say, okay, that's what the
36:53
Speaker 1: picture looks like. This is what it looks like in
36:55
Speaker 1: topo lines. Um. It's it's a great it's a great tool.
36:59
Speaker 1: And obviously having it all layered in one map is
37:02
Speaker 1: the is the ultimate, which is why I love using
37:05
Speaker 1: those those maps. But there's a lot. It takes some experience.
37:07
Speaker 1: It takes looking at these things and and kind of
37:10
Speaker 1: just becoming getting your brain and your eye used to
37:13
Speaker 1: how to read it before you can then start laying
37:16
Speaker 1: layering over how to deer use these things. So it's
37:18
Speaker 1: it's definitely a process. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So so okay,
37:24
Speaker 1: let's let's say hypothetically, right, we understand how to look
37:27
Speaker 1: at these maps and read them, whether it's an aerial
37:29
Speaker 1: or topo or all three combined. Um, Now that we
37:33
Speaker 1: have these maps and understanding, how are you actually using
37:37
Speaker 1: them as a hunter? I mean, for me, I use
37:40
Speaker 1: maps in a couple of different ways. I'm I'm looking
37:42
Speaker 1: at them when I'm scouting a property, even before I
37:44
Speaker 1: go on the ground. I'm looking at it when I'm
37:46
Speaker 1: actually hunting, when I'm setting things up or thinking about
37:49
Speaker 1: how deer might use it or how I might you know,
37:51
Speaker 1: enter actually all these different things. Um. And then even
37:54
Speaker 1: you know from how managing a property. But I'm curious
37:57
Speaker 1: from your perspective, are you are you use maps in
38:00
Speaker 1: any of those ways or in any you know, in
38:02
Speaker 1: any other ways. Could you elaborate on how you use
38:05
Speaker 1: maps in your tool set? Yeah? For sure, and you've
38:09
Speaker 1: nailed You've nailed them. Um. Whether you're considering trying to
38:15
Speaker 1: access a piece of property you've never been on before,
38:17
Speaker 1: whether you're maybe looking for permission ground, or even you're
38:20
Speaker 1: looking to purchase that property. We work with a lot
38:24
Speaker 1: of clients that are in land transactions, so um, before
38:28
Speaker 1: you even touch that property, the map is going to
38:31
Speaker 1: be your number one tool. Um, just like you were
38:36
Speaker 1: going to you know, put you need a blueprint to
38:40
Speaker 1: to build a house. You need a map to be
38:44
Speaker 1: able to pinpoint where you're going to start scouting. Um,
38:49
Speaker 1: your your property. It's going to save you a lot
38:52
Speaker 1: of time ahead of if you know what to look for,
38:55
Speaker 1: it's gonna save you a lot of time to know
38:58
Speaker 1: exactly where you pinpoint some of your initial scouting efforts.
39:02
Speaker 1: So before you even touch that property, is is vital. Uh.
39:07
Speaker 1: And then during during the season, once you've been on
39:10
Speaker 1: that property, you go there and your ground truth some
39:13
Speaker 1: of the features that you look for. So um, right
39:18
Speaker 1: off the bat, I look for um. Okay, number one
39:22
Speaker 1: question here is where do I think deer are going
39:25
Speaker 1: to be betting? Okay, we're gonna look for betting areas.
39:29
Speaker 1: We're gonna look for potential food sources, whether there's food
39:32
Speaker 1: plots on the property or not. Um, you're gonna look
39:36
Speaker 1: for your betting areas. You're gonna look for your cover areas.
39:41
Speaker 1: You're gonna look for your food areas and your your
39:43
Speaker 1: travel routes in between there and you go on the
39:46
Speaker 1: ground and you actually try to ground truth and and
39:48
Speaker 1: prove you know, figure out if uh you know what
39:51
Speaker 1: you were looking for? Is there look for the deer
39:54
Speaker 1: sign to try to confirm uh what, um, you know
39:58
Speaker 1: what what you initially thought with the pro pretty so
40:01
Speaker 1: as soon as you hit it, you know the map
40:03
Speaker 1: is important. And then throughout hunt in the season to
40:06
Speaker 1: say you've been on a property for it's five years,
40:09
Speaker 1: you know, and you think you know like the back
40:11
Speaker 1: of your hand, which you probably do. It's always good
40:13
Speaker 1: just to continue to look at that map and really
40:18
Speaker 1: put together, um, the pieces of the puzzle from encounters
40:23
Speaker 1: to camera uh, camera pictures, you've got a specific gear
40:28
Speaker 1: with trail camera. Um, you look at how you're accessing
40:32
Speaker 1: the property, things you could change about it. It's it's
40:35
Speaker 1: always uh basically I'm always keeping my map updated and
40:40
Speaker 1: looking at the current snapshot of of of what's going
40:44
Speaker 1: on with it. So um, that's really you know, even
40:48
Speaker 1: in season and in postseason, the map is always playing
40:52
Speaker 1: an important role. There's kind of two different ways you can.
40:55
Speaker 1: You can look at the map, uh and and look
40:58
Speaker 1: at your property. There's macro and then there's micro. So
41:03
Speaker 1: macro is is how how is your land? And you
41:06
Speaker 1: gotta zoom out on this. How is your property that
41:10
Speaker 1: you're hunting or thinking about hiding or thinking about buying?
41:13
Speaker 1: How is that property? Play into the surrounding area. Um,
41:20
Speaker 1: are you competing with a lot of food sources? Do
41:23
Speaker 1: you have the best cover in town? Is your ground
41:26
Speaker 1: a major travel corridor in between bigger chunks of timber?
41:29
Speaker 1: You look, you try to you try to see how
41:32
Speaker 1: your property plays into the holistic reasonable area of a
41:37
Speaker 1: deer herd, which is not I mean unless you have
41:40
Speaker 1: thousands of acres um Mature bucks are known to roam
41:44
Speaker 1: the square mile or even more depending on where you're
41:47
Speaker 1: at and what what what you're covering food is like.
41:51
Speaker 1: So you've got to look at the property from a
41:54
Speaker 1: macro level and see how the edges of your property
41:58
Speaker 1: are are able to exploit year travel on and off
42:01
Speaker 1: of it. And then you look at the micro aspect
42:03
Speaker 1: of studying a map, and that's really looking for these
42:07
Speaker 1: specific features that we're talking about. Once we're on a
42:11
Speaker 1: on a piece of property, we're looking for specific features
42:14
Speaker 1: at that micro level that we can exploit to catch
42:21
Speaker 1: up to a deer. You know, whether it's through um,
42:24
Speaker 1: we're looking at ways, we're accessing stand locations, we're laying
42:28
Speaker 1: out sanctuaries we're not gonna touch except for maybe during
42:32
Speaker 1: shed season to give dear you know, a form of
42:35
Speaker 1: security year round. UM, we're looking at potential places to
42:41
Speaker 1: put in food plots or where we can enhance cover more.
42:45
Speaker 1: We're looking for creek crossings, you know that micro level
42:47
Speaker 1: once we're actually on a property, So you're never going
42:50
Speaker 1: to get the whole story with a map. You've got
42:52
Speaker 1: to get on the ground and look for sign in UM,
42:57
Speaker 1: you know, confirm really what's going on there, and you've
43:00
Speaker 1: got to hunt the property. The map is not just
43:02
Speaker 1: gonna hunt for you, but it's gonna give you a
43:05
Speaker 1: really good step in getting there quicker. And then it's
43:08
Speaker 1: going to be at your side to to really tell
43:10
Speaker 1: you and guide you through UM and have a conversation
43:14
Speaker 1: with you as crazy as that sounds, on on what
43:17
Speaker 1: you should be doing to make adjustments and have success
43:20
Speaker 1: in the field. Yeah, you hit it on the head.
43:23
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of things in there that
43:25
Speaker 1: I want to comment at. Number one, I love the
43:27
Speaker 1: fact that you brought up the point of the of
43:30
Speaker 1: the macro level and understanding how your property fits into
43:33
Speaker 1: the larger scheme of things. I mean, I think so
43:35
Speaker 1: often we get tunnel division right, we look at just
43:37
Speaker 1: our property, just within our property, lines, and you know,
43:41
Speaker 1: inform all of our hunting decisions or habitat iferment decisions
43:44
Speaker 1: all based on that. And that's a huge mistake a
43:46
Speaker 1: lot of the time, because to your point, there's so
43:49
Speaker 1: many of the things that a deer's life encompasses, a
43:52
Speaker 1: lot more than just a single property. In most cases,
43:55
Speaker 1: you need to know how all these things factor in it.
43:57
Speaker 1: So when you're looking to buy a property, even or
44:00
Speaker 1: LEAs of property, or trying to get permission on hunting properties,
44:03
Speaker 1: understanding how your piece fits into the larger puzzle can
44:07
Speaker 1: be a make or break decision. I mean, for example,
44:09
Speaker 1: my southern Ohio lease is a very small piece. It's
44:13
Speaker 1: ninety acres of which only like forty acres or even huntable.
44:16
Speaker 1: The rest is just field, So it's a it's a
44:17
Speaker 1: pretty darn small piece of actual huntable ground. But because
44:21
Speaker 1: of how it fits into the larger landscape, it pulls
44:24
Speaker 1: deer in from a much wider area and funnels them
44:27
Speaker 1: into this section, so it makes it a much more
44:30
Speaker 1: huntable and much better property than it might look if
44:33
Speaker 1: you were to just look within the border. So super
44:36
Speaker 1: super important to look at the big picture. Um. And
44:40
Speaker 1: then like you said, it can it can guide you
44:42
Speaker 1: throughout the season than two from a from a decision standpoint,
44:46
Speaker 1: and even before the hunting season. I want to make
44:48
Speaker 1: a point where when it comes to scouting, there's nothing
44:51
Speaker 1: more important from a scouting aspect for me at least
44:54
Speaker 1: than those initial hours or days scouting via map um.
44:59
Speaker 1: It makes real on the ground scouting so much more
45:01
Speaker 1: effective and in efficient. Really, I mean, especially when I'm
45:05
Speaker 1: hunting these out of state locations that some other guys
45:08
Speaker 1: do to where I'm you know, traveling to Iowa, Ohio,
45:11
Speaker 1: and I only have a weekend or a day or
45:13
Speaker 1: something to scout a new property. I can't walk every
45:15
Speaker 1: square inch of it, right, most of us don't have
45:17
Speaker 1: the time to walk every square inch of a property
45:20
Speaker 1: that we maybe already have permission hunt or might have
45:23
Speaker 1: permission hunt, or whatever it is. But if you can
45:25
Speaker 1: look at a map and identify some of those key
45:27
Speaker 1: things you mentioned, Ben, like, all right, I think there's
45:30
Speaker 1: probably betting here, I think there's probably a good food
45:32
Speaker 1: source here, and then spend your five hours just double
45:36
Speaker 1: checking those places. Man, you can be a lot more
45:39
Speaker 1: effective with your time. So so you can definitely get
45:43
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. Yeah, and one other example that
45:47
Speaker 1: came to mind when you were talking about almost having
45:49
Speaker 1: a conversation with a map, and I like that in
45:51
Speaker 1: hellogy Um because because it's maybe I'm weird, but it's
45:55
Speaker 1: true in my case, Like I can look at a
45:57
Speaker 1: map throughout a season over and over. I mean I
45:59
Speaker 1: literally look at Matt before every single hunt and sometimes
46:01
Speaker 1: after every single hunt, like every single day, I'm looking
46:04
Speaker 1: at these maps and I'm thinking through how I'm going
46:07
Speaker 1: to move on the property, and how I think dear
46:08
Speaker 1: are going to move on the property, and then how
46:10
Speaker 1: the wind is moving on the property, and so that
46:13
Speaker 1: that's an everyday thing for me throughout the season. And
46:14
Speaker 1: if I didn't have a good map to look at,
46:16
Speaker 1: I'd be I'd be blind. So an example of this
46:19
Speaker 1: which is interesting and it almost paid off in the
46:21
Speaker 1: hugest way, Um and our listeners know, I hunted a
46:25
Speaker 1: new property, a couple of new properties in Iowa last year.
46:28
Speaker 1: So I got permission on him, and I had like
46:31
Speaker 1: an hour or two to walk both of these properties.
46:34
Speaker 1: And they were like four hundred seven A properties, so
46:37
Speaker 1: I had very little time to walk them. I just
46:38
Speaker 1: kind of checked some some key places. But even with
46:42
Speaker 1: that small amount of scouting, and there's still a lot
46:44
Speaker 1: I didn't know. So before my first trip to hunt,
46:47
Speaker 1: my buddy and I sat at a little dinner one
46:51
Speaker 1: Thursday morning, and I had my map with me, and
46:53
Speaker 1: we sat down and drank coffee for like two and
46:55
Speaker 1: a half hours with this map in between us, and
46:57
Speaker 1: we just looked at it and talked about it. I
47:00
Speaker 1: think there might be something happened here, and what do
47:02
Speaker 1: you think about how the deer might be using that
47:03
Speaker 1: ridge line and kind of this kind of looks like
47:06
Speaker 1: this might be a good way to access based on
47:08
Speaker 1: what I saw here, And here's a creek bottom. I
47:09
Speaker 1: think I can sneak up there. So for two hours
47:11
Speaker 1: we just sat there and walked through how we thought
47:14
Speaker 1: deer we were using this and how I went want
47:16
Speaker 1: to hunt it. And so when I when I initially
47:18
Speaker 1: came into that morning, I was thinking, Okay, my first hunt,
47:20
Speaker 1: I want to be relatively low risk, right, I don't
47:23
Speaker 1: want to I don't really know what's going on, so
47:24
Speaker 1: I want to be able to. I want to learn
47:26
Speaker 1: from my first time without screwing things up too much.
47:28
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there's a cold front coming
47:30
Speaker 1: and conditions were great, so I wanted to, you know,
47:33
Speaker 1: be in a position where I might be able to
47:34
Speaker 1: catch some actions. So there was this point, there's this
47:37
Speaker 1: point of a crowd field extending into this larger section
47:40
Speaker 1: of timber that I thought might be worth hunting. So,
47:43
Speaker 1: you know, before pre pre coffee and maps, that's where
47:46
Speaker 1: I was going to go. So for two hours we
47:48
Speaker 1: sat talking about Okay, yeah, that looks good, and we're
47:50
Speaker 1: talking about the wind direction, what I was supposed to
47:52
Speaker 1: be and all that, and somehow, for the first two
47:54
Speaker 1: hours or whatever it was that we were sitting there
47:57
Speaker 1: actually was the whole conversation. We were thinking, that's a
47:59
Speaker 1: good idea. And it wasn't until I went home later
48:01
Speaker 1: that day I looked at the map again, and it's
48:03
Speaker 1: funny how, I don't know, it's probably more of a
48:05
Speaker 1: me thing than a map thing, but all of a
48:07
Speaker 1: sudden something clicked in my head with that map that
48:11
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the reverse the whole all the
48:13
Speaker 1: wrong way, and I started thinking, with that wind, I
48:16
Speaker 1: actually think the deer would be traveling a different direction
48:19
Speaker 1: to take advantage of that, and also with the wind.
48:22
Speaker 1: How it was looking at that map and I actually
48:25
Speaker 1: look almost like pencil in or marker, and sometimes you
48:28
Speaker 1: know where I think or craned in where I think
48:30
Speaker 1: that wind's gonna be blown, just like a visualized I'm
48:32
Speaker 1: a visual guy when it comes to these things. So
48:34
Speaker 1: after doing all this thinking, I finally had this aha
48:36
Speaker 1: moment that said, no, you are going about the completely
48:39
Speaker 1: wrong way. You need to go to this other point
48:41
Speaker 1: where it wasn't a point but an extension of the
48:43
Speaker 1: timber out into the field, so the opposite section where
48:45
Speaker 1: I could access it a lot easier. But I found
48:48
Speaker 1: this little hidden water hole that I hadn't seen before
48:50
Speaker 1: until after staring that map for two and a half hours,
48:53
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, I snuck in there, hung stand
48:56
Speaker 1: the first night, and I had the biggest eight pointer
48:58
Speaker 1: four or five year old I've ever seen in my
49:00
Speaker 1: life within twenty yards of my stand. Um, I'm now
49:03
Speaker 1: sure there's a little bit luck in that. But if
49:05
Speaker 1: I hadn't spent two and a half hours thinking and
49:07
Speaker 1: thinking and visualizing and looking at this map, I would
49:10
Speaker 1: have never sat there. Who knows what to happened. Um, Yeah,
49:14
Speaker 1: that's a very long winded example, but there's so much
49:20
Speaker 1: to listen. It's it's uh a lot of guys or
49:24
Speaker 1: either hunting public ground, which they're dealing with huge, huge
49:29
Speaker 1: potential areas to hunt you thousands of acres, or maybe
49:33
Speaker 1: they're going out of state on do yourself hunt somewhere. Um,
49:36
Speaker 1: you've got to maximize and make your time in the
49:40
Speaker 1: field as beneficial as possible, and just aimlessly walking around
49:44
Speaker 1: on the property is not going to get you too far.
49:46
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, that's that's great. And I have
49:50
Speaker 1: the same thing, you know, I I got so focused
49:52
Speaker 1: on chasing this one deer this year, I neglected some
49:55
Speaker 1: other parts of the property, and UM, it hit me
49:59
Speaker 1: one day looking at this map. I'm like, man, I
50:01
Speaker 1: was getting some great pictures on this part of the farm,
50:03
Speaker 1: of consistent pictures, and this this one deer, and and
50:09
Speaker 1: there's either on the other part of the farm, and
50:11
Speaker 1: it just kind of hit me. And this one hillside
50:13
Speaker 1: I never even attempted to check out because it was
50:17
Speaker 1: a little more and didn't want to put a camera
50:19
Speaker 1: back there because I thought I would do more damage
50:21
Speaker 1: than good. But I just neglected it and I got
50:23
Speaker 1: focused on this this other buck. You know that I'm
50:25
Speaker 1: chasing this pretty confined area. UM. I went their postseason
50:29
Speaker 1: and sure enough. I mean, it was like a light
50:32
Speaker 1: switch went off that hillside that I want to look on,
50:35
Speaker 1: and it took me about all the three minutes to
50:37
Speaker 1: find a major buck, like a true buck betting area,
50:40
Speaker 1: mature buck betting area. He had he had multiple trees
50:44
Speaker 1: grinding down like the handle of a Louisville slugger. So, um,
50:48
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like, oh man, I mean,
50:50
Speaker 1: it's that's after the fact now, but I'll remember that
50:53
Speaker 1: going into next year. Whether that buck that made that
50:58
Speaker 1: specific set of rubs and that is his bed right there,
51:03
Speaker 1: whether he survived or or not, is regardless to the
51:06
Speaker 1: fact that another one could be there as well. So um,
51:11
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's something that you know, you don't
51:14
Speaker 1: always in us as hunters, especially free range white tails.
51:18
Speaker 1: You never you never always figured out that these animals
51:22
Speaker 1: are always one step ahead of you. She gotta you know,
51:24
Speaker 1: be looking at at at as much information as you
51:28
Speaker 1: can get to catch up to one of these boys.
51:31
Speaker 1: So all right, So we've covered a lot so far,
51:35
Speaker 1: but we haven't even really gotten into the detailed part
51:38
Speaker 1: of all this, which is the meat and potatoes of
51:40
Speaker 1: the specific types of features you can identify in maps
51:43
Speaker 1: and how to use those as you set stands and
51:45
Speaker 1: actually hunt. But before we get to all that, we
51:48
Speaker 1: do need to pause for a very brief intermission of
51:50
Speaker 1: sorts to thank our sponsors of this episode, Trophy Ridge,
51:54
Speaker 1: and today I wanted to briefly talk about one of
51:57
Speaker 1: the categories that Trophy Ridge participates in, which is a arrests,
52:00
Speaker 1: and specifically, I want to very quickly discuss the pros
52:03
Speaker 1: and cons of the two main types of air arrests available,
52:06
Speaker 1: you know, those being full containment rests and drop away rests.
52:09
Speaker 1: And if you're a relatively new bow hunter, this is
52:12
Speaker 1: something you really want to pay attention to, so I
52:14
Speaker 1: thought i'd give you a quick overview. So first, full
52:17
Speaker 1: containment rests. These rests are typically what I'd recommend for
52:20
Speaker 1: newer hunters because they are nearly fool proof. I say
52:23
Speaker 1: that because these rests, you know, it's evidence by their name,
52:26
Speaker 1: fully hold the arrow inside, you know, within that rest.
52:29
Speaker 1: It keeps you from ever having the chance of that
52:31
Speaker 1: arrow falling off or bouncing around off the rest, anything
52:34
Speaker 1: like that while you're actually the tree. I've had that
52:37
Speaker 1: happened before in the past when I was using the
52:38
Speaker 1: old two pronged arrest, which was something I start out
52:41
Speaker 1: with when I was like thirteen years old. So this
52:44
Speaker 1: today looks like something like the trophy wit excuse me,
52:47
Speaker 1: the trophy ridge whisker biscuit, which is essentially a circle
52:50
Speaker 1: of bristles which holds your arrow in the middle and
52:52
Speaker 1: allow the veins to pass through. Or there are like
52:55
Speaker 1: three prong releases or sorry rests, which hold an arrow
52:59
Speaker 1: in place from from three different directions wholly in the middle.
53:03
Speaker 1: So that's a popular option, especially for beginners. But the
53:06
Speaker 1: downside of these is that there are significant contact between
53:10
Speaker 1: your arrow and the rest, and the longer you arrow
53:12
Speaker 1: is in contact with any part of your bow, the
53:14
Speaker 1: greater the chance is that you might move that bow
53:17
Speaker 1: in some way, which in turn impacts the arrow flight.
53:19
Speaker 1: So to avoid that, the drop away rest was created,
53:23
Speaker 1: which in short, is a rest that, upon release, drops
53:26
Speaker 1: out of the path of the arrow. Now these rests
53:28
Speaker 1: are widely believed to be a little bit more accurate
53:31
Speaker 1: than your full containment, but with many of these you
53:33
Speaker 1: lose some of that aero security that you would have
53:35
Speaker 1: with a full containment design. So with all that being said,
53:39
Speaker 1: when I first got a compound bow, I used a
53:41
Speaker 1: Trophy Ridge whisker biscuit and it worked great for me,
53:43
Speaker 1: But eventually I was becoming a little bit more advanced
53:46
Speaker 1: and I wanted to try to squeeze a little bit
53:48
Speaker 1: more accuracy out of my bow, and I switched to
53:50
Speaker 1: a drop away. So now, most recently I've been using
53:53
Speaker 1: a trophy Ridge h X drop away rest, which does
53:55
Speaker 1: in fact have some pretty solid containment measures in place
53:58
Speaker 1: as well. So I hope this is helpful. You know,
54:01
Speaker 1: we've recently been getting a lot of emails and tweets
54:03
Speaker 1: and Facebook messages from people who have been inspired by
54:06
Speaker 1: the podcast to try bo hunting for the first time.
54:08
Speaker 1: So I thought i'd share this kind of beginner look
54:11
Speaker 1: at err arrest because that's a that's a topic that
54:13
Speaker 1: I know I struggle with a lot when I first
54:15
Speaker 1: started bo hunting, trying to figure out what's the right
54:17
Speaker 1: way to go. So I hope this is a quick,
54:19
Speaker 1: helpful primer. If you want more information, there's there's lots
54:22
Speaker 1: of stuff online. I would definitely recommend you go Google
54:25
Speaker 1: or arrests and plenty to read. If you are specifically
54:27
Speaker 1: interested in learning more about Trophy Ridge, you can go
54:30
Speaker 1: to Trophy ridge dot com. So with all that out
54:34
Speaker 1: of the way, now, let's get back to the show.
54:38
Speaker 1: So so true. It's a never ending process. And I
54:41
Speaker 1: think me and Dan always like to talk like to joke,
54:43
Speaker 1: and I guess that's probably why we love it so much,
54:45
Speaker 1: is that it's just you can never you can never
54:48
Speaker 1: put the whole piece, the whole puzzle together, You never
54:51
Speaker 1: solve the equation completely. It's a there's always going to
54:54
Speaker 1: be something more. Um so so, given, I guess kind
54:58
Speaker 1: of where we've gone so far, right, We've got the
55:00
Speaker 1: basics of our maps down. We've talked about all the
55:03
Speaker 1: different ways you can use maps. I think one of
55:05
Speaker 1: the aspects of using maps that a lot of people
55:09
Speaker 1: either struggle with or just want to learn more about,
55:12
Speaker 1: is Okay, what are the specific things I'm looking for
55:15
Speaker 1: on a map? And then you know, what's that actually
55:18
Speaker 1: look like on the ground. So how do I find
55:20
Speaker 1: it on a map? How do I ground truth it?
55:22
Speaker 1: And then how to hunters and or deer or I
55:24
Speaker 1: guess both, how do deer use them? And then how
55:26
Speaker 1: to hot nurse need to use them? Um So I'm
55:29
Speaker 1: going to kind of give you I'm gonna kind of
55:30
Speaker 1: grill you here, ben Um. You had mentioned a bunch
55:33
Speaker 1: of different types of features as we've been talking so far,
55:36
Speaker 1: and I've been keeping notice some of those, so I
55:37
Speaker 1: want to I want to dig deeper into a bunch
55:40
Speaker 1: of these in detail, if that, If that sounds good
55:43
Speaker 1: to you. Um, So how about funnels at first? We've
55:47
Speaker 1: kind of talked about this a little bit and we
55:49
Speaker 1: mentioned a lot in the podcast, but I think it's
55:51
Speaker 1: always worth revisiting some of these in detail. Can you
55:54
Speaker 1: kind of layout for us? Okay, what's the funnel? What
55:56
Speaker 1: are the different types of funnels? Um? And that would
55:58
Speaker 1: be interest in hearing like detail examples of what those
56:01
Speaker 1: different types of funnals might look like. Sure, and man,
56:06
Speaker 1: this could be a conversation that could go on for
56:10
Speaker 1: a long time with how to hunt eat all these
56:12
Speaker 1: different types of funnels. But basically the concept of a funnel,
56:16
Speaker 1: um you might be reading an article as or see
56:18
Speaker 1: on on television or whatnot. Um. Sometimes they're called pinch points,
56:23
Speaker 1: sometimes they're called bottlenecks. There's there's some different names for
56:26
Speaker 1: these things. But basically the goal is to find features
56:29
Speaker 1: that are going to uh force that that deer are
56:33
Speaker 1: going to naturally. UM. Be uh confined. They confined, But
56:40
Speaker 1: basically areas are gonna push deer through entighter areas that
56:45
Speaker 1: you can you know that you can possibly get a
56:48
Speaker 1: shot at. So UM, deer are looking for the most
56:53
Speaker 1: efficient way to get from A to B in the
56:57
Speaker 1: safest manner. You know that caveat is the safest. So
57:01
Speaker 1: it's not always the shortest distance. It's going to be
57:05
Speaker 1: the easiest, the easiest way to get from one place
57:09
Speaker 1: to the next, but they feel safe. So UM. You
57:14
Speaker 1: think about funnels just like we talked about our map
57:17
Speaker 1: layers in two different ways. You've got your terrain funnels,
57:21
Speaker 1: so actual topographic features that are going to um guide
57:28
Speaker 1: deer movement based on elevation change. So you've got your benches,
57:33
Speaker 1: your saddles, ditches and draws, points on the end of
57:37
Speaker 1: a ridge, blocks. All of these features are one way
57:41
Speaker 1: or another going to play into deer movement. UM. And
57:44
Speaker 1: then you've got your land cover features, which are sometimes
57:47
Speaker 1: easier to see, so streams, um roads, ponds, fence lines, gates,
57:57
Speaker 1: these gates isn't necessarily a piece of land cover, but
58:02
Speaker 1: you've got these hardened areas that are going to uh
58:09
Speaker 1: have deer get from A to B in the in
58:11
Speaker 1: the safest manner and the most blatant want to think
58:14
Speaker 1: about is is the brushy fence line. So, UM, I
58:17
Speaker 1: hunt these a lot in Kansas. Uh every year we
58:21
Speaker 1: go we go there and there's not big tracks of timber,
58:24
Speaker 1: but there's these smaller wood lots that are connected with
58:28
Speaker 1: brushy fence lines. And that fence line is going to
58:31
Speaker 1: have the most security in a straight path from one
58:36
Speaker 1: piece of timber to the next. And they can be
58:38
Speaker 1: really hot during the right whenever bucks are are seeking those.
58:43
Speaker 1: So um, you look for these these areas that are
58:47
Speaker 1: going to you're gonna be able to um assume the
58:52
Speaker 1: deer are going to be forced into moving a certain
58:55
Speaker 1: way based on either the elevation change or the cover.
58:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I'd add one another um to the
59:04
Speaker 1: to the to the cover related funnels is actually just cover,
59:08
Speaker 1: so not even necessarily a fence or a gate, but
59:11
Speaker 1: also just if there's thicker brush even you know, if
59:14
Speaker 1: there's a thick brushy section that crosses a wide open field,
59:17
Speaker 1: or if there's a line of cedar trees or a
59:20
Speaker 1: section where two wood two square woodlots come together at
59:23
Speaker 1: a corner and there's just a corner that meets um.
59:27
Speaker 1: You know, even just brush or or vegetation can get
59:31
Speaker 1: great a funnel in that way. If there's not, you know,
59:33
Speaker 1: funnels in in some other way larger cover. So so yeah,
59:36
Speaker 1: there's so many different types of funnels that you mentioned. Um. Well,
59:42
Speaker 1: when it comes to want to I want to take
59:44
Speaker 1: a step back real quick. One thing I didn't mention
59:46
Speaker 1: mark was the concept of before we get into all
59:50
Speaker 1: these different terrain features and cover features, we can talk
59:53
Speaker 1: about the concept of edge. Um. Ed's just really uh,
59:58
Speaker 1: not even necessarily a white cell, but an animal's best friend.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: It's funny because Aldo Leopold. Aldo Leopold actually wrote about this.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: Is the famous quotes is the variety and density of
1:00:11
Speaker 1: life is greatest along edge. So basically you get these
1:00:16
Speaker 1: areas that are really attractive to wildlife, whether it's for
1:00:20
Speaker 1: travel or security, or a variety of brows or even
1:00:25
Speaker 1: just for a social opportunity. Anytime you can look at
1:00:28
Speaker 1: a map and see a change, which is basically the
1:00:31
Speaker 1: definition of edge. What I'm talking about is where terrain
1:00:34
Speaker 1: or cover changes over landscapes, So where a field meets timber,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: where heavy cover meets open pasture. Um where uh you know,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: your your food plot meets your CRP. Really any any
1:00:52
Speaker 1: any change that you look for is really right off
1:00:55
Speaker 1: the bat. If I'm starting from scratch, I'm gonna look
1:00:58
Speaker 1: at a at a property and I'm going to look
1:01:01
Speaker 1: at the aerial and it's going to identify where these
1:01:07
Speaker 1: changes of edge bar So, um, it's pretty cool. I
1:01:11
Speaker 1: was doing some research about, you know, the concept of edge,
1:01:14
Speaker 1: concept of edge and and uh Native Americans actually used
1:01:19
Speaker 1: to burn areas in their in their timber and then
1:01:23
Speaker 1: where it meets the prairie, and then deer in wildlife
1:01:27
Speaker 1: in general would go there where there was the succulent
1:01:29
Speaker 1: re growth right on the edge of the timber prairie
1:01:32
Speaker 1: was a hotspot for where they would hunt. So it's
1:01:34
Speaker 1: like you've got to think that's almost like the beginning
1:01:36
Speaker 1: of the history of food plots almost, which is really
1:01:39
Speaker 1: not exactly what they're trying to do. But you know,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: the concept of edge from a wildlife perspective is the
1:01:45
Speaker 1: most important part. So all of these terrain finals and
1:01:49
Speaker 1: tinch points and cover uh features, it all has to
1:01:53
Speaker 1: do with edge and change. That's a great point. And
1:01:57
Speaker 1: one other edge that I just thought of as your
1:01:59
Speaker 1: kind of running through those different examples, which which kind
1:02:03
Speaker 1: of applies to a circumstance that I've dealt with in
1:02:06
Speaker 1: the past. One of the challenges I've had hunting up
1:02:09
Speaker 1: at my northern Michigan property where I grew up learning
1:02:12
Speaker 1: hunt was that a big portion of these properties were
1:02:14
Speaker 1: just huge timbers. There's tons and tons and tons of timber,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: and I always was I always kind of struggle fear,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: how the heck do you hunt this when there isn't
1:02:22
Speaker 1: like a definite food source. There isn't like a definite
1:02:24
Speaker 1: betting area. And one of the things I realized is
1:02:27
Speaker 1: that even though there aren't these defined kind of features
1:02:31
Speaker 1: like there might be an egg land in Michi, Lower
1:02:33
Speaker 1: Michigan or Iowa, even though those easy features weren't there,
1:02:37
Speaker 1: there still were edges like you mentioned. And that's what
1:02:39
Speaker 1: I keyed in on us. Okay, where are the edges?
1:02:41
Speaker 1: And it might not even be like a field to timber,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: but even an edge within timber. So what I ended
1:02:45
Speaker 1: up keying in on is I could find an edge
1:02:48
Speaker 1: between conifers like cedars, and where the where the cedar
1:02:52
Speaker 1: patches bumped up against an edge of open oak timber.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I realized, Hey, these are edges
1:02:57
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden deer are traveling, or the
1:02:59
Speaker 1: edge of a little bit of a swamp, your wetter
1:03:01
Speaker 1: air with a higher, higher ground, dryer area. All of
1:03:05
Speaker 1: a sudden I started realizing, hey, there's where bucks are
1:03:07
Speaker 1: cruising too. So in a big timber situation, even finding
1:03:11
Speaker 1: those edges of unique sect types of timber or types
1:03:15
Speaker 1: of cover within that larger timber section can be helpful too.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: That's a just a specific example I thought of that
1:03:21
Speaker 1: I found helpful. Um But going going back, I guess
1:03:26
Speaker 1: to the specifics Now that we understand you know the
1:03:29
Speaker 1: importance of edge, which which is huge. How about the
1:03:33
Speaker 1: terrain funnels? Can we talk about a few of those,
1:03:35
Speaker 1: um in detail? I want to talk about saddles. You
1:03:38
Speaker 1: already mentioned benches a little bit, but how how are
1:03:40
Speaker 1: deer using saddles? And what what does that look like?
1:03:43
Speaker 1: I know you use our knuckle example, but can you
1:03:45
Speaker 1: elaborate and saddles all bit? Yeah? Yeah, So if you
1:03:49
Speaker 1: remember the staring at your fist, the saddle is going
1:03:52
Speaker 1: to be that low spot in between your your two
1:03:56
Speaker 1: knuckles or the low spot in real life in between
1:04:00
Speaker 1: um two hills, two hills, or or a low spot
1:04:04
Speaker 1: along a ridgeline, and a lot of times it seems
1:04:08
Speaker 1: like deer will go um, they'll use those to get
1:04:12
Speaker 1: from one side of the hill to the next because
1:04:15
Speaker 1: it's the path at least resistance. You know, a lot
1:04:18
Speaker 1: of times deer quite frankly lazy creatures, so um to
1:04:22
Speaker 1: get from one side of the hill, they want to
1:04:24
Speaker 1: go on the other side. Uh, they're going to use
1:04:26
Speaker 1: that lowest spot um on on on the ridge line,
1:04:30
Speaker 1: which is going to be your saddle. So it's not
1:04:33
Speaker 1: always it's not like there. I know, I don't necessarily
1:04:37
Speaker 1: have any saddles on this property. I'm hunting in Iowa,
1:04:41
Speaker 1: but back in Pennsylvania and the original property I grew
1:04:45
Speaker 1: up hunting, there's a dynamite saddle and you can identify
1:04:48
Speaker 1: it from the top of map um. It's pretty blatant
1:04:52
Speaker 1: and it basically looks like an hour glass, you know,
1:04:55
Speaker 1: if you're looking at those contoler lines in between two
1:04:57
Speaker 1: hills hills. But it's it's a great stand location we've
1:05:01
Speaker 1: had for a really long time. You actually had to
1:05:04
Speaker 1: switch out stands multiple times from the tree growing into it.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: Mean it's one of those places where there will always
1:05:09
Speaker 1: be stand location because especially during the rut for for
1:05:13
Speaker 1: a deer you know, about to cover more ground and
1:05:17
Speaker 1: potentially find that dough quicker or easier that that is
1:05:22
Speaker 1: just a natural easy way for him to hop over
1:05:24
Speaker 1: to the inner side. So saddle is a you know,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: that's a that's definitely a good one, especially for the ruck. Yeah,
1:05:30
Speaker 1: I agree, and especially like in what it sounds like
1:05:34
Speaker 1: you had in Pennsylvania. Um again sections of of bigger
1:05:37
Speaker 1: timber where there's not as much of the cover funnels
1:05:41
Speaker 1: excuse me, like we talked about, but these terrain funnels
1:05:44
Speaker 1: like a saddle. Like if you're trying to figure out
1:05:47
Speaker 1: a new piece of property, let's say, uh, you know,
1:05:50
Speaker 1: public land in Tennessee or West Virginia or something like that,
1:05:53
Speaker 1: where you have big timber and some rolling topography, some
1:05:56
Speaker 1: hills and stuff, it's it's hard at first to figure
1:05:59
Speaker 1: out how the heck do I approach this? But if
1:06:01
Speaker 1: you look at a map that shows this these topographic contours,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: like you said, you can see that hourglass type of
1:06:07
Speaker 1: of line shape there that indicates, yeah, here's a saddle,
1:06:10
Speaker 1: and right away, boom, you know, that's a spot that
1:06:12
Speaker 1: could potentially funnel deer, and like you said, during the rut,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: it's a great time to be there. And the same
1:06:17
Speaker 1: thing goes for benches like you talked about, right, those
1:06:20
Speaker 1: are the gaps where there's the very close together lines
1:06:24
Speaker 1: and then a little bit wider and then tight again
1:06:27
Speaker 1: beneath it. Where that's one other example of deer using
1:06:31
Speaker 1: the path of at least resistance where it's easier for
1:06:34
Speaker 1: them to walk that flatter bench along a hillside or
1:06:37
Speaker 1: ridge when they're trying to get to point he or b. Um.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: So these terrain funnels I think are huge, especially during
1:06:44
Speaker 1: the rut time frame and when you're trying to trying
1:06:46
Speaker 1: to figure out how to approach a property that maybe
1:06:49
Speaker 1: doesn't have these easier generic cover funnels that you see
1:06:52
Speaker 1: on the outdoor channel or whatever. Um, these can be
1:06:56
Speaker 1: super helpful. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. UM. So
1:07:02
Speaker 1: you've got saddles and benches, um that all kind of
1:07:05
Speaker 1: plays into Um. To to have a saddle, you need
1:07:09
Speaker 1: a ridge. So a ridge is probably the most common
1:07:13
Speaker 1: terrain term that we all talked about his hunters and
1:07:16
Speaker 1: in the ridge is essentially um extending terrain that is
1:07:21
Speaker 1: at a higher elevation from its surrounding arenas. It's you're
1:07:24
Speaker 1: gonna have a ridge that extends out as a line,
1:07:27
Speaker 1: and at the at the end of that ridge, there's
1:07:31
Speaker 1: always going to be an end of the ridge and
1:07:32
Speaker 1: it's going to start to slope down. That's going to
1:07:34
Speaker 1: be your point. So deer aren't necessarily moving right along
1:07:39
Speaker 1: the top of of of the ridge, like right along
1:07:43
Speaker 1: the crest of it. I mean, that's gonna be whether
1:07:45
Speaker 1: they're able to be predators could silhouette them. So it
1:07:49
Speaker 1: seems like a lot of times these white tails are
1:07:51
Speaker 1: moving thirty yards or or or farther off of the
1:07:55
Speaker 1: edge of the very crest of the ridge on either side,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: and those trails meander along at at a certain elevation
1:08:03
Speaker 1: or park at an angle from the bottom, working their
1:08:06
Speaker 1: way up to the to the top and then towards
1:08:08
Speaker 1: the point of the ridge. Got another three standum on
1:08:13
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania property. That um, it's just in dynamite. It's
1:08:18
Speaker 1: it's not at the very um. It's at the end
1:08:21
Speaker 1: of the ridge and it starts to slope down a
1:08:22
Speaker 1: little bit, and it's it's really good because whenever you
1:08:25
Speaker 1: hunt off of these ridges you can be assured that
1:08:29
Speaker 1: you've got a pretty consistent wind. That's one thing that
1:08:32
Speaker 1: you know, it's important. You want to know where your
1:08:35
Speaker 1: wind is going to be going in the possibility for
1:08:37
Speaker 1: a wind change, how that's going to affect, you know,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: the rest of your sit So um at the end
1:08:42
Speaker 1: of the point, you'll find sometimes multiple trails intersecting, and
1:08:47
Speaker 1: that that can be really good a lot of different
1:08:49
Speaker 1: times throughout throughout the year based on you know, if
1:08:52
Speaker 1: you're hunting in the morning or you're hunting in the
1:08:55
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, where the food sources, where the betting is,
1:08:59
Speaker 1: but it still bringing multiple possible trails together at an
1:09:04
Speaker 1: interesting terrain feature. So that point at the end of
1:09:07
Speaker 1: a ridge is a I mean, that's been a big
1:09:10
Speaker 1: one for me. And the fact that you can huntle
1:09:11
Speaker 1: with a steady wind. It's it's always a no brainer.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: When I look at the top of the map of
1:09:15
Speaker 1: the aerial, You're gonna find a ridge that looks that
1:09:18
Speaker 1: looks solid, and I'm gonna look at the point and
1:09:21
Speaker 1: probably get a stand there. And and so you're staying
1:09:23
Speaker 1: with the point. You have deer that hypothetically might be
1:09:26
Speaker 1: traveling on either side of the ridge potentially, and when
1:09:30
Speaker 1: they get to the point though, the point is where
1:09:32
Speaker 1: those two sides coincide in the middle, right, that's where
1:09:35
Speaker 1: they come together. So that point gives you the fact
1:09:38
Speaker 1: that you're you're working one line of travel like deer
1:09:40
Speaker 1: likely to travel along the edge of that ridge. And
1:09:43
Speaker 1: then heck, this is where the two ridges come together.
1:09:45
Speaker 1: You double your odds, right Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: I mean we're always looking, you know, or ground treets.
1:09:52
Speaker 1: I'm looking for where you know, one trail is nice,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: where two trails meet is even nicer. And then when
1:09:57
Speaker 1: three trails meat, that's that's the real deal. So um yeah,
1:10:01
Speaker 1: a lot of times you can find that at the point.
1:10:03
Speaker 1: And it seems like, um, I've had multiple encounters with
1:10:09
Speaker 1: a couple of bandybucks that that are skirting the basically
1:10:14
Speaker 1: one one side of the ridge and they come right
1:10:17
Speaker 1: around the point, um maybe a third of the way down,
1:10:21
Speaker 1: and then they're they're working their way around. They're basically
1:10:23
Speaker 1: just scent checking as much as they can off of
1:10:25
Speaker 1: off of that ridge. So eventually, if it gets the
1:10:28
Speaker 1: whole way around you, unless your your wind is blowing
1:10:30
Speaker 1: straight up the ridge line, straight off the ridge line, Um,
1:10:33
Speaker 1: you know, that could be a detriment or good if
1:10:35
Speaker 1: it blows over over the trail, But um, it just
1:10:39
Speaker 1: seems like it's a hot spot for deer whenever they're
1:10:42
Speaker 1: their cruising and working their way from from bed to
1:10:45
Speaker 1: feet or even during the retling bucks are are looking
1:10:48
Speaker 1: for those. Yeah, you make you made a You brought
1:10:51
Speaker 1: up a good point about the wind when it comes
1:10:52
Speaker 1: to sets like that, I've always found, like as you mentioned,
1:10:56
Speaker 1: most of the travel seems to be at least what
1:10:59
Speaker 1: i've seen usually is needs to be one or two
1:11:00
Speaker 1: places you're either going to see a lot of the travel,
1:11:02
Speaker 1: like you said, like about a third the way down
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the ridge sort of near the top along as edges,
1:11:06
Speaker 1: or you'll see you'll see some right in the bottom
1:11:08
Speaker 1: sometimes when there's larger valleys and things, or that might
1:11:10
Speaker 1: be where they're you know, coming from another side and
1:11:12
Speaker 1: dropped on the bottom. But the the challenge with those
1:11:14
Speaker 1: bottom locations, at least from what I've seen, what a
1:11:17
Speaker 1: lot of guys have talked to is right when you
1:11:19
Speaker 1: get down low, your wind is not steady. You're gonna
1:11:22
Speaker 1: get swirling winds and you're gonna get things messed up
1:11:24
Speaker 1: with the wind. But if you stay up higher and
1:11:27
Speaker 1: take advantage of that top third, that's where like you,
1:11:30
Speaker 1: as you mentioned second ago, that's where you can get
1:11:32
Speaker 1: steadier wind. So you're you're safer from from a wind
1:11:34
Speaker 1: perspective and still taking advantage of a common travel pattern. Um,
1:11:39
Speaker 1: which is why I think, you know, at least for me,
1:11:41
Speaker 1: as I'm hunting more in these areas with a lot
1:11:43
Speaker 1: of you know, changing terrain, a ridgeline is is an
1:11:46
Speaker 1: automatic go to area. Again, whether it be a saddle
1:11:50
Speaker 1: or just a ridge without saddles. But again, that's something
1:11:52
Speaker 1: that consistently seems to attract a consistent pattern of deer
1:11:56
Speaker 1: movement which you can take advantage of. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
1:12:00
Speaker 1: And it's it's easy to get sucked into the when
1:12:05
Speaker 1: you're scouting, especially on the bottoms where you can see
1:12:07
Speaker 1: a lot of good deer side. Um. You know, I've
1:12:11
Speaker 1: I've I've seen where people write about you know, bucks
1:12:13
Speaker 1: prefer those those lower areas in a in a draw
1:12:16
Speaker 1: where it's it's maybe flat, and they're just totally secluded
1:12:19
Speaker 1: from the pressure of hunting or the pressure of of
1:12:22
Speaker 1: other other deer dope families. You know, they kind of
1:12:25
Speaker 1: got their own spot there lose mature bucks and it's tempting.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: You can go down and see a bunch of straps,
1:12:31
Speaker 1: a bunch of rubs, but if you don't have a
1:12:34
Speaker 1: consistent wind, it's only a matter of time till you
1:12:37
Speaker 1: get picked off and you know you you damage you're
1:12:39
Speaker 1: hunting season um pretty fast. So yeah, the ridges and
1:12:45
Speaker 1: and what's on the ridges and what's that the end?
1:12:47
Speaker 1: The ridges are exciting and then that kind of transitions
1:12:50
Speaker 1: um right into you know, what is a draw and
1:12:53
Speaker 1: how does that play off of a ridge and from
1:12:56
Speaker 1: a terrain perspective, and that can be pretty exciting for
1:12:59
Speaker 1: for your Yeah, so I two things I guess I
1:13:04
Speaker 1: wanted to one quick tiny step back, um and just
1:13:06
Speaker 1: mentioning one of the thing with ridges that I've seen
1:13:09
Speaker 1: that I think is worth worth taking note of again
1:13:11
Speaker 1: and tell me if you've seen this too, um, is
1:13:14
Speaker 1: that lots of times in places with ridge lines that
1:13:17
Speaker 1: with that kind of terrain, you're going to see a
1:13:19
Speaker 1: lot of dear bedding on ridges or little knobs off
1:13:22
Speaker 1: of ridges that seemed to attract and be quality bedding
1:13:26
Speaker 1: areas for deer, especially buck beds. I found, um, some
1:13:29
Speaker 1: of the best buck beds I found have been in
1:13:31
Speaker 1: such a situations where you where you see a little
1:13:34
Speaker 1: knob or something coming off of a consistent ridge with
1:13:36
Speaker 1: a little patch of cover on it maybe and you'll
1:13:38
Speaker 1: find that buck. At least from what I've heard and seen,
1:13:41
Speaker 1: lots of these bucks will bed with their back to
1:13:43
Speaker 1: the ridge, looking down over that draw or that valley,
1:13:46
Speaker 1: and then they can they can watch ahead of them,
1:13:48
Speaker 1: and they can smell behind them. Um, And it's it's
1:13:51
Speaker 1: kind of a great situation for for a bucker or
1:13:53
Speaker 1: any deer to bed. So that's something I was keying on.
1:13:56
Speaker 1: When I'm looking at a map, I try to identify
1:13:58
Speaker 1: those ridges and then okay, it might be a funnel,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: but then also where might the betting years be along
1:14:04
Speaker 1: that along that ridge, And then that's going to help
1:14:07
Speaker 1: inform how I hunt, especially during the rut to Yeah, yeah,
1:14:12
Speaker 1: for sure. The um it's funny you mentioned the buckbetting areas.
1:14:16
Speaker 1: There's a phenomenal article that is just written by the
1:14:20
Speaker 1: guy you've had on multiple times on the show, Jeff.
1:14:23
Speaker 1: They're just um, he just put together this article two
1:14:25
Speaker 1: days ago that talks about different buckbetting areas and that's
1:14:28
Speaker 1: one scenario that um, he kind of lays out three
1:14:32
Speaker 1: different environments for for a white tail hunter, from swampland
1:14:38
Speaker 1: to flat agricultural land for really hilly country, and what
1:14:42
Speaker 1: you just mentioned there is definitely one of the prime
1:14:44
Speaker 1: spots too for for a buck to bet is kind
1:14:47
Speaker 1: of higher up on that ridge, overlooking the bottom with
1:14:50
Speaker 1: his wind in his back. And then what's interesting when
1:14:53
Speaker 1: it comes to this hill country and your in your
1:14:55
Speaker 1: ridges and in the benches, you're hunting off of benches
1:14:58
Speaker 1: on the side of these ridges. U you've got you've
1:15:00
Speaker 1: got your thermals that come into play. So, um, just
1:15:04
Speaker 1: I guess a quick breakdown the thermals is essentially wind
1:15:08
Speaker 1: currents that rise and fall throughout the day from the
1:15:12
Speaker 1: atmosphere heating up or cooling down. So if a buck
1:15:15
Speaker 1: is bettered in the morning on higher ground, he's able
1:15:20
Speaker 1: to smell everything that's that's below him. He's probably gonna
1:15:24
Speaker 1: be able to see a decent amount, but if he's
1:15:25
Speaker 1: gonna say cover, he'll at least be able to smell
1:15:28
Speaker 1: everything is below him. Because as the sun peeks up
1:15:31
Speaker 1: over the over the horizon and starts to heat up
1:15:34
Speaker 1: the air, those wind currents are gonna just come from
1:15:39
Speaker 1: the bottom and they're gonna rise up and it's literally
1:15:41
Speaker 1: going to be like a wind. I'll never forget this.
1:15:45
Speaker 1: This past fall. I was just it was like the
1:15:47
Speaker 1: picture perfect day. It's actually Halloween morning, I believe. Um
1:15:52
Speaker 1: sitting there in a famous stand my dad and I
1:15:54
Speaker 1: call skyscraper, and uh, it's it's right off the side
1:15:58
Speaker 1: of a ridge and there's no wind that I'm I'm
1:16:02
Speaker 1: sitting in a in a beech tree and an old, one,
1:16:06
Speaker 1: great great tree to put a tree stand in regardless,
1:16:10
Speaker 1: I'm looking at these branches that extend out and they
1:16:12
Speaker 1: hold their leaves longer throughout the year than than a
1:16:14
Speaker 1: lot of other trees. And these the whole limb is
1:16:17
Speaker 1: just rising and then ten seconds later it'll drop, and
1:16:22
Speaker 1: then it'll rise for a little while and then it
1:16:25
Speaker 1: will drop. It thinking, man, that's crazy, and it just
1:16:27
Speaker 1: it struck me. And that's a thumbel I'm seeing right there.
1:16:29
Speaker 1: So that air is literally coming from the bottom and
1:16:32
Speaker 1: rising the whole way up the side of that hill. Um.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: And there must have been a pretty aggressive one. It's
1:16:37
Speaker 1: like a really cold morning until the sun came up.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to see that. And then as the
1:16:43
Speaker 1: sun sets, you're literally going to get the reverse of
1:16:46
Speaker 1: what happens and that sun sets, that air is cooled
1:16:50
Speaker 1: and it's gonna drop back down into those cooler areas.
1:16:54
Speaker 1: So just another thing to think about whenever you know
1:16:57
Speaker 1: it comes to your scent and your wind and how
1:17:00
Speaker 1: all of that's playing into the terrain, and you know
1:17:03
Speaker 1: it's all just one big crazy picture you know for
1:17:05
Speaker 1: a white don Yeah, yeah, great, great point, especially when
1:17:08
Speaker 1: you're hunting in areas that have this type of change
1:17:11
Speaker 1: in terrain with ridges and stuff. That's where these things
1:17:13
Speaker 1: really really make a big difference. So huge point. Um,
1:17:17
Speaker 1: And I guess just to I don't I can't remember
1:17:19
Speaker 1: if we mentioned at the beginning of this, uh the
1:17:21
Speaker 1: ridge little piece or not. But but when you're looking
1:17:24
Speaker 1: at a map, right, you can't necessarily see a ridge
1:17:27
Speaker 1: really well and just a plain aerial map, but if
1:17:29
Speaker 1: you have one that shows terrain relief or that has
1:17:31
Speaker 1: topographic lines, you'll be able to see you know, correct
1:17:34
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, but right, we're gonna see consistent
1:17:36
Speaker 1: parallel lines that are getting that are you know, at
1:17:39
Speaker 1: least tighter together than they are at the top or bottom. Right,
1:17:43
Speaker 1: And then um, the point would obviously be where two
1:17:46
Speaker 1: of those come together to form what looks like, you know,
1:17:48
Speaker 1: like you mentioned a finger coming off of your knuckles, right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:17:52
Speaker 1: I mean even now to just you know, parallel lines
1:17:55
Speaker 1: going along the same route. Perfect. So so you mentioned draws,
1:18:00
Speaker 1: Talk to me about draws. What's that going to look
1:18:02
Speaker 1: like on a map? And then how about in the field,
1:18:06
Speaker 1: what's it looked like Howard Deer using those? Okay, yeah,
1:18:10
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at a traditional top on that
1:18:13
Speaker 1: the draw, the draw is going to look. Um, how
1:18:19
Speaker 1: do I describe this is basically I almost look at
1:18:22
Speaker 1: it as like the beak of a bird cutting into
1:18:25
Speaker 1: or pointing towards a ridge. And and really what that
1:18:28
Speaker 1: means is what's happening on the ground is that um
1:18:33
Speaker 1: water runoff is going through time your road. It's going
1:18:38
Speaker 1: to find that lowest area, it's going to continue to
1:18:40
Speaker 1: your road, continue to your road and basically make small
1:18:44
Speaker 1: valleys that come right off of that ridge and cut
1:18:48
Speaker 1: down over the hill, and they can get pretty drastic. Um,
1:18:52
Speaker 1: they can get pretty deep. So the draw is really
1:18:55
Speaker 1: that whole you know. Um, let's say you're you're you're
1:18:59
Speaker 1: at the very bottom and you're at a at a
1:19:01
Speaker 1: creek bottom and you're looking uphill and you see this
1:19:03
Speaker 1: cut that's it's really definitive, and it's like somebody almost
1:19:06
Speaker 1: took up on a knife and and cut right through
1:19:10
Speaker 1: the middle of the hillside right up towards the ridge.
1:19:12
Speaker 1: That's gonna be your draw. And that draw is um.
1:19:16
Speaker 1: It can be gradual or it can be steep. But
1:19:19
Speaker 1: one thing you'll find consistently is at the very top,
1:19:24
Speaker 1: right at the head of that draw is going to
1:19:27
Speaker 1: be probably some pretty good deer sign um. As as
1:19:33
Speaker 1: that water is running off the side of the hill,
1:19:35
Speaker 1: it's created this this ravine um. It's deeper and deeper
1:19:40
Speaker 1: and more aggressive. And those deer, if they're in a
1:19:44
Speaker 1: in a rush for they're they're escaping, they're gonna jump
1:19:47
Speaker 1: right over potentially, but as they're just you know, having
1:19:50
Speaker 1: their normal pattern, they're not just gonna cross over something
1:19:54
Speaker 1: really steep. They're gonna work their way kind of up
1:19:57
Speaker 1: the hill up towards the top where the can get
1:20:00
Speaker 1: around the head of that of that draw. So it's
1:20:03
Speaker 1: a dynamite stand location. Another good one for for wind
1:20:07
Speaker 1: you can have it depending on a lot of times
1:20:10
Speaker 1: you'll see this where the draw will come up and
1:20:13
Speaker 1: meet the very top is a field up on top um.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: They kind of go hand in hand with ditches, which
1:20:20
Speaker 1: we can get into, but it all has to do
1:20:22
Speaker 1: with water runoff. And there's small valleys that go down
1:20:26
Speaker 1: over the hill and deer will use the sides of
1:20:30
Speaker 1: them and work their way up and down, and then
1:20:32
Speaker 1: they'll cross at the very top or maybe somewhere where
1:20:35
Speaker 1: at the bottom um of of of the draw where
1:20:39
Speaker 1: it gets a little more gradual at the bottom too.
1:20:41
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like that that hardened place where
1:20:45
Speaker 1: it's tougher to get from one side to the next.
1:20:47
Speaker 1: They'd rather just instead of making the jump, go and
1:20:50
Speaker 1: work their way at the top and work around. And
1:20:53
Speaker 1: it's kind of you can almost use this in conjunction
1:20:55
Speaker 1: with ridges. It's it's like a funnel within a funnel
1:20:58
Speaker 1: of sorts. You know. Let's say hypothetically, during the rut,
1:21:01
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a lot of bucks cruising that ridge.
1:21:03
Speaker 1: So we've already said, okay, lots of times the ridge
1:21:06
Speaker 1: line will will funnel deer along the top third because
1:21:08
Speaker 1: of all these reasons. Well, in addition to that, if
1:21:11
Speaker 1: there's one of these draws that comes up the ridge
1:21:14
Speaker 1: that's going to force dear to to move along that
1:21:16
Speaker 1: ridge up at the very top of it. Now, all
1:21:18
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you know, Okay, it's likely deer gonna
1:21:20
Speaker 1: be on this ridge, and now it's even more likely
1:21:23
Speaker 1: that if they're on the ridge, they're gonna have to
1:21:24
Speaker 1: go through this even narrower section. Um. So, I think
1:21:28
Speaker 1: that's a perfect example of how you can look at
1:21:30
Speaker 1: a map before even ever being on a property and see, okay,
1:21:34
Speaker 1: here's a ridge, here's the draw on the ridge. I'm
1:21:37
Speaker 1: betting this point right here is an exceptional spot to
1:21:40
Speaker 1: start my scouting to potentially hunt during certain parts of
1:21:43
Speaker 1: the year, right, yeah, yeah, for sure, absolutely. And and
1:21:48
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, that's essentially the same with with ditches,
1:21:51
Speaker 1: kind of the same thing, right We're talking about water
1:21:53
Speaker 1: coming off the top and creating a cut. Yeah yeah,
1:21:56
Speaker 1: so the ditches is really going to be a similar
1:21:58
Speaker 1: conceptum but instead of a big hardwood ridge with draws
1:22:04
Speaker 1: draws in spurs coming off the side. Um, let's take
1:22:09
Speaker 1: a flat, relatively flat piece of agriculture that's being farmed. Well,
1:22:14
Speaker 1: that water is going to run off one way or
1:22:16
Speaker 1: another off of that field. And it's going to find
1:22:19
Speaker 1: the lowest it's going to find that lowest elevation and
1:22:23
Speaker 1: run in the road. You're gonna find ditches. So sometimes
1:22:27
Speaker 1: you can find these things without the top of the map.
1:22:29
Speaker 1: You just look at an area and if you look,
1:22:31
Speaker 1: if you can see all these fingers of timber jutting
1:22:36
Speaker 1: into the field, that's probably where you're going to find
1:22:41
Speaker 1: a ditch because it's gonna be where water has naturally
1:22:44
Speaker 1: run off. You can't farm there because it's too it's
1:22:47
Speaker 1: too steep with the slope, and they're not they're not
1:22:48
Speaker 1: gonna farm where there's gonna be a bunch of water.
1:22:51
Speaker 1: So by nature that area grows up with brush and
1:22:56
Speaker 1: timber and water is gonna come right off that field
1:22:59
Speaker 1: and cut it down into that finger a timber. So
1:23:02
Speaker 1: the ditch is really the same concept. These deer aren't
1:23:05
Speaker 1: just gonna run back and forth, back and forth with
1:23:07
Speaker 1: the whole They're not gonna run perpendicular to the ditch
1:23:11
Speaker 1: the whole way down. There might be a select crossing
1:23:14
Speaker 1: or two, but they're really going to scoot around the
1:23:17
Speaker 1: property at the head of that at the head of
1:23:19
Speaker 1: that ditch, and a lot of times you can find.
1:23:23
Speaker 1: It goes back right back into what we're talking about
1:23:27
Speaker 1: with edge. So you've got not only this terrain funnel
1:23:30
Speaker 1: where it's just easier to get around that finger to
1:23:33
Speaker 1: timber and head to the next part of the field,
1:23:36
Speaker 1: but you've got edge as well, so you've got that
1:23:37
Speaker 1: sense of security for a deer that's scooting along. So
1:23:40
Speaker 1: there's efficiency there, there's there's security. Um. You know, it's
1:23:45
Speaker 1: a lot of good things can happen with these ditches.
1:23:48
Speaker 1: So sometimes you can find and this would transition right
1:23:52
Speaker 1: into that the next terrain feature we could talk about
1:23:54
Speaker 1: as the creek crossings. Um. The ditch is really going
1:23:58
Speaker 1: to define where deer are going to travel the majority
1:24:02
Speaker 1: of time. UM. And you can almost go and ground
1:24:08
Speaker 1: truth these dishes and find crossings occasionally um throughout where
1:24:14
Speaker 1: maybe it's a little gradual where you know the bank
1:24:18
Speaker 1: may not be is eroded away. As another part, so
1:24:21
Speaker 1: UM the quick quick story that real quick about draws
1:24:24
Speaker 1: before we totally get off of them. This past fall,
1:24:29
Speaker 1: um the pork buck. So I ran intohim in October
1:24:33
Speaker 1: and I encountered this deer a bunch. I had an
1:24:36
Speaker 1: idea that he was living off of this one spur
1:24:39
Speaker 1: i'lcohol it, which is basically like a secondary ridge. You
1:24:42
Speaker 1: got the main, the main top, and then you've got
1:24:44
Speaker 1: all these ridges extending off from the top, and in
1:24:47
Speaker 1: between those spurs or secondary ridges are the draws. Well,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: I had an ideas he's on this one where is
1:24:54
Speaker 1: he's bed in there, and I set up on the
1:24:58
Speaker 1: next spur over and we're separated by a draw and um,
1:25:02
Speaker 1: you know, I literally was in about a half hour
1:25:06
Speaker 1: um of of of daybreak. Sure enough I could see
1:25:10
Speaker 1: him with the dough, but not totally with her. You know,
1:25:13
Speaker 1: he was he was, he was, he was checking her out,
1:25:16
Speaker 1: but he wasn't actually tending her. So I grounded at him,
1:25:19
Speaker 1: and I mean, you know we're talking November eighth or nine.
1:25:24
Speaker 1: I mean he is in you know, total dominance mode.
1:25:29
Speaker 1: You know. I grunted at him, and he just came,
1:25:32
Speaker 1: uh and he threw set up, looked right over at me,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: and he just made a bee line straight for me,
1:25:38
Speaker 1: not using the head of the draw that we're talking about.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: I mean, he went right down over the hillside like
1:25:43
Speaker 1: it was a cliffhanger. And by by the time he disappeared,
1:25:47
Speaker 1: I grabbed my bow and I'm swinging around. I could
1:25:49
Speaker 1: already see his times coming back up. So um afterwards,
1:25:53
Speaker 1: you know, after the postseason, I went and scouted that area. Man,
1:25:56
Speaker 1: I can't believe he went through there, and you know
1:25:58
Speaker 1: he was able to jump over the ravine of the
1:26:02
Speaker 1: of the draw. But it just goes to show, I mean,
1:26:05
Speaker 1: when these deer want to get from one place to
1:26:07
Speaker 1: the next, there fully capable of doing that in the
1:26:12
Speaker 1: fastest way possible. You know. So it's not always a
1:26:15
Speaker 1: guarantee with with what we're talking about here, but it's
1:26:18
Speaker 1: just it's kind of an interesting thing. So yeah, so
1:26:21
Speaker 1: so I'm wondering what happened he turned around with the bow,
1:26:23
Speaker 1: his his time showed up. What happened? Yeah, so, uh,
1:26:28
Speaker 1: the way I was hunting, it was, it was kind
1:26:30
Speaker 1: of a good wind, but it was it was where
1:26:35
Speaker 1: where he came. He uh, he taught my wind. It was.
1:26:39
Speaker 1: It was a setup that would have worked for a
1:26:40
Speaker 1: lot of scenarios other than this one. And he basically,
1:26:46
Speaker 1: I mean I was a full draw and he needed
1:26:47
Speaker 1: about three more steps into to hit my lane and
1:26:51
Speaker 1: he slammed on the brakes and he knew something wasn't right.
1:26:54
Speaker 1: So you know, I I a lot of times early season,
1:26:58
Speaker 1: I'm hunting those winds where I'm not I'm fully confident
1:27:01
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get busted. But come game time, during
1:27:04
Speaker 1: the run, you know you're sitting you know, full days. Um,
1:27:07
Speaker 1: obviously you can make his a justice in the morning
1:27:09
Speaker 1: or evening, but you know, sometimes I'll get a little
1:27:11
Speaker 1: more aggressive, Um, you know what he's dealing with these winds,
1:27:15
Speaker 1: and try to hunt a buck on a wind that's
1:27:18
Speaker 1: almost you know, almost perfect for him, but not completely
1:27:23
Speaker 1: and almost completely horrible for me. But but not still
1:27:27
Speaker 1: you know, you know, totally almost totally in his favor,
1:27:30
Speaker 1: but a little bit in my favorite as well. Just
1:27:32
Speaker 1: so happened he bust me on this on this circumstance.
1:27:34
Speaker 1: But I end up seeing them here or four more
1:27:36
Speaker 1: times after that, and I didn't spook them off the
1:27:39
Speaker 1: whole north face of what I where I was hunting them.
1:27:41
Speaker 1: But it's just, you know, interesting to see how these
1:27:46
Speaker 1: terrain features can can drive these nearing Other times, man,
1:27:49
Speaker 1: they just go where they want to go. Yeah, that's
1:27:51
Speaker 1: that's the truth. I think what you said was a
1:27:53
Speaker 1: really good point was that these things aren't rules. They're
1:27:56
Speaker 1: they're not these are similar. These are simply your patterns
1:27:59
Speaker 1: of of sometimes consistent use. But they're they're still wild
1:28:02
Speaker 1: animals and they can do crazy things. So that's it. Yeah,
1:28:06
Speaker 1: so you mentioned creek crossings. What uh, hey, I guess
1:28:09
Speaker 1: my first question about creek crossings is can you can
1:28:12
Speaker 1: you see creek crossings or where certain features of a
1:28:16
Speaker 1: creek will funnel deer from a map or is that
1:28:18
Speaker 1: something you have to ground truth? No, you can definitely
1:28:21
Speaker 1: see it from the map. UM. I learned this from
1:28:24
Speaker 1: Bill Winky. Uh. He's put this out in multiple publications
1:28:28
Speaker 1: and I actually talked to him in person about this,
1:28:30
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like when it comes to no
1:28:33
Speaker 1: brainer guaranteed features that they're going to use, it's creek crossings.
1:28:38
Speaker 1: You can see this with UM. You used to be
1:28:41
Speaker 1: with the topo map, and you can see with an aerial.
1:28:43
Speaker 1: You can see it with boats, and whenever the topos
1:28:45
Speaker 1: combined with the aerial, it just jumps out at you,
1:28:48
Speaker 1: you know, um completely. But as a stream is winding,
1:28:55
Speaker 1: is streamless is going along its its own path, um,
1:28:59
Speaker 1: And it may these turns and twists and these these
1:29:02
Speaker 1: s curves let's just call them S curves. Every time
1:29:06
Speaker 1: that that stream makes a drastic curve. You've got to
1:29:11
Speaker 1: think that water is just by the forces and laws
1:29:16
Speaker 1: of physics, washing away, continually washing away that side where
1:29:22
Speaker 1: it makes that turn. So it's gonna be flowing down
1:29:24
Speaker 1: with momentum hit as it turns, it's gonna hit that
1:29:28
Speaker 1: bank and it's gonna cut the side of that bank,
1:29:30
Speaker 1: and then it's gonna work its way down again, you know,
1:29:33
Speaker 1: down down the rest of the stream. But where you
1:29:35
Speaker 1: see those big curves is where you're going to see
1:29:38
Speaker 1: your most drastic edges of the creek bank. And then
1:29:44
Speaker 1: in between those curves where the stream gets straight again,
1:29:49
Speaker 1: you're gonna find your your shallowest, most gradual uh stream
1:29:56
Speaker 1: bed edges, which means that those deer are gonna be
1:30:00
Speaker 1: crossing there. So the more you have and this is
1:30:04
Speaker 1: all from Bill I, you know, I'm translating this from
1:30:07
Speaker 1: from from Mr Winky here, but it's pretty slick. If
1:30:10
Speaker 1: you look at a map, look at the map, it's
1:30:12
Speaker 1: got a stream in it, and it's got a bunch
1:30:14
Speaker 1: of s curbs that's just gonna enhance in in dramatic
1:30:18
Speaker 1: size more creek crossings. So you go and you find
1:30:22
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of places where there's a nice S
1:30:24
Speaker 1: S curve and you're in between two curves and you
1:30:27
Speaker 1: find a straightaway go ground truth that area, and you're
1:30:30
Speaker 1: probably going to see a creek bank that's is more
1:30:34
Speaker 1: gradual and probably a pretty good deer bear trail there. Now,
1:30:39
Speaker 1: on the other hand, if you've got a stream that's
1:30:41
Speaker 1: just going straight as an arrow working its way through
1:30:45
Speaker 1: the timber or field or whatnot, it's not gonna be
1:30:48
Speaker 1: as um, it's not gonna be a is drastic um
1:30:53
Speaker 1: of a concentration of of creek crossings because those deer
1:30:57
Speaker 1: can you know, hop along at that bank. Problem is
1:31:00
Speaker 1: not changing it's it's it's face much at all. So
1:31:04
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of depends on the lay of
1:31:07
Speaker 1: the land. But like in pasture, a lot of pasture
1:31:09
Speaker 1: ground in the Midwest, and these streams just seemed to
1:31:11
Speaker 1: wind and make every twist and turn, and they can
1:31:14
Speaker 1: really show you some some great places to potentially set
1:31:17
Speaker 1: up as a as a creek crossing where deer is
1:31:19
Speaker 1: just getting from one place to the next, gonna falling
1:31:21
Speaker 1: right through there, and you're gonna get a crack out. Yeah,
1:31:24
Speaker 1: And I guess that I guess to all of these
1:31:26
Speaker 1: different types of features, right, We've we've talked about all
1:31:29
Speaker 1: these different land features that in some way will influence
1:31:34
Speaker 1: deer to travel a certain through a certain area. Um.
1:31:37
Speaker 1: And so they're all, in some way or another, are
1:31:39
Speaker 1: kind of like funnels because because they're influencing deer in
1:31:42
Speaker 1: some way. UM. We've talked a lot about how these
1:31:45
Speaker 1: can be hunted during the rut, right, because that's just
1:31:48
Speaker 1: a kind of usual way of hunting the rut is
1:31:50
Speaker 1: get into a funnel where deer are going to travel
1:31:52
Speaker 1: through a lot, and you're gonna have a good chance.
1:31:54
Speaker 1: But I think it's worth noting for all these things,
1:31:56
Speaker 1: especially something that creek crossing. You know, funnels can be
1:31:59
Speaker 1: hunted or all these features can be hunted effectively at
1:32:02
Speaker 1: other times of the year too. It's just that you
1:32:04
Speaker 1: want to be between the two main goals of a
1:32:07
Speaker 1: deer's life, which is betting and feeding. So if you
1:32:09
Speaker 1: can find a creek crossing between where they want to
1:32:11
Speaker 1: eat and where they're betted, well now you've got the
1:32:13
Speaker 1: funnel between betting and feeding, which is their most likely
1:32:16
Speaker 1: route of travel. So I think that can be applied
1:32:18
Speaker 1: early season, it can be applied late season. It can
1:32:21
Speaker 1: be applied during the rut. It just depends on where
1:32:24
Speaker 1: do you where does this feature lie between, and then
1:32:26
Speaker 1: that's what's going to determine whether you hunt it. You know,
1:32:30
Speaker 1: October one or November one? Right? Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely,
1:32:35
Speaker 1: I mean the goal is to get the goal is
1:32:37
Speaker 1: to have some sense of understanding of whether you are betting,
1:32:42
Speaker 1: and then where they're feeding, and how can you get
1:32:45
Speaker 1: in between or at their destination one way or another,
1:32:48
Speaker 1: whether it's afternoon or morning, how you can get there
1:32:51
Speaker 1: before they do. And and if you know, if you
1:32:54
Speaker 1: don't end up seeing the dearly one, how do you
1:32:56
Speaker 1: get out of there without without spooking them to blow
1:32:59
Speaker 1: them out? So entry and exit is just as important
1:33:03
Speaker 1: here as where we're hunting. In fact, you know, um
1:33:07
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, and I think this is
1:33:09
Speaker 1: the fact that it's more important than where you're hunting,
1:33:13
Speaker 1: making sure that you're getting in and you're getting out undetected,
1:33:17
Speaker 1: so that you're not educating the deer herd. Because you
1:33:19
Speaker 1: can have all of these amazing pitch points, tunnels and
1:33:23
Speaker 1: in all these great terrain features that you can hunt
1:33:26
Speaker 1: and you're excited about. But if you're educating the deer
1:33:28
Speaker 1: that are living there that would be using those funnels
1:33:31
Speaker 1: that they didn't know you were there. Then you know
1:33:33
Speaker 1: you're you're wasting your time. So getting in getting out
1:33:37
Speaker 1: it's huge. Um. And these features play their own roles
1:33:42
Speaker 1: throughout all of hunting season, whether it's September early season,
1:33:46
Speaker 1: all the way into January late season. Yeah, so true.
1:33:50
Speaker 1: And it's it's one of those things we talked about
1:33:52
Speaker 1: a ton, right almost every podcast or every other podcast,
1:33:55
Speaker 1: we mentioned access and entry and exit so many times.
1:33:59
Speaker 1: But it's one of those things that and I'm guilty
1:34:01
Speaker 1: of this as anyone, is that it's easier said than
1:34:04
Speaker 1: done in a lot of cases. I mean, there's there's
1:34:06
Speaker 1: so many times where I know I need to enter
1:34:08
Speaker 1: or extras a certain way, but I'm rushed on time,
1:34:11
Speaker 1: or I don't want to go through the briars this time,
1:34:14
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. It's it's easy to get lazy
1:34:16
Speaker 1: with it. But I think that's why it's important that
1:34:18
Speaker 1: we always mentioned it because I need to remind myself
1:34:20
Speaker 1: sometimes that, hey, you have to sometimes go the extra
1:34:23
Speaker 1: mile or whatever it is, because if you don't, yeah,
1:34:26
Speaker 1: it might make it a little more convenient for you,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: but you just blew your hunt. So yeah, yeah, for sure.
1:34:32
Speaker 1: I mean the access is always I mean it is
1:34:37
Speaker 1: easy to kind of get in that I've been guilty
1:34:39
Speaker 1: of getting in the same thing where you know, you
1:34:41
Speaker 1: kind of have an idea of Okay, the deer betting
1:34:43
Speaker 1: there that they're feeding here, I've got to leave this way.
1:34:45
Speaker 1: But if you continue to pound that area in and out,
1:34:48
Speaker 1: in and out, in and out, eventually they're going to
1:34:50
Speaker 1: figure they're gonna they're gonna catch your trail. So um,
1:34:53
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a constant battle to to kind
1:34:56
Speaker 1: of be one step ahead of them, which is it's
1:34:59
Speaker 1: hard to do. Um. I remember talking to Jeff Starts
1:35:02
Speaker 1: one time, you know, when you mentioned it, especially on
1:35:05
Speaker 1: public ground, he would go in and he would literally
1:35:07
Speaker 1: have a different Even if he's hunding the same stand,
1:35:10
Speaker 1: he's got four consistent wins, four winnings in a row,
1:35:14
Speaker 1: he's going to access that stand four different ways to
1:35:16
Speaker 1: number one, prevent from educating the deer. With number two,
1:35:19
Speaker 1: to prevent from educating hunters. So guys that are sharing property,
1:35:23
Speaker 1: you know, if you can scatter yourself, um, how you're
1:35:26
Speaker 1: entering and exiting at stand location. It's gonna it's gonna
1:35:30
Speaker 1: be good for you. That's a great point. Yeah, I
1:35:32
Speaker 1: like that, And I think to the whole point of
1:35:35
Speaker 1: our conversation is you can make some of these decisions
1:35:38
Speaker 1: on how you enter an exit again by looking at
1:35:40
Speaker 1: these things on a map, thinking about it on almost
1:35:43
Speaker 1: a macro perspective to a degree, you know, thinking about, Okay,
1:35:46
Speaker 1: how does my property fit into the larger scheme of things.
1:35:49
Speaker 1: How do i need to get in and out to
1:35:50
Speaker 1: make sure I'm not spooking these deer that maybe aren't
1:35:52
Speaker 1: on my property but but could be influenced by my
1:35:54
Speaker 1: movements and all that. So, um, it's it's something that
1:35:58
Speaker 1: can't be understated. Now we've we've covered all sorts of
1:36:02
Speaker 1: different types of funnels, benches and saddles and ditches and
1:36:06
Speaker 1: ridges and points and creek crossings, and how all these
1:36:09
Speaker 1: different things can look like can how they look on
1:36:12
Speaker 1: a map, how do identify them on the ground, how
1:36:14
Speaker 1: dear use them? Um, there's one other one that came
1:36:17
Speaker 1: to mind for me that I was reminded of by
1:36:21
Speaker 1: something you posted on Facebook. You posted a map and
1:36:23
Speaker 1: image of essentially a low spot and field. Swell, you
1:36:26
Speaker 1: posted a picture of a swell and how dear use that.
1:36:28
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that a little bit? How you
1:36:30
Speaker 1: can see that in a map? Why that's important? Yeah? Absolutely,
1:36:35
Speaker 1: Um that post received some pretty awesome feedback and it's
1:36:39
Speaker 1: and it's a it looks pretty basic on the map,
1:36:42
Speaker 1: but basically all you're looking for is a low spot
1:36:45
Speaker 1: in the field. UM. I call them, I just always
1:36:48
Speaker 1: call them field creases, but they're they're also known as
1:36:51
Speaker 1: swales or um I think some people call them field saddles.
1:36:56
Speaker 1: And that's really what it is. It's it's a low
1:36:58
Speaker 1: spot in between two higher play is in the field.
1:37:01
Speaker 1: And a lot of times that that um in that crease,
1:37:04
Speaker 1: it'll it'll connect at the at the side of each
1:37:10
Speaker 1: At each side of that low spot will be a
1:37:13
Speaker 1: finger of timber that probably has a ditch or a
1:37:16
Speaker 1: draw coming from it. UM that is pointing towards another
1:37:21
Speaker 1: low spot, which is going to be the head of
1:37:23
Speaker 1: the opposite ditch or finger or draw. And bucks I've
1:37:29
Speaker 1: seen them multiple times used to come right out to
1:37:32
Speaker 1: the field and it's like, you know, if you're in
1:37:34
Speaker 1: a tree stand, you know you're like, man, that that
1:37:36
Speaker 1: thing has a lot of confidence just scooting right through
1:37:38
Speaker 1: that the middle of that field in the middle of
1:37:40
Speaker 1: the day. But the fact is, um, he's preventing himself
1:37:45
Speaker 1: from being silhouetted. And a lot of times he'll be
1:37:49
Speaker 1: coming out from one he's worked one one area timber
1:37:53
Speaker 1: sent checking for deer or sent checking for those and
1:37:55
Speaker 1: then he'll use that that swale that low spots, scoot
1:37:59
Speaker 1: through and just top right over the other side of
1:38:01
Speaker 1: that field and check the edge and dive into the
1:38:03
Speaker 1: timber on the other side. So you've got two dynamite
1:38:05
Speaker 1: spots probably for different wind directions that you can you
1:38:09
Speaker 1: can hunt right there. It's a it's a it's a
1:38:11
Speaker 1: great spot. Not necessarily just for the right I mean,
1:38:14
Speaker 1: all of these, all these features can be hot for
1:38:16
Speaker 1: the rud for the most part. But um, you know,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: if if if deer feel safe and it's easy, they're
1:38:25
Speaker 1: probably going to use that, and that's that's a good
1:38:28
Speaker 1: one for sure. I don't know, I don't know what
1:38:31
Speaker 1: you've seen, but um, I have seen this type of
1:38:33
Speaker 1: feature be particularly deadly in the case where that field
1:38:37
Speaker 1: is relatively narrow, So like in a lot of places
1:38:40
Speaker 1: where you have these fields that run along the top
1:38:42
Speaker 1: of high ground right, Like we mentioned, you'll you'll have
1:38:45
Speaker 1: the ditches or the ridge or the draws down low
1:38:47
Speaker 1: and that's all timbers. So like for example in Iowa
1:38:49
Speaker 1: where I where I was hunting in Iowa this year,
1:38:51
Speaker 1: all the fields are up high, all the timbers down
1:38:54
Speaker 1: low in these cuts and the valleys and stuff. But
1:38:57
Speaker 1: because of that, it makes these like fingers almost like
1:38:59
Speaker 1: an end. You've got a hand stretched out and each
1:39:02
Speaker 1: one of the fingers extending out is a finger of
1:39:04
Speaker 1: that field. So in those circumstances where the field is
1:39:07
Speaker 1: like a narrow finger extending out, those are the spots
1:39:10
Speaker 1: I've just found. That. Man, when you find the low
1:39:12
Speaker 1: spot in that field, there's a ton of travel across
1:39:15
Speaker 1: the there. Um. Oh yeah, that's just a really good
1:39:19
Speaker 1: But if if you're going to hunt a field edge
1:39:21
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, um, definitely, I think that's where're gonna
1:39:25
Speaker 1: see a lot of the entrying exit of the field
1:39:27
Speaker 1: come into play. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. I've even
1:39:31
Speaker 1: had situations like turkey hunting, when we're moving from one
1:39:34
Speaker 1: spot to the next and and you can't, um, it's
1:39:38
Speaker 1: not always evident until you're walking along that field where
1:39:41
Speaker 1: the a lot of that agricultural fields will have a
1:39:45
Speaker 1: role to them. And just it doesn't take much, you know,
1:39:49
Speaker 1: even if you're six ft five, you know, to which not.
1:39:53
Speaker 1: But regardless of you know, it doesn't take much to hide,
1:39:57
Speaker 1: you know, whenever you're in one of these things. So
1:40:00
Speaker 1: I remember last year, you know, um, turkey hunting here
1:40:04
Speaker 1: in Iowa and moving from one spot to next in
1:40:08
Speaker 1: sure enough. I mean, it doesn't look like there's anything
1:40:10
Speaker 1: out there. And right in the in one of these
1:40:12
Speaker 1: swells there's there's two big long birds and they saw
1:40:14
Speaker 1: us coming, you know, a mile away, but I didn't
1:40:16
Speaker 1: see them. So, um, it's not only deer that are
1:40:19
Speaker 1: using these these low spots their advantage. It's all wild life.
1:40:24
Speaker 1: But these are the things you got to look for. Um.
1:40:27
Speaker 1: And it always goes back to, you know, looking at
1:40:30
Speaker 1: the map and then ground truth in it. But yeah, yeah,
1:40:33
Speaker 1: for sure that that specific feature is is a deadly
1:40:36
Speaker 1: one and one that's not always talk about. And when
1:40:39
Speaker 1: you're looking for that on a map, let's say, with
1:40:41
Speaker 1: if you have a map that shows topographic lines, is
1:40:44
Speaker 1: it is it just going to look like a saddle,
1:40:46
Speaker 1: but just like a much less exaggerated saddle or different. Yeah, yeah,
1:40:52
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's gonna look like it's gonna look like
1:40:55
Speaker 1: a saddle in the middle of the field. Um, but
1:40:58
Speaker 1: even if you don't have top a map, if you
1:41:00
Speaker 1: can see if you see the edge of timber, kind
1:41:03
Speaker 1: of peek out to the edge of the field, and
1:41:06
Speaker 1: then literally if you draw a straight line from that
1:41:08
Speaker 1: to the next side, to the opposite side of the field,
1:41:11
Speaker 1: if you have timber poking out into the side, they're
1:41:14
Speaker 1: guaranteed that's a low spot in the field. You've got
1:41:17
Speaker 1: to check it out, so you don't always need top
1:41:19
Speaker 1: on map to do to see that. It definitely helps though,
1:41:22
Speaker 1: And that's essentially what is the saddle. You're gonna see. Um,
1:41:25
Speaker 1: you're gonna see your lines coming closer together as it
1:41:29
Speaker 1: goes downhill, and then when it hits the bottom of
1:41:31
Speaker 1: that swale or the crease, it's going to be flat
1:41:34
Speaker 1: for a minute, and then it's going to the upper
1:41:36
Speaker 1: opposite side is going to have your lines tied together again.
1:41:39
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, yeah, it's a good one. Nice. Yeah.
1:41:43
Speaker 1: I like you said, it's it's often overlooked but can
1:41:46
Speaker 1: be a really great place to focus some time. And
1:41:50
Speaker 1: I think a lot you know, we kind of alluded
1:41:52
Speaker 1: to it as we've gone along, But it's all about
1:41:54
Speaker 1: you know, when you're trying to pick a spot to
1:41:56
Speaker 1: hang a tree stand, you know, it's it can be
1:41:59
Speaker 1: difficult if you're just saying, Okay, where's the betting area,
1:42:02
Speaker 1: here's a food plot I'm gonna hunt on there's the
1:42:03
Speaker 1: food plot, or I think, dear bed in this chunk
1:42:06
Speaker 1: of timber, I'm just gonna set up a tree stand
1:42:08
Speaker 1: randomly somewhere around here. I think a lot of us
1:42:09
Speaker 1: start deer hunting like that, and then you slowly realize
1:42:13
Speaker 1: that you need to look for the thing within the thing.
1:42:16
Speaker 1: So okay, yeah, I now, I know I want to
1:42:18
Speaker 1: be near this betting area. But where's the best place
1:42:21
Speaker 1: to be along this ridge that approaches the betting area?
1:42:24
Speaker 1: Where that's where these types of features come into play.
1:42:26
Speaker 1: When you start realizing, Okay, I know there's a betting
1:42:29
Speaker 1: area here, so I need to be on the ridge
1:42:31
Speaker 1: near this betting are. Oh, by the way, there's this
1:42:33
Speaker 1: draw that comes with the ridge. Now I want to
1:42:35
Speaker 1: be there. Or I now I see that there's a
1:42:37
Speaker 1: swell in the field above me that's probably going to
1:42:39
Speaker 1: pull a lot of the traffic coming up this ridge
1:42:42
Speaker 1: to probably want to cross here. So it's putting all
1:42:44
Speaker 1: these pieces together to short to start, like identifying the hotspots,
1:42:48
Speaker 1: those places where we're travel intersects and where you're gonna
1:42:51
Speaker 1: have that greatest chance to be within bow range if
1:42:54
Speaker 1: you're a bow hunter, or gun range too. So it's
1:42:58
Speaker 1: it's a big old puzzle. I feel like he's looking
1:43:00
Speaker 1: at the map really helps you bring the pieces together. Yeah, yeah,
1:43:04
Speaker 1: for sure. And it's you know, um, you always get
1:43:08
Speaker 1: the best sense of direction when you're looking at the map.
1:43:10
Speaker 1: It's lately telling you which way is north, south, east
1:43:12
Speaker 1: and west. And um, it's easy to grab his you know. Uh,
1:43:16
Speaker 1: this happened to me in Kansas two years ago. Um,
1:43:19
Speaker 1: go in and I saw this dandy dandy buck the
1:43:23
Speaker 1: middle of the day. I'll never forgive his freeze and
1:43:26
Speaker 1: freezing cold. Actually highland. The pro was snows that the
1:43:28
Speaker 1: second week in November I was in Kansas was equally
1:43:31
Speaker 1: as frigid. Um saw a really nice buck comes stooting
1:43:36
Speaker 1: through about uh twelve twelve thirty in the afternoon. Totally justified,
1:43:42
Speaker 1: you know, the painful all day sit But anyways, so
1:43:46
Speaker 1: grunted at him. He didn't want to have much to
1:43:48
Speaker 1: do with me, And I just kind of watched him
1:43:51
Speaker 1: for the for the rest of the time, and he
1:43:53
Speaker 1: worked his way down and ended up making a scrape
1:43:55
Speaker 1: in the small wood lot. And I knew the next
1:43:57
Speaker 1: day I was going to have another north Uh. The
1:44:00
Speaker 1: wind was going to go from northwest straight north. And
1:44:04
Speaker 1: I went back and looked at the map and realized, Man,
1:44:07
Speaker 1: it's gonna be an aggressive set up, but it's long
1:44:11
Speaker 1: as the wind stays true north, my scent is gonna
1:44:14
Speaker 1: be basically blown straight down towards where he's coming from.
1:44:18
Speaker 1: But he's gonna be a little bit farther east work
1:44:20
Speaker 1: because of the the fence line and the pasture. So
1:44:25
Speaker 1: if you come out hugging the edge of that fence
1:44:27
Speaker 1: line from the pasture, uh, then I was gonna be okay.
1:44:30
Speaker 1: And I set up for that. And the only way
1:44:32
Speaker 1: I was able to looking at the map, um, going
1:44:36
Speaker 1: in there, you get any into the woodlowe, you get
1:44:38
Speaker 1: an idea of what the sense of direction is. But um, anyways,
1:44:41
Speaker 1: went in there, hung to stand, got out of there,
1:44:44
Speaker 1: and then the next morning, you know, it was like
1:44:47
Speaker 1: the perfect script reading that's ever happened in my hunting career.
1:44:51
Speaker 1: He came right up that fence line, dropped down in
1:44:54
Speaker 1: and I shot him at seven yards before I could
1:44:57
Speaker 1: he could catch my wind. So you want to look
1:44:59
Speaker 1: for those situaations where if you've got an idea bucks
1:45:01
Speaker 1: coming from a certain area and you can he thinks
1:45:05
Speaker 1: he's got a great wind to be safer, an almost
1:45:08
Speaker 1: great wind to be safe, and you've got to win.
1:45:10
Speaker 1: That's almost horrible for you. But you know, you know
1:45:15
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, um, and you can have some you
1:45:17
Speaker 1: can have some luck there. You don't always want to
1:45:19
Speaker 1: look for this situation that you have awesome wind for you.
1:45:23
Speaker 1: You're never going to get busted, um, because sometimes there's
1:45:26
Speaker 1: dear you know, it's good for you and it's not
1:45:28
Speaker 1: necessarily good for them and to trying to stay alive.
1:45:30
Speaker 1: So you know, it's just a lot of different things
1:45:32
Speaker 1: you can do when you look at the map and
1:45:34
Speaker 1: you can tell you a lot. You know, sense of
1:45:37
Speaker 1: direction there's obviously a really important one whenever you get
1:45:39
Speaker 1: to win. Report every morning. Yeah, yea, so true. So man,
1:45:43
Speaker 1: we we've covered we cot a lot here. Um, we're
1:45:47
Speaker 1: coming up on time here. But is there any other
1:45:49
Speaker 1: major topic related to you know, using maps to better
1:45:55
Speaker 1: hunt deer. Is there anything we've missed? Ben or we
1:45:59
Speaker 1: Do you feel we've covered as best as we could
1:46:00
Speaker 1: in this time? Man, I think we've covered a lot.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot of ground, and and I want
1:46:05
Speaker 1: to caveat all this everything we talked about by saying
1:46:10
Speaker 1: that I am by no means a mega expert in
1:46:14
Speaker 1: the field of white tail strategy and hunting and habitat management,
1:46:18
Speaker 1: I've just got um, you know, a certain knowledge that
1:46:21
Speaker 1: I've acquired over the years with with HUNTERA and and
1:46:24
Speaker 1: just by being a sponge was literally around every every
1:46:27
Speaker 1: hunter the don that I'm around. I try to soak
1:46:31
Speaker 1: in as much information as possible. So a lot of
1:46:33
Speaker 1: these tactics I've confirmed over the years from you know,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: sightings that I've seen and and encounters that I've had.
1:46:39
Speaker 1: But a lot of it also is just um by default,
1:46:43
Speaker 1: from clients that I've worked with over the years, or
1:46:45
Speaker 1: partners that I have that you know, we start talking
1:46:47
Speaker 1: shop on Hey, you know what's going on in your property?
1:46:50
Speaker 1: This looks like a good area? Is it? Bouncing ideas
1:46:53
Speaker 1: off of them? And and that's where you know I
1:46:55
Speaker 1: was able to get you know, a decent grasp on
1:46:57
Speaker 1: what's what to look for out of the map, but
1:47:00
Speaker 1: by no means you know the encyclopedia of of of
1:47:04
Speaker 1: deer hunting expertise with maps or anything like that. But well, no, man,
1:47:07
Speaker 1: I appreciate you you have me on the show. You know,
1:47:10
Speaker 1: definitely this has been great and I think, uh, your
1:47:13
Speaker 1: your level of expertise is is just right there up
1:47:16
Speaker 1: there with all the other experts or quote unquote experts
1:47:18
Speaker 1: of deer hunting, because we're on the same boat, right
1:47:20
Speaker 1: We're we're just learning from other people, taking whatever advice
1:47:23
Speaker 1: we can, trying to apply in the field and seeing
1:47:25
Speaker 1: what works. Um So, so I think you you've done
1:47:28
Speaker 1: a great job of cataloging a lot of those lessons learned.
1:47:31
Speaker 1: It's been super helpful here for all of us because
1:47:33
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those topics that you
1:47:35
Speaker 1: hear these buzzwords a lot. We talk about a little bit,
1:47:38
Speaker 1: but we don't necessarily dive deep. Um So, I think
1:47:41
Speaker 1: that this would be will be very helpful for for
1:47:43
Speaker 1: everyone listening, and I hope it has been so so Ben,
1:47:46
Speaker 1: we haven't really got to go into detail about hunter
1:47:49
Speaker 1: A yet, but you know, can you just for those
1:47:52
Speaker 1: who aren't familiar, Can you share a little bit more
1:47:54
Speaker 1: detail about what exactly your company is making. You know,
1:47:57
Speaker 1: what kind of maps you're making, what's different about theom
1:47:59
Speaker 1: UM why they're kind of interesting. Yeah. Absolutely, So. We
1:48:04
Speaker 1: specialize in custom land maps for hunters, habitat specialists, ranchers, land,
1:48:14
Speaker 1: real estate agents, really anybody that needs the best view
1:48:18
Speaker 1: possible of their land UM is who we work for. Essentially,
1:48:22
Speaker 1: the foundation of HUNTERA is the blending of UH imagery
1:48:26
Speaker 1: or aerial photography and terrain shadowing or relief so that
1:48:32
Speaker 1: you can see the rises and falls of your property
1:48:35
Speaker 1: and all the terrain features that that we talked about
1:48:38
Speaker 1: UM in addition to the actual picture in the land
1:48:42
Speaker 1: cover of your property with the aerial UM and on
1:48:45
Speaker 1: top of that we we add layers like your your
1:48:49
Speaker 1: property border or topo lines. Which is when we came
1:48:52
Speaker 1: out with that feature last year, it was pretty UM,
1:48:56
Speaker 1: it was really well received. What we create, what we'vec
1:49:00
Speaker 1: is the ultimate map for for hunters UM and we
1:49:03
Speaker 1: can map anything from whether you've got forty acres all
1:49:06
Speaker 1: the way up to four thousand acres and everywhere in between. UM.
1:49:11
Speaker 1: We make maps on two different types of paper. We
1:49:13
Speaker 1: do field maps for taking out to the sealing and
1:49:15
Speaker 1: it's gonna be durable for you throughout the whole the
1:49:17
Speaker 1: whole hunting season in the offseason, and then we make
1:49:20
Speaker 1: poster maps which are for interior display. Got a number
1:49:23
Speaker 1: of different sizes, but are what we The foundation of
1:49:28
Speaker 1: our company is really built around working one on one
1:49:32
Speaker 1: with each one of our customers. I think you guys
1:49:34
Speaker 1: up all the time. You know, they call us up
1:49:36
Speaker 1: all the time and say, Hey, I've got this scenario.
1:49:39
Speaker 1: What do you think size wise? You know, I've got
1:49:41
Speaker 1: this much ground? Um, what do you think I should get? So? Uh,
1:49:45
Speaker 1: we work one on one the whole way through the
1:49:48
Speaker 1: review process. Uh. And then once you're once you're happy
1:49:51
Speaker 1: with um the way the map is designed, uh, that
1:49:54
Speaker 1: we do the review process or email whatce you're happy
1:49:57
Speaker 1: with that and give us the approval. That's one of
1:49:59
Speaker 1: the actual we send the print shop so that a
1:50:01
Speaker 1: lot of cool products and our goal is just to
1:50:04
Speaker 1: make the the awtimate map for the outdoorsman. Well, uh,
1:50:08
Speaker 1: from my experience, at least from what I've seen, you're
1:50:10
Speaker 1: definitely living up to that goal. I have been very
1:50:13
Speaker 1: impressed with his maps and as I've alluded to throughout
1:50:15
Speaker 1: our conversation, have been using them over the past couple
1:50:17
Speaker 1: of years, and and really they do help make all
1:50:21
Speaker 1: these different features and um funnels and whatever. It really
1:50:25
Speaker 1: helps them pop. It helps you see these things in
1:50:27
Speaker 1: clear daylight and then allows you to make smart deer
1:50:30
Speaker 1: hunting or management habitat and firm decisions. So it's a
1:50:34
Speaker 1: great tool. And uh, I appreciate you sharing your incredible
1:50:38
Speaker 1: amount of experience and insight, and these stories and examples
1:50:42
Speaker 1: I think have, at least for me even have shed
1:50:44
Speaker 1: light a lot on these things. So so Ben, thank
1:50:47
Speaker 1: you so much for your time. Man. Thanks a lot, Mark,
1:50:50
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. And uh, and I certainly appreciates
1:50:53
Speaker 1: platform to to share what we do with with everybody
1:50:57
Speaker 1: that's listening from the Wired Foundation, so flat absolutely, And
1:51:01
Speaker 1: it's hunt tera dot com right If people want to
1:51:03
Speaker 1: learn more about what you're doing, hunt Tera dot com. Yeah,
1:51:07
Speaker 1: Tera dot com, and uh we're pretty active on We
1:51:11
Speaker 1: got a Facebook page and Instagram page and uh yeah
1:51:14
Speaker 1: those uh those are the ways you can you can
1:51:17
Speaker 1: reach out and learn more about what we do. Perfect well.
1:51:19
Speaker 1: I will make sure to include links to that in
1:51:21
Speaker 1: the blog. Post and uh until next time, Ben, have
1:51:24
Speaker 1: a terrific evening. Nice Mark. Alright, bye bye. So there
1:51:30
Speaker 1: you go. Another episode in the books, and I hope
1:51:34
Speaker 1: you all found this deep dive into mapping as helpful
1:51:36
Speaker 1: as I did. I, like I said numerous times throughout
1:51:39
Speaker 1: the episode today, I just love this topic of maps
1:51:42
Speaker 1: and how you can use these tools. And I think
1:51:44
Speaker 1: Ben did a great job of breaking things down to
1:51:47
Speaker 1: the basics and then going into some of these more
1:51:49
Speaker 1: detailed concepts too. I had a blast with it, so
1:51:52
Speaker 1: hopefully I'm not the only one. Now before we shut
1:51:56
Speaker 1: things down, I do have a couple of quick requests
1:51:59
Speaker 1: if you don't mind so. First, if you haven't done
1:52:02
Speaker 1: so yet, we would greatly appreciate it if you could
1:52:04
Speaker 1: leave us a rating or review on iTunes. It is
1:52:07
Speaker 1: a huge, huge help to us, so so thank you
1:52:09
Speaker 1: and a vanswer doing that it means the world. And
1:52:11
Speaker 1: while you're on iTunes, if you haven't subscribed yet to
1:52:14
Speaker 1: the podcast, make sure you do so. That allows you
1:52:17
Speaker 1: to get all the new episodes delivered automatically right to
1:52:20
Speaker 1: your phone or tablet or computer. Makes things super easy,
1:52:23
Speaker 1: so make sure subscribe. And speaking of subscribing to podcasts.
1:52:27
Speaker 1: If you're not subscribed yet to The white Tail Q
1:52:30
Speaker 1: and a podcast that's another one you should definitely check out.
1:52:33
Speaker 1: That is my other podcast, the Short Form Quick Podcast
1:52:36
Speaker 1: in which we answer one listener submitted question. That is
1:52:41
Speaker 1: a podcast I would love for you guys all to
1:52:43
Speaker 1: go listen to, to subscribe to, and if you haven't
1:52:46
Speaker 1: yet either leave over you there as well. That is awesome,
1:52:49
Speaker 1: So so thank you to Vance you can do that.
1:52:50
Speaker 1: And finally, we do need to thank our partners will
1:52:54
Speaker 1: help keep this podcast on the air, So thank you too,
1:52:56
Speaker 1: Sick Gear, Trophy, Ridge, Bear Archery, Redneck Blind On, Tara Maps, Oxonics,
1:53:02
Speaker 1: Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of North America.
1:53:06
Speaker 1: And finally, thank you all for being the best damn
1:53:09
Speaker 1: podcast audience on the planet. I really truly appreciate you
1:53:13
Speaker 1: tuning in. So until next time, have a great day,
1:53:16
Speaker 1: chase those white tailed dreams, and stay wired to hunt.