Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 932: Back 40 - Great Spot, Bad Access: Can I Still Hunt It Successfully?

Transcript

Ep. 932: Back 40 - Great Spot, Bad Access: Can I Still Hunt It Successfully? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The best spot on your farm has bad access, then
0:04
Speaker 1: it's not the best spot on your farm.
0:06
Speaker 2: Welcome back to back forty podcast, brought to you by
0:09
Speaker 2: Land dot com, the leading online real estate marketplace to
0:12
Speaker 2: find your perfect rule recreational, agricultural or hunting properties here
0:16
Speaker 2: in the US. And there's still some time to go
0:18
Speaker 2: to the meat eater dot com backslash back forty for
0:21
Speaker 2: a chance to win a white deal kit worth one
0:23
Speaker 2: thousand dollars.
0:24
Speaker 3: The contest ends August twelfth, so don't wait.
0:27
Speaker 2: Sign up for a chance to win today at themeaeater
0:30
Speaker 2: dot com.
0:31
Speaker 3: Backslash Back forty.
0:33
Speaker 2: And today we're diving into a topic that we've all
0:36
Speaker 2: likely ran into at some point. And so this might
0:39
Speaker 2: have been when you're summer scouting. Maybe it's from last year.
0:43
Speaker 2: Maybe there's this a spot that comes to mind and
0:46
Speaker 2: it has bad access. And so I wrangled up the
0:49
Speaker 2: panel of experts Steve Hanson, Don Higgins, Bobby Kendall, Jeff Sturgis,
0:53
Speaker 2: Skip Slide, Bill Winky, Thomas Milsna, and Mark Kenyon to
0:57
Speaker 2: ask the question, the best botto my farm has bad access?
1:02
Speaker 2: Should I hunt it? How do I hunt it? And
1:06
Speaker 2: as you're listening, to this. You probably have a spot
1:08
Speaker 2: like this in the back of your mind, So this
1:10
Speaker 2: is going to help you evaluate the risk versus reward
1:12
Speaker 2: for this upcoming season and get a couple different opinions
1:15
Speaker 2: and see what expert on the panel fits your hunting
1:19
Speaker 2: style the most. Because all these guys are really efficient
1:22
Speaker 2: at deer hunting, but they all have their own take
1:25
Speaker 2: on how to potentially hunt a spot like this or
1:28
Speaker 2: maybe not hunt a spot like this. So without further ado,
1:31
Speaker 2: let's get into the earning question and whitetail dilemma for
1:35
Speaker 2: this week on back forty. First up, we have Thomas Milsna.
1:42
Speaker 2: Thomas hunts a permission property, shared permission property, still very
1:46
Speaker 2: active with strategizing, planning and proving a property. But here's
1:50
Speaker 2: what he has to say on whether you should hunt
1:52
Speaker 2: a spot with bad access even if it's really good.
1:55
Speaker 1: The best spot on your farm has bad access, it's
2:00
Speaker 1: not the best spot on your farm, right, So there's
2:03
Speaker 1: two ways to look at that. The best spot for
2:05
Speaker 1: deer isn't always the best spot to hunt deer, and
2:09
Speaker 1: understanding that is is what's going to determine your success
2:12
Speaker 1: or destroy that spot and push that deer activity elsewhere,
2:16
Speaker 1: potentially on the neighborhoods property. And I've made this mistake
2:19
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot. You find a spot and you're like, yes,
2:24
Speaker 1: this is it, right. You get that feeling that like
2:26
Speaker 1: big buck Spidey sense hair and back of your neck raised.
2:29
Speaker 1: As you walk into that spot. You can smell it.
2:31
Speaker 1: You can almost like smell the buck, you know, you
2:34
Speaker 1: must literally can't, yeah, exactly that musky smell. But you
2:39
Speaker 1: have to understand first and foremost, I'm going to look
2:41
Speaker 1: at what the wind direction is doing in a spot
2:44
Speaker 1: like that, And you also have to look at it objectively,
2:47
Speaker 1: because if you're there scouting that one moment in time,
2:52
Speaker 1: that one set of conditions, it's going to be dramatically
2:54
Speaker 1: different at four thirty pm when the shadows hit that hillside,
2:59
Speaker 1: or at you know, five am, or whatever it might be.
3:02
Speaker 1: So you have to think about it holistically from a
3:04
Speaker 1: sense of like how things change, should up the day
3:06
Speaker 1: and the greater landscape and how they air and all
3:08
Speaker 1: that stuff is moving. And if you can put together
3:11
Speaker 1: a really good plan, you know, in relation to where
3:14
Speaker 1: deer coming from and where they're going and how to
3:17
Speaker 1: get in and out of there, then then yes, you
3:19
Speaker 1: can you can hunt it right, But if you can't,
3:22
Speaker 1: then the next step is you need to look at
3:24
Speaker 1: again where deer coming from, where they're going, and can
3:26
Speaker 1: I intercept them coming to and from If you're in
3:30
Speaker 1: hill country. A lot of your really awesome spots with
3:35
Speaker 1: a lot of sign are oftentimes those thermal hubs. And
3:40
Speaker 1: the reason deer love to be there is because they
3:42
Speaker 1: can bet up above them smell everything coming up out
3:44
Speaker 1: of them, and then they can drop down into them
3:47
Speaker 1: and smell stuff coming out of them at the same time, right,
3:49
Speaker 1: so they can they can understand that area. It makes
3:52
Speaker 1: them feel really really comfortable.
3:53
Speaker 4: You know.
3:53
Speaker 1: It's usually in some type of security cover, either surrounded
3:57
Speaker 1: by dense cover or into pag You know, topography is
4:01
Speaker 1: the greatest form of cover. So the topography itself walls
4:03
Speaker 1: off other sources of threats and that's where you know,
4:06
Speaker 1: you can use that to your advantage, maybe to get
4:09
Speaker 1: on the fringe, but you have to understand how the
4:11
Speaker 1: error is moving in a spot like that, and if
4:13
Speaker 1: you can't get in there, then you can't get in there.
4:16
Speaker 1: And then that's where you know every year is building
4:19
Speaker 1: here that mindset comes in.
4:20
Speaker 3: Okay, this is a good spot. Maybe maybe if I
4:23
Speaker 3: can't figure.
4:24
Speaker 1: Out how to hunt it, I'm just gonna slip in
4:26
Speaker 1: there and throw a camera and anticipate what's going on.
4:29
Speaker 1: And then a tactic that I love to employ with
4:32
Speaker 1: trail cameras is always strive to run your cameras in tandem.
4:38
Speaker 1: You know, one camera might be like an inventory camera, right,
4:41
Speaker 1: or it's over a gate or something like that. But
4:44
Speaker 1: if you're truly trying to figure out deer movement or
4:46
Speaker 1: pick apart a situation like this, get a camera in
4:50
Speaker 1: there and have a camera or two bouncing around the
4:53
Speaker 1: outside in areas that you are for sure able to
4:57
Speaker 1: hunt because of consistent air movement, and then just cross
5:00
Speaker 1: reference that information, you know, whether it's sell cams a
5:02
Speaker 1: lot of times, and maybe this is why I don't
5:05
Speaker 1: rely on cell cams very often, because a lot of
5:06
Speaker 1: times those really good spots like that don't have very
5:09
Speaker 1: good cell service. So that's something to think about too,
5:12
Speaker 1: And then just let it soak. Hunt those fringes, but
5:14
Speaker 1: hunt safe and smart. Just don't go in there all crazy,
5:17
Speaker 1: because again, you just don't know. And if you do,
5:20
Speaker 1: make sure you've got your milk weed and you're checking
5:21
Speaker 1: the wind like crazy, so that if if you fail epically,
5:24
Speaker 1: at least you learn from that situation. But it just
5:27
Speaker 1: flat out not every good spot for deer is a
5:30
Speaker 1: good spot to hunt, you know. And then when we
5:32
Speaker 1: talk about every year is being a building year, where
5:34
Speaker 1: it's going with that is a habitat. So if you
5:36
Speaker 1: understand where deer are coming from, where they're going, how
5:38
Speaker 1: can you either increase cover to get into that spot
5:42
Speaker 1: or increase attraction somewhere else to pull dear out of
5:45
Speaker 1: that spot in a more defined manner, right, So it's
5:49
Speaker 1: more predictable and more huntable.
5:51
Speaker 2: So basically with that that in mind, for someone that
5:54
Speaker 2: has this, almost every I mean there's farms that I
5:56
Speaker 2: hunt that it's like, oh, I wish I could go
5:58
Speaker 2: back there, but the accident is bad. And then there's
6:01
Speaker 2: the challenge of risk first reward and then and that's
6:04
Speaker 2: why I'm interviewing some of the best, most successful experts,
6:06
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of people that would say, just
6:09
Speaker 2: go in there and you've got to make it happen.
6:11
Speaker 2: And there's probably scenarios where that makes sense.
6:13
Speaker 5: Though.
6:13
Speaker 1: Well, let me give you a perfect example of this.
6:17
Speaker 1: The buck that I killed from the ground in his
6:19
Speaker 1: bed a couple of years ago. That was one of
6:21
Speaker 1: those spots. That is a fantastic spot. It holds deer,
6:25
Speaker 1: tons of sign in there. It's a thermal hub. And
6:28
Speaker 1: this is where I've made the mistakes before. I've went
6:30
Speaker 1: in there many times. If I in fact thinking about
6:34
Speaker 1: things that I've done in the past with what I
6:36
Speaker 1: know now, like I've screwed that spot up so many
6:39
Speaker 1: times just following sign, trying to hunt, playing the wind,
6:42
Speaker 1: playing the thermals, thinking that I could out compete a
6:45
Speaker 1: deer's nose in this type thermal hub like that. It's
6:48
Speaker 1: just almost impossible. But there is in every single situation,
6:52
Speaker 1: there is a time and a way to get in there.
6:56
Speaker 1: Understanding that airflow, understanding and using cover, all of these
6:59
Speaker 1: things come into play. Actually, I'll give you two examples. Actually,
7:02
Speaker 1: the last two deer that I've killed were from the
7:05
Speaker 1: ground in two spots like this, and it essentially was
7:08
Speaker 1: me proving to myself this exact thing that I'm saying
7:11
Speaker 1: is there is always a way to do it, but
7:13
Speaker 1: sometimes it is so specific that you can't go in
7:17
Speaker 1: there and pre hang a set. Sometimes you can't even
7:20
Speaker 1: hang a set, which was my situation, right, Like, if
7:22
Speaker 1: I get up in that elevation, now I don't have
7:24
Speaker 1: a shot. If I get up in that elevation, now
7:25
Speaker 1: deer can see me. I have to maintain cover the
7:27
Speaker 1: whole time. If I go in to this tree stand
7:30
Speaker 1: an hour before dark, the thermals are in the wrong direction.
7:33
Speaker 1: So I need to come in ten minutes before dark.
7:35
Speaker 1: You know, whatever time it is, however that works out.
7:38
Speaker 1: But there is always a time and place. It just
7:41
Speaker 1: might be more work or out of a lot of
7:43
Speaker 1: people's comfort zones. And that's where the beauty or the
7:46
Speaker 1: ability to modify your situation or improve your situation really
7:50
Speaker 1: comes into play.
7:51
Speaker 3: So there you have it.
7:52
Speaker 2: That's what Thomas has to say when it comes to
7:54
Speaker 2: this dilemma, and I think that potentially his strategy makes
7:58
Speaker 2: a lot of sense. And we're going to get into
8:00
Speaker 2: the next one with Bill Winki. I'd say Bill's a
8:02
Speaker 2: pretty conservative hunter in a lot of ways, just based
8:05
Speaker 2: off of listening to him and watching his content over
8:08
Speaker 2: the years. And here's what he has to say on
8:10
Speaker 2: whether it's worth the risk to go in and hunt
8:12
Speaker 2: a spot with bad access.
8:14
Speaker 6: You know, I've come up with my own approach to
8:17
Speaker 6: this now that I tell people this approach and they
8:21
Speaker 6: laugh at me and they think I'm kidding, But you know,
8:24
Speaker 6: really the deer hunting comes down to it's just a simple,
8:31
Speaker 6: you know, game of cat and mouse. They can't know
8:34
Speaker 6: that they're being hunted. Since they know they're being hunted,
8:38
Speaker 6: then they're not going to move naturally. And as boat lenders,
8:41
Speaker 6: we have to have natural movement because deer drives and
8:45
Speaker 6: pushes and.
8:45
Speaker 3: Stuff like that.
8:46
Speaker 6: They're not very effective for the boat owners. So we
8:48
Speaker 6: need to move naturally in daylight so they can't know
8:51
Speaker 6: that you're hunting them.
8:52
Speaker 3: That's the bottom line.
8:53
Speaker 6: So if they if you can't get in and out
8:58
Speaker 6: of the spot, say you can get in, which you
9:01
Speaker 6: can't get out without the beer, knowing, well, maybe you
9:04
Speaker 6: can get a couple of hunts out of that burden.
9:05
Speaker 6: Season you better be very sparing in when you play
9:09
Speaker 6: those cards because you're only going to get a couple
9:11
Speaker 6: of cracks before you've educated too many deer back there
9:15
Speaker 6: and they start, you know, they lose that natural movement
9:17
Speaker 6: that you need, or you can't hunt it at all
9:23
Speaker 6: and just hunt the fringes of that area. Like let's
9:25
Speaker 6: say you got this perfect funnel on a let's say
9:30
Speaker 6: it's an eighty acre property and there's this perfect funnel,
9:33
Speaker 6: and then if I can just sit there, I'm gonna
9:35
Speaker 6: kill that buck. I'm happy. Well, you can kill that buck.
9:37
Speaker 6: You're after a whole lot of places on that eighty
9:41
Speaker 6: acre property. Don't get married to a spot that's not
9:45
Speaker 6: easy to hunt, or it's not easy to hunt.
9:48
Speaker 3: Without being TechEd.
9:49
Speaker 6: But that way and the other approach, and this is
9:53
Speaker 6: what I'm gonna play with a little bit more of
9:54
Speaker 6: this year. You just stayed to stay in there, you know.
9:59
Speaker 6: Then you know I did that one season on hunted
10:04
Speaker 6: Buck for twelve days and never once slept in my
10:07
Speaker 6: bed during those twelve days. It was either on the
10:11
Speaker 6: ground at the base of the tree or in the
10:13
Speaker 6: ground wide and I would go in and out and
10:16
Speaker 6: do all by entry and exit when it was windy
10:19
Speaker 6: during the middle of the day, because you can get
10:22
Speaker 6: away with murder even going.
10:23
Speaker 3: Into betting area windy.
10:25
Speaker 6: But when it's still, they see you easier, and they
10:30
Speaker 6: definitely hear you, you know, because the wind is moving south,
10:34
Speaker 6: you're moving the deer don't register movement as well. When
10:39
Speaker 6: everything's moving, it's sort of like you know, like you
10:42
Speaker 6: hear a whole like a background noise, you don't hear
10:45
Speaker 6: sounds as well. They're the same way with move it's
10:48
Speaker 6: pretty It was pretty amazing to me how little attention
10:51
Speaker 6: they paid to what was going on around them when
10:54
Speaker 6: it's windy. But anyway, the point is you could get
10:58
Speaker 6: in and out when it's windy. But you know, let's
11:01
Speaker 6: say it drops down and it's still in the evening.
11:03
Speaker 6: At the end of the shooting time, we think, well
11:04
Speaker 6: out and sneak my way out. Now you're not sneaking
11:07
Speaker 6: out the same thing in the morning when you're trying
11:10
Speaker 6: to go in it's bit calm and you're crunching your
11:12
Speaker 6: way back in there. Yeah, you know, it's terrible every
11:15
Speaker 6: day knows. So that's the other options. It's not as
11:21
Speaker 6: it's not as far out there is what you think.
11:24
Speaker 6: Because everybody has a spike cap out. I don't even
11:27
Speaker 6: think twice, oh yeah, this's gonna spike you up on
11:30
Speaker 6: that mountain over there. Well, they don't think twice. So
11:33
Speaker 6: this is just spike cap the deer, and it works
11:37
Speaker 6: really well. It seems, like I said, it seems pretty
11:40
Speaker 6: foreign because people are used to doing it. But I
11:44
Speaker 6: think you'd be surprised and how comfortable you can be
11:47
Speaker 6: and how effective that is when you're not coming and
11:50
Speaker 6: going all the time, and not only leaving set, but
11:54
Speaker 6: all that noise that goes with it, especially when it's
11:57
Speaker 6: calm out. So you know, the simple advice is just
12:01
Speaker 6: don't hunt that spot. That's the simple advice. And then
12:05
Speaker 6: they gave you a really long.
12:06
Speaker 2: Two What if you had a counter So imagine there's
12:09
Speaker 2: a stop watch going from the time you go in
12:12
Speaker 2: and you're spike camping for white tails, and so that's
12:15
Speaker 2: one version of the simulation, and you think you can,
12:18
Speaker 2: you know, kill the buck you're after in three days,
12:20
Speaker 2: so you know, seventy two hours, let's say, or you
12:26
Speaker 2: have to stop watch when you're only hunting that deer
12:28
Speaker 2: going in and out, and maybe it takes twelve sits,
12:32
Speaker 2: fourteen sits. If you end up actually killing that deer,
12:35
Speaker 2: what do you think would it be potentially more efficient?
12:37
Speaker 2: Because obviously three days spike camping for white tails is
12:41
Speaker 2: a major time commitment.
12:42
Speaker 3: But do you think it could be more efficient?
12:44
Speaker 6: I think if you catch the right day, like we
12:48
Speaker 6: were talking, or accounts mentioned, or you only have a
12:51
Speaker 6: certain number of opportunities there before you you've educated them,
12:56
Speaker 6: and you know, again, it could come down to intel.
12:59
Speaker 6: If you run a lot sell cameras, you could push
13:02
Speaker 6: that information overload to the point where you only go
13:05
Speaker 6: in there where you know the buckets that you know,
13:08
Speaker 6: and you roll the dice with the risk saying, well,
13:11
Speaker 6: it's you know, it's kind of like high risk, high reward.
13:16
Speaker 6: You know, I hopefully can get in today, but the
13:18
Speaker 6: risk is pretty high.
13:20
Speaker 3: At least educate some here.
13:22
Speaker 6: You could play in the game that way too, But again,
13:25
Speaker 6: like I mentioned earlier, it's just me.
13:26
Speaker 3: It's my philosophy.
13:28
Speaker 6: I don't want to have all the information. I kind
13:30
Speaker 6: of like being really surprised when not really surprised, but
13:34
Speaker 6: like excited when the buck I'm putting shows up. I
13:37
Speaker 6: don't want to get in that position. I think we've
13:38
Speaker 6: got this.
13:39
Speaker 3: Conversation even before you and I work.
13:41
Speaker 6: I don't want to be in that position where I'm
13:43
Speaker 6: disappointed it it doesn't show up. You know what I'm saying.
13:47
Speaker 6: I want to just hunt and hunt and then be
13:49
Speaker 6: excited when he does, rather than the opposite. And if
13:55
Speaker 6: we have too much information available, because there's a balance,
13:57
Speaker 6: you know, obviously, I need to know enough stuff not
13:59
Speaker 6: wasting my time. But I don't want to know so
14:02
Speaker 6: much that I feel like a god in corner just
14:06
Speaker 6: doesn't feel the same to me. But it's not illegal,
14:09
Speaker 6: so there's nothing wrong with it. It's just isn't my style.
14:12
Speaker 2: So that's all Bill has to say about that for now.
14:14
Speaker 2: Now let's get into skips Lie on his take on
14:18
Speaker 2: this same question and dilemma we've all faced. All right, there,
14:22
Speaker 2: I was shed hunting. I remember last year. There's a
14:25
Speaker 2: spot on my farm. It's absolutely tore up. There's trails everywhere,
14:28
Speaker 2: there's scrapes, rubs. It just feels like the hair on
14:30
Speaker 2: the back of your neck goes straight up and you
14:32
Speaker 2: just feel like you can kill a giant buck there.
14:34
Speaker 2: But the axis is really bad. How do I hunt it?
14:38
Speaker 2: Should I hunt it?
14:41
Speaker 5: You should hunt it.
14:44
Speaker 4: I'm gonna guess most people listening to this, and maybe
14:48
Speaker 4: I'll just make a assumption with you that you're a
14:52
Speaker 4: rough hunter. I like hunting November, and that's how I
14:56
Speaker 4: used to be when I was younger, especially, and when
14:58
Speaker 4: I was younger, I didn't and have the ability to
15:01
Speaker 4: be like I'm going to go put in a food
15:03
Speaker 4: plot and hunt near your food plot, you know, and
15:06
Speaker 4: even today I go sit way back in the timber.
15:08
Speaker 5: So I do this even to this day.
15:09
Speaker 4: So let's just put this in the rut hunting category,
15:14
Speaker 4: or you know early rut with like, hey, late October,
15:19
Speaker 4: he probably is there, and then in November he's starting
15:24
Speaker 4: to get all over the place, but hopefully still in there.
15:26
Speaker 4: So what I would do then is just I would
15:30
Speaker 4: set up a few different spots in there and go
15:34
Speaker 4: in like super super early in the morning where the
15:37
Speaker 4: access isn't great, and I would just hunt a few
15:40
Speaker 4: times strategically when the conditions are right, and I would
15:43
Speaker 4: get in there super early, and if you have the energy.
15:46
Speaker 4: This one's cliche, this one everybody's heard a million times.
15:49
Speaker 4: But I would go in there super early, and I
15:52
Speaker 4: would just sit there all day. If it's a giant
15:55
Speaker 4: buck and the access isn't great, just sit there all
15:59
Speaker 4: day and you know, is it Are you gonna shoot
16:04
Speaker 4: that deer at noon? Probably not? But is there a chance? Yeah,
16:08
Speaker 4: there's a real chance of doing it. So what's the
16:10
Speaker 4: advantage of getting out of there? There isn't one. You're
16:12
Speaker 4: just gonna screw it up even worse. So those spots.
16:15
Speaker 4: I just the deep spots. I just go in there
16:17
Speaker 4: very strategically. I don't go in there too often. I
16:21
Speaker 4: try and have a little bit of variety, and then
16:23
Speaker 4: I just go in there when it's just about right colder,
16:28
Speaker 4: I know that you're moving well, you know, maybe there's
16:31
Speaker 4: some mentel where I think that buck's in the area.
16:33
Speaker 5: I go there. I'll sit all day, and.
16:36
Speaker 4: If you screw something up, that's part of the game too,
16:39
Speaker 4: you know, it's not nothing's a guarantee. And even even
16:43
Speaker 4: stands that are bulletproof, you still can screw those up too.
16:45
Speaker 4: So I would just go in there strategically, don't over
16:48
Speaker 4: hunt it, sit all day, and you know, might work out,
16:53
Speaker 4: it might not work out. And every hunter whose season
16:56
Speaker 4: be like, yeah, I've had a lot of times it
16:57
Speaker 4: did not work out. That's fine. That's what makes it fun.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I feel oftentimes people are they're like, oh man,
17:13
Speaker 2: you know what, I know, I shouldn't be back there,
17:15
Speaker 2: but I do feel like that's my best opportunity. And
17:17
Speaker 2: then I personally think a lot of people it's October
17:21
Speaker 2: twelfth and not like when you're you said rut, And
17:24
Speaker 2: so in most parts of the Midwest, it's not October twelfth.
17:27
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, you know, October twelfth, I have to
17:28
Speaker 2: go in there and try it. And then October eighteenth.
17:32
Speaker 2: It rolls around. Do you think that's the wrong approach
17:34
Speaker 2: or do you think that's no harm, no foul.
17:36
Speaker 4: You know, if I tried it, so this one's gonna
17:39
Speaker 4: be a little bit different answer. But if I tried
17:41
Speaker 4: that in Michigan, well, if I tried October twelve, it
17:44
Speaker 4: would never.
17:45
Speaker 5: Work because those deer were still so freaked out.
17:47
Speaker 4: And nocturnal, and and then I had to reprogram my brain.
17:51
Speaker 4: When I come to better states that weren't as pressured,
17:53
Speaker 4: deer act actually acted a little bit natural. You could
17:57
Speaker 4: actually do that in more so, it depends on the
17:59
Speaker 4: state if you're if you're in an area and people
18:02
Speaker 4: can't quite grasp, like things in Michigan might get just
18:06
Speaker 4: absolutely pounded. But I've never seen that, so I don't
18:08
Speaker 4: understand what he's saying. Well, there's Harry's that get just
18:11
Speaker 4: unbelievable amount of pressure and it's like October you're almost
18:14
Speaker 4: wasting your time.
18:15
Speaker 5: Well that's what I came from.
18:17
Speaker 4: And when I went to the Better States, where I'm
18:18
Speaker 4: like you know, Iowa, Kansas, and Illinois even wherever. And
18:24
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, I gotta wait till the rot to hunt.
18:27
Speaker 3: I just have to.
18:28
Speaker 4: Also, I'm like, wait, some of these deer moving in October,
18:31
Speaker 4: they actually are I might be able to get in
18:34
Speaker 4: there in a cold morning in October and shoot a
18:38
Speaker 4: giant in October. Well that was foreign to me. I'm like, no,
18:41
Speaker 4: that's not possible because I'm from Michigan. Well, I had
18:43
Speaker 4: to reprogram my brain, so I think it's it's actually
18:46
Speaker 4: possible if you if you're like, whoa, it's October twelve,
18:50
Speaker 4: and these deer are not like intensely pressured, you could
18:54
Speaker 4: go in there strategically if it was like a really
18:56
Speaker 4: cold day, or you thought the movement would be really good.
18:59
Speaker 4: The bear matt pressure went in and went in there
19:01
Speaker 4: October twelve. Just don't go in there like three times
19:04
Speaker 4: in a row or something. You know, it's kind of
19:06
Speaker 4: common sense. You kind of know when you're over pressuring things.
19:09
Speaker 4: You know, I think a good hunter knows when he's
19:11
Speaker 4: over pressuring things. But on the flip side that you
19:15
Speaker 4: get your guys who are so conservative that they don't
19:19
Speaker 4: really they'll never go in there and that's just human nature.
19:21
Speaker 4: How how much risk are you willing to take on things?
19:25
Speaker 4: And I like that, especially with deer hunting. What's the downside?
19:28
Speaker 4: The downside I don't get a deer, Okay, no big deal.
19:32
Speaker 4: It's not like I'm like risking all the all of
19:35
Speaker 4: my livelihood or betting my house at the casino against something.
19:38
Speaker 5: It's it's a deer. So that's why I like.
19:40
Speaker 4: I like putting a little bit of risk in there,
19:43
Speaker 4: risk and reward, you know. But I just stay on
19:45
Speaker 4: the fringe. I basically just hunt right by the road.
19:48
Speaker 4: I won't even go into the farm. Yeah, okay, you're
19:51
Speaker 4: not screwing anything up, but your chance for success is
19:54
Speaker 4: so minimal too, So don't be that conservative again, kind
19:58
Speaker 4: of a common I like a little bit of risks,
20:03
Speaker 4: So I'd say, i'd say push in there at the
20:05
Speaker 4: right times and just don't overdo it. And if you notice,
20:08
Speaker 4: like I went in there five times and now I
20:11
Speaker 4: don't see anything, you're probably screwing that spot up and
20:13
Speaker 4: you need to rethink that.
20:15
Speaker 3: That's what Skip has to say.
20:16
Speaker 2: I think there's a misconception with a lot of these
20:19
Speaker 2: folks that they maybe treat their farm really carefully. But
20:22
Speaker 2: a lot of these guys started hunting on public or
20:24
Speaker 2: permission all at one point, and then you know they
20:26
Speaker 2: built up to where they own a farm and can
20:28
Speaker 2: take a little bit different approach. But skip lets you
20:30
Speaker 2: know on hey, if I was hunting eighty acres, forty acres,
20:33
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be, that's the strategy I think
20:35
Speaker 2: that's most relatable. Next up we have Don Higgins on
20:38
Speaker 2: his answer to this question. Everyone talks about access, and
20:44
Speaker 2: someone maybe got permission on a new farm, or maybe
20:46
Speaker 2: they realize, hey, this access deal is actually really important,
20:50
Speaker 2: and I feel the best spot on my farm where
20:53
Speaker 2: I have the highest hods to kill buck has bad access.
20:57
Speaker 3: How do I hunt? Where do I start? Should I?
21:01
Speaker 5: Well? Should you? That's what the real question is.
21:05
Speaker 7: I've said for years stand without good access is not
21:10
Speaker 7: a good stand. I don't care what kind of signs there,
21:14
Speaker 7: what else is there. If you don't have good access,
21:16
Speaker 7: you don't have a good stand. All other factors thrown
21:20
Speaker 7: out the wind.
21:20
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter.
21:22
Speaker 7: It starts with good access. And I remember years ago
21:25
Speaker 7: legendary bow hunter Roger Rothar said, whenever you hang a stand,
21:29
Speaker 7: you should be able to instantly rattle off five or
21:31
Speaker 7: six reasons why that stands there while you're putting it
21:34
Speaker 7: in that tree. And at the time, you know, I
21:37
Speaker 7: was just a young pop it didn't make too much
21:39
Speaker 7: sense to me. It's like, well, you know, there's a
21:42
Speaker 7: good tree, and twenty yards away there's a trail, so
21:44
Speaker 7: that's why my stands here. Now it's way more than that,
21:48
Speaker 7: and it starts with access. I put my stand in
21:50
Speaker 7: this tree because I can access it across this open
21:53
Speaker 7: field with a northwest wind straight in my face. That
21:56
Speaker 7: same northwest wind is going to allow a buck to
21:59
Speaker 7: walk past that tree and feel comfortable doing so. And
22:03
Speaker 7: I plan to be here the first week of November
22:05
Speaker 7: when the bucks are cruising. This is a spot that
22:08
Speaker 7: aught a lot of cruising bucks should pass by. You know,
22:13
Speaker 7: it's going to be better in the morning than the evening,
22:15
Speaker 7: so I'm only going to hunt this spot in the morning.
22:17
Speaker 7: In addition to all this, this giant oak tree right
22:20
Speaker 7: in front of my stand tree is dropping acorns at
22:23
Speaker 7: that time of the year. And you should be able
22:25
Speaker 7: to just go on and on and on and make
22:28
Speaker 7: a long list for why you put a stand in
22:30
Speaker 7: a specific tree, But it all comes down to access.
22:33
Speaker 7: If you don't have good access, it's not a good stand.
22:36
Speaker 2: So if you can come up with six reasons but
22:38
Speaker 2: access is not.
22:39
Speaker 5: One of them, it's not a good stand. Don't hunt there.
22:43
Speaker 2: If you followed down for any period of time, you
22:46
Speaker 2: probably could have guessed that was going to be his
22:48
Speaker 2: answer to this question. And his farm is exceptionally well
22:51
Speaker 2: set up. He's very conservative when it comes to hunting,
22:54
Speaker 2: but very aggressive when it comes to managing habitat and
22:57
Speaker 2: setting up a farm. So in that scenario, you can
23:00
Speaker 2: get away with being really conservative because you've been able
23:03
Speaker 2: to develop the farm really well or figure out a
23:05
Speaker 2: way to stack the odds in your favor and make
23:08
Speaker 2: it to where you don't have to hunt the quote
23:09
Speaker 2: unquote best spot if it has bad access.
23:12
Speaker 3: Next up we have Steve Hanson. Here we go.
23:14
Speaker 2: The best botto of my farm I feel has bad
23:16
Speaker 2: or not great access. Okay, how do I hunt that spot?
23:21
Speaker 8: Since you started off the conversation with it sounding like
23:24
Speaker 8: it's more of a rout funnel type spot, so we're
23:26
Speaker 8: going to be trying to access this location for a
23:28
Speaker 8: rut hunt. What I'm gonna recommend is whatever path you
23:32
Speaker 8: have that you think has the least amount of chances
23:36
Speaker 8: of moving deer. But you're gonna have to go in
23:40
Speaker 8: in the dark and come out in the dark. It's
23:42
Speaker 8: gonna be all day sets. And then you're also going
23:44
Speaker 8: to have to minimize the amount of trips that you
23:47
Speaker 8: hunt it. Therefore, because every time you're hunting it, you're
23:51
Speaker 8: using up some in potential, yeah, some potential. You know,
23:55
Speaker 8: you're disrupting the flow of deer. So you want to
23:57
Speaker 8: make sure you're hunting it on the peak prime days,
24:00
Speaker 8: exactly right wind directions, not leaving anything to chance. And
24:04
Speaker 8: once you use up one of your times of going
24:07
Speaker 8: in there, you want to make the most of it
24:09
Speaker 8: by sitting all day for sure, that'd be the biggest
24:12
Speaker 8: thing that I could think, and going in extra early
24:15
Speaker 8: coming out you do a lot less damage to the
24:18
Speaker 8: you know, deer that are living on your farm, moving
24:20
Speaker 8: in the dark, they're a different creature after dark. There
24:23
Speaker 8: seemed more accepting of a little bit of intrusion. But
24:26
Speaker 8: that's how I would manage that sort of of a situation.
24:29
Speaker 3: So that might mean taking the long way, taking the.
24:32
Speaker 8: Long way whatever it takes to do the minimum amount
24:35
Speaker 8: of damage you can, and then staying you know the
24:37
Speaker 8: greatest amount of time that you can to hunt that.
24:39
Speaker 3: How many chances do you think you may have?
24:42
Speaker 2: And I understand it's very situational, but you have decades
24:46
Speaker 2: and decades of experience, You've helped a lot of people,
24:50
Speaker 2: you know, maybe navigate this exact scenario. Like how many
24:52
Speaker 2: tries do you think you get? And the reason I
24:54
Speaker 2: ask is because there's probably going to be a cold
24:56
Speaker 2: front October twelfth and maybe you really maybe that's not
24:59
Speaker 2: quite the time for this imaginary spot, right, I would
25:03
Speaker 2: say eight out of ten guys are going to go
25:04
Speaker 2: hunt that spot on that time that's not quite ready
25:07
Speaker 2: to do that.
25:08
Speaker 8: Sure, yeah, I would avoid that scenario. I would because
25:11
Speaker 8: what you're going to do in that case, if it's
25:12
Speaker 8: if it's a rut funnel and it's not that phase
25:15
Speaker 8: of the rut, you're going to educate the local does
25:17
Speaker 8: who's at whatever deer are using that place at that
25:20
Speaker 8: time are going to become educated to it, and then
25:22
Speaker 8: that's going to change how they're using that spot. So
25:25
Speaker 8: I would avoid it until truly peaked days. How many
25:29
Speaker 8: times you can hunt it, Like you said, every place
25:31
Speaker 8: is different, but realistically three or four without too much,
25:36
Speaker 8: I think, and you could still expect some you know,
25:38
Speaker 8: you're doing a little bit of damage, but you should
25:40
Speaker 8: get some success if you If in three or four
25:44
Speaker 8: sits the place isn't working like you think it is,
25:47
Speaker 8: it may not be the spot you think it is too.
25:49
Speaker 8: You know, if you've given it the best days of
25:51
Speaker 8: the year, gone in extra early, you know, three or
25:55
Speaker 8: four times, you I would think you'd have an opportunity
25:58
Speaker 8: or you know, see your target, bucker whatever. But if
26:00
Speaker 8: it hasn't happened in three or four times, and I'd
26:02
Speaker 8: reevaluate the whole situation.
26:05
Speaker 3: I think Steve's answer is really relatable.
26:07
Speaker 2: Make the timing right, go in there, take a swing
26:10
Speaker 2: or two, hope for the best. If it is truly
26:12
Speaker 2: the best spot and it has all the terrain features
26:14
Speaker 2: that make sense, go for the fences, give it a try.
26:17
Speaker 2: And I think that's probably what most people would fall into.
26:20
Speaker 2: But the key thing is being thoughtful and methodical when
26:23
Speaker 2: you go in to the really good spot with really
26:26
Speaker 2: bad access. Next up we have Jeff Sturgis. Jeff, I
26:30
Speaker 2: would say, is a pretty conservative hunter. I'm also very
26:33
Speaker 2: thoughtful with his access and everything else. So here's what
26:36
Speaker 2: he has to share about it. Okay, the best spot
26:39
Speaker 2: on my farm I postseason scattered it. I found this
26:42
Speaker 2: awesome rut funnel. It's just tore up with sign and man,
26:46
Speaker 2: I just feel like I need to hunt in there.
26:47
Speaker 2: But access is so important. So the best spot on
26:50
Speaker 2: my farm I feel has bad access. How do I
26:53
Speaker 2: hunt this this area?
26:56
Speaker 9: What's the bad access? Thanks ends on so this I'll
27:00
Speaker 9: give you an example. Last year, Buck, I took over
27:03
Speaker 9: a water hole. It's right along the back corner of
27:06
Speaker 9: a field, the neighbors field that is full of deer
27:10
Speaker 9: all night. It's a hidden corner from the road. It's
27:13
Speaker 9: crazy because you drive by and people always think, like,
27:16
Speaker 9: even with food plots, it's got to be this three
27:19
Speaker 9: acre field. You got to make it in like quarter
27:21
Speaker 9: acre half acre section, screen it off and all these deer.
27:24
Speaker 5: Can use it.
27:24
Speaker 9: Then, But how many times have you found a hidden
27:26
Speaker 9: corner and a giant agg field and all the deer
27:29
Speaker 9: there and like three or four acres Because it's the
27:31
Speaker 9: one year that's the most important, and they don't mind
27:33
Speaker 9: being on top of each other in a food source
27:35
Speaker 9: like that as long as they're hidden. And so that's
27:38
Speaker 9: kind of taught me a lot to even sectioning off
27:39
Speaker 9: food plots. I think it's a.
27:41
Speaker 5: Little bit overrated.
27:42
Speaker 9: But in that area, if you walk into that stand location,
27:45
Speaker 9: that's a beautiful rough funnel. It's a line will switch
27:47
Speaker 9: grass on the outside. You go only about ten yards
27:49
Speaker 9: into the woods and then you look down at a
27:51
Speaker 9: bench system and then it drops off super steep from there.
27:54
Speaker 9: It's like a bow tie. Everything comes into that funnel.
27:56
Speaker 9: We have a water hole there which enhances the movement.
27:59
Speaker 9: You don't create movement with the waterhole. You complement the
28:03
Speaker 9: movement and make it a little bit better. It's like
28:05
Speaker 9: a sweetener. But in that area, if I walk in
28:07
Speaker 9: the morning, great rot funnel. If I walk there in
28:11
Speaker 9: the morning, I'm going to spook deer. They're going to
28:14
Speaker 9: be out in those fields and I'll likely ruin my
28:16
Speaker 9: set before it even gets daylight. If I try to
28:19
Speaker 9: go in there at three in the afternoon, it's getting
28:21
Speaker 9: dark at six thirty. Then if I get out, I've
28:23
Speaker 9: spoke in the stand.
28:24
Speaker 3: It's a one and done.
28:25
Speaker 5: I'm ruining the whole area.
28:26
Speaker 9: So what I choose to do in a spot like that,
28:29
Speaker 9: it's a post day break stand entrance, you're taking bad
28:32
Speaker 9: access post daybreak stand entrance, you wait until the field clears.
28:36
Speaker 9: You sit from three four hundred yards away, have a
28:37
Speaker 9: little no I can sneak up, look over the coast
28:41
Speaker 9: is clear, and then you walk straight into that stand location.
28:44
Speaker 9: It's only ten yards off the woods. I'm only exposing
28:46
Speaker 9: myself ten yards in that spot. It's a real narrow constriction.
28:49
Speaker 9: Deer have to be right on top of me if
28:50
Speaker 9: I walk in. I went in I think at seven
28:53
Speaker 9: thirty last year, approximately half hour forty minutes after daylight,
28:57
Speaker 9: and then shot them at eleven thirty. That and I
29:00
Speaker 9: had to get out probably, you know, in that day
29:03
Speaker 9: if it was getting dark at five thirty, I pro
29:04
Speaker 9: I would have had to get out by two two
29:06
Speaker 9: thirty because I don't want deer starting to get behind
29:09
Speaker 9: me or my winds blown back out into the field.
29:12
Speaker 9: That's one example. If you're on private land and you
29:14
Speaker 9: have poor access, a lot of times that poor access
29:17
Speaker 9: is determined by food source location. You're having to walk
29:20
Speaker 9: through a food source location to get back to a
29:22
Speaker 9: betting area. So you do that in the morning, you
29:24
Speaker 9: spook them out. And I keep saying betting area. You
29:26
Speaker 9: keep saying, you said rut funnel I'm thinking, I'm getting
29:29
Speaker 9: to the backside of a betting area, wait for that
29:30
Speaker 9: mature buck to come back that I'm targeting, And so
29:34
Speaker 9: I look at like, for one, you go way around
29:37
Speaker 9: that food source. We've had times where it's literally we're
29:41
Speaker 9: on forty acres, it goes up four hundred and fifty
29:43
Speaker 9: feet in elevation, and we're taking thirty seven minutes to
29:46
Speaker 9: get to a stand if we take one one minute
29:48
Speaker 9: break in thirty six minutes if you don't take a break,
29:50
Speaker 9: but it's thirty six minutes uphill all the way around,
29:53
Speaker 9: so that we're going all the way around the food,
29:55
Speaker 9: get on top of the food three hundred and fifty
29:57
Speaker 9: yards away and hundreds of feet in elevation above the food,
30:00
Speaker 9: so you can wait for those deer to get back.
30:01
Speaker 9: If you take the easier route, go through the food,
30:04
Speaker 9: and it's a lot easier. We could take our we
30:06
Speaker 9: could take a eat bike, we'd take our quiet cat
30:09
Speaker 9: right up through there, right up the gut. But we
30:11
Speaker 9: would we wouldn't we wouldn't have a hunt that morning.
30:13
Speaker 10: And so.
30:15
Speaker 9: Another another case, you might have food on private land
30:18
Speaker 9: that's just ruining your hunt. I'd rather take that food
30:21
Speaker 9: out and have good access so that I can get
30:24
Speaker 9: to the backside of a bedding area and a rout
30:25
Speaker 9: funnel stand like that, then have that food source and
30:28
Speaker 9: not be able to get to that stand location because
30:30
Speaker 9: every time I go in and out, I'm going to
30:32
Speaker 9: blow that food out.
30:33
Speaker 5: And then that.
30:34
Speaker 9: Also means when we're getting into some of those stands,
30:36
Speaker 9: one way, we're going out the food way, so we're
30:39
Speaker 9: coming out at eleven o'clock through the food, or we
30:41
Speaker 9: went way around that food at six am to get
30:44
Speaker 9: into the stand before that time. You always have to
30:48
Speaker 9: think about too, we're the deer down wind of your stand.
30:51
Speaker 9: You know a lot of times people say, well forty
30:54
Speaker 9: five minutes is that magic time to get in your
30:56
Speaker 9: stand in the morning, an hour before daylight? Well, what
30:58
Speaker 9: if the deer going through a horse pasture before, you know,
31:02
Speaker 9: pre dawn, and they could go through that horse pasture
31:05
Speaker 9: pre dawn. It's open, it's a it's a shortcut for
31:08
Speaker 9: them to get to their bedding area, but they would
31:10
Speaker 9: never go through that horse passure, open area or open
31:13
Speaker 9: woods during daylight, especially a mature bock. So I don't
31:18
Speaker 9: want to sit there for an hour blowing my scent
31:21
Speaker 9: into that open area. I want to get there just
31:24
Speaker 9: in time, and so I'm getting there just when it's
31:27
Speaker 9: gray light, use a little bit of darkness to get
31:29
Speaker 9: into my stand, and then I'm really only exposing my
31:31
Speaker 9: wind in that area for five ten minutes before it
31:33
Speaker 9: gets daylight, and I'm really limiting the amount of deer
31:36
Speaker 9: that might get down wind to me before daylight. And
31:38
Speaker 9: then there's some of those stands where it's just a
31:39
Speaker 9: steep rock drop off, there's no deer, it's a lake,
31:42
Speaker 9: it's a house or something you're blowing you're sent into
31:45
Speaker 9: and you can get in there an hour early, get
31:47
Speaker 9: in there really early. So then a lot of times,
31:50
Speaker 9: you know, manipulation of the habitat, walking way around all
31:53
Speaker 9: those are you know, parts of it. But at the
31:56
Speaker 9: same time, using the timing of when to get into
31:59
Speaker 9: a stand, whether that be a post daybreak just in
32:02
Speaker 9: time or an hour before to get into a stand
32:06
Speaker 9: to help with your access is really something needs to
32:10
Speaker 9: be considered too.
32:11
Speaker 2: Is there a part on your farm that you wish
32:13
Speaker 2: you could hunt, but you just say, well, the axis
32:16
Speaker 2: isn't good enough, I can't hunt there.
32:18
Speaker 9: There's a lot of places like that we have you know.
32:22
Speaker 9: I'll give you example that we hunted fourteen years in
32:25
Speaker 9: Wisconsin and the stand location our property thirteen years get
32:31
Speaker 9: mixed up time flies two properties two thousand and two
32:34
Speaker 9: over there, but it was about thirty acres woods, and
32:37
Speaker 9: there's a core area of about fifteen to eighteen acres
32:40
Speaker 9: right in the middle of it that we could just
32:42
Speaker 9: never go into. Could never even consider going into the
32:45
Speaker 9: food plots there. We had three quarters of acre food plots.
32:47
Speaker 9: Could never sit on them with a boat because they're
32:50
Speaker 9: too big, they're too exposed, couldn't get in or out
32:52
Speaker 9: without spoken deer, so we couldn't hunt on it. The
32:55
Speaker 9: majority of my food plots in Minnesota on our farm,
32:59
Speaker 9: we cannot hunt with a bow because we can't hunt
33:02
Speaker 9: them without spooking deer.
33:04
Speaker 3: There is one.
33:05
Speaker 9: Hundred and forty acre area with field on the outside
33:09
Speaker 9: about one hundred and ten acres of woods in the middle.
33:11
Speaker 9: We bought the land in June of twenty twenty, and
33:15
Speaker 9: I did not step foot other than a vehicle ride
33:19
Speaker 9: with the real estate agent in April to look at
33:21
Speaker 9: the inside of the property on three or four trails.
33:24
Speaker 9: I didn't step foot in about one hundred acres out
33:28
Speaker 9: of that one hundred and forty acres until after the
33:31
Speaker 9: season in January, because I couldn't hunt it anyways. Because
33:35
Speaker 9: I got in there, I just spoked deer. It was
33:37
Speaker 9: in the center. It goes down in if I'm in there,
33:41
Speaker 9: the wind's swirling. Now we since identified points that are
33:45
Speaker 9: down there, and we can manipulate the wind a little bit,
33:47
Speaker 9: or use wind in the morning to come down one
33:50
Speaker 9: channel and go up another channel. That's an entirely different
33:53
Speaker 9: topic of hunting hills and thermals. But even then there's
33:57
Speaker 9: still that core area of probably eighty out of that
34:00
Speaker 9: original one hundred acres we couldn't hunt. That we can't hunt,
34:04
Speaker 9: and I'm okay with that. It's just kind of like
34:06
Speaker 9: you just write it off. We've worked on the habitat
34:09
Speaker 9: in there, and we've built bedding areas. I expect as
34:11
Speaker 9: long as they can hold that deer in there during
34:12
Speaker 9: the daylight, then we have a really good chance of
34:15
Speaker 9: shooting that buck during the season. So and that goes
34:19
Speaker 9: for a public land too. You don't want to identify
34:22
Speaker 9: the best spot in the woods to hold mature box
34:27
Speaker 9: to actually hunt. You want to identify those areas that
34:30
Speaker 9: can be protected so you can hunt around them and
34:34
Speaker 9: then being methodical and precise, take that buck to the
34:40
Speaker 9: very high percentage of the time a year after year
34:42
Speaker 9: that's in that spot because you preserve it. It's not
34:45
Speaker 9: a woman dumb.
34:51
Speaker 2: Once again, I think you can draw a parallel of
34:54
Speaker 2: someone that's able to really design a parcel to have
34:56
Speaker 2: it hunt really effectively. These folks are not going in
35:00
Speaker 2: and hunting these spots, but if you fall into that category.
35:03
Speaker 3: You have the ability to do that.
35:04
Speaker 2: Keep that in mind for this upcoming season of how
35:06
Speaker 2: can I potentially make that best spot maybe a little
35:09
Speaker 2: more accessible, How can I duplicate it? What can I
35:11
Speaker 2: do to make it better? And that's what I got
35:14
Speaker 2: from Jeff. Next up, we have Bobby Kendall. He hunts
35:17
Speaker 2: a lot of different farms and has a lot of
35:18
Speaker 2: projects going on at all different times, and so a
35:21
Speaker 2: lot of times he's hunting on the fly and it's
35:23
Speaker 2: maybe not a fully developed farm, maybe it's under construction,
35:27
Speaker 2: if that makes sense. And so here's what he has
35:29
Speaker 2: to say about the dilemma we all face as deer hunters.
35:32
Speaker 2: Let's say someone says, man, I was shed hunting. I
35:36
Speaker 2: remember from the last season there was this spot. The
35:39
Speaker 2: axis is bad. I'm gonna bust your coming in and out.
35:43
Speaker 2: There's not really a good spot for me to shoot
35:45
Speaker 2: my win with a low probability of getting busted.
35:48
Speaker 3: How do I hunt this spot? Or should I hunt
35:50
Speaker 3: this spot?
35:51
Speaker 5: All right?
35:51
Speaker 11: So it kind of depends on it's situational, like the
35:54
Speaker 11: time of year. So like in October, everything is always
35:57
Speaker 11: risk reward. Is it worth the risk to go in
35:59
Speaker 11: here to hunt?
36:00
Speaker 5: All right? So last year we did a series.
36:03
Speaker 11: On an undeveloped and versus developed farm, and the undeveloped
36:05
Speaker 11: farm on the big start contrast is the access is
36:09
Speaker 11: the nearest good because you're not creating perfect access. So
36:12
Speaker 11: in October what it looks like is, you know, you
36:15
Speaker 11: have to you have to pick your days. And for me,
36:19
Speaker 11: those days are what I call magic X day. It's
36:21
Speaker 11: a day where the pressure is rising and cloud covers falling,
36:26
Speaker 11: humidity's falling, temperatures falling, and the perfect days that you
36:29
Speaker 11: know the Brona crosses like thirty point two by the
36:32
Speaker 11: evening sit So those are the days I'm looking for,
36:35
Speaker 11: and I'm only going in when risk reward tips and
36:38
Speaker 11: it's worth the risk to go in because I have
36:39
Speaker 11: a high chance of seeing him that night. So October
36:44
Speaker 11: pick the night's high pressure fronts the day the first
36:47
Speaker 11: day of the high pressure. Now in November, you know
36:51
Speaker 11: it kind of it gets more forgiving, so you can
36:54
Speaker 11: get a little bit more aggressive. Plus you're hunting different
36:56
Speaker 11: type spots on that particular farm. I didn't start hunting
37:00
Speaker 11: that deer until November, and he was way back in
37:03
Speaker 11: the back of the farm. I had to literally go
37:04
Speaker 11: through like four or five bean fields in order to
37:07
Speaker 11: get back where he was he was at, and I
37:10
Speaker 11: had a really good funnel rough funnel stand back there,
37:14
Speaker 11: but the access I know I was going to blow
37:15
Speaker 11: the whole farm up going back there. So what my
37:18
Speaker 11: strategy was was wait till eight thirty nine in the morning,
37:21
Speaker 11: come up here, glass my way back to the stand,
37:25
Speaker 11: and hunt these inside corner funnels. Because inside corner funnels
37:28
Speaker 11: are awesome because your wind is always good for you,
37:33
Speaker 11: and it's also generally good for the deer because you're
37:35
Speaker 11: on the down wind side of the cover and it's
37:37
Speaker 11: a funnel. So I was hunting these inside corners because
37:40
Speaker 11: the access is so good to the inside corner. So
37:42
Speaker 11: maybe you don't go to your best spot yet because
37:46
Speaker 11: the access is better than these inside corners. And then
37:48
Speaker 11: you hunt toll like two thirty three o'clock in the afternoon,
37:51
Speaker 11: and from you know, the fourth or fifth to the thirteenth,
37:54
Speaker 11: the deer were after the big mature one. I would
37:57
Speaker 11: rather hunt that time period anyway. And so then you're
38:01
Speaker 11: in the farm and you're out of the farm on
38:02
Speaker 11: a knee bike. Maybe you're not leaving scent and so
38:05
Speaker 11: you're you're hedging that pressure. And then maybe when things
38:09
Speaker 11: are just the electricity goes off and you're just the light.
38:12
Speaker 11: I mean, you're just like it's on fire. That's when
38:14
Speaker 11: you can dive into those spots and it's like you almost.
38:19
Speaker 3: Can do no wrong.
38:19
Speaker 11: I mean, I remember a deer coming down winding me
38:22
Speaker 11: at one o'clock in the afternoon one year, big mature
38:25
Speaker 11: deer looked up at me, smelled me, took off, and
38:28
Speaker 11: I killed him in the same spot the next night.
38:30
Speaker 11: Like so you know, it's like at a certain point,
38:35
Speaker 11: that's when you die. It's like a it's like a
38:38
Speaker 11: it's like a laddering up. It's like a risk reward,
38:41
Speaker 11: and the further we get into the chaos, it starts
38:44
Speaker 11: tipping and you just gotta be able to gauge when
38:47
Speaker 11: to when to throttle her up and take a risk.
38:50
Speaker 11: And for me, a lot of times, like opening day
38:52
Speaker 11: one season, I'm like, this is ground zero. I'm gonna
38:55
Speaker 11: be in a tree somewhere. I don't even know what tree.
38:57
Speaker 11: I'm gonna go in there in the dark and a
38:59
Speaker 11: climber and I'm gonna be perched. Yeah, that would be
39:01
Speaker 11: like the ultimate, like because that's when I get the
39:04
Speaker 11: gun in the hand and all of a sudden, the
39:05
Speaker 11: risk reward.
39:06
Speaker 2: And there's so many tangibles happen on you know, any
39:09
Speaker 2: opening firearm day right right across the country. Two questions,
39:13
Speaker 2: how many Magic X days? Because I think when people
39:15
Speaker 2: hear this, it's going to be October seventeenth and the
39:18
Speaker 2: temperature drop ten degrees and it's you know, maybe all
39:21
Speaker 2: the conditions are right, and they're like, man, Bobby said,
39:24
Speaker 2: risk for's reward, I'm feeling good. So when does the
39:27
Speaker 2: gun go off? Where You're like, Okay, this is not
39:29
Speaker 2: a great spot. I'm probably gonna get three to four
39:32
Speaker 2: cracks at this spot with this particular deer I'm hunting,
39:34
Speaker 2: Like when does when does that go off?
39:36
Speaker 11: So that risk reward is ever so slightly going like
39:39
Speaker 11: this as we get through October, because in my opinion,
39:42
Speaker 11: there's three things that affect a deer to move in daylight.
39:45
Speaker 11: The big deer we're after in October, and you know,
39:49
Speaker 11: one of those is moon phase. I'm a big moon
39:51
Speaker 11: phase guy, and like that week leading up to the
39:55
Speaker 11: full moon, especially in October. So like on a year
39:58
Speaker 11: that the full moon happens early and that that wadd's
40:02
Speaker 11: already been blown. So it's like, Okay, I don't have
40:04
Speaker 11: that in my bag of tricks forward, so maybe I
40:07
Speaker 11: get a little more aggressive.
40:08
Speaker 3: But if the full moon is on October twenty.
40:10
Speaker 11: Ninth, and you have that window lining up with the other,
40:14
Speaker 11: with the other, the second of the three, which is
40:17
Speaker 11: date phase or mindset, all the same thing. It's the
40:19
Speaker 11: mindset of the deer date phase mindset. The end of October,
40:25
Speaker 11: his mindset is more rambunctious. He's more wound up now,
40:28
Speaker 11: he's starting to sniff like so you if you can,
40:33
Speaker 11: if it's later in the month, you can get more aggressive.
40:36
Speaker 11: You know, if you get that full moon at the
40:38
Speaker 11: end of the month and you have that to look
40:39
Speaker 11: forward to, maybe you get less aggressive, not as quick
40:42
Speaker 11: because you have such a powerful thing coming up. And
40:45
Speaker 11: then obviously the third part of that so date phase,
40:48
Speaker 11: mindset moon. The third part is the environmental. That's the
40:51
Speaker 11: part you can't predict. That's what you're just talking about
40:54
Speaker 11: with the magic X days. But it's just there is
40:57
Speaker 11: no hard rights and wrongs. It's kind of a but
41:00
Speaker 11: it's always is it worth it? Yet if your guts
41:04
Speaker 11: like probably about if you're walking in the stand, you're like,
41:08
Speaker 11: I shouldn't be doing this, which I still do this.
41:10
Speaker 11: Sometimes you just got it.
41:14
Speaker 3: It's just it's just not worth it.
41:15
Speaker 5: Because October is a gift.
41:17
Speaker 11: It's a glass house that you can you can change
41:21
Speaker 11: his habits and and you have this nice it's the
41:24
Speaker 11: longest period of time that you have in the season
41:27
Speaker 11: to play the game doing what he's doing, and so
41:30
Speaker 11: you can be very very precise and wait, you know,
41:35
Speaker 11: you get in November and all that changes. But a
41:38
Speaker 11: lot of times, like when I'm going into the season,
41:41
Speaker 11: I'm always trying to be in front of the deer, right,
41:43
Speaker 11: So like a lot of times when I'm going into
41:45
Speaker 11: the season, I already know when that full moon is,
41:48
Speaker 11: so I'm thinking about that and and I'm so I'm
41:52
Speaker 11: kind of like, Okay, that's this is my week. And
41:54
Speaker 11: as we start coming into that, now, every high pressure
41:57
Speaker 11: front from day one through is going to be awesome. Unpressured,
42:02
Speaker 11: the deer you're after should be on his feet somewhere
42:05
Speaker 11: in daylight. I mean they don't. They don't generally, unpressure
42:08
Speaker 11: just just lay through that. I mean it, they just
42:12
Speaker 11: get rambunctious and they they have to go and tear
42:16
Speaker 11: stuff up in marked territory. And so, you know, just
42:21
Speaker 11: being ahead of the deer's mindset risk, risk, risk versus reward.
42:26
Speaker 5: Trying to think like a deer. And uh, it changed.
42:29
Speaker 5: Every year is a little different.
42:30
Speaker 11: But if you get if you get the perfect front
42:33
Speaker 11: in in that five day window leading up to the
42:36
Speaker 11: full moon, it's the most magical day of the year.
42:39
Speaker 11: I mean, I go to the stand like this. I mean,
42:43
Speaker 11: you know, it's just it's it's it's just the most
42:46
Speaker 11: powerful day of this season. It's a blue it's a
42:48
Speaker 11: it's a morning that starts out gloomy. It even depends
42:52
Speaker 11: on how that front hits, Like if the front hits
42:54
Speaker 11: at night, it's not as if the if the morning
42:58
Speaker 11: is gloomy and stagnant and in a little warmer and
43:01
Speaker 11: then you feel that wind hit and it kind of.
43:04
Speaker 5: Looks like this where the sky starts.
43:06
Speaker 11: Breaking up and the air is drying and cooling, and
43:08
Speaker 11: by prime time it's gin clear and it's dead calm,
43:14
Speaker 11: and it's cold and crisp. It's fire like I'm going
43:18
Speaker 11: I'm sitting there like this, you know, because it's it's
43:22
Speaker 11: the best day of the season. And it only if
43:24
Speaker 11: you can line that up in that week leading up
43:26
Speaker 11: the full moon. It's the best day of the season,
43:28
Speaker 11: you know, to get on a deer, to kill a
43:30
Speaker 11: deer that you're on that you know what he's doing.
43:33
Speaker 3: There, you have it.
43:33
Speaker 2: That's what Bobby thinks on this burning question. And last,
43:37
Speaker 2: but not least, we have Mark Kenyon on his perspective
43:40
Speaker 2: of risk for reward. Consuming some of Mark's content over
43:43
Speaker 2: the year. Seems like he's gotten more aggressive with his
43:45
Speaker 2: game plan and here's what he has to say.
43:48
Speaker 3: Okay, this past spring, you're a shed hunting.
43:52
Speaker 2: Maybe you ended up in the sanctuary on your farm
43:55
Speaker 2: or the very very back part, and you're like, man,
43:58
Speaker 2: this is awesome. There's all this great sign, all these
44:01
Speaker 2: trails converge as a betting area.
44:03
Speaker 3: Just right over this direction. The axis is really bad.
44:07
Speaker 3: It's bad.
44:07
Speaker 2: You're gonna scared deer coming in, scared deer coming out.
44:11
Speaker 2: How and should you hunt the best spot on the
44:14
Speaker 2: farm with bad access?
44:16
Speaker 10: Yeah, I've had this, you know, I've come across myself
44:19
Speaker 10: plenty of times too, and so I've wrestled with it
44:22
Speaker 10: a lot, and what I have kind of settled on
44:27
Speaker 10: is that, you know, the best best spot is a
44:31
Speaker 10: place that has everything going for plus good access. So
44:35
Speaker 10: this place is never going to be like a ten
44:36
Speaker 10: out of ten. It's going to be like an eight
44:38
Speaker 10: out of ten because it's great, but you can't get
44:39
Speaker 10: it at all. That's that the reality of a lot
44:43
Speaker 10: of these kinds of places that are like a core
44:47
Speaker 10: habitat feature with all this movement coming into it, like naturally,
44:50
Speaker 10: those places just always tend to be and hard to
44:53
Speaker 10: get two spots. So this is a pretty common thing,
44:56
Speaker 10: and I think that my view you is that they
45:01
Speaker 10: are still worth hunting because they if it's that good,
45:04
Speaker 10: if it's that much of a hub, there are moments
45:09
Speaker 10: when the reward outweighs the risk. And that's like every
45:13
Speaker 10: single time you look at a stand site or an
45:14
Speaker 10: ambush location. There's always these two sides of the scale.
45:17
Speaker 10: It's like, what's the potential for reward, what's the potential
45:21
Speaker 10: for risk? Like what's going to be the I'm going
45:23
Speaker 10: to burn some powder ons, I'm going to damage things
45:25
Speaker 10: by going in. There's also the chance that this could happen.
45:28
Speaker 10: And so I think when you find a location like that,
45:32
Speaker 10: you really need to think long and hard about when
45:35
Speaker 10: is the best of the best moment for this place,
45:38
Speaker 10: Like why is this place great?
45:39
Speaker 3: What makes it great?
45:41
Speaker 10: And what's the type of year that makes it great,
45:43
Speaker 10: And what's the set of conditions that will make this
45:45
Speaker 10: like the best of the best time to hunt the
45:47
Speaker 10: best of best place?
45:48
Speaker 3: That's number one, and then number two.
45:51
Speaker 10: I'm also thinking, Okay, I know I've got bad access,
45:54
Speaker 10: but what set of circumstances or situation would give me
45:57
Speaker 10: the least bad access on the stage. So maybe so
46:00
Speaker 10: I'll give you an example. I have a place like
46:02
Speaker 10: this that is like smack down in the middle of
46:06
Speaker 10: like some of the best cover in one of the
46:08
Speaker 10: farms I hunt, And it's a place that I've been
46:10
Speaker 10: able to see because I've never I've infrequently gone into
46:14
Speaker 10: the core of this but I can oftentimes see into
46:16
Speaker 10: this brushy, nasty stuff, and so I can see like
46:18
Speaker 10: year after a year after year.
46:20
Speaker 3: Man, this is where they're always coming through.
46:23
Speaker 10: Like there's always every time there's a good buckham after
46:25
Speaker 10: he's always coming through in and out, in and out
46:27
Speaker 10: of this. But like, no matter how you go about
46:29
Speaker 10: trying to get in there or to sit in there,
46:31
Speaker 10: deer gonna win you. There's so many deer there are
46:34
Speaker 10: on all sides in you. Any way you try to
46:36
Speaker 10: access it, you're going to have to go through bedding
46:39
Speaker 10: cover or trying to get out. There's food on all
46:42
Speaker 10: sides too, So there's no good way to get in it,
46:44
Speaker 10: and there's no really good way to hunt it without
46:46
Speaker 10: it being like you're on edge. But the least bad
46:51
Speaker 10: would be if you had like a due east or
46:53
Speaker 10: a do west wind. There's like a it's there's a
46:55
Speaker 10: ditch and so there's a couple of trees. You could
46:57
Speaker 10: hunt right on this ditch, and if you can run
46:59
Speaker 10: your way right along that ditch, you would minimize your
47:04
Speaker 10: wind issues. If you could walk in that ditch in
47:07
Speaker 10: the morning and right alongside of it super early, you
47:09
Speaker 10: can minimize the access issues.
47:12
Speaker 3: But you're definitely gonna blow some stuff up.
47:14
Speaker 10: So you're saying, Okay, I'm gonna I know I'm gonna
47:17
Speaker 10: cast some damage here, but I'm gonna pick the days
47:19
Speaker 10: when I've got the best chance of getting away with
47:21
Speaker 10: a little bit of it. And then also I'm choosing
47:23
Speaker 10: that day when, like everything else is perfect. So for
47:27
Speaker 10: this location, it's like this spot the best, the best
47:29
Speaker 10: of the best day would be during peak of road activity,
47:33
Speaker 10: when there is a great cold front that comes through
47:37
Speaker 10: and that's like a wet or windy day, So I
47:39
Speaker 10: could slip in there and at least not make a
47:41
Speaker 10: ton of noise. If I could get that set of
47:43
Speaker 10: conditions with that correct wind, it would be worth the
47:47
Speaker 10: risk on that day. But there's like two days maybe
47:51
Speaker 10: if I one or two days and that's it. Yeah,
47:55
Speaker 10: And if I go in there, I take my swing
47:57
Speaker 10: like I'm swinging for the fences, and if it doesn't
47:59
Speaker 10: work out, well, I just I know I've burned this
48:01
Speaker 10: place out a bit, and so I know, hey, yeah,
48:03
Speaker 10: it's going to be a week or two or something
48:05
Speaker 10: before that area is really going to be hot again.
48:07
Speaker 10: But it could be worthwhile. So I think that at
48:12
Speaker 10: least in the places that I hunt. I don't hunt
48:13
Speaker 10: big farms. I don't own big farms. I don't hunt
48:16
Speaker 10: Niola or Illinois or Ohio like most of the time.
48:20
Speaker 10: So when I think about this question, I'm thinking about
48:23
Speaker 10: this like at home in Michigan, Michigan, and if you
48:26
Speaker 10: want to kill a mature buck, oftentimes it has to
48:29
Speaker 10: be in a place like that because those mature bucks
48:31
Speaker 10: so rarely come out on the edges, so rarely spent
48:34
Speaker 10: time in the open.
48:36
Speaker 3: We'really easy to.
48:36
Speaker 10: Access places, and I think, to be clear, like this
48:40
Speaker 10: is like my answer is the way it is because
48:43
Speaker 10: I'm primarily hunting in like high pressure areas, relatively small farms.
48:48
Speaker 3: I'm thinking Michigan when I answer this question right.
48:51
Speaker 10: It might be different if I've got hundreds and hundreds
48:53
Speaker 10: of acres in Iowa or Illinois or.
48:55
Speaker 3: Nebraska or wherever. But you know where I'm at in Michigan.
48:59
Speaker 3: It's all small.
49:00
Speaker 10: You know, it's forties and sixties and twenties, and there's
49:03
Speaker 10: sixty other guys in my square mile, and you're just
49:06
Speaker 10: not going to get a mature buck moving out in
49:10
Speaker 10: the easy stuff and the open stuff on the edges.
49:12
Speaker 10: Ninety nine percent of the time. So if ever you
49:15
Speaker 10: want to get a chance that one to five year
49:16
Speaker 10: old that's in your square mile, probably have to go
49:19
Speaker 10: into these like core places.
49:22
Speaker 3: And so I'm willing to take a.
49:24
Speaker 10: Big swing at those core places a few times when
49:26
Speaker 10: the time's right, because if I don't, I'll probably never
49:29
Speaker 10: get a chance of that too. And so you have
49:31
Speaker 10: to take calculated risks. It's just about being smart when.
49:34
Speaker 3: You do so.
49:35
Speaker 2: Throughout the last ten years, when you've you've done that strategy,
49:40
Speaker 2: how many times does it typically work? And then does
49:42
Speaker 2: it feel are you nervous going into that or it's like, hey,
49:46
Speaker 2: this is whatever happens happens. Yeah, and I know I'm
49:49
Speaker 2: having some risk, but man, I'm putting myself in what
49:51
Speaker 2: I feel the best spot.
49:52
Speaker 10: Yeah, I would say still most of the time it
49:53
Speaker 10: doesn't work. But you know, you know, I can think
49:57
Speaker 10: of the last handful of the years, a couple of
49:58
Speaker 10: times it's worked. Yeah, that's the specific place I'm talking about,
50:02
Speaker 10: this exact location. I took one of these big swings
50:05
Speaker 10: and my target buck walked by it ten yards, but
50:07
Speaker 10: it was like ten yard ten minutes before shooting it,
50:09
Speaker 10: so I could see him. But I couldn't shoot him,
50:11
Speaker 10: and I was like, oh it worked, Yeah, came ten
50:13
Speaker 10: minutes too early. So it's always calculated risk. Sometimes it's worthwhile.
50:19
Speaker 10: But I will say, like I am still always nervous
50:22
Speaker 10: in those moments. You just walk around eggshells. You're like, ah,
50:25
Speaker 10: this is this could be a disaster. But I think
50:28
Speaker 10: I've gotten to the point where I go into it
50:30
Speaker 10: knowing that and I kind of have a certain like
50:32
Speaker 10: resignation to Okay, this is gonna be like super fun
50:37
Speaker 10: or might blow up, and I just need to be
50:38
Speaker 10: okay with that today and then like give it up
50:41
Speaker 10: and like be.
50:41
Speaker 3: Okay with whatever happens. Whatever happens happens.
50:44
Speaker 10: And if you go into it with that attitude, I
50:46
Speaker 10: think it's it's okay. And I will tell you, the
50:49
Speaker 10: more you do this and the more you kind of
50:52
Speaker 10: come to to see the results, the more I've become
50:55
Speaker 10: comfortable with that, because you know, while deer survival machines
51:02
Speaker 10: they're also not genius, you can sometimes get away with
51:05
Speaker 10: more than you think, and so being willing to take
51:07
Speaker 10: those swings and be aggressive with the right times is
51:11
Speaker 10: worth the occasional total disaster because you can recover sometimes
51:16
Speaker 10: faster than you might think too.
51:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was probably the widest variety of answers on
51:21
Speaker 2: this question throughout this series, and I think if someone
51:25
Speaker 2: listening to this, they need to figure out who's hunting
51:28
Speaker 2: style resonates the most with me. I think all the
51:31
Speaker 2: answers were right in their own hunting style setups. You know,
51:36
Speaker 2: the list goes on, but I think if you're listening
51:38
Speaker 2: to this, man, I feel a little confused after listening
51:41
Speaker 2: to this episode, think of each guest and what models
51:46
Speaker 2: how you hunt and and your goals and everything else,
51:50
Speaker 2: because a lot of the guys they're hunting one specific
51:52
Speaker 2: buck that is it, and so their answers were quite
51:55
Speaker 2: a bit different. The other thing that people really need
51:57
Speaker 2: to listen is when they said they would go into
52:01
Speaker 2: this area, and that's probably one of the most important
52:04
Speaker 2: things when it comes with the variety of answers for
52:07
Speaker 2: this episode. But at the end of the day, everyone
52:10
Speaker 2: has a spot like this in the back of their mind,
52:12
Speaker 2: and that's why I asked this question. And usually to
52:14
Speaker 2: your point, it is in relation to some sort of
52:16
Speaker 2: terrain to where maybe you can figure out a way
52:18
Speaker 2: to stack the deck just a little bit in your
52:21
Speaker 2: favor by utilizing the train to have your scent go
52:24
Speaker 2: in a certain direction or maybe from an access standpoint,
52:26
Speaker 2: but definitely it can't be your favorite spot that you
52:29
Speaker 2: have twenty times a year. That was very very clear
52:32
Speaker 2: throughout this episode. So I hope everyone really enjoyed this episode.
52:34
Speaker 2: Next week, we have another burning question that's probably crossed
52:37
Speaker 2: our minds at some point, and it's what's keeping Maybe
52:41
Speaker 2: you're having a good year, a good year, good year,
52:43
Speaker 2: and you just want to be great, You want to
52:44
Speaker 2: get to the next level, and you want to learn
52:46
Speaker 2: how are these guys finding more and more success seemingly
52:50
Speaker 2: year after year, And so we're going to figure out
52:52
Speaker 2: if there's any trends or anything that you can address
52:53
Speaker 2: this upcoming season.
52:54
Speaker 3: All right, there, you guys have it.
52:56
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Back forty
53:00
Speaker 2: dive into all the questions we've all had at some point,
53:03
Speaker 2: and I hope that you have a little better game
53:05
Speaker 2: plan on the spot that came to mind when we
53:07
Speaker 2: started this episode of that really great spot with bad access,
53:10
Speaker 2: and maybe you're equipped to make a better game plan
53:13
Speaker 2: after hearing from eight different folks, you can find one
53:15
Speaker 2: that is relatable to you and your strategy, what you
53:18
Speaker 2: have access to, and hopefully you have a little bit
53:22
Speaker 2: better opportunity in that spot if you decide to hunt it.
53:25
Speaker 2: Next week we have the next burning question and it
53:29
Speaker 2: is what is the biggest mistake hunters make from being
53:32
Speaker 2: good to great? So you can start brainstorming now and
53:35
Speaker 2: we'll see you next week on back forwarding.