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Wired To Hunt Podcast #222: Public Land Deer Hunting Masterclass · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
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  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode number two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty two, and today on the podcast we're covering
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  Speaker 1: just about everything you need to know to hunt public
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  Speaker 1: land white tails. And helping us do that are eight
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  Speaker 1: of the best public land deer hunters from across the country.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
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  Speaker 1: to you by Onyx. And today on the show, we're
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  Speaker 1: doing something a little bit different. So today I want
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  Speaker 1: to cover a wide swath of topics related to public
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  Speaker 1: land deer hunt. And I'm sure this isn't news to
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  Speaker 1: most of you, but as hunting access on private land
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  Speaker 1: becomes harder and harder to come by, more hunters returning
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  Speaker 1: to public land options, and because of that, the interest
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  Speaker 1: and demand for that kind of content keeps rising too.
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  Speaker 1: So because of that, over the last four years or
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: so of the podcast, we've had a whole slew of
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  Speaker 1: different public land experts on the show to share their
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  Speaker 1: perspectives and strategies for these kinds of scenarios. But those conversations,
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  Speaker 1: they're scattered across dozens of episodes from way back in
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  Speaker 1: the archives, and it kind of makes it hard to
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  Speaker 1: find and utilize that stuff, especially if you're new to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast or to deer Hunt. So I got to
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  Speaker 1: thinking about this a little while back because I'm in
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  Speaker 1: the midst of planning a couple of public land whitetail
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  Speaker 1: hunts myself for this season. One is in Montana and
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  Speaker 1: the other in Minnesota, and I was actually wanting to
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  Speaker 1: go back and review some of the ideas that have
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  Speaker 1: been shared in past episodes, but I quickly realized that
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  Speaker 1: is easier said than done, so I decided to do
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  Speaker 1: something about it, and that is what we've got here today.
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  Speaker 1: I've gone through all of our podcasts archives to find
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  Speaker 1: the best public gland hunting tactics and advice, and then
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  Speaker 1: pull out the best segments of those conversations for us
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  Speaker 1: to review together here today in this one single episode.
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  Speaker 1: So I think that if you're an avid public land
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  Speaker 1: deer hunter, this should be a great review, and if
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  Speaker 1: you're just getting started, this is going to be the
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  Speaker 1: perfect launching point. So here in a minute, we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: hear from folks like Tony Peterson, Bernie Barringer, John Eberhart,
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  Speaker 1: Tyler right now, Andy may Aaron Warburton, Eddie Claypool, Todd
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  Speaker 1: Mead and more. And then along the way, I will
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  Speaker 1: also be chiming in with a few thoughts of my
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  Speaker 1: own too. So, like I said, this is a new idea.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if this kind of review podcast is
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  Speaker 1: going to work or not, So you guys are just
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  Speaker 1: gonna let me know. I'll be curious here your feedback.
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  Speaker 1: I do think the hearing from all of these different
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  Speaker 1: people on all sorts of public land deer hunting topics
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  Speaker 1: all in one place, back to back to back, I
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  Speaker 1: do think it's going to be something that really helps
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  Speaker 1: drive home certain lessons or ideas. So I'm really hopeful
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  Speaker 1: this can be helpful to a lot of you. But
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  Speaker 1: we will see. So what that said, Before we get
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  Speaker 1: to it, let's take a very quick break to thank
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  Speaker 1: our partners at White Tailed Properties for their continued support
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of the Wired to Hunt podcast, and today producer Spencer
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  Speaker 1: new Hearth is chatting with land specialist Neil Hagger about
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  Speaker 1: the dream that many of us public land hunters have,
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  Speaker 1: which is someday maybe actually owning a little piece of
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  Speaker 1: dirt on our own. This week with White Tailed Properties,
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  Speaker 1: we are joined by Neil Hagger, a land specialist out
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  Speaker 1: of Wisconsin, and Neil is going to be talking to
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  Speaker 1: us about what buyers should look for when they want
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  Speaker 1: to put food plots on a property that doesn't currently
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  Speaker 1: have any. Well, I always like to try to add
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  Speaker 1: food plots in areas that are kind of a natural
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  Speaker 1: line of travel. So let me speak to my own
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  Speaker 1: experience of my own place. Um, I'm in big woods
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  Speaker 1: and there are no food plots and there are are
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  Speaker 1: no agricultural fields for miles. So my limitations were that
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  Speaker 1: I only have so many places I can put them.
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  Speaker 1: That was the first limitation of where can I put them?
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  Speaker 1: Where is it flatten? Whar is it dry enough? Um?
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  Speaker 1: But what I tried to do on my own place
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  Speaker 1: is I try to design with line of travel for
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  Speaker 1: the animals in mind, and also approach so my own
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  Speaker 1: line of travel, and from my point of it, my
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  Speaker 1: side of it, I try to approach my foot plots
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  Speaker 1: in a perpendicular manner, meaning kind of have a ninety
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  Speaker 1: degree angle, so that I have I minimized the opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to cross paths with the animals as they're moving on
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  Speaker 1: their natural travel lines, if that makes sense. So, uh,
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  Speaker 1: cover bedding cover to food to maybe more bedding cover,
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  Speaker 1: and I put my food in the middle and then
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  Speaker 1: I try to approach it at a ninety three angle,
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  Speaker 1: so there's one point of contact on that line, if
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  Speaker 1: that makes sense. If you'd like to learn more and
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  Speaker 1: to see the properties that Neil currently has listed for sale,
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  Speaker 1: visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash Hogger. It's h
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  Speaker 1: A U G E R Okay. So when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to chasing white tails on public land, I think the
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  Speaker 1: very first thing we need to talk about is the
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  Speaker 1: mental side of things, that being, you know, our expectations
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  Speaker 1: and our goals and our mindset, because if you don't
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  Speaker 1: have that kind of stuff figured out right out the gate,
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  Speaker 1: all the tactics and secret spots in the world, they're
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  Speaker 1: not going to do you any good at all. You
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  Speaker 1: see the reality of public land deer hunting in most cases,
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  Speaker 1: it's very different than the deer hunting you see on
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  Speaker 1: TV or in magazines or on websites. And if you're
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  Speaker 1: not mentally prepared for this from the get go, you
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  Speaker 1: could be setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment
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  Speaker 1: public landeer on it. It It is a serious challenge, so
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  Speaker 1: you need to go into it with realistic expectations and
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  Speaker 1: goals based on that challenge, and you need to be
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  Speaker 1: mentally prepared for the obstacles that are certainly going to
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  Speaker 1: be appearing in your way. Now, over the years, I've
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  Speaker 1: chatted with a lot of great deer hunters about these topics,
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  Speaker 1: and two in particular touched on this mental aspect in
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  Speaker 1: relation to public land. So first we're gonna hear from
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  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, who's an outdoor writer for magazines such as
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  Speaker 1: bow Hunter Magazine and North American White Tail who specializes
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  Speaker 1: in public land deer hunts. Here he is talking about
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  Speaker 1: the importance of reasonable goals there. And I really think
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons that we shed hunter numbers is
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  Speaker 1: I run into a lot of a lot of let's say,
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  Speaker 1: kind of eighteen to twenty five year old crowd that
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  Speaker 1: comes in and they're they're setting their sights on you know,
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  Speaker 1: plus box every year, and they're not they're not able
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  Speaker 1: to do it because that's so difficult, and they become
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  Speaker 1: frustrated with the process. And we've in in some ways
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  Speaker 1: we're kind of skipping that natural progression of the hunter
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  Speaker 1: where everybody used to start out, you know, hunting squirrels
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  Speaker 1: with the twenty two and maybe moving up to rabbits
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  Speaker 1: and maybe pheasants and turkeys and then deer, and you
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  Speaker 1: were happy with whatever dear you shot first. And we're
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people are starting out with expectations that
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  Speaker 1: are just, you know, to me, kind of insane um
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  Speaker 1: and I think you know, and I'm I'm part of
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  Speaker 1: that problem too. I mean I worked for these magazines
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  Speaker 1: and these TV shows where we present this this false
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  Speaker 1: reality out there where if you look at you know,
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  Speaker 1: what the average what the average person kills with a
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  Speaker 1: bow per year. I mean it's like, you know, anybody
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  Speaker 1: that's out there killing a hundred and fifteen inch bucks
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  Speaker 1: every year, I don't care if you're in Iowa or
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  Speaker 1: Michigan or Pennsylvania, South Carolina or wherever. If you're killing
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  Speaker 1: a buck like that, you're doing something better than most
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  Speaker 1: people out there. And you bump it right up and go, okay,
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  Speaker 1: how about which is a great deer. If anybody's out
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  Speaker 1: there consistently killing those deer, even in the good States,
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  Speaker 1: they're really doing something right, And like you said, most
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  Speaker 1: people with their with their goals. I tell people all
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  Speaker 1: the time, just hunt for what makes you happy. Nobody
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  Speaker 1: else cares what you kill. There's like three people in
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  Speaker 1: your life that actually care what size of a buck
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  Speaker 1: you kill. The rest of them really don't. So if
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  Speaker 1: that deer walks in and you'd be stoked to shoot it,
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  Speaker 1: just shoot it. Who cares what everybody else thinks and
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  Speaker 1: solve that up. We've got another writer and E I
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  Speaker 1: Y specialist, Eddie Claypool, who had some great advice to
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  Speaker 1: share on the mental side of these types of hunts.
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  Speaker 1: And then also the importance of your attitude, and like
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  Speaker 1: Tony just said, the importance of having fun. That's what
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about here, is how to get some means
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  Speaker 1: together and go do it. Have fun, don't forget fun.
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  Speaker 1: You know, even when you go do it on your own,
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  Speaker 1: you can get in that binge of trying to be
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  Speaker 1: so successful that you put too much pressure on yourself.
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  Speaker 1: And that's one of my greatest problems. I I slow.
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  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like a you know, an addict there.
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  Speaker 1: I have a problem. I don't watch myself. I'll fall
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  Speaker 1: off the fence, you know, and on, and I get
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  Speaker 1: on that side of wanting to put pressure on myself,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and I just have to stop and have
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  Speaker 1: a complete change of heart, mind and approach and start over.
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  Speaker 1: And that's happened many times in my days, and I
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  Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm done my best to stay on
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  Speaker 1: the bandwagon of have fun, because whether you're under pressure,
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  Speaker 1: whether your anals, or whether you're just having fun, it's
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  Speaker 1: not really going to change what goes on in the fields.
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  Speaker 1: A matter of fact, I think people do worse when
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  Speaker 1: they're under pressure, you know what I mean. You know,
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  Speaker 1: So it's all about bow hunting for white tails in
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  Speaker 1: a fall setting, doing it on your own, learning from
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  Speaker 1: the good and the bad of the trip, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: and trying to get better at it, and just having fun. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I definitely find myself in a similar camp as you,
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  Speaker 1: and that I'm so so passionate about it, so invested
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  Speaker 1: in it, that I put so much pressure on myself.
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  Speaker 1: And to your point, you know, I'll be out there
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  Speaker 1: and I'm getting angry at myself with the situation and frustrated,
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  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you have those moments.
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  Speaker 1: Hopefully you have a moment where like, what are you doing? Like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is supposed to be fun. Why are you doing
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  Speaker 1: all this if you're just going to be miserable the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: whole time? So it's exactly and to your point, I
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  Speaker 1: really do think that when you flip that mindset, when
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  Speaker 1: you're able to catch yourself and keep that positive attitude,
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  Speaker 1: that's when you end up being the most ready for
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  Speaker 1: the moment. That's when you're the most you know, prepared
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  Speaker 1: and emotionally and physically capable of pulling off a successful
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  Speaker 1: hunt or seeing that you're and getting a good shot
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. So really, your mindset can
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  Speaker 1: have such an influence on how an actual hunt plays out. Well,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: just take that to sports. I mean, when you're in
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  Speaker 1: a good mindset and you get on the field and
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  Speaker 1: you feel in control and happy and you know everything's
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: going well, you're gonna perform at a superior level. Versus
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  Speaker 1: if you go out there browbeaten one day some guy
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  Speaker 1: just knocked the fire out of you and you're like, WHOA,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I feel like a little insignificant punk out here.
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  Speaker 1: You know you're not going to perform well, or maybe
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you know that you hate you just had a fight
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  Speaker 1: to white that you know you're not gonna play ball
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  Speaker 1: was good that day. So it's like that one hunting,
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  Speaker 1: it's you know, go out there and forget the TV
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  Speaker 1: hype and forget all of the industry hype, and go
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  Speaker 1: out there and perform at a personal, private level. You'll
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: be you'll be satisfied whatever the results stand. You know.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And here's Tony again with just a little bit more
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  Speaker 1: of the same. We talk about a lot of different
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: things with bow hunting, but every one of us has
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  Speaker 1: that buddy that's like gets really down really quick. You know,
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  Speaker 1: he's not a he's not a then master at all.
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  Speaker 1: You know, if you're if your attitude starts to tank
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  Speaker 1: with running into people, you're gonna hunt like you've never
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: done it in your life, and it's gonna get worse.
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  Speaker 1: And so you just got to learn to accept that
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and move on quickly because people are going to screw
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: up your hunts and you know, somewhere along the line,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you're gonna bumble into some dude set up to you know,
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  Speaker 1: you're gonna be that guy. So it just happens. Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe that's probably like you said, that's that's
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: got to be one of the very most important things
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: when you're hunting this type of situation is just going
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: into with the right attitude and knowing that you're gonna
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: have to adjust and make the best of it, because,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: like you said, if you you know, if your mindset
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: is gone, if you lose confidence and lose your focus,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you know you're your your odds success are are really
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: dramatically plumbing. Just based on that becomes a filling prophecy.
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  Speaker 1: So once we've got our mindset in order, the next
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: thing we need to do in planning a public land
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunt is to figure out where to go. And
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: this really is the crux of a lot of public
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: land hunts because you know, finding the right area and
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  Speaker 1: the right property, and then eventually even just the right
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  Speaker 1: spot on that property, this can make or break your experience.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a lot to cover here too. Many of
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the best public land deer hunts we've talked to, they
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: all have kind of a specific process for how they
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: find these spots. So we're gonna hear from a bunch
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of different guys on this topic, and you're gonna hear
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a few of these ideas over and over, but I'm
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: specifically including all of that, because I think the repetition
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: from each of these experts is really going to help
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: drill home the message on this, So be sure to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: keep your ears open for those consistencies. That said. Tyler
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: right now is a friend of mine from Michigan who's
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: probably best known from his work with Antler Geeks and
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: other outdoor writing and videography, and he here has some
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: helpful high level input on how he gets this process
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  Speaker 1: started for himself. Most of what we do, a lot
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: of times, the only scouting we do before we show up,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it's it's all on the computer. Um. You know, there's
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: so many assets now, and you know with all this,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: you know all the state you know, game game divisions, Um,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: you know they they all have the public lands listed
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: on you know, on their their government website for the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: most part, um, so you can get an idea right
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: there if kind of where they're located. Um, you know
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the acreage. Um. I guess the biggest things we look
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: for when you're just looking for a piece of ground
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: initially is you know, we try to stay at least
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: an hour away from any you know, major city center. Um.
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  Speaker 1: That's just a lot of times you end up you know,
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  Speaker 1: in a little dinky town, in a sleezy hotel somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: But um, you get away from the town and uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know there's a lot less, a lot less people there. Um.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: That's the the you know, the big thing I guess initially, um,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and then just picking them apart, you know, I mean
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: looking for the same types of things that you would
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: look for on you know, really any piece of ground, um,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: pinch points that are leading in, you know, in and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: out of the public stuff. It's on the borders. And
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: looking outside of the public land too, is that you know,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a big piece of it. You know, I can't just
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: look at that one chunk you know, maybe a chunk
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of timber that's two thousand acres and there may not
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: be a single stitch a crop on it. But if
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you can find where there's crops right on the border
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: in certain places, you know, especially early season, late season, UM,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: it gives you an idea where you can you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: you can at least get close to those deer that
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: are on feeding patterns. Um. You know. As far as
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: states go and regions of the state and stuff like that. Um,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: there's always those famed counties. UM, you know, I guess
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: in really every big buck state, and I try to
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: avoid them. Um. You know, if coming from Michigan, all
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of Kansas is better than it is better than home.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: All of Iowa, for the most part, is better than home. Um.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: You know, sure there's certain little pockets and little regions
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of those states that are you know, the absolute you
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: know best to the best. You know what, they killed
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the most booners, they kill the most. You know, there's
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the most come out of that country. Whatever. Um, I'm
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: happy with shooting hundred and forty public ground. Um. You know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: in a lot of times that next county over that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: nobody ever says anything about is just as good. Really,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: So don't I guess, don't take some of that stuff
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to heart too much, and don't be afraid to venture
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: out away from those well known areas. A little bit
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: moving on, here's Tony again and giving his thoughts on
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the process he takes to find public land. It depends
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: if I'm looking for I live just north of the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Twin Cities, so if I'm looking for a place around
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: here to hunt, my process will be a little bit
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: different than. Let's just say, last night, for example, I
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't sleep because I kept thinking about some of these
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: walking areas in South Dakota. I started hunting last year
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and so you know, I snuck out of the bedroom
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and started looking on my at aerial photos at midnight
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: last night, looking up just some of the public land
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: there and and for me, the biggest part of the process,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: especially if I'm looking for an odd of state hunt, um,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: which I do a lot, is just that time on
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the aerial photos. UM. I know. I know some people
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: like to go on the internet forums and stuff and
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, any good places in southwestern Oklahoma or
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: something like that, But you know that information is just
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: not vetted. And I'm not saying you can't get good
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: information that way. But for me, I pick a state
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I want to hunt, and I'll just let's let's just
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: use like Nebraska's example. I love Nebraska. I'll say I
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: want to go to Nebraska and hunt the rut. The
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: first thing I'm gonna do is figure out where the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: big cities are in Nebraska. Now, there really aren't very many.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: There's only a couple and they're on the east side
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of the state. So I'm gonna look for a place
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: in the state that has no people. I want to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: get away from people because hunting pressure. Anybody that hunts
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: public land knows hunting pressure is just like your number
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: one enemy, no matter what to me, it Trump's everything
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: that Trump's was, or Trump's season timing anything, And so
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I just want to start looking in an area where
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: they're just probably won't be very many people. And then
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: once I started identifying some public land places there, then
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I get on the aerial photos and really dig in
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and look and see whether those specific parcels have something
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that offers a white tail hunter kind of how I
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: start celabrate on that last piece for us, Um, what
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: are you looking for when you're on the aerial What
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: does quality public land, terrain or property look like for
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: you from an aerial view? Uh? First off, the first
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: thing I'm gonna look at is access. If it's got
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of you know, walking trails or logging roads,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: or if it if it looks like it's really easy
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to access, I'll skip it. But if I find a
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: place that you know, maybe has one access point or
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: two access points, um, that then I'll start digging in.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And then I'm looking for with white tails. One of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the first things that I always look for a lot
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of people go and look for food sources. They look
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: for those egg fields or you know, some kind of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: food source on there. But for me, I look for water. Um.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I my my absolute favorite type of of white tail
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: spot to hunt is something with with moving water in it.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I just love creek streams, rivers something like that. I know,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: if I find moving water, I'll find probably pretty decent
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: white tail cover. I'll be able to find a crossing somehow,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: whether I can actually see the low spots on the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: river in the aerial photos. I mean this aerial photography,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the satellite photography. Now you can actually zoom in and
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: see rocks sticking out of the water and tell which
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: way the river's flowing, tell how shallow it is. Um
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: It's just amazing. But for me, that's what I start with.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I want I want some kind of moving water to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: start with. And so you're looking at that moving water
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: as something that's going to be a tool sort of
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: for you. So you know that you can will be
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: able to know some things right out the gate because
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of the fact that you know the deer will relate
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to that moving water in some certain way or what
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you mentioned cross it and I imagine maybe you use
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: that type of thing. For access in and out of
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the property too, maybe, oh absolutely, access is huge, covers
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: your noise. You're usually below the banks. Uh. You know,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: provided it's not too big of a river. Um, you
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: can wade most of them. But there are a couple
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: other things. If I have to cross a river to
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: hunt the other side for some reason, I can leave
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: my competition behind because they won't do it. Um. Just
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing like climbing a great big hill
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: or a block. I'll look for that too. But with
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the rivers, especially if you get on bigger chunks of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: federal land, there'll be a lot of public grazing on
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: their cattle grazing, and so there's only going to be
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: so many places with decent cover that white tails like.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Now this is this would be different if I were
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: looking for meal deer, antelope or something, obviously, but for
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: white tails, you want the best tickets cover you can find.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Most of the time. That's that's right next to the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: rivers of the creeks. Um. You know, it might be
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: only just you know, patches of the cotton woods or something,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: but it will be better than the surrounding area. And
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: so you know that you know that probably white tails there.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: There's usually agriculture pretty close to those rivers, you know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the watersheds. There's usually the right stuff there. And on
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: top of that, because rivers are low, you can use
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: them like use them for access, like you said, but
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: there's also a lot of times a lot of really
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: good pinch points and funnels along rivers because the bends,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and it's just it's just a great starting point most
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: of the time. This whole idea that Tony brings up
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: about using water when trying to find a good place
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: on public land or when trying to hunt a good
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: piece of public land, it makes a whole lot of sense,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and it is something that I've actually used in my
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: own hunts as well. For example, on my Montana public
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: land hunts have taken in the past the last couple
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of years, I've used rivers to access hunting locations, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: this coming year on my Minnesota hunt will be using
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: rivers and lakes actually get too hard to reach portions
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of this public land to get after some of those
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: deer that maybe haven't been bothered by other hunters. So
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. It's a great idea. Now
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: moving forward, Bernie Berenger is our next guest. He's another
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: one of those public land specialists, and he's the author
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of The Freelance bow Hunter, and he actually talks about
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: this process of finding quality public land. He talks about
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: this in his book The Freelance bow Hunter, and he
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: talked about it on one of our very first podcast
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: episodes ever. So here's what he had to say in
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that early conversation. Yeah, I think that's probably the part
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that people seem to like the most about the book
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: is the process to explain how to go through the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: You know, you're starting wide, you haven't even decided what
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: states you're going to go through, and you're getting down
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: and you're you're working it down from that broad approach
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: all the way down to the exact tree you're going
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to hang your stand into in some states somewhere in
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: a piece of property. Well, how do you get from
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: point eight to point b um? Is pretty important process.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And uh, I really think that the key to it
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: is being able to do the research. And when I
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: first started doing this, there was absolutely nothing compared to
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: what there is today as far as research tools. You know, um,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: your website, my website, bow Hunting Road dot com has
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of resources. This book has sixty pages of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: information about which states are the good states and what
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: parts of the states produced the biggest books and and
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: so forth. Yeah, and um, there's so much information out
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: so you can get on Google Earth. You know, I've
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: killed gear in places that I found on Google Earth.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And um, so you know, if you start wide and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: you decide, okay, you know how much of the tag costs,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: how how do I get a tag? Um over the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: counter states? And then I go through this process and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: pretty good detail in the book. And you know, if
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: if you want to hunt in Iowa, it's gonna take
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you at least three years to draw a tag. You
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: have to have at least two preference points and possibly
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: three in some of his own So, um, you're not
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: just gonna go to Iowa this fall. Um you could
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: go to uh, Missouri or North Dakota or Kentucky or
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: some of these good quality states that have over the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: counter tags. So you got to decide which states you're
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: gonna go to first, and then um, you're gonna look
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: at what public land is available in the state, how
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: much pressure it gets, and and then you know, once
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you've decided whish piece of property you're going to go to.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Then then you're actually looking for the spots. And you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: can do a lot of that online too, you know.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: You know, like I said, with Google Earth, you can
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: see potential deer travel corridors. Um. Today's the forums today.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: You know, you can go on there and it's amazing.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I I've put stuff on a forum and said, hey,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to this part of the state. As
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: anybody hunt there can I can I get a piece
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of advice, And I mean I had a guy actually,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: um that offered to drive me around and show me
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: some spots and uh so, you know, the forums are
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: a great place to mind information. So a lot of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that can be done before you ever leave home. And
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: here's Eddie Claypool again with his take. I can't pay
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you now if I would suggest anywhere other than just
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: pick a state close to you. If not, if you're
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: not gonna if you're looking to travel, if you're at home,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you already know what you're dealing with. But if you're
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: wanting to go out of state, as I have so
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: much over my life, just pick any of the common
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: sense states and have white tails. And then if you
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: do your homework ferret out. You know the hidden public places,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and all states have numerous low profile hidden public lands.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Um I have hunted some little patches of public and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Kansas and different states that were acres, little spots that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: don't even show up on the radar and taking good
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: bucks off them with very little people around. Um So
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you know where if we address the topical where that's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: just a total personal preference because you can hunt them
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: in any type of habitat, from the northwest of the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: United States to the east, to the south to the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: north work just um I just leave that deep individual
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: will make his own decisions on where he wants to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: go because other than going to Iowa or some of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: these premium spots, and you know whether outfitting and everything
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: is so prevalent where they grow the big deer other
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: than those which go without saying and going on a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: guided hunt. If you've averaged, Joe, just whatever tickles your
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: fancy is my description of where to go. And then
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: once Eddie picks the state, here's what it is next. Well,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you there's almost an endless amount of having
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: theres a guy can pursue on that game, and fish
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: is a starting place, you know, to see what they
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: have shown on their hunting ratlasses and on their walk
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in programs. And you know, ever state has numerous countless
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: names for the different types of land they have accessible.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Some of it will be public, some of it will
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: be private. You know, they have you know, access yes,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: programs and whatever you want to call them for pub
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: private land hunting. So you've got to dig through the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: game and fish and dig deep. I mean, you've got
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to go through each link and to the next link
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and look and you'll find what you can find. Then.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times, a lot of the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: ones I've found that are off some map are little
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: low pockets that are you know, uh, county park type
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: things or around impoundments. There will be little public areas
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that don't show up on game and fish radar. There
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: are more of a local level thing. Uh, You've got
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to dig deep. You know. Sometimes I haven't found my
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: gems until I actually got into an area and I
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: actually started physically hunting it. I didn't even know they
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: were their pre pre trip um. You know, it's a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: lot to be said for being local. We know how
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the locals all over the grounds like the back of
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: their hand. But you know, if you pick a good
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: area and go there and become semi vocal to it
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: over a period of time, you're you're gonna find some
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: hidden gems that will be there. So there's all is
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that unforeseen blessing that you'll get from picking in an
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: area and going there for a year. Um, and I'm
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the world's worst about you know, spending maybe three trips
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: in a year ago to the spot. I'll use it
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: going the debt of winner. Uh, take a long weekend
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and take two or three to four days and travel
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: to a spot and camp in it in the winter
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and learn it and scout it. Do my reconnaissance. Uh.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: It's invaluable if you've already got a piece of dirt
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to hunt on, to go and look at it in
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the debt of winter. For the scouting, you know, is
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: so great that time of year. All the rutt sign
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: is there, the people who are gone, and you can
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: really do some power scouting in the winter. But you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: also just get familiar with the people of the country
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and you'll start picking up these little hidden gems. It
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: will be there. You know, people talk and all this
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: stuff is you know, the localist guard. It pretty carefully usually,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and unless you're there and giving yourself a chance to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you know, to be in the frying pan, you may
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: not build of research at ahead of time. There are
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: plenty of places to research, and you know, you might
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: need to pick a larger, more higher profile area from
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: you know, off the Internet or game and Fish or
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: local websites and go and start it, and then you
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: can get into finding these other little spots of your own.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: To follow that up. We're gonna hear from Todd Meat,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: a public land hunter from New York who's also the
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: author of several books, and he shared his process as well.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of research, um. And another thing
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: is I have a pretty big network of people across
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the country. Um. You know, I shot competitive archery for
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: thirty years and I've met a lot of people across
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the country. So that usually gives me a relatively safe
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: area to start. Like if I know somebody that lives say,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I know somebody lives in Michigan or whatever, and I say, well,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: how's the hunting near you? And then we talked a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: little bit and I'm like, well, if I was coming
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: out there hunting, where do you think a good area
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of the state would be to go and you know,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: they give me their opinion. Then I'll go online, I'll
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: look at it, and uh I'll start looking around a
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: little bit, and then I'll I'll search different hunting forums
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: to see if anybody talks about those places in uh.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd call me a stalker. I don't. I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: don't say anything. I just read all this stuff, okay.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And then if I say, I go like online on
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a forum and I find somebody I'm looking at it
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, like, actually, I've hunted Colorado the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: same same place for years in elk hunting, and uh
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: so then this year I was looking at a different area.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to explore a little bit, and I'm like,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: holy kyl, there was a guy that's signed on right
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: there in his hometown is the same exact place I'm going.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So I just sent the guy, you know, I said, hey,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: you know i've hunted out there since and I'm coming out.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Do you know anything about this area? I mean, it's
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: just a generic random, you know, question or whatever. And
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: you'd be amazed at how people help you. And as
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: long as I'm not infringing on him, like he's gonna
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: give me information, and uh like, I get a lot
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: of information that way, and Okay, for every ten times
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you do it, you're probably gonna strike out eight times,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: but then you might just hit that one person that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: could really help you. And then I'll also go through
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: like every almost every state has on their website they
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: have conservation areas. Um I click on almost every single
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: conservation area and I study everyone and I write down
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: what it has that I like, and then if I
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: find enough the stuff that I like in it that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I I set it aside. I'm like, okay, this one
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: has to get looked at further. So then I'll go
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: down and then I'll come up with say thirty or
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: forty of them, and then I'll just keep on narrowing
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: it down until I find the place I want. So
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: then when I decide where I'm gonna go, I have
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: my place I'm going, but I have no idea how
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: many people are gonna be there, So I'm like crossing
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: my finger, it's not gonna be overwhelmed with people. So
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: when I get there, I have a plan. I'm gonna
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at this place, that place, in that place.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm usually with my father and neither one or
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: two of my friends. So there's like four of us
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that travel together. So each of us bites a chunk
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: off and we all go in our own directions, and
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: then we come back and we decide it's worth hunting
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: or it's not worth hunting, And if it's a maybe,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: then we'll we'll give it another you know, a couple
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: more days or whatever. But if it's a no, then
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I go to my next place on there, even if
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: it's a three hour drive away. Okay, we're going to
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the next place, and I won't waste time in some
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: place once I get there that it it doesn't show
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: what I wanted to show. And so I don't get
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: sucked into some place that I shouldn't be. And uh,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I think that's a secret. You just you have to
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: be willing to move, and you have to be willing
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to blow a week or two of your vacation. If
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: I come home with nothing, I don't care because I
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: come home with nothing before. And if I come home
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: with nothing, then it's it's a bad trip if I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: didn't learn anything. But if I learned something that I'm
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: probably going to capitalize on that. And then in the
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: next trip, so I want to I want to take
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a jump back to something, and then I want to
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about those first couple of
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: days of your hunt. But first you said that you're
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: looking at all these pieces of public lan like you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you find it on the state website and sounds like
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: you're looking at maps and stuff. And you mentioned that
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you're looking for certain good things in these properties, and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: if the property has enough of the good things, then
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you're gonna focus on that. What are the things you're
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: looking for? What are those good things that you're trying
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: to key in on to tell you that this property
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: could have potential. One thing that I look for is
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I'm from the Adirondex, So I'm looking for pieces of
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: land to have a lot of timber on it, which
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: you know, of course sometimes that's hard to find in
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the Midwest. Uh. Number one, I know if I find timber,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it's going to keep a lot of people out of it,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: because people are afraid of the woods, uh, no matter
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: how big they are. So if I can find acreage
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: that's you know, anything above like a thousand acres of
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: wooded area, then I'll definitely circle that, Like this is
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: a place I need to go because a thousand acres
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: it might not seem much. But if you're in a
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: thousand acres of woods and you've never really hunted woods,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you've hunted field edges, stuff like that, it can be
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: really intimidating for the average guy. So I look for that,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and I look for places I can access only by boat.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: So if I can only get there with a boat,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: then I'm almost sure it's going to be good. So
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I I do that, whether it's a river,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a lake, a stream like whatever it is, So those
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: two things out of the way. UM. I also look
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: for areas that either are closed to hunting. UM. It
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: might be a place around there that has there's no
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: hunting allowed. It might be owned by like a government agency.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: UM might be owned by say like a church group
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and they own a big piece of land and there's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: no hunting allowed on it. Because then I know there's
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: no hunting allowed on it, so it works as a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: sanctuary for deer on the public land, and that's where
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: they're gonna go. Yeah. Um, I look at plat maps
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to see who owns the land around it, and then
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I'll research that online. I'll be that silent stalker again
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: in some places. I one place that I found was
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: really good because I knew that this person hunted on
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: their own land and they were a presence in social media,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I just found your land and uh,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and it bordered public land, and and I had read
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: where they had killed like a hundred ninety engineer on it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: I'm like, there's no way that deer wasn't living on
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: that public land. So I mean, you have to It
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: goes to the whole thing about you have to be
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: a little more motivated than everybody else. And that's kind
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: of what has led to me being successful, I think. Alright,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: so we've heard a lot now about how to find
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: quality public hunting locations, and our next guest, Aaron Warwarden
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: of the Hunting Public, He's going to help us shift
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: from that topic towards the next one, which is not
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: only how do you pick a good property, but then
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: that next step, which is how do you begin the
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: scouting process? How do you do additional research to learn
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: everything you need to know about that area? And Aaron
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and his hunting partners, they spend a tremendous amount of
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: time on this thing, scouting the properties. They hunt and
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: in particular, they are looking for buck betting areas in
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: many cases. And if you want to hear more about
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that aspect of Aaron scouting, you should definitely check out
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the full episode we did with him, which is episode one.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: But here's a brief intro to his scouting process and
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: how he begins narrowing things down on a piece of ground.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: So the first thing you do is lay out the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: public map the area, and then you start becausing out
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: where all the access points are. Um, start looking at
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: where the pressure is. So you're looking for boot tracks,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you're walking those access trails, You're you're looking for you know,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: tape in in the tree, marking, um acts. Anything that's
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: gonna mean mean hunters is what you want to stay
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: away from for the most part. UM. So you you're
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: taking that map and you're crossing off a lot of it,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: but you can't um kind I put this. You've you've
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: got to keep an open mind when it comes to
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: every inch of that public piece. So if it's a
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: couple of thousand acres in size and you cross off
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of the access points and the area is
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: most likely to harbord hunters, then you still end up
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: with quite a bit of land that may be untouched
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: in a mature buck. The interesting thing with the them
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: is they will go wherever they don't ever encounter humans.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I mean sometimes you'd be surprised. It may only be
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: thirty yards off of gravel Road because nobody goes there,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and they have that wind advantage on a specific day
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: or whatever, like, they may well bed there and and
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time right there. So and that's
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: really that's kind of how the buck nest is that
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: area gets haunted. A lot of people think when they
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: watch the buck nest video that that area doesn't get
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a ton of hunting pressure, but it's actually the opposite.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: If you watch the second video in that video Blox series,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: you'll see hunters walk runderneath stand um that night when
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: they're headed out. But uh, there's tons of hunting pressure
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: on that piece. It's just one little small out of
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the way area that those bucks bed in, and there's
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: a couple other ones like that on that public area
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: as well. So the I guess the point there is
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: is don't overlook. Don't overlook anything. Really, was there anything
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: that you saw when you're looking at this property? Like
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: before you set foot on it, Like when you looked
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: at on a map and we're looking for these pieces
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of public land, and when you saw this, did you say, well, okay,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it's a couple thousand acres, is definitely worth taking a
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: look at? Or was there something else's that that made
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: you say, yeah, this is a good one. What I'm
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I guess the larger question I'm getting at is is
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: there anything I can look at digitally beforehand to say yes,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: this has potential or no, this is not worth spending
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: time on. Yeah, I should get more specificate than that.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Like you've mentioned, Um, if you if you take that
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: piece and you and you look for the edges of it,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: you look for the areas that are hard to access.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Then you look for the overlooked spots. You you kind
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: of measure up each area to the next one. So
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the spots that we avoid are those chunks that are
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: accessible from all sides. We don't and we don't I
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say we necessarily avoid, and we just don't prioritize
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: them as high as some of the other areas. You know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: if there's an area where you can only access from
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: one side of it, it's a huge block. You know
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: it's gonna take some serious leg work to get to
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the back of it. Then then those are the ones
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: that we're spending the most time on. You know, those
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: back corners. A lot of times up the boundary lines
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: are are good. The ones that required you to to
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you know, cross the creek or whatever. We're always looking
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: for access barriers, you know, are areas that are harder
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to get into. But with that said, a lot of
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: times those than anymore. It seems like people are are
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: getting braver and they're going back there that far. Well,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they may walk right past the spot right next to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: the parking lot that's pretty dead gum good, and we
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: do we do see that. So I think sometimes people
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: try to think too big whenever they look at those
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: big public areas and they look for they try to
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: find the biggest public area possible and then look for
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the farthest back corner of that big area. And we
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: do the same. But don't overlook these little thirty and
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: forty acre chunks that have one access point where you
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: can monitor hunting pressure. If you drive by that thing
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a couple of nights a week and you don't see
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: a truck park there at that access point, there's probably
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: a couple of good buck betting areas on that piece.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: And and the one advantage those little those little areas
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: like that is that they a lot of times they
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: have private land around it may not get hunted. It's hard,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: so it doesn't take much. Um. Obviously, it doesn't take
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: much hunting pressure on those little areas to push them off,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: but it also doesn't take much of an absence in
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure to bring him back on. Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Throwing it back now to Tony, He's going to go
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: into more specifics on how he scouts a spot. Um,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: if I'm close to home, it looks like I'm walking
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: every inch I can, because that's what I try to do.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm looking for the typical winter scouting stuff,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, the old scrapes and rubs, rubs
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: most I really like rubs, um, But most of the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: time I'm halfway looking for hunter sign. If I go
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: into a property and I see, you know, the trees
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: are trimmed up or their stands left there, there's litter
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: all over or something, and I just can't get away
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: from the the obvious sign of hunters, I'm probably gonna
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: write that off and look for somewhere else. Um when
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I travel out of state. I'm starting to do this
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: more where I'll go on a turkey hunt somewhere and
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: scout out new properties while i'm turkey hunting. In fact,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you know, in on April one, I'm heading out to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: South Dakota to turkey hunt some walk in areas that
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I hunted last fall, and I just want to check
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: out some more ground. And now a little later, I'm
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: going down to Missouri, northern Missouri to hunt public land
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: for turkeys, and I'm gonna scout that out for deer too,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And that's a good way to get familiar with the
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: area without having the pressure of killing a big buck. Um.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: But if you can't do that, that's one of the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: most important things about this process. If you if you know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna make a go at it and decide
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you're gonna hunt public and especially if you want to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: do one of these out of state trips with your bodies,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: if you have any way to build in a day
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: or two or three to scout, just glass, just walk
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and figure out if you're your pre hunt research was correct.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: That is so valuable compared to showing up and having
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: to hunt from day one. And I think one of
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the reasons that I've had quite a bit of success
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: public land hunting is because before I had kids, I
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: used to just leave for like four days, five days
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: ahead of the hunt and just tell my wife, I'll
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: be home when I'm going to be home, and I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: would scout NonStop for four days before I started hunting.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: And you got to I got to glass all those
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: river bottoms and walk them all and figure out if
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: if you're were moving there or not. And that information
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: without having the pressure carrying your boat is just so valuable.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: When you start hunting, you just you just solidify all
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: your beliefs or you know, if what you thought was
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: gonna be awesome turns out to be bunk, you've got
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: time to move on to the next one, figure it out.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: And scouting, scouting that way is is just ridiculously valuable.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: It's more valuable than hunting in a lot of situations.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: So so here's a key consistency that I think we
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: just heard here from Tony and Adam. It was this
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: importance of scouting for sign of other hunters. It seems
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that this is just as important if not more important
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: in many cases than actually looking for deer signs. So
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: that's the key thing I think that we should take
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: note of that. A few people have already mentioned. We're
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: probably gonna hear about it here again too, but continually on.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Here's another friend of mine and a deer hunting savant,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Andy made, and he has some similarly helpful public land
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: scouting tips. I'm definitely a map freak. UM. I have
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: you know, uh binders of each state with the properties
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: that I hunt, the properties that I plan on hunting,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and the backup properties you know, public, you know, private,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And I have you know, the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: aerials and that I have, um, the the topo maps
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and I do I really zone
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: in on that. But for me personally, I can find
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: out the obvious stuff, like the stuff that probably everyone
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: in this room can find, which is what your your
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: typical funnels um. You know, you somebody, it's very easy
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to to see like river crossings, UM. Now with like
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Google maps and stuff, you can zone and you can
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: actually find deer trails um, you know, and see where
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of intersecting trails um, you know, betting
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: areas you know, and depending on the type of habitat,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: very easy to see and predict UM. So what I
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: find more for me personally, I get I get more
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: UM detail with boots on the ground. So I always
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: try to and it helps because these states aren't terribly
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: far from me. Montana would be hard to do this UM.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: But I like to get out there in the spring,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: early spring, you know, after the snow melt, but before
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: green up, especially if I'm planning like a rut, a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: pre rut rut trip late October, you know, early November,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: maybe that second week in November. That's when that sign
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: is really visible. You know. You can see the rubes,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: you can see the scrapes, you can see the trails.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Everything is you know, was just made a few months ago.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: You can really dial in and see where kind of
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: everything comes together and really pick out those high percentage spots.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: So for me, boots on the ground is as as
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a kind of a necessity, and to be honest with you,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: for me, that's like just part of the enjoyment of it.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I like that as much. I like trying to scout
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: and figure out dear and going on these adventures in
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: brand new areas where I don't even know what's their
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: success or not. I actually enjoy that maybe more than
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: actually getting getting a buck on the ground, you know
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: what I mean. I just I've really come I've just
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: become addicted to that constant stimulation of new you know.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Put me in an unfamiliar area with the bow in
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: my hand and the wind in my face, and it's like,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: following that up, we're gonna do kind of a rapid
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: fire jump with three guys here sharing their scouting techniques,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: so Bernie Barringer. Then we're here from TI right now,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and then ton of meat and then of course once
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you're on the property, then that's that's the real key
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: to find in the right spot. And you're gonna hunt
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: differently than you would if you own a piece of property,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: you had permission on a piece of property. UM. I
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: call it hunting aggressively. And that's a really important key
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: to what makes this this all work. Because you know,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: if you had, say a couple hundred acres of ground
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: that you hunt, um, you'd probably have a couple of
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: betting areas there that you would never go into. You
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: might have a sanctuary that you really avoid at all costs.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: And and if you would know where the deer tend
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to feed and where they tend to travel, and where
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the food sources are. But if you go to a
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: new piece of property, you gotta start from scratch, and
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: you're gonna walk right through those betting areas and bust
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the deer out. And you hate doing it, but it's
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: part of You have to do it because you need
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to know where they are. And um, you know you
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: you can learn the travel corridors by looking at trails
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and following tracks and looking at scrapes and rubs, and
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you know you really have to. You have to get
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: out on the ground and and learn the property to
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: The temptation is when you first get there is to
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: just here's a good looking spot, put up a tree stand,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: get in it. But that's not necessarily the best way
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: to hunt because you don't have the confidence that it takes.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: If you're in a run. Huh, you might want to
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: sit in the stand all day. Um, you want to
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: have confidence that you're in the right spot before you
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: ever get in there, because you're gonna be second guesting
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: yourself all the time if you don't. And you so
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you've got you've got to know what's over the next
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: hill and that way you have confidence when you do
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: get in the stand that you're in the right spot.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: So those are all pretty important keys to it. It's
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: it all depends, you know, I guess sometimes if we're
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: close enough and we can you know, it's reasonable the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: drive there in the preseason, we can, Um, you know,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: where are we going? Kansas is you know, eighteen hours away,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: so it's it's tough to you know to make that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: kind of a drive, you know, in the in the summer.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Just the amount of time that it takes you to
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: get out there and get back. Um, there's usually just
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: too much going on, you know, with life to to
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: be able to carve out that kind of a time
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: time frame to get out there and scout. Um. You know,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: we went to North Dakota a few years ago and
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: never set foot on anything until we got there. It
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: was just all you know on the computer beforehand, because
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: that was a you know, twenty some hour drive closer
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: play you know, Indiana. Um, like I said, I went
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: down there last winter ship hunting just for a day
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: at least to get a you know a little bit
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: of an idea of what it was like because it's
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: close enough drive and you know, Ohio, you know, we've
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: we've spent a fair you know, a fair number of
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: days back and forth from there, you know, scouting different places.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: So and it just all depends, I guess on location.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: So can you can you elaborate Tyler for us on
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: exactly in these instances where you do actually go in
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: person to scout, whether that be you know, in the
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: spring or summer, or maybe you show up at the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: property in the fall and you you want to do
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: some scouting before actually hunting. Can you walk us through
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: what that scouting looks like? You know, what are the
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: things you were looking for? What do you try to identify?
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: What are you trying to learn? Well, aside from you know,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: what you look for really on on any piece of ground, UM,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the big things we look for is you know where
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the parking areas are. UM. A lot of these public
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: land areas have maybe your mountain biking trails or equestrian
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: trails or some other you know, type of trail system
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: where hunters can use those to access you know, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: get farther back in a lot easier. UM. And you
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: can do it from home a lot of times, you know,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: even if you can get ahold of you know, the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: little office is a lot of times at the piece
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: of public ground or the spate forest or whatever it is. Um,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: they'll have little brochures and stuff a lot of times
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: at the facility that have those trails on them, and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: they're hard to find online, but if you call them up,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: they'll send you one those brochures you can study in
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the off season. And I'll actually go through make a
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: map on Google Earth one side, you know, committed to
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: a property, and I'll put all those trails in, and
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I'll put all those partning areas in, and then you
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, make a radius of where other
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: people are gonna go. And then you find those little
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: pockets there, you know, that are too far away, um
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you know, or maybe there's some type of terrain feature,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you know, a river or you know some really really
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: steep stuff that most guys aren't going to go you
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: know past um and find those little pockets that are
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of times and not haunted at all. Uh.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: You know, there's if you find a big enough piece
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: of public ground or even though just the right one
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: that's got those kind of land barriers, um, you know,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: you can you can essentially have private ground stuff that's
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: hardly ever hunted because nobody wants to go that far.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: We we probably piss off a lot of people because
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: we're kind of like wild Banshee Indians. Uh. We will
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: walk through every single bit of the property, like I'll
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: cover every single bit of it. I mean, I'll want,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I'll zigzag, I'll do everything. And I'm sure people get
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: piste because it's in November. You're on public land, people
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: are on their vacation, and I'm walking all through the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: woods and we all do the same thing. And what
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: we do is we walk in the first day, We'll
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: try to determine where do we want to go, like
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: where do we want to start on the next day,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: and then like I'll either market with my gps um
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: like okay, I'll mark the way point and then I'll
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: have it right there and like this will be number one,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: number two or whatever. And then the next day I'll
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: go back there. We'll all go back to wherever we
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: found and we'll hunt there in the morning and then
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: we'll see what happens in the morning. We'll meet in
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: the afternoon and then we'll come up with another game
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: plan and like say you're hunting on like a you know,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: public area that's four thousand acres or something, and it's
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: it's on a bunch of different roads. We'll all go
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: to a different road and we'll all do our thing,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and we'll discuss it, and
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: then we'll make a plan from there. So, after listening
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to all these guys talking about scouting, you know, these
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: are some of the very best public land deer hunters
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: out there, There's one thing that stands out to me
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: above all else, and it is just the absolute, above
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: all importance of scouting. This just can't be emphasized enough.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: And I think in a public land scenarire like this
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: is probably even more important than on private ground. I mean,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: as you can tell a number of these guys prioritized
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: scouting even over hunting on short trips. They're even willing
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: to sacrifice a precious day or two of hunting just
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to walk around and get to know a place. And
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: another thing that seemed consistently mentioned was this need to
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: dive into every area you possibly can and being much
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: more aggressive with your scouting than you might be on
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: private land, because you know, for one thing, you can't
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: control anyone else's hunting pressure. And secondly, because you just
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: need to find those heavy cover, hard to reach places
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: and understand them if gonna find big bucks consistently on
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: public land. So once we've found our area to hunt
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: and we've scouted it, maybe digitally or on the ground,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: now we can finally hunt. And I want to throw
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: it over to Bernie again as he explains how he
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: typically begins his public land hunts, how he uses traild
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: cameras on them, and a bit more. And uh, you know,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: the first day I arrived at a new property, I
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: rarely hunt. The first day, I'm usually maybe glassing the
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: property from the roads with the spotting scope, trying to
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: figure out where the deer activity is. And the first
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: stand that I put up is likely to be what
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I call an observation stand, where I'm actually putting a
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: stand up in a place where I can have a
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: good view of a large field or open timber or
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: something like that, and try to get a better feel
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: for what the movement looks like. And and then throughout
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the week then I'll narrow it down and narrow it down,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and by the time I, um, you know, after have
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: three or four days under my belt. I'm usually pushing
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: all my chips into one spot. You know, I'm cashing in.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going all in on one tree where this is
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: the place I think it's gonna happen, you know where.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: The trail cameras are a really important component to the process.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I I there's two reasons I like to use a
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: lot of trail cameras. Number one because I want to
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: know what the potential of the area is as soon
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: as possible. Um, I want to inventory the box. I
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: guess is the best way to put it where. You know,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: if I've I've been on haunts where I had a
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: hundred buck walked by the first time, I sat in
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the stand and I passed them up, and then I
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: was there for a week and I turned out to
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: be the biggest buck I saw. You know. So the
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: sooner you can get a handle on what the potential
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of the area is, the better off you are. And
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: there's no better way to do that than with trail cameras.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And in particular I hang them both on trails and
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: on scrapes and scrapes um anytime after about the last
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: week in October, third or last week in October, if
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: you start putting trail cameras on scrapes and then use
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: some good fresh year and or some deer lure in
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: those scrapes. You'll inventory the majority of the box. Within
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: three days, you'll have the majority of the box on camera,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: So you have a lot better chance, you have a
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: lot better idea of what the potential is and what
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: you should hold out for. And uh So that's the
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: first aspect of second aspect is it will tell you
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: what stage of the rut these d are in based
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: on how they're reacting. And you know, you can look
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: at them and see how um, you know, how heavily
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: they're working the scrapes and are their tarso glands stained
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: up like they've been running pretty hard? Are that those
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: in the scrapes are just the bucks. Bills will give
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: you clues as to what the status of the rut is,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and that will help you make decisions on stand placement.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: You know, are these bucks on the cruise or are
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: they starting to uh to get in a lockdown stage
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: where they're actually coupled up with those and aren't traveling
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: as much. Then you need to be focusing more on
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: the betting areas and so forth. So yeah, trail cameras.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I literally have four to six trail cameras out almost
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: all the time when I'm hunting. Next, We're gonna bring
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Aaron back and and I want to talk with him
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: about his approach to hunting public land after completing of
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: that scouting he's done, and specifically I asked him if
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: he waits for anything in particular to start heading into
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: his good spots or if he just dives right in there.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: We usually dive right in. Um we've scouted most of
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: these areas. We've we've scouted the heck out of them,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: and we know where most of the betting is on.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: And some of them were more familiar with than others.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: The spot in the buckness spot in particular, we're very
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: familiar with because we've spent so many years hunt in
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the immediate area. And what we noticed after we started
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: putting more pressure on those bucks is they didn't leave.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: They just I mean, they would eventually filter out. The
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: very first day, there was a ton of bucks in there,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: but the next, the the next few times we went in,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: there were fewer and fewer bucks. And then I also
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: noticed that I started picking them up on different parts
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: of the area. On my other trail cameras, you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: at different times of the day. I started picking up
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: one of them. I remember in daylight in the middle
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: of October that we saw the very first night at
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: the buck nest and never saw him back there again
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: for the rest of fall. And what I think happens
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: there is they are eventually detecting us from where we're
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: in there hunting them. But all they're doing is moving
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: a few hundred yards and it's not really impacting the
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: way that they're moving or behaving other than they're changing
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: betting areas. Does that make sense, Yeah, it does, And
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that's what that's what we're seeing a lot of places too,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Like we we dive right in to your point because
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: of the added pressure. But you know, on public land,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: if they're dealing with that much pressure and you still
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: can't push them out of there, I don't. I think
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks on private land that are hunting
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: super careful, are almost too careful, you know what I mean,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: because they have they have so many betting areas and
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: sanctuaries on their property. If we're seeing bucks move but
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: not pick up and leave the count of the country,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I mean that everything situation is different, like we talked
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: about earlier. But um, that is one thing that we
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: have noticed a lot, is they just what they detect
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: that you're there, they'll just go to the next best
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: spot next to. Asked Aaron to describe one of his
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: best spots on public land and why it's so good.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: And I think by hearing about this example, it might
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: be able to help us all better understand what to
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: look for when trying to find our own little public
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: land high holes. Well, it's all surrounded by timber um
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: trees that you can get a stand in, and uh,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: lots of other deer insulate them back there, like you
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: have to bump deer to get back to them. So
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: if you're not if you're afraid of spooking deers, and
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: this style definitely is for you. Um. But with that said,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: this is the one area where there's no trees um,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that's simply it. There's no trees right there,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: so people can't hunt there. They won't hunt on the ground.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Everybody that's in there has got a tree stand on
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: their back or is is planning on hunting out of
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: a tree stand that they hung prior to that, And
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: it's surrounded on all sides by these big timbered hills
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: that attract quite a bit of hunting pressure. And those
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: hills hold a lot of sign too, And you can
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: go through there in a good acorn, you're and there's
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: giant rubs ripped up everywhere. But what what makes that
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: spot so good is those bucks are bedded right next
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to water. I've noticed that a lot. They love bedding
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: next to water or in very very close proximity to it.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: It can be a big body of water, a lake,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: a pond, creek, or river or whatever. They love water.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: They love being close to it. And like I mentioned,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: there are no trees. Once you start trying to figure
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: out how to hunt those bucks in the buck nest
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: and October, it becomes really hard because you just can't
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: get within a couple of hundred yards of them in
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: a tree stand, and they just don't they I think
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: that's why they're there, because everybody's walking around the edges
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: that that that's the RP field and they're hanging in
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: those trees h or or way up in the big
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: chamber where they're finding a lot of that sign, but
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: nobody's actually going down in there, or they very rarely
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: are when you look at it's just a grass field.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: You know, there's not really any other terrain change or
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: habitat change other than the grass bucked up to a creek.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: And right there where that edge forms is where they
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: like to bed and there's no trees along the edge
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: of the creek that you can even get us stand in.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: So nobody, nobody ever goes in there now. And that's
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: another misconception is is uh, how far away people can
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: be from those beds um without bumping them. And people
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: walk the edge of that field all the time. I'm
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: talking like two yards, and those deer they walk in
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: and out of this public property in that field, but
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: they don't ever go go back into that corner because
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: there's nothing that they can hang a tree stand in.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: So just keep that in mind and think about that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: for any property that you're hunting, if you're trying to
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: keep the pressure off, even on private land, when those
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: bucks are betted, they they don't mind you walking two
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: hundred yards away from mob times they don't know that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: you're there, you know, if you've got the wind right
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: to where they're betted at. But in this situation, they
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: people walking and hunt the heck out of that timberline
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: that's two hundred yards away from those bucks. But it
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: keeps them out of there those the lack of trees does.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: And finally I asked Aaron to talk about entry and
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: excess strategies. One hunt in public places. Yes, we are
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: very cautious about entering and exiting in those areas, but
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: mainly just really close to the bedding. Um, when we
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: got to go somewhere that's a mile two miles back in,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: we don't mess around for the first, you know, two
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: thirds of the trip. But when we get in there,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: really tight to the bedding, we we're going into snail's pay.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're stepping over twigs, making sure that you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: don't snap them. You're waiting for the wind to gust
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: so that you can move. Some of these areas in timber,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: like if you're hunting hardwood timber, for instance, and you're
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: going into a bedding location, you want you want it
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: to be windy and wet as ideal, and uh, if
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: it's not. If you're going in for like an evening
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: hunt and the leaves are crunchy and it's pretty calm
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: mid afternoon, you're you're just not gonna be able to
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: get real close to those those bedding locations because they're
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: just gonna hear you before you get there. Um, but
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: we do. We we go in a lot of times
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, almost like uh, two
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: or three o'clock in the morning. I'm a pretty firm
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: believer and going in from morning hunts way ahead of
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: daylight because I think deer can see you better at
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: gray light than they can want it's dark and uh
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: and and getting our stands set up, you know, about
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes before that gray light even hits. And using
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: those headlands that we use, that's a that's another big thing, um,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: as far as access goes. When it's when every single
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: hunt we use those headlands in and out, and we're
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: always waiting for the cover of darkness before we're going
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: in or going out on an evening hunt. We're always
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: going in in the dark in the morning. We're gonna
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: bring Todd and Meade back on who's going to talk
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: through his plans for hunting a little bit of that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: scouting and then again how he avoids other hunters when
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: he's beginning these actual hunts. It all depends on the area.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, like if I go into an area and
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: there are people hunting in there. Like one of my
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: biggest pet peeves when I get to where I'm going
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: and there's somebody parked there and I'm like, oh man,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: But then I'm like, wow, there's a lot of woods
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: in there. Most people hunt, you know, certain areas all
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: the time. They don't move around. So I'll go in
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: there and I wander around. If the person isn't in
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: an area that I found that I like, i'll stay
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: in there. If they're an area I found that I like, that,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I won't go back because I don't think it's fair
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: to them. Even though it's public land, it's not fair
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: to them. So when I'm in there looking around, I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: usually look for as many scrapes as I can find
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: in a fairly tight area, um, you know, where they're
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: not far apart, and I look for multiple runways that
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: come together, like maybe two, three, four, or five runways
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: that all come together around those scrapes, And then I
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: need some thick cover around there someplace, and uh, those
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: are the places that I usually look for. If I
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: find all of that in one place, like uh, usually
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: when I find a place like that, I go back
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: to the camp, and I show my buddies and I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: market on my GPS just so I know where it is.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: So if they want to go there and I'm not
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: going there, I could just give the way point to them,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: then they can go find it and I mark on
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: their the killing tree because because usually when I find
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: a spot, I'm almost sure we can kill a good buck.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: There another trend here. I think that's worth mentioning, and
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: it's kind of related to a couple of other things
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: I called out already, But it's just the simple importance
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: of avoiding other hunters and doing whatever you have to
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: do to get away from them. Again, almost more important
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: than deer sign. Like we talked about earlier, how you're
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: scouting for hunter sign, Well, you're also trying to find
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: those places where they're simply aren't going to be other
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: people for specific reasons. And you're gonna continue that trend
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: here with Tyler right now, who's got more thoughts on
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: that very thing. I mean more than anything. Distance, Um,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: you know, for the most part, people are lazy. Um,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: they don't want to walk that far, especially carrying a
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: tree span. Um. So it's just it's that extra you know,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: half mile that extra three quarters of a mile, um.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: And I mean some places I've gone as far as
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: printing a map out and measuring out you know how
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: far three coulters of a a mile is and using a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: compass and you know, actually making a circle around each
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: public or each parking area, every access point so you
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and see that's okay, that's where people are willing to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: walk to. And then you have the other areas and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: that's where you start to focus. And like I said,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: just you know, just getting away from him. UM. You
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: know all those different things you can use, um that
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: you need to look at, you know, the trail systems,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the the parking area is anything like that. Um. You know,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: it's it's all of super valuable stuff. UM. And you
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: know another tactically we've used but you know a few
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: times in the past is lakes and you know any
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: big rivers actually putting a boat in um to access
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: some of these places. And it's a lot of you know,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of extra work, you know, hauling a boat,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: loading it up, maybe going for an hour boat ride, um,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: and then hiking in from there. Um. But it's something
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: people don't think about. And there was one day we
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: and Tony were in Ohio two or three years ago,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: launching a boat at you know, four in the morning,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: and there were some guys getting ready to go duck
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: hutting there and they, you know, the look on their
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: face was was just priceless. You know, two guys the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: tree stands and camo and bows getting in a boat
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: and you know, they had no they just couldn't fathom
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: what we could possibly have been doing. Um, you know,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: and we we went in. It was about a forty
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: five minute boat ride and access to you know, through
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: a reservoir, and you know, we essentially had private land hunt. Um.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: A lot of those places that are you know that
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: are reservoirs. You know, they may be you know, federally owned,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: state on whatever they are. Um, there's a lot of
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: it that is physically inaccessible. You can't walk to it.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: You know, there's places that are totally landlocked by private
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: and the only way to get to them from the
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: public is on the water. Um. You know. So it's
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: another thing people can look at if you have you know,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: places like that where you live or you know, where
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: you hunt. Um, it's honestly the best way to really
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: guarantee you're gonna be left alone. Um, the only other
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: guy that may hunt it is you know, people that
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: have access to that private ground that borders it. You know,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: obviously they can come onto the public um, but from
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: a public hunting standpoint, you know that that boat is
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: going to be the only access. So it's a it's
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: a really good tactic and whenever we can, you know,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: we use it. And those places are a lot of
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: times overlooked too, you know they maybe when you look
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: at those uh you know, the pages from the state
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: that outline what the what the public land area is
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: good for. You know, it may be a four thousand
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: acres you know, peace and three carters of maybe water,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and you know they'll put on there. It's it's ideal
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: for bass fishing and for duck hunting. And you know,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: there's not a doesn't say anything about deer hunting on
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: it um because there's no where you can really walk
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: to the deer hunt. So they often get overlooked and
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: and really don't get deer hunted at all. Um. It's
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: they're they're kind of rare, but when you find one,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: they're they're definitely worth looking at. Famed Michigan d i
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: Y deer hunter John Eberhart had more to add on
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the same top that being getting into those tough to
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: reach places to find bucks on public land, it's very
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: simple go to areas where other hunters are not willing
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: to make the work effort to go to. When I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: hunt public land, if I can walk in an upright
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: walking position, I remember seeing a TV commercial with Michael
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: Waddell with a climber stand on his back walking down
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: a two track going hunting. If you can walk in
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: an upright position in Michigan on public land to any spot,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I don't care where it is, it's worthless. I don't
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: care how much sign there is signposting. Um, it was
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: like any sign posting. If it were done by a
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: mature buck, it was probably done at nighttime signposts because
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: basically mature bucks they lived at three and a half
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: years old in Michigan, they just do not make themselves
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: vulnerable during daylight hours. The only time they might is
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: during the rut when they're actually on a hot dough,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: and that's just not the case in lightly pressure areas.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: So so basically, if I can walk to a spot
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and it looks great, there's scrapes and there's rubs. If
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I can walk there. I setting it up. It isn't
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: gonna happen. Most of the spots I hunt on public land,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: or even on a lot of private lands where I
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: have permission with other hunters, I have to access my
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: locations with waiters, a canoe, a boat, or crawling through
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: brush to get back to a little clearing near an
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: island someplace, because if you're not that's where the mature
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: deer go. If there is a mature deer on the property,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: that's where the hunters that are hunting they are going
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: to push in. That's the only place back in those
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: really deep secure zones where a mature buck might feel
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: comfortable moving during daylight hours without actually being on a
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: hot dough. So the last person I want to bring
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: on here to wrap of our hunting section is Eddie Claypool.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: And you're gonna notice within Eddie's contribution here he does
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: a lot about scouting, and really, if you listen to
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: the last twenty five minutes here, as we've been talking
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: about the actual hunt, a lot of the hunt is
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: still scouting related. So it's scouting hunting, hunting, scouting scouting hunting.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: That seems to be again something that's emphasized by many
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: of these folks. You constantly need to be learning, You
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: constantly need to be finding the out of the way
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: areas and adjusting based off hunting pressure and what these
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: deer are doing. So Eddie Claypool here is going to
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: talk us through how he actually takes some pre hunt
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: trips to do some of that scouting to prepare for
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: the hunt, to do a little bit more prep work,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: and then he'll move on to you know, what he's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: actually focused on once he shows up to actually be
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: in the tree where he's focused on hunting, the types
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: of setups he's looking for, and we'll go from there
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: another little camping trip and put the boat to it. Uh,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: I will drive. I want to go around the perimeter
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: and learn the access points and figure out, you know,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: where most of the masses are going to be coming from.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Then if I've done my you know, digital scouting properly,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to know where the most remote areas of
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: this public area are the most inaccessible. Those are the
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: priorities to me. That will that's what separates you know,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: the doers from the hoopers, you know, the ones that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: hope to kill a good deer Um, I will find
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: access to these remote areas one way or the other,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: however it might be, and get that set up and
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: get it figured out, gett my some stands, sights prepared,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: you know, get in there and do the physical scouting
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: and figure out where and how I'm going to hunt
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: and if I access it's difficult, Like there's some spots
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: I hunt that I have to have a boat, you know,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: I may use a canoe whatever. I just get that
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: figured out and get all of the logistics, you know,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: lined out, so that when I come back a few
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: weeks later in early November to do the killing, Um,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: you know I've ever I got it, never key crossed.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: That's what my October trip will do for me. It'll
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: get me, you know, a lot of I'm saved and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of heartache saved by physically being there and
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: getting myself prepared so that when I come in November,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: I can spend my time in you know, some spots
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: that I've already got prepared, and um, I don't have to,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I plan on them. I'm a rut hunter.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not a real preseason rut pre rut hunter. I
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: don't pattern there early season well, and hunt them on
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: food sources and different things. I know there's guys that
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: do that, but that's a different line. I'm not there.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: I'm a I killed ninety nine percent of my deer
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: in the rut, and I may not never have even
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: seen the deer even though it exists. I like to
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: hunt what I call kind of rutting corridors where I
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: feel the bucks are going to walk film at some
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: point during the rut. There may not even be a
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: lot of sign there. I just kind of have learned
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: what these places are and how to you know, you know,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: through your digital and foot scouting, you can kind of
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: narrow down you don't scientists if you break it down
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: in every square a mile there, there's a lot of
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: factors like access by the people, and if you if
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: you start marking off the areas that are going to
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: not be any good because they're way too easy to
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: get to and way too many people be them, and
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: then take what's left and just figure that the deer
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: will be hiding pretty well in that amount of country,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: then it shouldn't be you know, rocket science to figure
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: out how they're gonna walk around in that country during
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: the rut and get from one area to the other,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: And what I try to do is pick some either
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: pinch points or types of funnels that when they're moving
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: from one area to the next, they're going to walk
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: through it. And there isn't often a lot of sign
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: in those spots, and there isn't often a lot of
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: hunting in those spots. It may be a fence row
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: across the pasture, you know, between two creep drainages or something.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Everybody hunts to two creep drainages. I'm liable to be
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: setting out there in a tree in the fence row,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: you know, in that pasture. But you until you get
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: ready to go out on a lamp and kind of
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: do some of that stuff, you really will not know
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: what you're missing, you know, on big running white tails.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: So when you're actually out there doing that on the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: ground scouting, if you're not looking for some of the
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: kind of stereotypical type of dear sign that lots of
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: guys think about, what is it specifically that you're looking
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: for when you are scouting for your style? You know,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: I've said this for years among my friends, and some
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of them have come to get a grip on it,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: and I don't even know what it means myself. But
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: I just say that I hunt by what I call set.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: The bottom line is, it's not really like it's a secret.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: You know. What it is is the fact that you
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: get a brain, you know, get a warm body out there,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: do what you do, learn what you learn, make mistakes,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: have successes, get confident in what you're doing, and and
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: you'll you'll get good at it. Don't go around all
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: your life searching for the hidden formula and you know,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: getting some expecting some guy like me to be able
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: to tell you just exactly how to do it, because
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: it's more it's a personal experience. Bow Hunting white tails
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: is something that there is no magical potion for. Just
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: do it, as Nike says, you know, uh, you know
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: that's that brings back when you asked the different approaches
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: like that. I just my mind is flashes to so
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: many different episodes of my hunts over my life in
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: different places. You know, I've I've had plenty of times
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: where you know, I went to a place and I
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: just beat it down during the offseason and felt like
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I had a really strong game plan when I first
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: went into it the first time. And I've had instances
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: where those game plans worked out great. I've had instances
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: where I realized that I was backwards just this, you know,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: really felt stupid because by the end of the season,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: I've changed everything, was doing everything different. So once again,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: there is no perfect rule for it. And other times
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: I've went in and not had a game plan and
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: just you know, started maybe hunting and working my way
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: in as you might say, observed, serving and things. I've
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: killed some good bucks out west by doing that. It
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: depends on the habitat. If you're in a habitat where
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: you can do a lot of observation, uh, especially if
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: I have a hunted the place. I like that approach.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Start in the early early stages of the rut and
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: get that observation done, and start working your way in
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: so that by the you know, the really high movement
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: time in November, you'll already be into the you know,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: the core spots. But you know, once again, there ain't
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: no pad answer for it. It's a matter of everything
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: as individual to its own spot. And uh uh, I
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: like to have a game plan when I go somewhere
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: from my digital and all my other scouting, but like
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: this public that hunt up here in Kansas, um. I
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: went into it the first year I lost a private place.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: That year, I had everything set up, and it comes
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: November the tenth. I went up through the hunting. No
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: landowner kicked me out. Some guys with money had come
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: along and got it here. It was November the tenth.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: I had all my stuff set up to hunt, and
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: I'm ground zero. I have to pull all that, you know,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: drive to a place, walk in their public and start
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: over on November basically eleventh or twelve. Talk about feeling
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: like a lost pup, you know, I mean I I
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: was intimidated. I mean, here it is already time to
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: get the good stuff done. And I'm back at ground zero.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: And I went in there, and you know, I had
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: to make a decision. Am I going to go in
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: here and really, you know, try to learn this place
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: inside out and beat it down and then make plans,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: or am I just gonna hunt my way in? And
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: it was about fifty fifty open thick habitat where I
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: felt and I could observe a lot. So I just
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: started going out into the to the most remote harder
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: to get two spots and climbing some trees where I
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: could see for good ways in any direction around and
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: trying to observe you know, running bucks moving through the
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: habitat and you know, dose or whatever, and I'll be doggone.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: I called a couple of deer in. You know, from
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: a distance, they were not going to have come by
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: where I was at, but I spawned them and called
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: them in, and you know, got success. They were not
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: huge deer, you know, they were just barely poping, young
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: caliber deer. But for the first year, the first week
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: on a place, you know, I mean, I felt good.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: They have just gotten in places to where you know,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: there would be ten cars parked in the parking lot
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: at daylight and if you want in about of that
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: available habitat from there, you weren't to have people problems,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: but there would be ten or twenty of it that
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: if you really could ferret that out, you could get
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: away from most all them. People will guess where most
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: the deer we're gonna be, I mean, them deer are
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: going to figure that out pretty quick. Wherever the people
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: are coming going from that activity is gonna slowly, you know,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: migrate away from that. And you know that's just a
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: public land key right there. Figure out where the people
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: are going to be and spend your time where they're not.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: That sounds like overly simple, but public land deer are
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: sharp and there's always nooks and crannies on public paces.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: For some reason, they're not getting hit as hard as
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: the rest. Those deer figured that out way before you do,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: and those will be the places you want to be,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: So you know, get in there and and if you
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: want to just go all out, go in there and
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: set up and just sit there until you know, you
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: know what freezes over fine, because you know, during the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: peak of the rut, you know, if you get throwed
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: into something like I did in the peak of the rut,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: you ain't got time to make a big game plan
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: and start trying to refine it down. If you're throw
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: it into something like that, and you can't leave home
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: until November the tenth, and you're gonna drive to north
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: South Dakota or somewhere and and go into this place,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: then just you know, if you've done your preceding uh work,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: you don't know about where you're gonna get get in
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: there and and and either go in and basically get
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: it a bunch and stay all day in the tree.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, we don't none of us like to
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: rely on luck. We like figure it out and kill
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: him on our own. But hey, if you don't have
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: any luck, uh, and won't rely on it, which I
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: used to not. I used to say, if I kill
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: one by luck, I'm not even gonna count. You know,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, you know, kind of know what I
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: was doing and figure I had a good hand in it.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: But if I kill them by luck or by skill.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: Nowadays there's still bow hunted white tails and and and
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: I'm still appreciative of them. So don't be bashful to
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: get into an area and stay all day and call
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: ever so often, And don't be bashful to set out
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: on the edges and hunt your way in whatever makes
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: you happy, um and the most Hey, there's certain formulas
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: for it that can't be you know, overlooked. Once you
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: do everything you can do, then nothing more than share
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: time in the field is the greatest odds upper you
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. And from about November the tenth on,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: I can't tell a person one thing better than more
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: time in the field to have better success. That's the
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: number one odds increasing factor. And very few people got
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: to work with all of a sudd all day you know, uh,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: you're an all day hunter during the ruck. I try
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: to be once again it's case specific, but I try
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: to have places that I can go to and said
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: all day. Uh, there's places it's not good for it.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: And if you're, you know, halfway an outdoorsman, you'll know
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: when it's not really common sense. You're not gonna set
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: you right out beside the edge of a fairly accessible
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: farm field probably all day long. You're gonna go back
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: in there, off down in the river bottom, in the
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: briar thicket down there and set. But out west it's
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: a different matter. You know, there's lots of places that
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: are excellent for all day setting because those deer can
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: move freely all day. But yeah, I said all day
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: most of the time, and I've killed I'm gonna say
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: one out of every three probably of my better bucks
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: during a time between ten and the morning and two
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: in the evening. All right, Now, So much of what
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: we've heard today has been all about avoiding other hunters,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: finding those tough treats. It's finding the places that deer
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: can avoid hunting pressure, looking for a sign of other people.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: But what if you did all that and still while
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: you're out there hunting on public land, another guy or
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: girl comes walking up on you or comes trump into
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: the area you're hoping to hunt. You know, what do
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: you do in that scenario. It's a tough one and
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: it's something that likely will happen if you hunt public
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: land long enough. So here's Tyler who's going to help
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: us break down how at least he handles that situation.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: If it's later in the year, you know, if it's
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: been a tough season. Sometimes I've got to remind myself to,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: you know, try to keep my cool. Um. But it's
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: you know, just trying to just lay out where you
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: know where you you know where he's hunting, or you
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: know where they're looking to hunt, whatever it may be. Um,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just trying to give each other some respect. Um.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of times I'll give it honestly. Um, I
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: look for those spots where nobody else will go, and
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of times it'body else shows up. If I
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: have a stand up, I'll go pull it. You know,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: I just I get out of there and I'll go
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: find another spot. Um. That's the beautiful thing about in publicly,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: and you've got a lot of options, So you can
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: always drive to another place and you know, and start
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: to start the whole game over again. Um. So it's
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's tough to deal with sometimes, especially
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: you know, if you've got a spot that you know
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: is you know, is really good and maybe some guy
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: just you know, kind of wanders upon it and you know,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't do all the homework. He just happened to
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: to wander that direction that morning with his climber or
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: whatever it may be. Uh, it can be extremely frustrating,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's just part of the game
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: and you learn to deal with it. And one of
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: those things. If it does happen and you end up
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: shooting a buck on that trip, it's it's that much
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: more rewarding because it was another you know, you had
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: another obstacle you had to you know, I had to
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: deal with and overcome. So and finally here's Tony Peterson
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: with his take on the same issue. H I, you know, restart,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: go somewhere else. It happens all the time. I mean,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: I don't ever go on a hunt like this without
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: having somebody come in on me at some point. It
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: seems like or you know, just stupid stuff like just
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: as an example, last year in Oklahoma had a spot
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: that was about as far away as you could go
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: on any of these public land chunks, and there was
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: a really cool pond with a kind of a wooded
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: draw leading to it, and it was a good spot.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: And I went in there and hunger stand the first
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: day I got there, and uh, I went to go
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: back in there like three days later, and there was
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: some idiot driving is cheep around on this closed road,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: just tearing it up, mudded it up, and you know,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: I knew it was over because you just what are
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: you gonna do? And stuff like that happens. You know,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: people will move in on you. Um it just it
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: just is what it is. And so that's another reason
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: why you want to have your options. And I'm always
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: thinking about that. So if I've got my heart set on,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: you know, this river crossing stand, I may go there
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: and there might be two trucks parked there and fresh
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: track leading right in there. And so then if you
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: don't get too frustrated and you've got to back up,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: you can get there and and not lose your hunting time.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: But it's a constant struggle when you're on public land
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: especially if you get around the rud or opening week
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: where just more people are out, You're just going to
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: run into that. Uh, And it's you know, it's it's
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: part of the process. But like you said, I run
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: into that on private land all the time on some
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: of my farms. So it's just it's just hunting. It
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: seems like there's a lot of bow hunters out there now. Yeah,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: So do you what happens in that case? I mean,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: do you if if a hunter comes in, let's say,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: like you said, and we've we've had it happened many
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: times myself and Dan too. If if that happens, do
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: you immediately say, okay, I need to I need to
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: scrap this spot entirely, or are you willing to give
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: it one more day and see, maybe this is a
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: one time thing. They came through, they walked through the
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: area once and maybe the next day though, you know,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: maybe they won't be there and a big buck comes through.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Do you give it a little time or do you say, right,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: there's been one human invasion, I'm out, I'm moving on
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: to the next place. It depends, It depends how it happens. Um.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Just as an example, last year, when I went out
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: to South Dakota. Um I found a spot that was
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: this walk in area had a cutcorn field, it had
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: it just a phenomenal cedar choked draw that looked like
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: a great betting area. And so I went in there
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: hoping for a gimming you know, the field edge buck.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: And I was sitting there and you know, hour and
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: a half a four dark, two bowl hunters came walking
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: through carrying a full body decoy, just banging it on everything.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: And I had backup spots that I couldn't get to
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: in time, but I had one area that I didn't.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: I hung a stand, but I didn't convince myself to
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: go sit yet. And when they came walking through, I said, okay,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I got two days left. I'm gonna go sit that
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: pond stand that I've been avoiding because I knew it
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: was probably not gonna be I was probably not gonna
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: see a lot of deer down there, but it was
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: probably the right set up to just ride it out
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: because I didn't think anybody would go in there. So
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: when those guys came through and me, I said, okay,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: two days left, I'm going you know, sunrise the sunset
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: on that pond stand just because I thought it's good
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: enough and people won't be there, and I went in
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: there and fat and killed the buck. So there you go.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: This has been my attempt to distill down from a
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of episodes and many many hours of interviews
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: the most important philosophies and strategies for hunting public land
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: white Tales. But but obviously there's a lot more. And
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: if any of this intrigued you, I would definitely encourage
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: you to listen to the full episodes with each one
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: of these guests if you haven't yet, because there is
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: just a ton that I had to cut out, a
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: lot of interesting additional ideas, stories, anecdotes, examples, lots of
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: good stuff in those full episodes, so be sure to
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: check those out, and I hope that some of you
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: found this helpful. I don't know how often I will
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: do these types of review episodes again in the future. Possible,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: never again, because it took just a crazy amount of
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: time to put this thing together. I mean hours and
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: hours and hours of listening back to all these old episodes,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: cutting out the little pieces and then try and put
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: them back in an order that made sense altogether, and
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: edit it all in the one piece in retrospect, it
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: was not the most time friendly project, but hopefully it
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: was available to some of you to have this all
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: in one, cohesive program. So with all that said, enough
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: of this, enough of me, I'm going to wrap this
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: one up. I'm gonna thank you all for taking the
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: time today to listen. I want to wish any of
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: you who are going to be future public land owners,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: I want to wish you all the luck in the world,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: and for everybody else out there. Until next time, I
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: hope you'll stay wired to hunt