Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 406: 10 Off-Season Tasks For Your Best Season Ever with Tony Peterson

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Ep. 406: 10 Off-Season Tasks For Your Best Season Ever with Tony Peterson · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: oh six, and today I'm joined by d i Y
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: public Land bow hunting guru Tony Peterson to explore ten
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: different offseason tasks that can help you on your path
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to your best season ever. All right, welcome to the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. And
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: today it is February something, early February two one, and uh,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: you know, we're smack dab in the midst of the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: off season for most deer hunters across country. I know
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: there's a few exceptions, but a lot of us were
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: we're getting into the heart of the off season. And
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: what I wanted to do today was talk through some
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: ways we can make the best of that time. I
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: know that there's there's kind of two ways to think
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: about the off season. I think within the white tail world,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: there's there's one group who look at the off season
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: as a total flip off the switch and they're going
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: off and doing other things completely and then a week
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: before hunting season, they start thinking about deer again or
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the week before, you know, opening day gun season. Um,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: that's how I grew up actually. But then there's this
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: other half, or maybe more than half or less than half,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the number is, but there's some
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: other portion who is thinking about deer three sixty five
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: days a year, and they're constantly thinking about these things.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So what I want to do is kind of address
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: focus on on either side of that spectrum and share
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: some ideas for ways that we can all add a
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: little bit more into our off season to do list
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to take our hunting journey to the next level. For two.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So I'm here with my buddy Tony Peterson. Uh, Tony,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I think you're with me on this that that well,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know. Maybe maybe I'm getting ahead
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of myself here, but I have this constant back and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: forth with the off season. We're part of the time,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I just want to shut down, I just
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: want to step away from it. And then I've got
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: this other half of me that's saying, go, go go.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: There's so much you gotta get done. You need to
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: be more prepared than ever this year. And I find
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: myself being pulled between these two opposite voices on my shoulders.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Do you ever find yourself in that situation too? Um,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: not as much as I used to, buddy, like I
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I still do, but I find myself you know, we're
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: we're stuck in this just arctic blast right now, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: it's like the worst time of year, and I just
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: find myself missing being able to easily go out and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: do something dear related. So it's not you know, it's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: not for me. It's not necessarily stressed, like, oh, I'm
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: not getting enough done before next season. Is just the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: overall anxiety of not doing anything, and I just want
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to be out there more. I hear you this, So
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you two stories that related to that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Number One. So that arctic blast you mentioned that's hitting
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: us here in Michigan right now too. There's a zero
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: degree wind chill at the moment. And I live in
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: this old, kind of crappy farmhouse, and my my podcast editor,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the guy that edits our podcast, he keeps complaining about
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that there's some humming noise in my office
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: when I record every once in a while, and so
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: he's sending me like threatening emails and tell him he
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't like me anymore and all this stuff. So finally
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, fine, it's probably the heating. You know,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: vent turning on and off every once in a while,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: so I told him I would turn it off. So
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I've turned off the heat in our house, Tony, And
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing two jackets, a puffy vest, and a hat
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to record this because I know it's going to be
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: freezing any minute now. The wind blowing in our old,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: cruddy farmhouse leaking a little bit of heat I have.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So that's that story number one. And Heyden, I know
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you're listening, so I hope you're happy. And and then
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: number two, speaking of not being able to get out
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and do stuff, Uh, I'm so desperate to get out
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and do things right now. And so just I don't know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: stir crazy with just everything going on, just you know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: stuff being shut down still, and in the lousy weather
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that last night, I got done work in and we
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: put the kids to bed and kind of just had
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: everything settled for the evening and it's eight o'clock or
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: something like that, and I was gonna go get milk.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: We're out of milk, and the snowstorm was hitting, so
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: like there's like forty our winds and we're gonna get
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: five or six inches of snow and this is all hitting.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And I mentioned my wife. I'm like, I think I'm
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: gonna go get milk, and she's like, really in this
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: weather right now? And I tell her, yeah, it'll be.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It'll be the I need an adventure. I need I
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: need a reason to get the house. So I'm gonna
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: go drive through the snow and get milk, now, was
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: my big HERRG. She's like, that's not an adventure. If
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you really want to make an adventurous you should hike there.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And she was saying that kiddingly, but when she said that,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I was like, you're so right. So I at like
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: eight thirty last night, I loaded up a forty pound
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: backpack and put on winter closed and hiked a mile
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and a half to the closest gas station to pick
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: up milk in the snowstorm and all the way back
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and it was so much fun. I was so out there,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: just like laughing at myself, thinking this is the life.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I needed some reason to get out and do something
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: stupid and enjoy the elements. And that was how far
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: was that milk run. Mark just over a mile and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: a half there and mile a half back or just
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: under mile and a half they're and back, so three
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: like two miles and three quarters two. It was the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: best part of my week. I'm not kidding. That's I know.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I say this to you every time we talk, but
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: you know, people always ask me what what Mark Kenyon
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: is and I'm just like, consistently, I'm like, he's just weird.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It's just an odd duct. And I love hearing stories
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: like that because people will go, yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I can't. I have no rebuttal to that. I just
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: am what I am telling. Yeah, that's the truth. That's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: too late for that. So uh so that's my winter
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: state of mind at the moment. But um, but yeah,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: there there are plenty of things that we can be
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: doing in the off season that are either important or
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: just fun. Um, So I figured we could share some
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: ideas today. I know that both you and I have
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: done a lot of different things and a lot of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: different situations throughout the years too, you know, to help
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: better prepare ourselves for hunting season or or recharge ourselves
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: leaving into the hunting season. And I thought we could
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: just go back and forth and explore some of these ideas,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: try to think through some things that maybe aren't as obvious.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Some of these things are, you know, relatively obvious. Some
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: of these might be little bit different. Um, but give
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: everybody a few things to think about over the next
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: few weeks, the next few months, especially this time of year.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I don't know if this is
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the same for you, but I'm not a big ice fisher.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Uh So this period here January February is is definitely
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: my slowest point of the entire year. Um. You know,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: once we get into March, I'm shed hunting and scouting
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and the ones. It's April's turkey season, and then I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: start fishing a lot, May Jorn, July, and then August
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I feel like you're right back and into really really
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: prepping for deer. Um. So this is that one part
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: of the year where I get a little bit of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: that time to sit and plan and think, Okay, yeah,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I want to do this and this and and literally
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: write some stuff down. This is my time when I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: do those things. So I figured it might be a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: good idea to get some ideas and everybody's radar if
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: they want to do that kind of planning to So, UM,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Does that sound a good plan to you?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Sounds good to me? Man? Do you really tell your
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: buddies that I'm just weird? Is that? Is that? Really?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: The only custom? Mind? Is that surprise you? It's just
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: it's lingering. Man, it's gonna be with me overnight. Well, okay,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: let's let's go through. Let's have this, let's revisit this
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: at the end of this conversation. Okay, maybe you can
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: convince me otherwise, or maybe we'll get to the end.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I'll like, oh no, yeah, you're right, that's that's absolutely right.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: So all right, So here's what I want to do.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I want to if we don't get totally sidetracked, I
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: want to just go back and forth. I'm gonna lay
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: out I know we we I brought to the table
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: five different ideas, and I know you've got five ideas.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: So I figured I'll kick it off, kick us off
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of one, and then we can kind of talk it through.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Um explores some ideas and then I'll pitch it to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you and you can share yours and we'll just kind
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: of bounce back and forth like that and see what
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it takes us. So my first off season idea for folks,
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  Speaker 1: My challenge for folks, and this is a challenge for
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: myself as much as is for anybody else to is
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to do It's got a two part I'm cheating here,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: but it's to do two things. Number One, I would
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: challenge myself and everybody to get permission on at least
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: one more property then you think you need. So it's
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: it's not getting permission on new property, it's get more
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: than you need. And then secondly, go out and scout
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a new piece of public land, even if you're not
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a public land hunter. So my my challenge is to
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: pick up one more piece of permission than you actually
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: think you need and go find a new piece of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: public land, even if you don't typically hunt. I say
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: these these things because, at least in my experience, one
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges I've faced over the years comes
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: down to having the right spot. So often just having
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: being in the right place, or having a different option,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: or having a plan B, C. D. Those things can
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: make or break a hunt. And so often if you've
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: got some kind of challenge, there's some kind of issue.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: The easy solution is to go to Plan C, or
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: go to Plan D, or have these different options. But
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I've found myself some years, having been too lazy or whatever,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: had circumstances where i didn't have enough of those other options,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and I've always regretted it. So my what I try
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to do a better job of every year is making
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: sure that doesn't happen. Um. You know, there's so many
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: things that can go wrong when it comes to permission
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: access where these things are fleeting. You can have permission
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: on something and then lose it just before the season,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: or you might have permission somewhere and then you know,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: in past years, it was just you and then all
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, this year there's five other guys that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: want to hunt it um or you know, opening day
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: or middle of the run, all of a sudden a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: logging crew comes through and starts cutting down everything. You
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: just never know. So it's it's I would say, a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: smart thing to always have several backup options in your
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: pocket because there's a lot of unexpected things that happen
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and then the same thing goes for having a public
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: land spot. There's another another one of your options. If
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you if you already hunt public land all the time.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Of course, you know you needed to do that. Um,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: add another piece of public land to your repertoire. UM.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I remember you and I were talking a few months ago, Tony.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is a I don't know if this is
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: a your podcast or this one, but we were just
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: talking about, you know, how hunting pressure seemed particularly high
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: on our public land hunts this past year, and you know,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: more than ever, it was important to have a bunch
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of options because there's there's a lot more people trying
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to do this kind of stuff. So it's a simple thing.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: It's something I think a lot of us know, but
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: executing on it is a lot harder than knowing that
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you should do it. The biggest thing is is actually
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: walking that walk. UM. So that's that's my high level suggestion. UM.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I think we can walk through a couple of ideas
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: about how to do that. But what do you think
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: about that general idea? I think it's like crazy important
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: for white tail hunters. I mean, if you you know,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you mentioned this, but if you have a place you
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: rely on that you don't own, then you're just one
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: day closer to potentially losing it. And you know, maybe
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: some people haven't gone through that. But if you go
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: through that once where you're relying on a spot and
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it it changes hands or gets sold or something happens,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: it makes you realize how important this is. And so yeah,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: everybody should have their radar, keep looking, and you know
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: your point with the public land thing, and you know
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: whether you're you know, kind of like identify as a
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: public land hunter or not. Man, you and I have
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: talked about this before, but there are places I hunt
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: where even though I have access to private ground, I'll
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: choose public because it offers me more room to roam
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: or I think I have a better chance to go
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: have a good hunt or run into a big buck.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It's it's kind of, uh, we've we've sort of done
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a disservice in the in the hunting space where we've
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we've made private land always seem like it's so much
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: better and it's just so situational. And so if you're
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: kind of on the fence about that and thinking I'm
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: not gonna go walk public land in the off season
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: when I've got a private land place to hunt, you
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: don't know what you're gonna find, and you are going
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to give yourself options, Like you said, so I'm all
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: for that advice. Man. Yeah, you know, another thing to
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: add on to what you just said, Well, a lot
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of times if if you do rely on some private spots,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: maybe you do have a dynamite private farm or a
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: couple options that you can hunt that are really great. Um,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: even if you have that, something we talk a lot
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: about on this podcast is trying to be smart about
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: when you hunt certain places. So you know, maybe you
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to go and hunt your very best rut
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: stand ten times in a row in early October, right,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you need to be smart about hunting places at the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: right times of year and applying that pressure when it's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you know, worth applying that pressure. And at the same time,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: though you don't you know, if let's say you've got
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you know, every weekend of the month of October hunt
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and that's something you really want to do. You don't
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: want to not hunt even if conditions aren't right or
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: even if it's too early to go to your best spots.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So the way to solve for that isn't to overhunt
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: your best spot in your private farm. It's to have
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: public spots or have other options where you can still
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: go out and have a good time. And maybe you
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: will get into some great hunting. Maybe you'll discover, like
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you just described Tony, that this public spot is just
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: as good or better than your private. UM. But take
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: advantage of these opportunities to keep hunting, to keep being outside,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to to spread your hunting pressure across multiple places, and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that that makes there's two things where it increases your
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: chances of success because you're out there more often, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: then it also keeps the pressure on any one place lower.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So each time you go back, it's it's still going
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to be relatively fresh, and you're gonna learn a whole
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: lot along the way too. So it's just a no
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: lose proposition as far as I'm concerned. The more spots
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: you've scouted, the more properties you have access to, UM,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: it's only going to help. So this is something that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I think every single hunter, no matter if you are
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a public savant or even if you own ground, I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: would challenge you to do this too. I mean, unless
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you have like two thousand acres and you never need
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to go beyond that. UM, most average people that own
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: land maybe have a forty or an eighty. Even if
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: you've got that situation, I'd still encourage you to try
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to add a couple more places. I just don't think
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it can hurt you. Um, yeah no. And I want
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to add on something there quick too. I keep hearing
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: from these these guys out there who you know, they'll
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: they'll kind of like dissect last season or the last
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: couple of seasons, and you know, how many buck tags
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: did I have, how may have I filled? How many
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: encounters did I have? And they're there guys who are
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: keeping a lot better records than I am. And the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: question that comes up a lot is I want I
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: want to level up. I want to get better, but
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've stalled out, and really not only
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is is hunting more ground. Even if you're going to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: public from private, it's there. There's some mystery there, there's
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: some enjoyment for having to figure it out. But I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: firmly believe if you want to be a better overall hunter,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you put yourself in new situations. And it's easy. You
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: know when you're on when you're on the private ground
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you grew up on. That's fun and it's nice to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: walk out to the same stands, But you can also
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: kind of get stuck in a rut and go okay, well,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the winds out of the west, I sit the corner
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: stand or you know whatever. But if you have to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: walk into these new areas, or you give yourself the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: opportunity to walk into a new place, it's a different
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: kind of hunt and you can you can really level
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: up doing that for yourself. Percent agree with that. That's
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that's this. I don't know if it's the right word
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: for it, but if you're looking for a hack for
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: getting better deer hunting, that's it right there. Just throw
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: yourself in the new situations and you'll be forced to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: get better and to learn fast. Yea, um, real quick,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: before we move onto your thing, do you have any
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: one tip for getting permission? If if someone's listening and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: thinking themselves, okay, I'm going to try to do that,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: get some more permission. Uh deal that marks ranting about here,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: any one quick piece of advice there? Well, you know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: we we know how to find the public, so finding
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: private is just tap, tap your resources, tap your network.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, my I have twin nine year olds and
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: occasionally they'll talk about one of their classmates, who's who's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: got a little hobby farm or something around here, And
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you know, like the next question is they have any
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: woods do they hunt? Like just you never know what
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you're gonna find. And I've I've gotten permission to hunt
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: places so randomly throughout my life. I mean it doesn't
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: happen often, but sometimes you just meet somebody at the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: gym or something and they've got you know, they live
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: on a forty and they don't hunt. Um, they're just
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: just be open, you know, real open to any of
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: those those keywords you know that that might come up
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: in conversation that might get you in the right path
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to some more permission. Yeah, I think that's a really
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: good idea. The I'll add that that's always my option
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a what you just describe. But if all that fails
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and you're still looking, um and you have to start
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: doing the cold knocking on doors trying to get permission
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, that's you know, it's not easy, but
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it's certainly can and lead to access. I will just
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: offer we could talk for a full hour about this
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: one thing, but I'll just give you one piece of advice.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: When it comes to cold knocking on doors, it's a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: numbers game, So you have to go into it realizing
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: that you're going to get a lot of nose. So
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: if you're you know, if you start the day, just
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: remember this, it's already a no on all the properties
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: you're planning on knocking on, right It's a no right now.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: So the only thing that's going to happen from here
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: on out as you ask people is you've got a
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: chance for it to get better. You could get a yes.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: So remember that, and remember it's a numbers game, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: that if you have to plan, at least the way
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I look at it, you've got to set yourself up
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: to get that yes by going through a bunch of people.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So I put together a list of I try to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: have at least ten places that I'm going to ask
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in a given day, so that you know I can
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: have a chance. You know, there's a there's a ten
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: percent chance that I'll get one yes out of those ten.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And I do think that that very first place you
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: knock on the door, that's the toughest, at least for me.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I don't enjoy that kind of awkward interaction. I'm relatively
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a hermit, so I'm not naturally wanting to go and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: knock on a bunch of doors and talk to random people,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: So that takes me out of my comfort zone. But
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that first door, if I can get past that first
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: door and have that conversation, oh it's not that bad.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: We should chat a little bit. They said no, but
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: they nice people. The next one is a little bit easier,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and the third one is easier in the fourth one,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and by the time you get going, it's a piece
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: of cake. Once you get to the end, because you're
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: just rolling with it, you have momentum. There's that whole
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: snowball effect. So so that's my suggestion is playing a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: whole list of properties, go through it all in one
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: fell swoop. You'll feel a lot better as you get
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: going and and a lot of times will end up
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: with a yes or two. So um, that's that's my
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: quick tip on permission. Solid solid. Okay, tell me what
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: would uh what would your next idea be for the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: off season. So kind of just to play off of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that permission thing, I mean, I realized, probably your audience
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: here there's probably a way higher percentage of people who
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: travel to hunt, and then maybe the general deer hunting population.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But I'm you know, for my job, I'm always researching,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: you know, traveling haunts, over the road hunts. I know
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: you are too, And I always encourage people even if
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: they don't they're not really in the traveling lifestyle. They're not,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you know, super geek, to go buy nonresident tag, do
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: some offseason research on something. Just just think about, like
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: where would I really like to hunt. Is that Iowa
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: white tales or maybe I want to hunt Western river
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: bottom white tails at some point and start doing the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: research on that. It'll it's kind of like that you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: just talked about, like knocking on that first story, when
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you start to just get the logistics down and you
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: go even though I'm not planning on it, I know
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I could get a tag there, and I know the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: season dates run from here to here, and there's x
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: amount of public land in the western half of the state.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: It starts to give you a little bit of confidence
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and you kind of have I call it like a
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: back pocket hunt. Like there's there's states every year that
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I don't intend to go to, but I've I've spent
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: some time this time a year researching them because once
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: in a while I'll go out, you know, like Minnesota
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: is a one buck state. I might I might kill
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a buck opening night. It happens pretty often for me
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: or at least opening weekend. That's that's almost off the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: table after that. And so I might have gone into
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the season thinking, well, I've got three months here to hunt,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and it's over in a day. And if you have
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: some of this research done on a potential other state
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: or other zone or region to hunt, you at least
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: have that option to go. You know, I could fall
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: back on that, maybe take a long weekend or look
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: at the schedule and say, oh, the kids are on
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: MBA over October or whatever, and and make something like
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: that happen, or at least be a little bit closer
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to experiencing that. I like that, And you're you're kind of,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: even if you don't have to use it this year,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you're kind of working that muscle. You're getting comfortable with
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: figuring that kind of stuff out and doing that research.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And and next year when you do need to actually
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: follow through and something like that, you're you're halfway there already. Now,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: would you would you see just even going so far
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: as as scouting or eat scouting and looking at pieces
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: of ground on the maps and mark the spots and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: doing all that too, even if you're not planning on
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: doing a trip like that. Yeah, And I suggest doing
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it in a way. You know, you and I have
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: talked a million times about this, but I'm I. I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: start a lot of my EA scouting around water looking
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: for water and or some you know something that you
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: that's kind of in your wheelhouse, and that step you
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: know when you know you can get the tag and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: you know the season's open these days, and you start
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: looking and you pull up on xt and you're like, oh,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: this is there's two thousand acres of public land that's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: only four hours from my house and there's a nice
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: river running through it and you start digging in. That's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: what really kind of gets you over the edge. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: it's maybe this isn't for everybody, but I know when
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I find something that really gets my spidy sense is tingling,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I want to go like there's you just find some
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: stuff where you're like I have to see that in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: person at some point. And that's like a it's like
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a re forcing system because it plays into your scouting
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: at home too, if you're going to take our advice
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and go find some public down the road, and it
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: just it feeds, it feeds the experience level a little
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: bit more. And you know, if you even if you
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: aren't planning, like you said, to go on those trips.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: If you start doing that East scouting, you know, it
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: might not be this year. It might be two years
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: where you just finally talk yourself into it, or you
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: get into a different space at your job where you
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: get a little bit more income, a little bit more
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: p t O and you've got those layers of research
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to fall back on. It makes the whole process so
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: much better. And like I always kind of look at this, dude,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: We're we're bow hunters primarily, you know, we're deer hunters.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Were optimists at heart. Like what's more optimistic than just
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: being like, man, someday I'm going there and I'm gonna
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: go kill a great big buck on that lamp. Yeah.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I like that. And you know something, I know you
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: do this a lot, and it's something that might fit
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in a certain people's schedules. I know that you often
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: will tie in a turkey hunt with a scouting trip.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: So if someone wants to do what we're discussing, even
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: if they don't think they've got time or the money
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: to put, you know, ten days on the calendar November
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: for a big out of state hunt, maybe they could
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: do a weekend turkey hunt in April, and you know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: do all this research like you described for some day
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and then you want to get a couple of days
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of turkey hunting, and why not do that couple days
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of turkey hunting at this place where you're starting to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: do some scouting and thinking and then you're just slowly,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: little by little building this database while still having some
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: fun too, so that whenever it is time to go
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: out there and do the deer hunt, um, you've got
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you've got double the amount to kind of look back on. UM.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: So if you want to level up, that's another suggestion,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I guess, or tie it with a shed hunt too,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that's another thing. Um. It just seems like an easy
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: way to have a good time with less of a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: time commitment, less of a budget commitment, and and just
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: kind of continue what you're describing. Yeah, that's a that's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: like my go to method. My entire springs planned around
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: that already this year. But I will say this, this
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: is like if you if you're not if you're on
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the fence about maybe going on a deer hunt somewhere
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and you say, you know what, I'm gonna go out
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: there with my buddies. We're gonna camp, We're gonna turkey hunt.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: This is exactly like if you're not sure, if you
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: want to buy a puppy and you go look at
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: a litter of puppies, you're freaking buying one. Right. So
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: if you if you go, unless the trip just turns
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: into a disaster, which I probably won't, but I promise
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you if you're like, I'm kind of you know, I
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: want to dip my toe in the pool, I kind
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of want to go travel hunt a little bit. If
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you do that Turkey trip and see the logistics and
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you have a good time tent camping and running gun
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and birds, you're going back to deer hunt. Uh. I
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: can see how that would be the case, No doubt
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: about that. Ah Man. Alright, uh true, Moving number three Yeah, alright.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So my next suggestion, and this doesn't apply to everybody
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: because some people don't hunt like this, but I know
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: you and I do at least and and more and
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: more and more people do this. Um my suggestion is
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to fine tune, like absolutely perfect, double down. Become obsessive
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: about perfecting your mobile hunting set up. So that could
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: be either your climbing sticks and your portal, tree stand
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: or your sticks in your saddle, set up whatever you
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: use if you're someone who hunts public land or you know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: private land, but you move around a lot and your
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: mobile and aggressive in that kind of way. If you
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: do that, I don't think I don't think there's there's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a few things more important than getting really good at
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: doing that up and down process, doing it quietly, doing
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it efficiently, doing it relatively quickly. Um And that takes
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. That takes practice. So you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: making sure you know with the right process for getting
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: up and down, and you know, having a good set
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of you can order of operations. I know there's a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: lot of people, especially new people if you're a newer hunter,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of new hunters joining the fold
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: right now, and they're jumping into podcasts like this, or
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they're jumping onto YouTube and they're seeing people using these things,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and then they buy some sticks and they buy a saddle,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and they head out into the woods. And if they
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: try to do this on you know, November one, and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: they head out in the morning, it's dark out and
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: they're trying to get set up in the tree for
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the first time, it's a disaster, like, that's a nightmare scenario.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Even even doing it during the day in the afternoon
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of October one, that's a disaster. So and I can
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: even tell you even like the first time I usually
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: go like the first hunt of the season, even though
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I've been doing this for years and years, usually the
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: first hunt, I'm kind of like a disaster. There's always
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: something like, gosh, ship, I forgot this right? How did
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I do that? So take a little time in the
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: off season to just fine tune your process, look at
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: what you do and say, is there some way I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: could do this better? Like do I have to put
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: both sticks on my hip and one over my shoulder?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Could I actually use some different system or a different clip.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Do I need to go the tree and then come
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: back down and grab my backpack? Or could I wear
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: my backpack or could I have a rope tied down
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: into my backpack? Um, there's so many different ways to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: do it, and there are a lot of different videos
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: out there demonstrating how each different individual does UM. So
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: there's no storage of resources for you to go online
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and see how other people do it. I'd suggest that
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you just think about your process, think about your tools,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: So look at your tree stand and your sticks and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: your toe ropes and your bow and your backpack and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: all that, and think through how can I eliminate any noises?
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Should I put some tape on my tree stand? Should
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I tape the the crossbar on my tree stand or
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: on the stick? Is there something that last year on
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: my rut hunt I noticed like this damn stick always
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: twitter always creaks when I get all my weight on it.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Is that something you remember from last year? Well, now
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: is the time to get rid of that squeak? Or
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: now is the time to add that sticky um surface
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to the top of your stick so your foot doesn't
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: slide off it like it did that one time and
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: December last year. You know what I mean, There's there's
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: all these little things we can do two make that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: set up more efficient and effective and quiet. And for
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: mobile deer hunters, I think that's you know, it's it's
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: not make or break all the time, but sometimes it
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: could be. There could be a situation where you sneak
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: in for a hunt and you've worked really hard to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: do all the scouting and to do this preparation, and
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you've found where this buck is and you've snuck in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: there in public land a mile and a half back,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and you think that you know, there's probably a buck
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: betted back in this spot, and you sneak in there
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and you're setting up, and you think, man, I bet
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you if there's if this buck's in here, or if
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: there's some deer in here, they're probably sixties seventy yards away,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and you're sneaking up in there. And then if you
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: drop your stick, or you you know, forget something that's
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: down at the ground, and then you have to climb
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: all the way down your sticks and grab it again,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: or if you get sloppy, or if your tree stands creeky,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, sometimes those little things can come back
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to really nip you in the butt. So now is
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the time to think about those little things. If you're
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: if you're sitting here in the house like I am,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: and it's really cold outside and you're so bored that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: you're hiking a mile and a half of the gas station,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: why not use that time to tape up your stand
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: or make one of these little tweaks. Um. That's that's
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a thought that I have, and that's something I'm trying
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: to do this year. A little bit better too. Um
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: does that resonate Tony big time? And you know, I
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: would say on that note, it's it's really cool how
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: much information there is out there now for the mobile hunter.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: But I would say, especially addressing people who are new
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to it, you can you alluded to this at the beginning,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: but there is a learning curve to this stuff, Like
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it's there's there's no way around that. You gotta you
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: gotta learn how to get good with it, and that's
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about. But I would say that, like
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: there isn't a one size fits all answer to this stuff.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: So some people are out there and they're just taking
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the elk hunter approach where it's like I want as
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: little weight as possible, and they're they're doing everything they
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: can to pare that down. You might not be going
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that far in or you might you might require a
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: little bit more comfort to enjoy this stuff. And so
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: just understand that when you're when you're taking in some
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: of this information that what somebody else uses it might
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: be perfect for them, but you might not need it,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: or you might not be comfortable or feel safe with it.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Like if if it comes down to maybe carrying a
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: couple of extra pounds of weight in there and feeling better,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: having a better standoff on your sticks, something like that.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Go that roade, like do what's gonna make it comfortable
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and feel safe for you? And this is a good
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: time to really reach research that stuff in an honest way. Yeah,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: that's a really good point, and it is easy. I
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: think you could easily get lost in all the ideas
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: out there. You could easily get overwhelmed with it, or
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: feel pressure to do a certain way, or or just
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: almost get paralyzed with you know, paralysis analysis kind of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: thing going on. So yeah, take these ideas, look at
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: these things, but filtered through your own experience. That's that's
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: probably the most important thing of all, big time. So
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: what's what's what's next on your mind? So you know,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: kind of on that note, I mean the mobile hunting
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, especially the public land thing, but it's
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: it's it's relevant on private land and a lot of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: situations too. Is you know one thing that I noticed
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: in my life. I've talked about this on my podcast
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of times, but you know, I quit
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: drinking eight years ago and started working out, and the
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I did it for every reason, but hunting I didn't.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter to me about hunting. It didn't feel
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: like it was going to have any effect. And it
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: changed my my desire to hunt uh in a way
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: that I didn't see coming. And it it changed how
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I looked at these mobile hunts and keeping myself in
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: shape and then really getting into shape for elk hunting.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: It made me realize that a lot of these public
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: land hunts, they functioned like a little mini lk hunt
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: as far as like physically and mentally. And so this
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: time of year, when you know, when we're talking about
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: there's nothing nothing to do, man, going to the gym
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: is huge. And if you can if you can take
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: care of your body a little bit, your mind will
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: come along for the ride too. And it is. I
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: honestly think it's a single best decision I've ever made
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: for not only becoming more successful as a public land
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: deer hunter, but enjoying it a lot more. So you're
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: saying I have to quit drinking. I'm not saying you
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: have to quit drink. I'm just saying I had to. Alright, alright,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: good yeah, mileage berries on that one, buddy, But I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: have so so I'm right there with you. I think
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: that's uh. I think I think it's something that's overlooked,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: or I think historically that was something got overlooked within
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the white tail hunting world a little bit. I think
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: it's definitely picked up steam in recent years as people
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: are seeing the payoffs that you can have, especially if
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: you do this public land stuff like you described, or
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: this mobile of hunting that's definitely a little bit more
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: physically demanding. Um. But you said something that I think
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: really has some truth to it, which is that if
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: you do this physical stuff, if you work on the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: physical side of things, it'll bring your mind along with it.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: And and there's something important there. I found that having.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And we're getting into the woo woo stuff, not woo,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: but a little bit more that some people want. Um.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I had someone to leave a comment I don't really
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: read my podcast reviews often at all. I probably haven't
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: read them in the last year. I used to when
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I first started, but more recently, I've just gotten to
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the point where, you know, I've been doing this thing
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: a long time. Either like it or you hate me.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Someone left a comment about how I've gotten like to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: woo woo or into mindset stuff too much. And they're like, yeah,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he's he's getting crazy or something. So maybe there's truth
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: to that. But um but when you say the mind
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: will come along with it, I do think there's something
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: to be said about the discipline it takes to to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: get and stay physically fit Like that requires a mindset
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and it requires a certain ability to stick to something
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and to set either a goal or uh some kind
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of accountability for yourself. And if you do that, it
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: strengthens your mind too, and I think that helps a
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: lot come hunting season, that mental toughness that you have
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: to build up if you're gonna wake up early every
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: morning and go hit the gym or whatever it is. Um.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I think those things all kind of add up as
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: these little layers that that put you in the position
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: you need to be come November when you're on your
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: big rut hunt on public land and you've got to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: grind it out for seven days or whatever. All these
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: things do help out. And it's hard to put up,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you know, a price tag on exactly how worth it
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: it is, but I can certainly tell you it is
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: worth it to some degree. And these things add up.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Um So, so yeah, I am trying every year to
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: get better at that too, and and so one of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: my goals this year. This is something I do every
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: for the last few years I've been trying to get
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to do this in some different excuse
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: gets in the way, and I can't make an excuse
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: for it other than that I let something, you know,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: bust me off of that. But I try to have
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: a solid morning routine where I get up, you know,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: at least an hour hour and a half before the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: family does, and then I get out and I do
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: some kind of work out, and then I'm able to
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: then get into my office and do a few things
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: to organize my day. And just that simple routine, get
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: up early, get a workout in, and then plan your day.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: If I can do that the whole rest of my day,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: it just feels like it's I don't like I have
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a jet fuel for the rest of the day. But
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: if I don't do that, it just feels like I'm
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: groggy and that I think there's something too it just
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: I don't even know where I'm going with this, Tony,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: but I feel like there's something to that that helps
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: you down the line. If you can have this kind
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: of men tool fitness to do a physical thing like
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: you're describing, it just sets you up so that you
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: can handle a lot more. Come hunting season, come, whatever
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the thing it is that you're trying to do. Does
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: that Does that make sense? Or to go off the
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: deep end? No, no, no, it's you didn't. You didn't
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: describe it very well. I'll help you out here. But
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: what you're you're saying two things. They're like the discipline
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: parts the easy part, right, Like it's easy to kind
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of equate, you know, if you're if you're disciplined enough
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: to get yourself in shape, and you'll be more disciplined
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: in the woods, you know. And I always look at
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that as like simple stuff because we've sold this message
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: in the hunting space that you've got to be like
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a super badass fitness guru to kill elk or carry
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: them out of the mountains or up the mountain or
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: in a white tail space. You know, it's a little
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: bit different, but it's always tied to just like the
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: physical requirements, and what it is is like, man, can
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you can you you know, get up for that alarm
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: five days in a row and sit all day? Can
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you go out and you know, go on that over
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the road hunt and stay positive when it rains on
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: your tent for three days in a row and the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: hunting sucks. Like that's that's where that discipline really ties in.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: It's not nearly as much about being able to, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: throw a two pound deer on your shoulders and carry
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: it out of the Michigan swamps. There's It's it's different,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: um the the other thing that you're talking about there,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: you know, getting into the routine and taking care of
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: your work out in the morning and feeling better all day. Dude,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I really think it's that's tied to just doing something
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: for yourself that makes you feel good. And you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I've talked about this a lot, but like when you're
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: when you're at a certain stage of your life and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: you've got little kids to take care of, and you've
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: got you know, your job and your your spouse, and
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you do a lot of stuff for somebody else, Like
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: you fill your day up doing things that you don't
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: really want to do. What you do because you're responsible
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and that one, you know, our workout, whatever whatever you
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: take for that, that's for you. Like nobody else really
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: benefits from that. That's just purely less a little selfish
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: thing you want to do that makes you feel good.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And I think just in society right now, we've been
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: we're kind of like we're relying on a whole bunch
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: of stuff that's supposed to make us feel good or
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the illusion of happiness around it, and it doesn't make
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: us feel good. And that just one act of doing
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: something for yourself every day or you know, four or
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: five times a week actually does make you feel good.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It helps your your headspace. You know. I'm I'm right
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: there with it, and thank you for articulating that better
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: than I could. That's why I've got to hear tony. UM.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Let's let's dive into my next one, which is a
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: little bit more tactile or tactical UM, as far as
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: something you can do in the woods that I think
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: can help you in a lot of situations. UM. And
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: this is more applicable for people to hunt the same
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: places over and over, like a private land place. UM.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: But something I like to do as much as I
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: can on the places I have permission on, or like
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the back forty that I hunted you know that we owned.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: UM is utilizing mock scrapes, and that's something you can
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: do in the off season that will still benefit you
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: come hunting season. So what I would suggest where you can,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: where it's you know, where you're able to do this
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: is make a mock scrape at every one of your
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: tree stand sites that you plan to hunt. Um. I
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: say this not because I think that's something that's going
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: to attract a deer magically to your tree stand. I
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: say it because there's no downside to having a scrape
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: within range of a tree stand. There's there's only potential upside.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: It's no guarantee, But I don't think there's anything bad
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: that can come out of there being a licking branch
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: within a range of your tree. So let me just
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: explain why. UM. Number one, Hopefully you're in a place where,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: like if you're setting up in a location, hopefully you're
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: set up in a certain location for a lot of
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: reasons above and beyond that scrape. I I would never
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: set in the spot just because there's a scrape. I'm
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: hoping there's like a number of other things that lead
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: me to believe a deer will pass through here. But
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes every once in a while, you might have a
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: deer that comes into an area and knows there's a
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: scrape there and specifically wants to check it. So you've
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: got some small percentage chance that could help. I'll take
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that little, small potential of a bonus. But the bigger
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: thing I'm looking for here is that if I have
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: a real scrape or a mock scrape within range of
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: my tree stand, there's a chance that a buck that's
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: passing by at forty might come an extra five yards
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: closer because that scrapes there. Or there might be a
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: buck that's passing through that was going to be walking
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: full speed the entire time, but because there's that scrape
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: or mox scrape there, he'll pause for a couple of
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: seconds and sniff that branch. And those two things getting
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: a buck to come a few yards closer to me
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: or to pause for a couple of seconds, that can
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: make all the difference when it comes to killing a
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: buck with a bow. So it's it's a simple thing,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: it's not hard to do. And maybe already have a
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: scrape near your locations and you don't need to make one.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: But if you've got a place where you don't know
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of a scrape being within range, just go out there.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Make sure it's a licking branch, kick out the dirt,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and deer check these things all year round. They don't
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: kick up the dirt and make that part of the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: scrape in the off season. But if you've ever ran
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: a camera on a scrape in January or June or August,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: you'll see many deer still stop at these scrapes and
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: sniff and and rub their glands on that licking branch.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: So they're visiting it all year round. So you can
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: make one now and deer will continue to visit it
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: off and on. And then once you get into hunting season,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: if you happen to be passing by, then go ahead
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: and kick up the dirt a little bit if it
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: already hasn't been, and then it'll just kick start things
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: again and you'll get that little extra added potential of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: a benefit. Again. It's not This isn't like some secret
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: magic thing that's all going to sudden have bucks running
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to your tree. Um one time on a ten, it
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: might make the difference, and damn it, I'd be really
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: happy to give that one buck out of ten that
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have otherwise. So I can tell you one
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: quick anecdote where this helped um we had a and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: this this is a situation where there was this is
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: on my mind. I didn't create this mock scrape, but
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I did set up a tree stand within range of
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: this old scrape because I was hoping for something like this.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Um when you and I were hunting together Tony in
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the back forty I had set up a tree inside
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: this area called the honey Hole, and overlooked this ridge
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of tall grasses and then various little
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: clumps of cedars. And one of the reasons why I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: liked this tree that I ended up choosing was because
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: it was in range of a big seedar that had
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: just been ripped up with scrapes. You could see all
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: around it, and it was just a spot that I
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: knew that year after year bucks were making scrapes under
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: these branches. And so I thought to myself, I wasn't
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt here because of that specific tree. I wasn't
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: hunting here because oh, there's gonna be bucks flocking to
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this tree to make scrapes. But I didn't know that
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of reasons for bucks to pass
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: through here. And if a buck passes through here with
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: all these scrapes, underneath the cedar tree. There's a darn
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: good chance he's going to stop here and give it
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: a sniff or take a you know, take a piss,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: and do his thing, and maybe that gets me the shot,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: or maybe that gets me the extra five seconds I
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: need to get ready and lo and behold, when that
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: droptime buck came rolling through the honey hole and I
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: grunted to him, he turned, he came my way, and
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: he stopped at that tree and gave me the time
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I needed to grab my bow get turned around. We
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: also did cameraman, of course, so then he had to
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: get ready. And that buck stopped and made a scrape
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: and did the whole thing, and it gave us the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: time we needed to get in position and get ready
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: figure out what was happening. And I could have taken
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: a shot at him at that scrape if he had
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: turned my way. He didn't end up turning my way.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: He walked a little bit and then I got a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: shot closer. But was just one recent example where a
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: scrape within range was really helpful in that kind of way.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: And you can you can make those scrapes being ranged
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: by taking some time this offseason and creating those. So,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: so that's an idea. I don't know, Tony, what do
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: you do you ever think about that? I know on
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: public land that's not something you either can or is
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: practical to do all that often, But um, what do
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: you think? I mean? I like it because it's I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: like your your strategy of first you know, harm and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it's it's not going to hurt you at all to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: do that. And when you when you start putting stuff
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: like that around your stand or paying attention to it
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: or enhancing a little bit, you know, like like you said,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: with a scrape, we tend to focus on what they
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: kick out, and that's that you know, big dished out
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: truckhood size scrape gets our attention, but that licking branch
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: is where it's at, and that that communication is so
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: important to deer. And so those that kind of option
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: is you know, you you might not have the ability
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: to put in a food plot or you know, build
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: a pond or really enhanced a property, but the odds
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: are pretty decent. If you're running on private land, you
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: could at least put in a mock scrape by your
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: stand and try to at least position those deer if
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: they come in. So yeah, I like it. Yeah, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's simple. But sometimes add a bunch
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: of little simple things together and and it becomes something substantial. UM.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: And I guess I should I should add for those
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: people who are newer, maybe you don't know what I'm
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: talking about when I say in box scrape, Um, I'll
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: give you the quick thirty second cliff notes on what
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: I mean here. These you know, a scrape is this
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: communication hub like you just described Tony, where deer will
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: come and leave a bunch of kind of chemical signals
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: that say stuff like hey I was here, or hey
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: who else is here? Um? And they kick up a
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: big patch of dirt. And they always do this underneath
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: an overhanging branch that should be, you know, leaning down
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: at about deer head level. So let's call that three
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: and a half to four and a half feet high
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: off the ground maybe. Um. And and so if you
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: want to create one of those, all you gotta do
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: is is find a branch like that, or bend a
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: branch down so it's at that height, and kick up
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: some dirt underneath it. Try to do this without leaving
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of humans scent around. Um. And you know,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot different ideas around whether scent matters
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: or not. But I take a leak in a scrape
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: when I make a mox scrape. UM, I've seen research
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: that shows that that has no negative and triggers activity
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: just the same as a buckhead peed in it. UM.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And then just make sure that licking branch, that branch overhangs.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Make sure that's conspicuous from what I gather. That's one
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of the most important things is that it stands out
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: from everything else. UM. If you do that and there's
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: this little you know, snapped off twigs at the end
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: or something, you're gonna get deer that will catch sight
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: of that patch of dirt and that liking branch and
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: want to check it out. And then after one deer
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: does that, then another deer wants to come check it
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: out out and smell that, and it builds off from
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: there so real quick. That the the high level overview
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: of what a scrape is and and how to make
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: a mox scrape. Do you have anything else? Don it? No?
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's what they are. Many that's what
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: they are. Okay, what's what's what's next? UM? I would say,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of on, you know, to to go
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: from that to the style that I tend to hunt.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: You know that that's a specific your mox scrape thing
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: is is pretty specific to private land and actually like
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: a great thing for small property hunters, you know, if
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: you're if you're kind of on the other end and
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you've got some bigger properties to rome, or you're more
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: of a public land hunter at least I know, the
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: last several years, I've started to scout like trail cameras
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: don't exist, and I still run a bunch of trail
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: cameras where I can, but I try to sort of
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: mitigate how important the findings are with the old school
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: style of a lot of summertime glassing, you know, a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: lot of late winter covering, ground reading the terrain, looking
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: at last year, signed doing a lot of winter scouting,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and just use trail cameras as like a fun bonus
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: that might clue me into something, but just so I like,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a self preservation thing, so I don't
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: rely on them so much. And I realized after I
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: started doing this that just my my overall scouting game
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: felt like it got a lot better, and I just
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it more because I wasn't just sitting there going okay,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: well that that camera has been soaking two weeks, I
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: want to go check it. I had other things to do,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: to go glass in the evenings and just go take
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: a walk at certain times and go look for sign
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: and just I feel like it's a good way to
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: go about really getting a grasp on what the deer doing.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: What's what's like one thing that someone listening could do
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: this year when it comes to these scouting sessions, that
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: would be I don't know if next level is the
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: right word, but how do you how do you alluded
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: to this other terms like level up? How do you
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: level up your scouting? Because every everybody that likes the
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: deer hunt knows you're supposed to scout, knows that you
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: should scout, and they probably do some amount of it. Um,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: but what's some way we can take it up a
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: notch or something you've found it's a little bit different
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: that has actually helped you more than you expected anything
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: coming on? Um, you know, I would just say that
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I think for me, the most valuable scouting time I
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: spend is in March, and it's because I absolutely am
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: willing to go walk a lot of miles and look
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: at the woods as bare as it will ever be.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And really, you know, we focus a lot on you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: last season's sign, and you know where where would you
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: hanging a stand around these rubs, or you know, how
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: would you sneak in and hunt them? But what it
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: really does is give you like a clear picture of
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: how the terrain works. And so even if you hunt
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: you know, where where I live is relatively flat, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: so you don't have a lot of traditional pinch points
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and funnels that are that are terrain based. But you
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: even see these little, you know, five foot differences in elevation,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and you start to see not only how the sign works,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: but how some of the winter travel has been. You
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: might see the trails from last year if the snow
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: is melted, and it just gives you this picture of
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: how the deer used use the woods that you're going
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: to be hunting more fully. Like it's it's just you
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: can just read it easier, I guess. And I think
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: I think we kind of overlook that message a lot
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: of times. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a lot of
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: truth to that. You know, another thing I've been trying
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: to do um is is actively try to ask the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: question of why when I see something. So when I'm
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: out there in the woods and I walk around and
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: I see something that catches my eye, a trail or
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: a scrape or a line of rubs or something, um,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I want to in that moment take a second to
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: think about why is the us here? And why was
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: this made this past year? If it's if it's signed
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: that seems to have made been made recently, I guess
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: that's that's question number one is Okay, when was this made?
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: When did that? What's this from? And then why was
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it here? It's really easy, I think, to think you're
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: scouting just by like walking around and look at it
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff, and then you say, well, I
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: walked around and looked at a bunch of stuff I scouted.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I think that that counts for something. But it could
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: be a lot more effective if you scout and you
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: learn some stuff while you're out there that really sticks.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I think that's a trick. Is like figure out how
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: to make the stuff stick. So literally putting way points
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: on your maps, that's the way to make things stick.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Writing stuff down the way to make things stick. But
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: taking a second to look at something and then think
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: about it. That's another way to make it stick. So
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: sit there and you've got this rub line. Maybe let's say,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: man walking along, I see a big rub. I take
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: ten more steps and see another big rub Take another
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: ten steps, see another big rud. I'm gonna say, Okay,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I just found this rub line. Why is this here?
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Why did this buck come through here? What were the
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: habitat features present last year? Because it looks like these
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: rubs are made at some point last season. They're they're
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: fresh enough that it was sometime this past fall. All right,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: let me think about it. There's this corn field here
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: to my right, that's down the bottom, all right, So
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: it looks like this rub line was heading down towards
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: this corn field. Okay, he was heading to deep feet
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: on corn all right. Well, where's this coming from? Well,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: it looks like, you know, there's this saddle in the ridge.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I wonder it kind of looks like he probably must
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: have been up there and came down off that saddle.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: So he probably passed through here because there was a
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: low point in this ridge. And why was he up
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: on that ridge? Well, let me think about that. I
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: know there's this thicket up there, you know, three cores
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the way up where there's a bunch of blowdowns and
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: there was some cutting five years ago. I wonder if
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: he was in there, maybe he was checking that betting
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: air for does or maybe that's where he was betted.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: And and just I'm not saying any one of those
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: things is going to be absolutely true, and you're not
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: necessarily going to know that when you're sitting there and
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: thinking about this, but just the taking the time to
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: think through it and and try to ask yourself those
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: questions and do that exercise. I guess I think that
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: is a helpful way to get a bigger bang for
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: your buck on those scouting hours you're putting in. Um
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: would you agree, absolutely? And I think it it helps
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: you just you know, once again kind of layer in
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: that experience. And I always think about, like, you know,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: a good example would be if you if you like
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: to hunt rivers or you know, hunt waterways, and you
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: think about a bluff coming down to a river and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the kind of pinch point it might create, like you
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: can run into that in so many states, in so
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: many different places. Something that is is like real close
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: to that that you might run into at home, And
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: so you head out on the road and you're like, Okay,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: well where am I gonna go? Where I'm gonna find deer.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: The more you spend looking at stuff like that or
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: like your saddle, you know, on a kind a ridge,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: like you talked about, these these dower do the same
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: thing in a lot of different places. And so the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: more the more you get out and you see those
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: those really kind of unique terrain features that make them
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: go one way or the other. They they tend to
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: choose to go under this one or over this one,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: or however they use it. It applies to a lot
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: of places you'll hunt, and it can just make you
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, you can kind of get that
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: feeling like oh, I've been there and done that, like
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: when you see it in a new place. Yeah, well
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: you talked about that spidy sense that you that you've got.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes and there's a lot of other people who will
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: just talk about they'll know someone a friend or I
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: don't know someone they fall in the air, like man,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that guy's just got like the field for it, or
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: there's he has this intuition just like knows how to
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: set up um. Oftentimes it's it's just this, it's you've
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: seen these situations enough times, and you've thought them through
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: enough times that your brain now just naturally recognizes these patterns.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: It's it's seen it enough that without even really needing
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: to think get through all the way through, you'll be
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: able to recognize something and say, oh, yeah, this is
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: this is where he'd pass through. And maybe you know
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: ten years ago that wouldn't be the case. But give
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: it enough time, answer these questions, study these things, look
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: for those patterns, and then it all of a sudden
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: you'll get these lightbulb moments, even if you're in a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: totally different state or five years later. So so yeah,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: I think this stuff, it can really pay off. Um,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: let's move on to another one. I think, um, and
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: this is this is a taken another turn. I've got
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: an idea here, a suggestion here. That is just one
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: specific example of something you can do when it comes
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to preparing in the off season with your bow. So,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: if you're a bow hunter, I think it's pretty obvious
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: to most everybody that a big part of your off
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: season preparations should be practice. Get a lot of practicing
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: with your bow. Really make sure that thing is a
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: part of you that you really come your bowl Um,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: we've talked in the past, telling me about various challenges
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: that both of us have had over the years with
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: target panic or blowing a shot, or making a mistake
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: or something going wrong. There's there's just so many parts
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: of bow hunting that can go wrong in those final
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: seconds or that final minute. UM, So don't skimp on
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the practice in the off season. But I want to
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: just mentioned one specific thing that maybe isn't thought about
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: all the time. And my idea here is something that's
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: top of mind for me because I dealt with this
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: challenge is past year. So it's something that I'm specifically
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: thinking about now, and that is training to get stuck
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: at full draw. So when I say that, I mean
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: there's many situations where you might be out there bow
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: hunting and you draw back because you think you're about
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to get a shot, and then for some reason you
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: can't get that shot. Either the deer is staring at you,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: or the deer stops and he's behind a tree and
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: you can't shoot. UM, and now you're stuck holding your
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: bow back, and you don't want to draw down again
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: because that would make a bunch of movement or maybe noise,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: or maybe that buck staring at you, and you know
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: he'll see you if you draw down. So being able
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: to handle that moment and stay at full draw for
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: as long as possible, but still be able to execute
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: a successful shot when the moment comes, that's really important. Um.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: And it's something though, like in our typical practice routines
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people, at least I think myself included,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: it might be something that you're not usually practicing. Four. Right,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: when I'm behind this house shooting, I draw back, I
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: settle in, I shoot, grab another air drawback, I settle in,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I shoot. And if I don't proactively think to train
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: for something else, you know, it's it's really easy just
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to get in that pattern and have fun shooting your
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: bow and not ever practice for this one scenario that
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: might happen once every couple of years, but when it
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: does happen, you'll really wish you had practiced for it. So, uh,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: you've been in that situation before, I'm sure, oh big yeah? Uh,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I mean for me this past year, it happened, um
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: when that bucka was after Tran We talked about this
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: on I don't know in November when you were here
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: hunting with me. When I was talking about how I
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: missed him. I got in a situation where he went
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: into the thicket, I drew back on him, and then
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I found one tiny, little minuscule hole that I shouldn't
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: have tried to shoot through, but I decided I was
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: going to try, And I was a full drop for
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: a long time waiting for him to get to that hole,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: and so it was an ill advised shot to take
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: it all. I shouldn't have taken it. We've already dove
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: into that plenty um. But on top of that, I
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: was also at full drop for a really, really long time,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: and so I was not in a good position to
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: even execute on this tough shot given that. So it
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: was a series of mistakes compounded on each other, um,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and I blew it. So this year, I want to
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: make sure that I'm going to be better prepared for
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: that situation again. So there's there's two ways that that
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: I know of to to deal of this. There's a
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: bunch of different ways, probably, but a couple of things
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: that I've thought of. One is something I've done in
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: the past, and one is something that I read about
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: and I thought it was a good idea. So one
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: is just the simple exercise of drawing back your bow
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: with an arrow on it, aiming at the target, ideally
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: a three D target, but whatever, aim at the target
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: and hold and hold it until you cannot hold any longer.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: So you're just drawing and holding your bow back until
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: you just can't do anymore, and then let down and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: then draw back and do the same thing, and do
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: that a few times every time you practice. In a
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: perfect world, you would do that a lot every time
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: you practice. If you could dedicate the last ten minutes
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: or something of your practice session to do and stuff
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: like that, you're really going to build up some serious
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: um you know, I don't know if it's a significant muscle,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: but that will help. Um. That's what I have done
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: in the past, and I've also the reason why I
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: started doing that in the first place was that this
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: is an exercise also to help with target panic. Just
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: learning to draw back and float on a target without
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: punching the trigger is a great exercise to just get
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: better at feeling comfortable in those moments. So there's kind
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: of a double benefit here, um. But real quick. One
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: other idea I read about was something that Randy Almer
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: wrote about once, and he had talked about the exercise
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: of not just the holding back, but the drawing back
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and doing that over and over. So yeah, he was
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: basically saying that at the end of your practice session,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: draw back your bow, draw back down, drawback, bring about,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: let it back down, drawback, let it back down, and
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: do that as many times as you possibly can until
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: you literally can't try your ball back anymore. So do
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: that to failure, and that will build up so much
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: of the important muscle um in your shoulder and back
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: that that's another way to kind of build up the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: necessary um, the necessary ability to maintain that full draw
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: for long period time. So those are two little exercises
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: you could try to train for this um. I don't
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: know tell any of you ever kind of thought about
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: this in your training regiment. Is there any other suggestions
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you would have? Well, you know, the other way to
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: address this is just to dial down your draw weight,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: you know, and and because it's it's always good to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: build that muscle memory and work on that, you know.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, whether you shoot seventy pounds or fifty doesn't matter,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: it's it's always good to work on that. Like you
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: and Randy Uh kind of talked about but I would
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: say the other aspect of this is just to be honest,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: if you're not going to do this, or you don't
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: think you're gonna get yourself in a position where you know,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have to hold on a buck for
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: a minute, like well maybe maybe, but maybe not. And
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: if you're not physically ready for that, because you're drawn
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: seventy and you'd be way more comfortable at sixty, maybe
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: think about backing off. I mean, I really think with
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: today's how efficient bows are today, and you know the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: general range we're shooting that deer um, it's kind of
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: unnecessary to be it's absolutely unnecessary to be overbowed. But
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of us could back off, you know, a
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: turn or two or three and drop down you know,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: five to like nine pounds of of draw weight and
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: have a much more enjoyable shooting experience and just just
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: sort of shortcut that way to be able to hold longer. Yeah,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: And like you said, I think it helps in a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: lot of aspects of your shooting process, not just the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: whole stuck in draw, but I think everything becomes a
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: lot easier the less you're holding back. And unless you
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: probably know more about this, Is there any downside to that? Like,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: is there any is there if you make it so
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: easy to hold back that you're not even having to
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: think about it? Is there any risk of like creeping
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: forward or something funky going on with your shot process? Um,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm just simply curious. To a first glance, I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: don't see him downside. But no, you know you're sacrificing
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit of energy, right, I mean you're putting
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: less into the arrow. So that's that's the downside. But
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: you know it's not like, you know, we should we
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: should probably clarify this. It's not like you're gonna go
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: from you know, let's say, being able to really hold
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: well for ten or fifteen seconds now all of a sudden,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to just sit there for
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: three minutes. You know, it might it might buy you
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: another five or ten or fifteen seconds of of good comfort,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: but it's not gonna be you know what you're what
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: you're gonna do with your average bow in the in
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: the drawway window isn't gonna make it vastly different. But
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: we'll make everything more comfortable. And you know, you talk
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: about how you draw like you know, I whenever I practice,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I always like, the one thing I always think about
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: is drawing straight back to my face while I'm aiming
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: at the target, like, because that's what I want to do.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: When I'm in the woods. I don't want to sky
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: that bow, you know, or if I'm in a blind,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: I want it to come back very actually in a slow,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: measured draw and not any fast herky jerky movements until
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: lowering your draw weight a little bit just makes that easier. Yeah,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: So just in case people don't know what you mean
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: by that when you say sky the ball, that would
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: be when some if your draw weight is is too
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: high for what you're comfortable with, a lot of people
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: will pull their put their bow hand up high in
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the air and then pulled down. And because it's easier
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: to draw back a really heavy weight when it's kind
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: of in that angle. So if you find yourself doing that,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: that is a clear sign you're drawn back too much. Um. Yeah,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: that's that's a really important reminder. Yeah, and I should
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: say something too, you know, when you when you talked
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: about drawing, drawing and holding on target for a long
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: time and kind of floating that pin, like that's a
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: real important distinction to make, like, don't don't throw out
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: your block target and try to hold that pin for
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: forty five seconds directly on top of a little bull's eye.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: You'll you'll start to develop all kinds of wonkiness between
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: your ears. It's not a good thing. So you want
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: to you know, if if I'm working on hold my
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: bow for a long time, I'm not aiming, Like so,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm at full draw, but I'm not settled in.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I'm my head's off, I'm not looking through my aperture,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: my my peep site. When when that happens, that's when
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: I start aiming. Yeah, yep, that's that's an important reminder.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: All right, what do we have next? Um, I would
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: say just on that. As far as as practice and
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: and you know, real world, real situational type of practice. Uh.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: The one thing that I always tell people, especially new
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: Newish bow hunters, is if there's any way for you
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: to do it, get yourself a three D dear target.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: And and I say that because we we kind of
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: preached this, you know, three or four or five inches
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: behind the shoulder halfway up mentality for shots. But we're
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: assuming a broadside deer and I've seen you bow hunters
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: take that and go I need to aim three inches
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: behind the shoulder, but not really considering what the deer's
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: angle is. You know what, you know, not only quartering away,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: quartering too, but how high up in the tree are
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: they if they're in a tree stand or using a saddle,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: And it's not a simple thing for picking. Your point
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: of impact is always just being three inches behind the shoulders.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: So I take a three D deer target, and pretty
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: much after the sight in phase, all I use is
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: three D targets. I don't I don't shoot a lot
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: of bulls eyes throughout the summer. But if I put one,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: you know, pound in one rebar steak, I can spin
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: that that three D target around and so I can
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: get into uh, you know, the quartering away shots or
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: slightly quartering toward or I'm lucky I have a deck
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: I can shoot from, so I can get that elevated
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: practice without having to get into a tree. And what
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: it does is that it forces your brain to go, Okay,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: the deer's at this position or that position or this position.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: Kind Like when when you are with an experienced bow
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: hunter in a tree stand, that's all they're thinking about
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: when that buck walks, you know, like what if he
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: moves this way or he just turned this way. Now,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: I got to think about this. Now, my point of
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: impacts three inches back. And if you spend time practicing
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: for that as opposed to just you know, broadside at
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: twenty yards or or shooting a bulls eyes, it just helps.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: It helps you get into that autopilot mindset when you
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: want when you watch that deer walk in, that you're
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna probably been in a better place as
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: far as where you're gonna settle that pin. So it
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: just blew my mind with your your idea of only
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: putting in one piece of rebar so you can spin
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: the target around. I don't know why I never thought
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: of that, but that is genius. So you can get
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: all the different angles. Well it's dumb, right, because you
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: could just walk one way or the other. But I
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: say that because where I shoot in in my yard,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I have a pretty narrow lane, and so I can't
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: just walk twenty yards to the right or left. I
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: have to stay kind I have to shoot them sort
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: of a narrow lane, and so I have to turn
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: my target. Well, yeah, and I think there's a lot
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: of people that would find themselves in some kind of
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: situation like that where they've got their one elevated spot
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: or the one spot where they've got their stuff stacked up.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: It just makes it easier. Um, that's that's smart. Do
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: you know where that came from? Market? Where I had
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: as many problems as I've had with buck fever, I've
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: had turkey fever worse almost, And when I started bow
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: hunting turkeys, I could not hit a turkey correctly. It
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: it like ruined me for a while. And so I
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: ended up buying a standing turkey target and a strutting
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: turkey target, and I put in just because I was like, oh,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: I don't you know, I only need one one rebar there.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Put them in and you shoot that target and it
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: would spin naturally a little bit. And what I realized
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: is like every time one of my arrow hits my
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: next shot, my point of impact is different. It was
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: like one of those dumb lightbulb moments where I'm like, oh,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: I could do this with any target. You know like it?
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: So do you have a favorite three D target? I've
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: tried a couple. Um, what's what's one or two that
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: you'd recommended people. I like Ryan Hard a lot man.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: So they're more expensive than than a lot of the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: other targets on the market. But I've had I've had
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: some of their targets for like six seven years out
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota winters and never covered them, never taken him inside.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: And I can shoot him with broadheads and field points,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's kind of a buy once, cry
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: once scenario. But they last a long time. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: I'll second that that's been the one that I've stuck
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: with the most. And and yeah, I hate the upfront cost,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: but I have personally seen the exact same thing lasted
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: longer than I. That's That's what's behind my house right
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: now is a couple of Rhineharts so or whatever that's worth.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: They seem to get the job done. Yep. I've got
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: one more on my antoni. Okay, and this one is
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: the one where you call me weird is gonna come
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: home to roost because this one, this one isn't isn't
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: like a hunting tip, This isn't a shooting tip. This
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: is a uh self development tip. Um. This comes from
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: a book I really like. It's called Atomic habits Um
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and it's a book about how to like how habits
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: and how the psychology of setting habits, sticking to habits
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: and goals and all that stuff. How that you know
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: can be learned and placed into action in your daily life.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: And it's backed up by a bunch of really interesting research.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that all these different folks
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: have have found through their studies is that a really
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: simple way to actually follow through and achieve goals or
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: a set of tasks like what we're talking about here,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: is to do something called set and implement an implementation intention.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: So implement Asian intention is a fancy word for writing
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: down your goals, making them very specific and action oriented,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: and then putting a date on them. So rather than
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: saying all right, I listened to Mark and Tony and
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: they said that I should get permission on new property.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: So yeah, this year, I'm gonna try to get permission
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: in new property. And that would be the way that
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Mark ten years ago maybe would have done things, But
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Mark in two thousand one would try to set an
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: implementation intention around that. So what I would do is
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: tonight or tomorrow morning, when i wake up early and
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: I've got my planning time, I'm gonna say, all right,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna set three goals for the off season. These
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: guys inspired me to to actually do a few of
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: the things. I'm gonna pick three of them, or maybe
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: just one of them. Let's say I'll pick one of them,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to do this get permission thing. So
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna write my implementation intention. That means I'm gonna
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: be very specific about this goal. So my specific goal
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: is that I'm going to get permission on at least
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: one new property this year. But to do that marks
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: it's a numbers game. So I'm going to ask for
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: permission on ten properties. So there's my very specific thing.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to knock on ten doors for permission. The
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: second thing you gotta do is you need to attach
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: a deadline to it. This is really important. Actually put
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: a time or a date when you're gonna do it,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: so you're right down, I'm going to knock on ten
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: doors and I'm going to do it this weekend or
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: you know, the first weekend in May, which will be
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: May eleven, something like that. If you do that, if
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: you set a specific goal with some kind of deadline
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: attached to it, and you take the physical action of
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: writing it down and put it somewhere you're gonna see it.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: The odds that you follow through on that are much
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: much higher than if you were to just say, oh yeah,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I'll do that someday. So it's a simple little exercise
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: that actually can make it do big important things. So
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: I know that's a nerdy, weird thing, but my suggestion
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: is to after this podcast write a couple of implementation tensions.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's something we talked about here today that's inspired you,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: or maybe there's something else you've been thinking about that's
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: on your off season to do list, Write it down,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: be specific, put a deadline on it. It can actually help.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Am I am I weird because of that, Tony? Or
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: is there anything there that makes you nod your head
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: and say I can see that. Uh, that's a great
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: strategy for a guy like you, Mark. That's the nicest
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: way anyone's ever told me. Full of ship before, take
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: your adder all, make your list, set your future in motion.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: I love it. Okay, I'm gonna have to badger you
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: into doing some of these, Tony, what's your last off
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: season idea? Um, I'm gonna freelance this a little bit more.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think I do think that
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: social contracts and contracts with yourself are valuable. I'm kind
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: of making funny, but I actually do think that that's
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: that's true. I also think, I mean, this kind of
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: ties back to some of the other stuff we talked about.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: But I had this moment. Uh, sometime last year, I
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: was talking to our mutual friend and you and you know,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: we we typically talk about white tails, which would surprise
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: no one, but we got off on the topic of
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: small mouth and man, we talked about small mouth fishing
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: for a long time. And what I realized and I
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: realized this a lot with my little girls taking them
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: into the woods, is we're we're looking at white tail
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: hunting like there's there's a certain percentage of hunters out
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: there who are just like, that's my thing. That's all
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I do. Every every moment I spend in the woods,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: I am on the you know, that focus, that mission focus,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: or if I'm at home and I have free time,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I'm e scouting the crap out of these new spots.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: And you know, like that's that's perfect for some people.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people aren't wired for that,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and but they still want to get better. They just
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: don't want to do that kind of hyper focused approach
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: to white tails. And what I realized talking to Andy,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: and I've known some other people along the way who
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: had just had what I call critter sense, like they
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: just got out there after anything. They were just they
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: were open to being out in the woods, hunting, fishing,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: doing whatever they could, and it just helped them get
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: better at everything, which of course ties into white to hunting.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: So I always I always tell people, like, just spend
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: more time out there. I mean, I talked to Zach
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Farrinbout about this a lot too, like just how often
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: he says he just goes out into the woods in
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: the summer or goes to just find some deer to
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: look at. And it's just it's it's not really tied
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: to becoming a better deer hunter, but it makes you
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: a better deer hunter, you know, kind of like the
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Turkey trip that is loosely tied to scouting for some
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: fall trip in the future. All of that stuff. Even
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: you know, you get out there and go wade some
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: of those trout streams that you like to fish, and
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: you you see crossings, you know, and you see where
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: where is this deer ass thing and why why did
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: they cross here? While it's like this nice little drainage
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: feeds down here and you start seeing stuff like that
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: when you're out there more. And I know it's a
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: huge leap to say, like, oh, getting better at being
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: a trail fisherman is going to make you a better
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: white tail hunter, but I actually think it does. Like
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: I think the more you figure out with one thing
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: feeds into the other, and it just it's like the
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: rising tide lifting all ships. I think, spend more time
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: out there, just generally. And I'll say, also, you know,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm wired differently as you alluded than you are
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: and some other people, So I I usually go pretty
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: hard at anything I'm gonna do. And um, but what
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: I found, as you described, is that if you allow yourself,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: So if someone listening is wired like me and finds
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: some self going like this guy as I do, I finally,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: for me, fly fishing has become this other thing I've
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: become like obsessed with and have gone really hard at.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: But I have not attached any goals or objectives or
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: mission or some kind of achievement. There's none of that
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: stuff attached to it. So I can go out there
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: and and have this It's kind of like this equal
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: but opposite force in my mind. Like I've got this
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: like huge obsession for deer hunting that is very focused
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: and goal oriented, and I'm always trying to get better,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm trying to learn, learn and learn and do
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: do do um, and then trout fishing for me has
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: become this other thing that I've really come to love
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: and become obsessed with. But I just go out there
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: to just like be there, and it's the total opposite.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not stressed. Ever, I'm don't find myself throughout the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: year like how do I get better? How do I
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: have ten off season tasks to get better? It's none
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: of that. But I still love reading a book about it,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: and like my curiosity satiated about it, and I can
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: get out there and just kind of be consumed with something,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: but something that's that's very very much lower stakes than
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: I guess when I'm going into a deer hunting season.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: So for me, I I totally agree with that you're saying.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: For me, what that looks like is going deep into
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: something still, but it's approaching it from a totally different
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: mindset and approaching it with like just getting out there
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: and really enjoying it and like just being in the
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: moment completely. Whether I catch fish or not. While deer hunting,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: I'm fully immersed in. But I'm just because of who
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: I am. I'm oriented to try to achieve some kind
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: of goal. That's just my thing. But yeah, I think
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: diversity in your outdoor experiences, it's just like a good
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: healthy thing, at least for me. I found that to
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: be the case. And and obviously, you know you've talked
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: about We've talked about obsessive deer hunters. We kind of
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: need a release of elve. We need something that we
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: can still be outside and enjoying the great outdoors, but
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: doing in a way that is not so O c
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: D or so gung ho or so whatever it is
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: that we are both in our we we are that
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: way in different ways, Tony. I do it my own way.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: You do your own way, But we're something and we
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: both need a way to release that while still enjoying
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: nature and getting outside and testing our critter sense. So
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of truth to that. Yeah,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: And you know it's I was I was just talking
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: to a buddy of mine earlier today, Who's who's picking
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: up his first bird dog. You know, he's going to
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: get a little lab puppy this morning. And we were
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: just talking about where we would meet up this fall,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: this coming fall, as far as you know, maybe maybe
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: hunt a few wood ducks, or maybe hunting some woodcock
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: or gross and just talking about these things. And what
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: it makes me think about is, you know, not not
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: only like the fly fishing example, but just everything you
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: spend out like the more you're you're open to, the
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: more you'll see these opportunities out there. So you might
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: be sitting on a tree stand and see a bunch
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: of ducks fly by, or you might be duck hunting
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: and see a buck cruising somewhere. I have stuff like
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: that happened to me all the time when I'm out
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: there hunting, or you know, very obvious example is how
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: often in the late season, when I'm pheasant hunting, I
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: jump big bucks on public land out of patches of
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: cover that just blow my mind. And all of that
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: stuff just sort of gets filed away. And you know,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm out there to hunt roosters with my dog.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not out there to scout deer but there's value
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: in in these these sort of generalist pursuits in a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: way that just feeds everything. Yeah, makes a lot of
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: sense to me. Well that is uh, that's our ten
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: that's our ten offseason ideas. Um, I guess I've got
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: one last question, Tony. If you were at the bar
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: with your buddies and they're sandy man, what's that Mark
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: Kenyon guy? Like? How do't you answer it? Now? He
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: is the the coolest normalist star quarterback, the nicest guy ever.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: All Right, I know what smokes me and blow in
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: my ask, don't it? All right? Man? Thank you or
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: thanks for making the time to do this. This is uh,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: this is a good time and hopefully there's some helpful
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: things here for folks. I think there are, I hope,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: So thanks man. All right, buddy, we'll talk to him,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: all right, and that's gonna do it. Thank you all
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: for listening. Hope you enjoyed this one. Hopefully we gave
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: you a few things to think about over the coming
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: months and get to work on because there's a lot
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: to do. There's a lot of good times to be
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: had out there. But by putting in some of that
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: extra effort on the front end, you'll be able to
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: enjoy it even more. Come Hunting season one, or whatever
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: season it is you're working on. Maybe it's five years
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: from now, but I hope some of this stuff can
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: help you out. And until with chat next time. Thank
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: you for listening, and stay wired to