Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 831: The Scientific Method for Killing Big Bucks with Thomas Mlsna

Transcript

Ep. 831: The Scientific Method for Killing Big Bucks with Thomas Mlsna · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
0:09
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
0:13
Speaker 1: Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
0:22
Speaker 2: the show, I am joined by whitetail hunting coach and
0:25
Speaker 2: Habitat consultant Thomas Milsna to discuss how he uses the
0:30
Speaker 2: scientific method to kill big bucks. All right, welcome back
0:42
Speaker 2: to another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
0:47
Speaker 2: to you by First Light and their Camel for Conservation
0:50
Speaker 2: initiative and the brand new line of whitetail hunting kits
0:54
Speaker 2: that just came out earlier this year. And today we've
0:57
Speaker 2: got a great episode of very interesting episode. If you
1:00
Speaker 2: are the kind of guy or girl who likes to
1:03
Speaker 2: get into the nitty gritty, if you are a detail
1:06
Speaker 2: oriented hunter, if you care about the little things, about
1:09
Speaker 2: getting a little bit better every single day, this is
1:13
Speaker 2: a conversation you will not want to miss. My guest
1:16
Speaker 2: today is Thomas Milsna. He was on the show earlier
1:19
Speaker 2: this spring during our Habitat series. Just like our guests
1:23
Speaker 2: last week. He came on for a Habitat podcast in
1:26
Speaker 2: the past. Well, Thomas came on for a Habitat podcast
1:29
Speaker 2: this past spring, but I knew we had to get
1:31
Speaker 2: him back on the show to dive into the hunting
1:34
Speaker 2: side of things, because he's got a very interesting approach
1:37
Speaker 2: to doing things. As Bobby was last week. He is
1:41
Speaker 2: very analytical, very thoughtful about how he does things, why
1:46
Speaker 2: he does things. The approach he takes to hunting is
1:49
Speaker 2: not something that happens by accident. It is something that
1:53
Speaker 2: happens because of careful decisions, data analysis, you know, thinking
1:59
Speaker 2: through the stuff that we learn as deer hunters, observations,
2:02
Speaker 2: camera photos, weather factors, historical patterns, time of the year,
2:07
Speaker 2: all of these different moving pieces. Thomas does a really
2:11
Speaker 2: good job of tracking them, studying them, and learning from them.
2:16
Speaker 2: And he likes to think about this the kind of
2:19
Speaker 2: with the language and the kind of structure I guess
2:23
Speaker 2: of the scientific method, the way that scientists go about
2:28
Speaker 2: researching and studying and then developing theories around different things
2:32
Speaker 2: in the world, whether it's physics, the natural world, whatever,
2:37
Speaker 2: you know. He is taking that same approach and applying
2:40
Speaker 2: it to deer hunting. It's very interesting. It's right up
2:43
Speaker 2: my alley. If you've been listening to this podcast, you
2:45
Speaker 2: are probably into the same kinds of things. Thomas is
2:48
Speaker 2: a you know, a dedicated, very successful deer hunter up
2:54
Speaker 2: there in Wisconsin. He worked for a decade for a
2:57
Speaker 2: trail camera company doing research and prototyping and helping develop
3:02
Speaker 2: products on that side. He has a wildlife biology background,
3:05
Speaker 2: and now he is a white tail hunting coach and
3:08
Speaker 2: a habitat consultant and works with folks all over the
3:12
Speaker 2: country to build better wildlife habitat and specifically to build
3:17
Speaker 2: better deer hunters. So that's exactly the kind of person
3:20
Speaker 2: we want to talk to you today. As we are
3:22
Speaker 2: here as I speak in October, with the best part
3:26
Speaker 2: of the hunting season right ahead of us. It's very exciting.
3:29
Speaker 2: So today Thomas is going to break down how he
3:32
Speaker 2: uses the scientific method, how he tracks deer observations and
3:36
Speaker 2: photos and behavior, How he tracks things like his food plots,
3:41
Speaker 2: his food sources, how deer are using them. He tracks pressure.
3:44
Speaker 2: He does something called a pressure audit. We discuss that,
3:47
Speaker 2: We discuss his thoughts on timing, so all the many
3:50
Speaker 2: different variables that maybe influence deer movement. Which of those
3:53
Speaker 2: does he care about? Which of those does maybe he
3:56
Speaker 2: not care about as much. We discuss a lot about
4:00
Speaker 2: tuition versus analysis. We get into some specific ideas that
4:05
Speaker 2: should help you here in October or in November, discussing
4:10
Speaker 2: stand site, you know, strategy, how to pick where a hunt,
4:13
Speaker 2: how to choose when to hunt, how to understand a
4:16
Speaker 2: deer's pattern, and a lot around making better decisions as
4:21
Speaker 2: a deer hunter. So that's what's in store today. It's
4:24
Speaker 2: a good one. You are going to learn something today
4:26
Speaker 2: that will help I can guarantee that. So let's just quit. Uh,
4:31
Speaker 2: let's let I'm gonna stop all at my head. I
4:33
Speaker 2: guess I'm want to say. Let's get to this conversation
4:35
Speaker 2: with Thomas. I hope you enjoy this, and here we go.
4:38
Speaker 2: Let's get into the episode. All right here with me
4:47
Speaker 2: back on the show is Thomas Mills. And Thomas, welcome
4:50
Speaker 2: back to the show.
4:51
Speaker 3: Mark, Thanks for having me.
4:53
Speaker 2: I appreciate you making time. This is a crazy time
4:56
Speaker 2: of year for a lot of us, and I know
4:58
Speaker 2: you just came off of a war, so thank you
5:01
Speaker 2: for being here. And I'm excited about this one because
5:04
Speaker 2: We had a really great chat this spring, but it
5:07
Speaker 2: was just habitat kind of land management philosophy, really good stuff,
5:13
Speaker 2: but I knew there was this whole other half of
5:15
Speaker 2: what you do that we didn't get to touch on
5:17
Speaker 2: at all. And I kind of noted back then like
5:19
Speaker 2: you got to get Thomas back on someday, and I
5:22
Speaker 2: just figure, why not do it sooner than later. So
5:25
Speaker 2: here we are hunting seasons on and the plan for today,
5:30
Speaker 2: Thomas is just to get deep into the weeds of
5:33
Speaker 2: how you approach deer hunting because something about you, I
5:37
Speaker 2: guess it's consistent with a lot of the best deer
5:39
Speaker 2: hunters that I really appreciate and that I learned from
5:41
Speaker 2: the most, at least, are those who are very analytical,
5:44
Speaker 2: those who are very detail oriented. You know, There's some
5:47
Speaker 2: deer hunters who kind of go by feel and it
5:50
Speaker 2: just just have like an intuition and their experience points
5:53
Speaker 2: them in the right direction, and they're very successful despite
5:56
Speaker 2: that or with that. But I have a harder time
6:00
Speaker 2: learning from that person because so much of what they
6:03
Speaker 2: do they can't quite describe. They just know to do it.
6:07
Speaker 2: But then there's other people who do things very thoughtfully
6:11
Speaker 2: who have very clear analytical reasons behind their actions, and
6:16
Speaker 2: you're one of those people. Mark Drury is one of
6:19
Speaker 2: those people. The guy we just talk to not too
6:22
Speaker 2: long ago. Bobby Kendall's like that. I really enjoyed diving
6:26
Speaker 2: into those people's approaches because I think they're you can
6:30
Speaker 2: translate that to action for other people. So it's a
6:33
Speaker 2: very long winded way of fluffing you up and getting
6:35
Speaker 2: you ready for this one time. But uh, you killed
6:39
Speaker 2: the buck recently, so maybe that's a good place to start. Huh.
6:42
Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened?
6:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I want to back up first, because I
6:47
Speaker 3: think you hit the nail right on the head right.
6:49
Speaker 3: I forever was one of those people that hunted with intuition.
6:53
Speaker 3: Right when I went full time consulting and coaching White
6:57
Speaker 3: Tail Coaching, then I had to kind of dial back
7:00
Speaker 3: and be like, how do I explain this to other
7:03
Speaker 3: people so that it makes sense to them and ultimately
7:05
Speaker 3: help them build that intuition Because I think innately we
7:09
Speaker 3: all have that intuition somewhere in there. But I also
7:12
Speaker 3: think that it's also easy to get distracted by, you know,
7:17
Speaker 3: things that you hear you know, you listen to there's
7:20
Speaker 3: a lot of great podcasts out there, obviously yours being
7:22
Speaker 3: one of them, and you might listen to that and
7:25
Speaker 3: think that you need to apply that to your specific
7:28
Speaker 3: situation where maybe it's not applicable, right, and you can
7:33
Speaker 3: get distracted by that, or you know, the latest gear
7:35
Speaker 3: trends on the market. Oh, I need that that's going
7:37
Speaker 3: to help me solve this problem or that problem, And
7:40
Speaker 3: it very well might, but at the same time it
7:43
Speaker 3: might just distract you, you know, be this other shiny object.
7:46
Speaker 3: So when I started consulting, I really really took the
7:50
Speaker 3: time to dig into every situation I was in, every
7:54
Speaker 3: experience that I had, and kind of reverse engineer it
7:57
Speaker 3: and figure out how I put myself in that position.
8:01
Speaker 3: And that's what helped me formulate this approach that I
8:05
Speaker 3: take now working with other clients and on my own too.
8:08
Speaker 3: So the buck that I recently killed, I applied to
8:12
Speaker 3: all the same tactics, right, and I don't have like
8:15
Speaker 3: a very specific strategy so to speak. You know, some
8:20
Speaker 3: guys are real geared towards food plots or you know,
8:24
Speaker 3: creating specified movements on their property, which we do that
8:28
Speaker 3: on client properties. When they're in a situation where they
8:32
Speaker 3: can manipulate habitat, or they have the budget or just
8:35
Speaker 3: the property itself where they can make these changes. My
8:38
Speaker 3: hunting situation, my personal hunting situation, I share a rather
8:43
Speaker 3: large farm. It's about a fifteen hundred acre dairy farm,
8:47
Speaker 3: about four hundred acres of its huntable land. I share
8:50
Speaker 3: that with seventeen other hunters, mostly family members, and because
8:54
Speaker 3: it's a functional farm, that's the priority, right So I
8:59
Speaker 3: can't go to my dad who owns and operates that farm,
9:01
Speaker 3: and say, hey, I want to get rid of this field.
9:05
Speaker 3: Back here this roll crop and put it in switchgrass
9:08
Speaker 3: for better betting, because it's more convenient. You know, I'd
9:10
Speaker 3: like to place deer here, so they move deer, or
9:12
Speaker 3: they move into this area and I can access it better.
9:14
Speaker 3: That's an ideal situation, which you know, again, if you
9:17
Speaker 3: have that control, that's awesome. It's going to create more opportunities.
9:21
Speaker 3: But I've never had that control on that particular property.
9:24
Speaker 3: So my approach has kind of evolved over time, and
9:29
Speaker 3: again it's mostly just how I can explain it better
9:33
Speaker 3: these days, because I have to relate that to other
9:36
Speaker 3: client properties and get them to be able to associate
9:39
Speaker 3: the things that I do, so it's again applicable to
9:42
Speaker 3: their situation.
9:43
Speaker 2: So start to jump in here. But when you're you
9:48
Speaker 2: bring up some really interesting questions for me, because you
9:51
Speaker 2: just said that you used to be kind of that
9:53
Speaker 2: intuitive hunter, and then you had to kind of drill
9:56
Speaker 2: into your own psyche to figure out like why am
9:59
Speaker 2: I doing what I'm doing? How am I doing what
10:01
Speaker 2: I'm doing? And so now you exist in a world
10:03
Speaker 2: where you have figured out a way to explain your
10:07
Speaker 2: approach and you have kind of laid it out. But
10:11
Speaker 2: at the same time, I imagine you still have some
10:13
Speaker 2: of that intuitive stuff happening in your mind. So when
10:16
Speaker 2: you go to make a plan for the day or
10:18
Speaker 2: for the season, how much of that is actually you
10:22
Speaker 2: sitting down and looking at your planner and looking at
10:25
Speaker 2: your notes and looking at like a very much a
10:27
Speaker 2: formulaic approach. I know you have the ability to do
10:30
Speaker 2: that because you've now broke it all down. So how
10:32
Speaker 2: much of it do you actually do yourself versus go
10:35
Speaker 2: by feel? And how do you know when to go
10:37
Speaker 2: by feel versus when to follow the formula?
10:40
Speaker 3: I would say the formula takes me about the first
10:43
Speaker 3: eighty five to ninety percent, and then that last ten
10:46
Speaker 3: percent has to be by feel. And you know that
10:48
Speaker 3: intuition has to come into play at some point because
10:50
Speaker 3: there's so many variables involved and things are always changing,
10:54
Speaker 3: and that's the thing. So I employ what I refer
10:57
Speaker 3: to as a scientific approach to hunting strategy, and simply put,
11:01
Speaker 3: it's utilizing the scientific method to figure out what's going on. Right,
11:07
Speaker 3: So the scientific method, you're observing, analyzing. Then you're researching
11:12
Speaker 3: or in the hunting world referred to that as scouting, right,
11:14
Speaker 3: So we're collecting information. Then you're putting together a theory.
11:18
Speaker 3: Then you're trying to test that theory, prove or disprove
11:20
Speaker 3: the theory. And then once you've if you've proved the theory,
11:24
Speaker 3: you know, you might prove it by a trail camera okay, yes,
11:27
Speaker 3: I'm getting a picture here, now I know that's happening.
11:29
Speaker 3: Or you might prove it by actually going out and
11:31
Speaker 3: hunting or observing from a distance, you know, firsthand experience.
11:35
Speaker 3: But once you've proved that theory, if you're not actually executing,
11:38
Speaker 3: then the next step is to plan and prepare and
11:41
Speaker 3: then finally actually execute. If you just keep repeating that
11:44
Speaker 3: cycle over and over again. You can either one fine
11:48
Speaker 3: tune your property. You know, here's my theory. Oh it
11:51
Speaker 3: worked up to this point, but oh, actually that's not
11:53
Speaker 3: that good of a betting area, or my access isn't
11:56
Speaker 3: that good. So these are things I need to work
11:57
Speaker 3: on in the off season, or you have to just
12:00
Speaker 3: adjust that and you know, recalibrate essentially. But ultimately, what
12:05
Speaker 3: it comes down to is the more information that you have,
12:08
Speaker 3: the more precise that theory can be. And you know,
12:11
Speaker 3: observation is such an important factor there, which in this
12:15
Speaker 3: day and age with technology, you know, trail cameras and everything,
12:18
Speaker 3: you can collect a lot of information. But again, I
12:20
Speaker 3: think it's easy to get us distracted by a lot
12:23
Speaker 3: of the information too, and I think that's.
12:25
Speaker 2: A big part of it. Yeah, I just have to
12:27
Speaker 2: say that I love so much that you just describe
12:31
Speaker 2: the scientific method on a deer hunting podcast, because that
12:34
Speaker 2: is that's so much in line with how I approach
12:37
Speaker 2: things and so key and I think a key thing
12:40
Speaker 2: is a lot of deer hunters will just go and
12:42
Speaker 2: do a thing, and we'll do it over and over
12:43
Speaker 2: and over again, so maybe they have a theory. Sorry,
12:47
Speaker 2: a hypothesis and they they try it out, but they
12:50
Speaker 2: just keep on trying it and they're never actually paying
12:52
Speaker 2: attention to the feedback they're getting and then adjusting. And
12:54
Speaker 2: that that's such an important part is you test to
12:57
Speaker 2: your hypothesis, but then you have to listen to the feedback,
13:00
Speaker 2: either confirm or deny your hypothesis, and then launch a
13:04
Speaker 2: new experiment try again. And that is that is a
13:10
Speaker 2: huge key to ever successfully figuring out how to kill
13:13
Speaker 2: mature bucks. You just lay it out there very clearly
13:17
Speaker 2: for if somebody wants a basic formula for how to
13:19
Speaker 2: go out and just do this and get better and
13:21
Speaker 2: better and better, it's that. If you want to oversimplify,
13:25
Speaker 2: it's right there.
13:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's exactly it, you know. And that's how
13:30
Speaker 3: we can apply effective hunting strategy to any situation. It's
13:34
Speaker 3: by analyzing it, right, just kind of breaking it down,
13:37
Speaker 3: what you know, what does that situation offer? What type
13:39
Speaker 3: of opportunities are there? Or you know, there's two sides
13:42
Speaker 3: of that, right, what's there for the public land guy
13:46
Speaker 3: or the permission hunting person or maybe even lease a property.
13:50
Speaker 3: You're trying to take advantage of a situation versus what's
13:54
Speaker 3: there currently and what do I want to be there?
13:56
Speaker 3: So I call it the scientific approach. Technically, it's like
14:00
Speaker 3: a pseudo scientific approach, right, because there's a couple of
14:02
Speaker 3: things there. One, it's not really a repeatable process down
14:06
Speaker 3: to a t because every situation is going to be
14:08
Speaker 3: a little bit different. Right, once you've killed that deer
14:12
Speaker 3: and it's it's new variables the next time around. There's
14:14
Speaker 3: a lot of things that come into play time and
14:17
Speaker 3: time again, right, So you learn a lot every time
14:19
Speaker 3: you start to see deer with similar personalities over the years,
14:22
Speaker 3: or following certain trends or patterns on your property, But
14:26
Speaker 3: ultimately it's a little bit different every time. The other
14:29
Speaker 3: thing too is, you know, we were not completely objective
14:32
Speaker 3: with our analysis of the situation because we do have
14:35
Speaker 3: a very specific goal. But again that works in our favor.
14:39
Speaker 3: But then when it correct correct a lot of incomplete information, yep.
14:44
Speaker 3: But then the other thing, you know is when it
14:46
Speaker 3: comes to the hypothesis or creating that theory, there's two
14:49
Speaker 3: ways to look at that too. One is what's actually
14:52
Speaker 3: happening right now? You know, again, is it a situation
14:55
Speaker 3: where you have no control or is it game time?
14:58
Speaker 3: You know, are we in season like we are now,
15:00
Speaker 3: so what are we trying to analyze that we can
15:01
Speaker 3: make happen right now? But then the other side of it,
15:05
Speaker 3: and I strongly suggest people thinking that this way too,
15:09
Speaker 3: is what do we want to happen? Because if we're
15:11
Speaker 3: looking at the current situation and we're at the same
15:14
Speaker 3: time thinking about like how we actually want this to
15:16
Speaker 3: play out, then when it comes to the postseason stuff
15:19
Speaker 3: and the habitat work or or just these little what
15:22
Speaker 3: I refer to as micro adjustments, you know, you know,
15:24
Speaker 3: are these deer all moving through this area like we hypothesize,
15:28
Speaker 3: but we can't get a shot at all of them? Okay,
15:30
Speaker 3: let's pinch this down a little bit more, create a
15:32
Speaker 3: little bit better pinch point or again, you know, access
15:33
Speaker 3: all those things that come into play. So there's two
15:36
Speaker 3: ways to approach that with you know, what's actually happening,
15:38
Speaker 3: what we want to happen. But ultimately, yes, we just
15:41
Speaker 3: work through that process and we're just trying to learn
15:44
Speaker 3: every time, every time we try to build on that
15:46
Speaker 3: a little bit more, a little bit more. So to
15:48
Speaker 3: go all the way back and answer your question on
15:50
Speaker 3: the you know, the analytical approach versus intuition. The data
15:55
Speaker 3: for me generally is what points me in that direction.
15:58
Speaker 3: And you know, for example, this buck that I just
16:01
Speaker 3: killed tagged out my second hunt, should have tagged out
16:04
Speaker 3: my first hunt of the season, but ultimately my second
16:07
Speaker 3: time out there that deer, in particular, I had the
16:11
Speaker 3: data in the past experiences from trail cameras and you know,
16:16
Speaker 3: first hand observation and hunting to know where that deer
16:19
Speaker 3: was going to be around a certain time of the year.
16:22
Speaker 3: And then what it came down to actually was the
16:26
Speaker 3: most recent trail camera information that I had, and kind
16:28
Speaker 3: of going through that data, that's where I use that planner,
16:31
Speaker 3: and I just kind of fill out when you know, time, date, location,
16:34
Speaker 3: where that buck showed up. Really try to focus on
16:38
Speaker 3: pictures obviously during daylight or close to daylight during those
16:41
Speaker 3: hunting hours. You know, pictures in the middle of the
16:44
Speaker 3: night don't often tell you a lot. They tell you
16:46
Speaker 3: the deers in the area, but not always applicable to
16:49
Speaker 3: the hunting them, right. But I go through that information
16:52
Speaker 3: and I start to drill into these four key elements,
16:55
Speaker 3: which you probably saw some of that in those the
16:57
Speaker 3: habits before Habitat video, but those four key elements really
17:01
Speaker 3: are critical in simplifying but still quantifying all these variables
17:08
Speaker 3: and and that's, you know, ultimately what we use to
17:10
Speaker 3: apply to the research side of things and then also
17:12
Speaker 3: use those to create that theory. I think it just
17:14
Speaker 3: simplifies things and it goes back to being able to
17:17
Speaker 3: explain it to people in an easier way.
17:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, so can you can you redescribe or can
17:33
Speaker 2: you can you take what you just kind of detailed
17:35
Speaker 2: there a little bit and put it into like the
17:38
Speaker 2: scientific approach kind of formula that you have, Like how
17:41
Speaker 2: you took this historical knowledge and the recent knowledge and
17:44
Speaker 2: then built a hypothesis that then you're going to test hunting.
17:48
Speaker 2: Can you describe how you did that? I think it's
17:50
Speaker 2: it's a very interesting example of how we can think
17:53
Speaker 2: about taking this scientific approach and apply it to our
17:55
Speaker 2: own hunts.
17:57
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, you know again step number one, observe, analyze.
18:01
Speaker 3: We're essentially what we're trying to do there is ask
18:03
Speaker 3: the questions based on our goals, So where is that
18:06
Speaker 3: deer going to be? When do I think I have
18:08
Speaker 3: the best opportunity to kill him? And then the second
18:12
Speaker 3: step is that research, collecting information and Again, more information
18:16
Speaker 3: you have, the more precise that theory can become. So
18:19
Speaker 3: in this particular situation, I've got three years of history
18:23
Speaker 3: with this deer as a three year old. He's a
18:25
Speaker 3: real nice ten pointer. Saw him a lot while I
18:28
Speaker 3: was hunting another deer on the property. You know, obviously
18:30
Speaker 3: I passed him up at that time to let him
18:32
Speaker 3: express his potential. But that's information. Knowing where that deer
18:36
Speaker 3: was during certain times of the year, certain times of
18:39
Speaker 3: the season, all comes into play. You go up one
18:42
Speaker 3: more year, now he's a four year old. What are
18:44
Speaker 3: his patterns, where his movements taking place, and where is
18:48
Speaker 3: he at certain times of the year, And then you know,
18:51
Speaker 3: from there we start to really drill into the specifics
18:54
Speaker 3: of the situation. So on the research side of things,
18:58
Speaker 3: that's where again these four key elements come in play.
19:00
Speaker 3: And those four key elements are wind. And by wind,
19:03
Speaker 3: I mean you know air movement in general, the wind direction.
19:07
Speaker 3: Weather is a factor there, thermal air movement. But how
19:10
Speaker 3: is that air flowing and how does that affect those deer.
19:13
Speaker 3: So wind is the first one, and I would say
19:15
Speaker 3: wind is king because that dictates so much and you
19:17
Speaker 3: have no control over it, right, you have to obey
19:19
Speaker 3: what the wind's doing and work with it. The second
19:22
Speaker 3: element is pressure, and by pressure, I mean anything that
19:26
Speaker 3: causes discomfort or puts, you know, stress on deer to
19:32
Speaker 3: a level that alters their behavior, either long term or
19:34
Speaker 3: short term. I have to clarify that because I'm not
19:37
Speaker 3: talking about like barometric pressure. That's more weather related. So
19:40
Speaker 3: pressure is the second key element. The third key element
19:43
Speaker 3: is food. The food is what's going to define the
19:46
Speaker 3: movement and obviously hold animals in an area, and that
19:49
Speaker 3: alters you know, changes throughout the season as well. And
19:52
Speaker 3: then the fourth key element, which is really the glue
19:55
Speaker 3: that ties everything together, is the timing element. You know,
19:58
Speaker 3: so as hunters were try to figure out where and
20:01
Speaker 3: we're trying to figure out when, those are the biggest things.
20:04
Speaker 3: So the where is often dictated by the combination of wind, pressure,
20:08
Speaker 3: and food. And then the timing element is obviously the
20:10
Speaker 3: when factor involved there. So with this deer in particular,
20:14
Speaker 3: knowing what I knew from previous seasons and then looking
20:17
Speaker 3: at the timing element of an early season hunt, I
20:21
Speaker 3: actually didn't even expect that deer to be as consistent
20:26
Speaker 3: as he was on the property early in the season.
20:29
Speaker 3: In the years past, he'd kind of hit the food
20:31
Speaker 3: plots a little bit. But I'm competing with four hundred
20:34
Speaker 3: and fifty acres of alfalfa on this farm, and generally
20:37
Speaker 3: early in the season, alfalfa wins. You know, Alfalfa is
20:41
Speaker 3: a hugely, very very attractive, very palatable food source for deer.
20:45
Speaker 3: So it's both an advantage and a disadvantage at the
20:47
Speaker 3: same time, which is where I've really evolved to pay
20:50
Speaker 3: attention to the wind more often than anything else, and
20:53
Speaker 3: that was what I looked at, so, you know, kind
20:56
Speaker 3: of bring the story element into this scientific method. Essentially,
21:00
Speaker 3: what happened was I was out in Wyoming for ten days,
21:04
Speaker 3: came back, and then before well, you know, season already
21:08
Speaker 3: started here in Wisconsin, it starts mid September. But before
21:11
Speaker 3: I really got full on into white tail hunting mode,
21:15
Speaker 3: I still had to wrap up some client property projects
21:18
Speaker 3: excuse me, and also my own property. And one of
21:23
Speaker 3: those things was spreading cereal rye on all my food plots.
21:25
Speaker 3: So I was top of them with cereal rye. It's
21:27
Speaker 3: a good cool season cover crop, extra food source, so
21:30
Speaker 3: I'm out doing that in client properties. I ZiT by
21:33
Speaker 3: our home farm. I spread ryan all those food plots there,
21:36
Speaker 3: and while I'm there, I just pulled a couple of
21:38
Speaker 3: cards from trail cameras. I don't run a ton of
21:40
Speaker 3: cell cameras. I can't even run cell cameras in most
21:43
Speaker 3: of the spots I want to anyways, because there's no
21:45
Speaker 3: cell service. So I checked those cameras, and then I
21:47
Speaker 3: checked one camera in particular that's actually just off the
21:51
Speaker 3: access road. So this valley where I harvested this year,
21:55
Speaker 3: there's two food plots, two main food plots in this valley,
21:58
Speaker 3: and then the access road goes through the valley up
22:01
Speaker 3: to this back ridge to you know, the back ridge
22:04
Speaker 3: full of fields, egg fields, and there's one spot in
22:08
Speaker 3: particular where the deer kind of drop off one ridge
22:10
Speaker 3: and then go up on the other ridge. So I've
22:12
Speaker 3: got a camera there. It's an awesome setup for a
22:15
Speaker 3: camera because it tells me the human activity going up
22:18
Speaker 3: and down that road, but it also monitors those deer.
22:20
Speaker 3: And it's really easy to get to. There's a lot
22:22
Speaker 3: of times where I'll show up on the property and
22:23
Speaker 3: I'll just drive my truck right down there. You know,
22:25
Speaker 3: I take one step out the door, swap the card
22:27
Speaker 3: and I'm out of there, doesn't really disturbed the deer.
22:31
Speaker 3: So that camera, in combination with these two food plot cameras,
22:35
Speaker 3: painted this picture for me that this deer was in
22:37
Speaker 3: the area. And one photo in particular is what really
22:43
Speaker 3: drew me in to actually take the steps to go
22:47
Speaker 3: after this deer as early as I did, because I
22:49
Speaker 3: actually only had a few pictures of him on that
22:51
Speaker 3: food plot. And it's important to note, you know, I
22:54
Speaker 3: talk about these trail camera rules and everything, but one
22:56
Speaker 3: of my rules of trail cameras is that they only
22:59
Speaker 3: tell you what's going on twenty feet in front of them, right.
23:02
Speaker 3: My research background, we refer to that as a sampling rate.
23:06
Speaker 3: So you know, I hunted that food plot two nights
23:09
Speaker 3: before I killed that deer, and both nights I saw
23:12
Speaker 3: you know, ten fifteen deer flowing through that area. They
23:15
Speaker 3: all kind of flowed through this transition food plot and
23:17
Speaker 3: then worked their way off. And that buck included one
23:20
Speaker 3: night he was on that plot for over an hour.
23:22
Speaker 3: I never had a picture on that camera any of
23:23
Speaker 3: those nights, so it just kind of, you know, solidifies
23:27
Speaker 3: that concept of you know, not banking too much or
23:30
Speaker 3: relying too much on those trail cameras, but using them
23:33
Speaker 3: to collect information to prove or disprove theories. But the
23:36
Speaker 3: one picture in particular that really kind of triggered me
23:40
Speaker 3: to go that route was on that road, that crossing
23:44
Speaker 3: on the road between Betting areas, on these ridges, and
23:47
Speaker 3: the picture was at like twelve forty pm, I believe.
23:50
Speaker 3: So I went back and I look at the weather
23:52
Speaker 3: history data. You know, I log all these pictures. I
23:54
Speaker 3: just simply time and date.
23:56
Speaker 2: So it's start twelve forty pm, so like middle of
23:58
Speaker 2: the day, middle of the day on this ridge road.
24:02
Speaker 3: Yep, correct, correct, yep. So so I start and I
24:06
Speaker 3: just you know, as I'm going through my trail camera cards.
24:08
Speaker 3: And this is one of the reasons why I'm not
24:11
Speaker 3: a I'm not anti cell cams, but I'm not a huge,
24:14
Speaker 3: huge propolling of cell cams. I think having a few
24:16
Speaker 3: cell cams on the property it is kind of a
24:18
Speaker 3: temperature check, is great. But I think there's this big
24:21
Speaker 3: disconnect with the information you're getting from cell cameras, the
24:25
Speaker 3: way you receive that information versus going out You're putting
24:30
Speaker 3: yourself in this information collection mode and swapping a card.
24:33
Speaker 3: You know, when you're out there you're observing. Okay, is
24:35
Speaker 3: there any fresh sign around this camera? What's the brows
24:38
Speaker 3: look like on this food plot?
24:39
Speaker 2: Oh?
24:39
Speaker 3: Wa, and they're really chewing down the food plot. You
24:42
Speaker 3: know how many times you go out check a camera
24:44
Speaker 3: and you see a row of fresh scrapes or rubs
24:46
Speaker 3: in the area, stuff like that, and then you go
24:48
Speaker 3: back and you sit down and you scroll through that
24:51
Speaker 3: card in chronological order, and it really paints this picture
24:54
Speaker 3: of what's happening in the area. You do that with
24:56
Speaker 3: two or three cameras in the area, and now you
24:58
Speaker 3: kind of get a feel like, Okay, you are kind
25:00
Speaker 3: of moving around the property doing this or doing that,
25:03
Speaker 3: versus a cell camera where more often than not, you know,
25:06
Speaker 3: I don't want to speak to generally, but more often
25:09
Speaker 3: than not, you get that cell cam pick oh big buck,
25:12
Speaker 3: screenshot it and that's it. Like a lot of people
25:15
Speaker 3: don't even look at the time and date. They're not
25:16
Speaker 3: even storing that information, but it just doesn't really help
25:19
Speaker 3: your brain process that information real Well.
25:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm beginning to feel that same way too, as
25:24
Speaker 2: I've been looking at, you know, putting together my plans
25:27
Speaker 2: for some deer this year, and I've just been thinking
25:29
Speaker 2: about how it's a different it's different. I mean, you
25:32
Speaker 2: described it right. Instead of looking things at a big picture,
25:36
Speaker 2: you just kind of get this steady, light trickle of
25:38
Speaker 2: information that requires a little bit different kind of work
25:42
Speaker 2: to then create the effect that you described, which happens
25:45
Speaker 2: naturally when you get a dump, you know, every couple
25:48
Speaker 2: weeks or something, and you look at all of it
25:50
Speaker 2: all right now, And it's easier to log for some
25:53
Speaker 2: reason for me too, when you have to go through
25:55
Speaker 2: that card. I've had a harder time keeping track with
26:00
Speaker 2: cell cameras the way I used to when I had
26:02
Speaker 2: all my pictures actual hard copy pictures, not hard copy,
26:06
Speaker 2: but you know, I would organize them and folders on
26:08
Speaker 2: my computer, and now everything that lives in the cloud
26:11
Speaker 2: and you have to do it with tags and folders
26:14
Speaker 2: in your app, and it's different. I think you're I
26:17
Speaker 2: think you're right. I kind of want to go back
26:18
Speaker 2: to that somehow.
26:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, technology is great, but technology it
26:26
Speaker 3: separates us from the natural connection. Right. So I'm not
26:29
Speaker 3: here to knock trail camera companies by any means, But
26:33
Speaker 3: the more we rely on technology, the more disconnected from
26:36
Speaker 3: nature we get. And again this kind of goes back
26:38
Speaker 3: to that primitive or innate ability to to use our
26:42
Speaker 3: intuition to track dear. I mean, we're born to do
26:45
Speaker 3: those things. We're born to hunt like that. So but yeah,
26:49
Speaker 3: so I scroll through those cards and I'm logging information.
26:52
Speaker 3: I don't I don't go crazy on details. I'm just
26:54
Speaker 3: scrolling through. Okay, there's that book time date, location, time date,
26:57
Speaker 3: location time date, location, and certain pictures will really catch
27:01
Speaker 3: my eye. But a lot of times what I do
27:03
Speaker 3: is I'll just go back and then I go I
27:05
Speaker 3: use weather Underground, So I just go to Weather Underground
27:07
Speaker 3: or just just google weather history by location, and I'm
27:11
Speaker 3: specifically looking at the AM wind direction and the PM
27:15
Speaker 3: wind direction. That AM wind direction is what's going to
27:19
Speaker 3: place those deer in those betting areas. Right, So if
27:22
Speaker 3: we just think about what we know about how mature
27:24
Speaker 3: bucks like to bed, you know, it's simply put as possible,
27:28
Speaker 3: back to cover wind at their back, right, and then
27:30
Speaker 3: you know they like to have a site advantage, so
27:33
Speaker 3: a little bit elevations usually a good spot, but back
27:35
Speaker 3: to cover wind at their back. So in an area
27:38
Speaker 3: with topography or you know ungulation and topography, those topographical changes.
27:43
Speaker 3: You can a lot of times just look at the
27:45
Speaker 3: hills and the ridges and stuff and go by process
27:47
Speaker 3: of elimination. On this wind, He's probably not going to
27:50
Speaker 3: bed here, He's probably not going to bed there. He's
27:52
Speaker 3: probably not going to bed there. Because topography is the
27:53
Speaker 3: greatest form of cover there is, so as long as
27:56
Speaker 3: it provides those other survival advantages, you can really drill
27:59
Speaker 3: in on where those deer are. And then so with
28:02
Speaker 3: this particular card poll, going through those pictures and that
28:05
Speaker 3: one picture at twelve forty PM, I was like, oh,
28:09
Speaker 3: some you know, something had that deer on his feet,
28:10
Speaker 3: either pressure, something bumped him, or a wind shift. So
28:14
Speaker 3: I go back and look at the weather history, and
28:16
Speaker 3: sure enough, the wind was out of one direction in
28:18
Speaker 3: the morning and it changed at like eleven forty five,
28:22
Speaker 3: and at twelve forty he moved, so he was probably
28:25
Speaker 3: relatively close, you know, And they don't get up and
28:27
Speaker 3: move instantly because that wind it bounces around a lot.
28:29
Speaker 3: So but that drove him to change his betting location.
28:34
Speaker 3: So then when it came to the actual hunt, I
28:36
Speaker 3: just started drilling in, going, okay, we have a cold
28:38
Speaker 3: front moving in, And that was really what drove it
28:42
Speaker 3: more than anything. Right, I posted that on social media,
28:44
Speaker 3: this is going to be a good hunt, and I
28:46
Speaker 3: was thinking to myself, I like, damn, I should probably
28:48
Speaker 3: get out there at hunt. Right, But in my brain,
28:50
Speaker 3: you know, back to painting this picture of how I
28:52
Speaker 3: thought my season was going to pan out. I wasn't
28:55
Speaker 3: actually anticipating pursuing this buck very much until the end
28:58
Speaker 3: of October early November. That's when he was more visible
29:00
Speaker 3: on the property. But the older of deer gets, the
29:04
Speaker 3: more predictable they are. You know, they really narrow their
29:08
Speaker 3: range and if you can pick up on where they are,
29:11
Speaker 3: they're more predictable. But then also early season, you know
29:14
Speaker 3: that timing element. Early season, if they're not messed with,
29:17
Speaker 3: which the pressure is pretty low, then they don't really
29:20
Speaker 3: change their pattern a whole lot. So looking at the wind, Okay,
29:23
Speaker 3: we've got north wind. I just started looking at the
29:25
Speaker 3: map and going, where do I think the best food
29:28
Speaker 3: sources are in this area. Well, I've got this one
29:30
Speaker 3: food plot down on this bottom that's very attractive. It's
29:34
Speaker 3: a really really good food plot, but it's really hard
29:37
Speaker 3: to hunt. In fact, I just moved I had a
29:39
Speaker 3: box blind over that food plot for like five years
29:42
Speaker 3: and I just moved it to a different location because
29:45
Speaker 3: it was an access issue. You know, there's deer on
29:47
Speaker 3: that plot almost every night according to the camera, but
29:50
Speaker 3: every time you hunt it, you don't see a deer.
29:52
Speaker 3: So that tells me the deer know you're entering that valley,
29:54
Speaker 3: they know how you're accessing that plot. This situation. This year,
29:58
Speaker 3: there's a on the other side of this access roads.
30:01
Speaker 3: This plot's literally right off this access road in the valley,
30:04
Speaker 3: on the other side of the access roads in Aggfield.
30:06
Speaker 3: And this year it's alfalfa, or excuse me, it's corn.
30:09
Speaker 3: Last year was alfalfa, so it's corn. So look at
30:12
Speaker 3: the map based on the wind direction forecasted going okay,
30:16
Speaker 3: I think on that wind, if that buck is in
30:19
Speaker 3: this valley, which it seems like he is hanging out
30:22
Speaker 3: in this valley, he's going to bed here or here,
30:24
Speaker 3: And both of them kind of fed into this food
30:28
Speaker 3: plot as a setup. So the next thing is access
30:31
Speaker 3: with that, and I'm like, well, I know I can't
30:33
Speaker 3: come down that road and I don't have a box
30:36
Speaker 3: blind there anymore to even hunt over this food plot.
30:39
Speaker 3: But with that cornfield being up, I think I can
30:41
Speaker 3: come in from the bottom of the valley and just
30:43
Speaker 3: stay in the corn the whole time. Get into location
30:46
Speaker 3: where I can see this food plot, and then I'll
30:47
Speaker 3: just make myself a little blind and sit on the
30:50
Speaker 3: ground in the cornfield. And ultimately that's what happened. And
30:53
Speaker 3: then you know the other factors involved there. When we
30:54
Speaker 3: talk about the four key elements, the second key element
30:57
Speaker 3: being pressure, and pressure is what's going to limit potential
31:00
Speaker 3: in every situation, right, is that stirring up deer. You know,
31:03
Speaker 3: if there's too much pressure, they've become less predictable at
31:06
Speaker 3: some level. Sometimes pressure can be a tool to really
31:08
Speaker 3: move dear to certain areas. But the pressure concept there
31:12
Speaker 3: or element where that deer was betted potentially betted, you know,
31:17
Speaker 3: again backing up to this just being a theory in
31:20
Speaker 3: my head, right where that deer was betting moving to food.
31:23
Speaker 3: He's either going to drop down in this valley and
31:25
Speaker 3: go to this food plot or he's going to go
31:27
Speaker 3: up on top of the hill and hit an alfalfa field. Well,
31:30
Speaker 3: with pressure in mind, they had just chopped the corn
31:34
Speaker 3: off the top of that ridge, so there's contour strips,
31:37
Speaker 3: but there's been a lot of activity up there on
31:39
Speaker 3: top of that, we're actually we're planning to start logging
31:43
Speaker 3: this chunk of woods right next to this betting area
31:45
Speaker 3: and part of that betting area. In fact, I called
31:48
Speaker 3: the logger on Tuesday morning. I killed that deer on
31:51
Speaker 3: September twenty fourth, Tuesday. I called him that morning. I
31:55
Speaker 3: was like, hey, I need one more day. It give
31:57
Speaker 3: me one more day before you go in there. I
31:59
Speaker 3: just need one And it worked out, obviously, But they
32:03
Speaker 3: were in there kind of scouting out what they were
32:05
Speaker 3: gonna do with logging, so I knew someone was in
32:07
Speaker 3: there bumping around on the top of that ridge. And
32:09
Speaker 3: when this buck was betted was kind of like second
32:11
Speaker 3: level down there's like a little a little bowl area
32:15
Speaker 3: with a elevated position, and then it drops down even
32:18
Speaker 3: further from there into kind of a swamp. Then you
32:19
Speaker 3: come back up the other side. That's where the food
32:21
Speaker 3: plot is. So all those factors at play, you know again,
32:25
Speaker 3: wind pressure and the food being the most attractive thing
32:29
Speaker 3: early in the season, and that timing element was kind
32:31
Speaker 3: of glues out all together. That's what prompted me to
32:34
Speaker 3: go in after that deer and make that move.
32:37
Speaker 2: One more question on the timing. You mentioned the cold front,
32:40
Speaker 2: and you mentioned the daylight photo in the middle of
32:42
Speaker 2: the day, but was that the only daylight activity you'd
32:45
Speaker 2: seen with cameras for him? Had everything else been at
32:47
Speaker 2: night there in that area.
32:49
Speaker 3: Yes, there were a few daytime pictures again on that
32:53
Speaker 3: road crossing so close to betting areas, and there there
32:59
Speaker 3: might have been a couple, like really close to the
33:01
Speaker 3: Donner Dusk on that food plot. But actually I only
33:04
Speaker 3: had like one or two pictures of him on that
33:06
Speaker 3: actual food plot.
33:07
Speaker 2: Okay, but again basically sorry, the photos confirmed he's in
33:12
Speaker 2: this valley, and then the timing of the cold front
33:17
Speaker 2: came coming through. Said, Okay, he's in the valley based
33:20
Speaker 2: on these photos and based on history, and now the
33:23
Speaker 2: front is a thing that I think will shift him
33:25
Speaker 2: to daylight and this is my window before pressure gets worse,
33:30
Speaker 2: Which brought you down to that specific scenario.
33:32
Speaker 3: Which, yeah, that's exactly it. That cold front is going
33:36
Speaker 3: to promote early movement, you know, not saying he wasn't
33:39
Speaker 3: already shown up there a little bit early every day
33:41
Speaker 3: because again the camera doesn't show you everything. But that's
33:44
Speaker 3: gonna increase the chances of success on that sit So
33:48
Speaker 3: you know, ultimately that comes back to the pressure element too, right,
33:51
Speaker 3: It's like, I don't want to hunt that if I
33:54
Speaker 3: think I'm going to add pressure without the opportunity of
33:56
Speaker 3: harvesting that deer, knowing that you can only get it
33:58
Speaker 3: in out of those spots so many times adding pressure
34:00
Speaker 3: to it.
34:01
Speaker 2: Right, So that brings up kind of the final situation
34:05
Speaker 2: because you went in there, you slipped in through the corn,
34:07
Speaker 2: you hunted your little ground blind, you made there hiding
34:10
Speaker 2: in the standing corn on the ground, and crept me
34:13
Speaker 2: from wrong. But I think you saw him the first
34:15
Speaker 2: night and you couldn't get a shot at him, how'd
34:18
Speaker 2: you manage to still get him killed, how'd you get
34:20
Speaker 2: out of there without spooking him in the other deer,
34:22
Speaker 2: and how to end up actually coming together?
34:26
Speaker 3: So you know, this was kind of an impromptu setup,
34:29
Speaker 3: but it's basically the same as what we're trying to
34:31
Speaker 3: engineer on most client properties, which is good screen to
34:34
Speaker 3: access and exit. And with the wind blowing the direction
34:38
Speaker 3: that it was that first night he came in and actually,
34:42
Speaker 3: you know, I couldn't one hundred percent confirm it was him,
34:44
Speaker 3: but I could see across the swamp into the shadows
34:47
Speaker 3: in the timber, and actually I caught my eye was
34:49
Speaker 3: there's one apple tree across the swamp and a dope
34:51
Speaker 3: popped out in the sunlight for a minute. And then
34:53
Speaker 3: when I started glassing across there, I could see in
34:56
Speaker 3: the shadows more deer and I could see antlers, So
34:59
Speaker 3: there were bucks in that. And what they basically did
35:01
Speaker 3: was they worked down that timber into this creek bottom
35:04
Speaker 3: and they got the wind at their face, and then
35:06
Speaker 3: they came up on the south end of this food plot.
35:07
Speaker 3: It was a north wind, right, so they came into
35:09
Speaker 3: the south end of this food plot that night. And
35:12
Speaker 3: actually this goes into the trail camera thing too, which
35:15
Speaker 3: is kind of a little pro tip. The first year
35:18
Speaker 3: that showed up on that food plot was this smaller buck,
35:20
Speaker 3: like a three year old nine pointer, and right away
35:22
Speaker 3: I recognized him as kind of a running mate of
35:25
Speaker 3: this this five year old buck that I was after.
35:28
Speaker 3: So right when I saw him, I was like, okay,
35:29
Speaker 3: maybe this buck's with him. And the tip there is
35:32
Speaker 3: you know, again, this camera's only tell you so much,
35:35
Speaker 3: but you might get pictures of that running made of
35:38
Speaker 3: that buck, especially early in the season, right, and it's
35:41
Speaker 3: you don't want to assume, but there's a good chance
35:44
Speaker 3: that if he's in the area, the other bucks in
35:46
Speaker 3: the area with him as well. So both those bucks
35:48
Speaker 3: entered the plot, and almost simultaneously, another small buck entered
35:52
Speaker 3: the plot from the north side, and pretty soon there's
35:54
Speaker 3: some doze in the plot. And it was kind of chaotic. Actually,
35:57
Speaker 3: you know, I'm sitting on the ground trying not to move,
35:58
Speaker 3: but at the same time, I really enjoyed taking video
36:00
Speaker 3: and taking pictures of these deer. And actually it kind
36:03
Speaker 3: of it kind of burned me because that eight pointer
36:08
Speaker 3: or nine point, excuse me, he picked out some movement
36:10
Speaker 3: in the corn and he was locked on to me
36:12
Speaker 3: as I'm trying to videotape this bigger buck, and he
36:16
Speaker 3: spooped right away, like he kind of got on alert,
36:19
Speaker 3: and he took one step towards me, and then he
36:20
Speaker 3: freaked out and took off running. But there's just enough
36:23
Speaker 3: of a knoll in this food plot, and the bigger
36:26
Speaker 3: buck was still in the south end and he was
36:28
Speaker 3: feeding heavy. And then on the north end, the smaller buck,
36:31
Speaker 3: this little basket eight, was just raking a tree along
36:34
Speaker 3: the side of the plot, and that buck when he
36:36
Speaker 3: looked up. I think he took a couple of steps forward.
36:38
Speaker 3: He looked up to kind of acknowledge what just happened,
36:40
Speaker 3: and he saw that buck making noise, and deer don't
36:43
Speaker 3: think they react right, So he's not thinking like, oh,
36:46
Speaker 3: what what spooked that deer? I should probably be on alert.
36:49
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, what was that noise or what was
36:51
Speaker 3: that chaos there? Oh, it's just him. So I ended
36:54
Speaker 3: up watching my target buck for almost an hour a
36:57
Speaker 3: little actually a little over an hour, And there were
37:00
Speaker 3: many times where I almost took a shot, but there
37:04
Speaker 3: were long range shots, and I, you know, I just
37:06
Speaker 3: came from out west. I shot two animals at pretty
37:09
Speaker 3: long ranges. I shoot a lot, so I'm confident in that.
37:12
Speaker 3: But the difference between a mule deer or even an
37:15
Speaker 3: antelope and a white tail with how they react to
37:18
Speaker 3: that arrow is completely different.
37:20
Speaker 2: You know.
37:20
Speaker 3: Most of the time, those western animals they just watched
37:22
Speaker 3: that arrow sail until it hits them or hits the dirt.
37:25
Speaker 3: But the white tails, they're so flighty, right, So I
37:28
Speaker 3: was hesitant to take a shot, and I ultimately this
37:30
Speaker 3: buck came in. He circled around. Finally, the closest he
37:34
Speaker 3: got was forty six yards and he wasn't in one
37:36
Speaker 3: of my shooting windows, so I had this little window
37:39
Speaker 3: and I watched him forever, you know, and finally he
37:41
Speaker 3: turns kind of open up that shoulders, like, okay, I
37:43
Speaker 3: got to make this happen. And right when I was
37:45
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how I could kind of maneuver
37:47
Speaker 3: that shot, he turned and fed away. So I'm like, okay,
37:50
Speaker 3: not going to force it. You know, missing a deer
37:52
Speaker 3: is one thing, but the absolute worst feeling in the
37:55
Speaker 3: world as a hunter, especially when you're pursuing a specific animal,
37:59
Speaker 3: is to injure that animal and then you know you
38:01
Speaker 3: don't find them or you just wonder how that conclusion
38:05
Speaker 3: or how that results, right, So I didn't want to
38:07
Speaker 3: force anything. Ultimately, he worked his way down back into
38:12
Speaker 3: that swamp and was sparring with this younger buck, and
38:15
Speaker 3: as the light faded, I slipped out of the corn
38:18
Speaker 3: while it was still light enough that I could see,
38:19
Speaker 3: so I didn't have to use the light or anything.
38:21
Speaker 3: I just got out of there. And then I actually
38:24
Speaker 3: had the following night, I was going to go back,
38:26
Speaker 3: but the wind was more like northeast and forecasted to
38:29
Speaker 3: switch out of the east a little bit, and I
38:32
Speaker 3: wasn't sure how that would happen down in that valley,
38:35
Speaker 3: you know, if it would push my scent on that plot.
38:37
Speaker 3: But I was actually like ten miles from my house,
38:39
Speaker 3: all packed up, sent free shower and everything, and I'm
38:42
Speaker 3: just like, no, I can't do it. So I turned
38:43
Speaker 3: around and came back home, and then I waited. The
38:46
Speaker 3: next night, the wind was back out of the north.
38:48
Speaker 3: I slipped back in there and I relocated. I moved
38:52
Speaker 3: down about twenty yards twenty five yards closer to the
38:55
Speaker 3: south end of that plot, thinking, these deer are going
38:57
Speaker 3: to come in the south of the plot. Now I
38:59
Speaker 3: know what's happening. Now I'm going to have a nice
39:01
Speaker 3: twenty five yard shot on this deer. Well, lo and behold.
39:04
Speaker 3: He was the first gear to enter the plot, and
39:06
Speaker 3: he entered straight on the north end. So he cut
39:08
Speaker 3: straight across the swamp and actually he went straight to
39:11
Speaker 3: this apple tree on the north end, barely touched the plot,
39:14
Speaker 3: and they disappeared for a while. For like an hour,
39:16
Speaker 3: I couldn't see him. So I'm waiting and waiting and waiting,
39:19
Speaker 3: and when the other deer started to show up, they
39:22
Speaker 3: all came in the south end of the plot, and
39:23
Speaker 3: they all did what they did the night before. For
39:25
Speaker 3: the most part, they just kind of feed slowly across
39:27
Speaker 3: the plot, never really stopping for too long, just feed, feed,
39:30
Speaker 3: feed back into the swamp up into the woods, and
39:33
Speaker 3: what I assume they're doing is kind of transitioning from there.
39:35
Speaker 3: Maybe they're hitting some a corns and then they're ending
39:37
Speaker 3: up on those bigger destination food sources on top of
39:39
Speaker 3: the hill that those alfalfa fields. But I'm watching these
39:43
Speaker 3: dos and I was actually videotaping this group of dose
39:47
Speaker 3: that were walking by me like twelve yards away, you know.
39:49
Speaker 3: So it's an intense moment already, but it's it's fun
39:52
Speaker 3: and exciting because your eye level with these deer in
39:54
Speaker 3: the open air, and I'm kind of panning sideways, and
39:56
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I look over. There he is, and
39:58
Speaker 3: he's feeding towards me into one of my shooting lanes.
40:01
Speaker 3: I couldn't see him unless I leaned forward a little bit,
40:03
Speaker 3: but there he was, and you know, I videotaped him
40:06
Speaker 3: for a little bit and then he started to turn
40:09
Speaker 3: broadside into that shooting lane. I'll say, okay, I gotta
40:11
Speaker 3: I gotta make this happen now. Ultimately, I shot him
40:14
Speaker 3: at forty five yards. If I would have been in
40:17
Speaker 3: the original blind location, I would have had a twenty
40:19
Speaker 3: five yard shot. But that's just the way it works out.
40:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's incredible. Looked like a one heck of a buck.
40:27
Speaker 2: So congratulations, thank you, thank you.
40:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was like I said he was. He was
40:31
Speaker 3: only dear. I was going after this year. So I
40:33
Speaker 3: try to pick one target, and I think he can
40:35
Speaker 3: learn a lot more when you focus on one deer. Obviously,
40:38
Speaker 3: if another mature buck shows up, I'm going to take
40:40
Speaker 3: advantage the opportunity. But yeah, thank you. So what would
40:43
Speaker 3: have happened?
40:45
Speaker 2: Kind of going back to like the scientific approach or
40:47
Speaker 2: scientific method approach, can you can you kind of imagine
40:52
Speaker 2: how you might have taken that approach forward if you
40:54
Speaker 2: didn't kill him on that night. So you go out there,
40:57
Speaker 2: let's say you see him again but no shot, and
41:02
Speaker 2: let me take the back. Let's say you don't see
41:03
Speaker 2: him that night. I'm curious about that. And now we're
41:06
Speaker 2: moving through September and October is either arriving or soon
41:09
Speaker 2: to be. And now you're, you know, having to continue
41:12
Speaker 2: hunting this year. But using that kind of approach, can
41:15
Speaker 2: you just kind of walk me through some hypotheticals of
41:17
Speaker 2: how that might have looked as we moved into and
41:20
Speaker 2: throughout the month of October. Yeah.
41:22
Speaker 3: So when I when I apply that scientific approach, I
41:25
Speaker 3: generally try to have a couple different plans in place.
41:28
Speaker 3: You know, again theories. You put these theories in place,
41:31
Speaker 3: and then you build a plan around that theory. So
41:35
Speaker 3: that was that was plan number one, was if there's
41:38
Speaker 3: an early season opportunity to try to capitalize on it. Again,
41:40
Speaker 3: knowing that mature bucks generally don't go far early season
41:43
Speaker 3: if they're not disturbed and there's more predictable movement there.
41:48
Speaker 3: Had I not seen that buck that night or not
41:50
Speaker 3: been able to connect with him within the next couple
41:53
Speaker 3: of weeks, that cornfield's coming off, so I'm going to
41:55
Speaker 3: lose the ability to even hunt that food plot from
41:58
Speaker 3: there on out. Addition to that, like I said, we're
42:01
Speaker 3: starting to log We already started logging that betting area.
42:03
Speaker 3: So my game plan from that point was to work
42:07
Speaker 3: with them on the logging project, do some TSI right away,
42:12
Speaker 3: and ultimately hope that it doesn't disturb that deer too
42:16
Speaker 3: much to where after the logging's done, you know, they're
42:19
Speaker 3: going to be in and out of there in ten
42:20
Speaker 3: days or so, and it's going to produce a lot
42:23
Speaker 3: of good cover. You know, they're logging these trees with
42:26
Speaker 3: all the leaves around, so it puts really good cover
42:28
Speaker 3: and pretty good woody brows on the ground instantly for
42:31
Speaker 3: those deer, And from my experience, it doesn't really affect
42:34
Speaker 3: the overall movement of those deer too much. They don't
42:37
Speaker 3: generally go too far, you know, assuming that they have
42:39
Speaker 3: some other safe places in the general location where they can,
42:42
Speaker 3: you know, just go hang out there and come back.
42:45
Speaker 3: So the game plan was ultimately to kill him on
42:48
Speaker 3: top of that hill. There's a little bit of a
42:50
Speaker 3: saddle there between a betting area or a couple of
42:53
Speaker 3: different betting areas, and then it feeds into those egg
42:55
Speaker 3: fields on top. And I've had a lot of good
42:57
Speaker 3: success up there in the past, good and count I
43:00
Speaker 3: should say, I've killed a couple deer there, but one
43:02
Speaker 3: deer there, I should say, because I've only I've never
43:05
Speaker 3: killed two deer in the same spot on our farm. Ever.
43:08
Speaker 3: I've had a lot of good encounters, but it's always
43:10
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes it's moving fifty yards, but never from
43:12
Speaker 3: the same location. And a lot of that again is
43:15
Speaker 3: I just don't have a ton of these tailored setups.
43:18
Speaker 3: All that's changed in the last couple of years. I
43:20
Speaker 3: finally have my dad on board for a management plan.
43:22
Speaker 3: I finally have these seventeen other hunters on board to
43:25
Speaker 3: help out and work with me on these things. So
43:28
Speaker 3: things are improving in that front. But my second plan,
43:31
Speaker 3: or Plan B, was working off of this theory based
43:34
Speaker 3: on historical information, based on past experiences with this specific deer,
43:39
Speaker 3: that he was going to be betting in that general
43:42
Speaker 3: area and working through that pinch point on top of
43:45
Speaker 3: that hill. There's a couple dough betting areas closer to
43:49
Speaker 3: the food source, and as the rut progresses, you know,
43:53
Speaker 3: we get into October here and those deers shift into
43:56
Speaker 3: their fall pattern. He became a lot more consistent in
44:00
Speaker 3: that area, and then once rut hit, he was up
44:02
Speaker 3: there quite a bit. So then just comes down to
44:04
Speaker 3: again the timing, because the access up there is hard.
44:06
Speaker 3: You have to cross this destination food source, so getting in,
44:10
Speaker 3: you know, is kind of iffy, but getting out it's
44:11
Speaker 3: even worse. Because if you're trying to cross that destination
44:14
Speaker 3: food source in the dark, you're blowing deer off there,
44:16
Speaker 3: so you only get one or two good sits up there,
44:18
Speaker 3: and then your chances of success go down. So that
44:21
Speaker 3: was kind of the secondary plan with that theory. Now
44:25
Speaker 3: last year I had the same exact approach, and you
44:28
Speaker 3: can kind of summarize that and how that panned out
44:30
Speaker 3: again utilizing the four key elements this scientific method or
44:34
Speaker 3: scientific approach to come up with a game plan. My
44:38
Speaker 3: initial plan for my target buck last year was early
44:41
Speaker 3: season again, same thing. Okay, I know knew where he
44:44
Speaker 3: was early season. He was actually hanging out and fairly
44:47
Speaker 3: visible from the farm itself. I've got some younger nephews.
44:51
Speaker 3: My older sister works on the farm, so my nephews
44:53
Speaker 3: are on the farm quite a bit in the summer.
44:55
Speaker 3: They're glass in these fields at night. For me, they're
44:57
Speaker 3: all starting to hunt out too, so they're on board,
44:59
Speaker 3: and it's really fun to get more people involved in it. Right.
45:02
Speaker 3: But they had this deer I don't want to say pattern,
45:06
Speaker 3: but they were seeing this deer and then they'd let
45:07
Speaker 3: me know, and then you know, you had trail cameras
45:09
Speaker 3: on top of that. So I had a really good
45:11
Speaker 3: plan early season, but the timing of the cold front
45:13
Speaker 3: early season last year didn't work out. My wife usually
45:16
Speaker 3: has one or two work trips this time of year,
45:19
Speaker 3: and she just happened to be gone, so I couldn't
45:21
Speaker 3: be gone. That property is like an hour or twenty
45:23
Speaker 3: minute drive from my house to hunt, so you know,
45:25
Speaker 3: it's not like I can zip there, hunt and pick
45:27
Speaker 3: up the kids from school, so I had to kind
45:28
Speaker 3: of nix my early season plan. My secondary plan was
45:33
Speaker 3: a dough betting area that I knew that this buck
45:36
Speaker 3: spent some time in in the early stages of the rut,
45:40
Speaker 3: like late October timeframe, So I had put a cell
45:43
Speaker 3: camera on a community scrape just off the edge of
45:46
Speaker 3: this dough betting area. I put that cell camera there
45:50
Speaker 3: in like August, and all the way through August, all
45:53
Speaker 3: the way through September, all that was on that scrape
45:55
Speaker 3: were doze as anticipated, and then all of a sudden,
45:59
Speaker 3: it was like October twenty third or twenty fourth, there
46:02
Speaker 3: was twelve bucks on that camera. In one day, one
46:04
Speaker 3: twenty four hour period, there was twelve different bucks on
46:07
Speaker 3: that camera, and one of them was my target buck.
46:10
Speaker 3: So the next day it actually there's rain in the forecast.
46:14
Speaker 3: But you know, I got to take advantage of that
46:17
Speaker 3: information when you can, So I slipped into that edge
46:19
Speaker 3: of that betting area. I didn't have a stand placed already,
46:23
Speaker 3: because I like to be flexible, you know, so I
46:26
Speaker 3: can hunt that betting location, or not specifically in the
46:31
Speaker 3: betting area, but downwind to the betting area, right, I
46:33
Speaker 3: could hunt that a few different locations. And that's why
46:35
Speaker 3: I like to just go in mobile so that I
46:37
Speaker 3: can set up according to the wind. So I went
46:39
Speaker 3: in there in the rain, hung the set, sat all
46:42
Speaker 3: day and at the very first light I had a
46:45
Speaker 3: couple does come into there, and I swore that I
46:47
Speaker 3: heard this like nasally grunt, But you know, in your mind,
46:51
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, was it a grunt? Was it two
46:53
Speaker 3: trees rubbing on one another? And as it turned out,
46:58
Speaker 3: it was a good sit. All day, I saw a
46:59
Speaker 3: handful of bucks, had a couple come in bed down
47:02
Speaker 3: near me, watch these doughs. But the last hour of
47:05
Speaker 3: daylight I looked over, in fact, the trail that I
47:07
Speaker 3: came in on, there was a really fresh scrape. I
47:09
Speaker 3: looked over and that buck that I was after was
47:12
Speaker 3: bedded in that scrape like fifty yards away from me.
47:16
Speaker 3: So I think he came in at first light and
47:17
Speaker 3: he betted down, and then he repositioned himself at one
47:20
Speaker 3: point and betted down again, and I wasn't able to
47:23
Speaker 3: get a shot. You know. I threw some grunts at him.
47:25
Speaker 3: He eventually got up, and basically all he did is
47:27
Speaker 3: he tried to work around and catch my wind. And
47:29
Speaker 3: there's a cornfield on the ridge above me. And as
47:33
Speaker 3: soon as he cut into that cornfield, I got down
47:35
Speaker 3: from the stand and I got out of there. Because
47:38
Speaker 3: the way the wind was blowing that day, he would
47:40
Speaker 3: have had to go about one hundred more yards and
47:41
Speaker 3: he would have caught my wind, and that could have
47:43
Speaker 3: screwed up the whole situation. It was already getting too
47:46
Speaker 3: dark to where you know, probably wasn't gonna happen. So
47:47
Speaker 3: I just got out of there right away. Fast forward
47:50
Speaker 3: a little bit again, coming up with a new theory. Okay,
47:54
Speaker 3: So now plan A and Plan B didn't work. I'm like, Okay,
47:58
Speaker 3: I know this deer is in the area, but I
48:00
Speaker 3: also know that there's three fall turkey hunters and four
48:06
Speaker 3: bow hunters that are going to be showing up to
48:08
Speaker 3: hunt this property in the next couple of weeks. And
48:11
Speaker 3: the real kicker is the hunting cabin on our property
48:14
Speaker 3: is right at the bottom of the hill from this
48:15
Speaker 3: bedding area. It's like the best deer hunting valley on
48:18
Speaker 3: the farm, worst spot you could put a hunting cabin,
48:20
Speaker 3: but it's you know, it's very scenic, I guess, right.
48:24
Speaker 3: But I knew that the pressure was going to increase
48:26
Speaker 3: exponentially within the coming weeks, so I had had to
48:28
Speaker 3: keep that in the back of my mind. So I
48:30
Speaker 3: hunted kind of the fringes of that area a couple
48:33
Speaker 3: more times, and and one day I went back to
48:36
Speaker 3: the edge of that bedding area and on my way in,
48:38
Speaker 3: I bumped that deer. You know, at the time, I
48:40
Speaker 3: wasn't a hundred percent sure it was him, but I
48:43
Speaker 3: cut through that cornfield and was not anticipating deer being
48:46
Speaker 3: that close to betting an hour before daylight. And when
48:49
Speaker 3: I stepped out of that cornfield, the woods just came alive.
48:52
Speaker 3: Deer were running everywhere, and you know, I bumped them
48:56
Speaker 3: fast enough and hard enough that they didn't really know
48:58
Speaker 3: what was going on. They just freaked out. Who out
49:00
Speaker 3: of there, and when they took off running, there was
49:03
Speaker 3: like that stereotypical like grunting chasing sound and that nasally
49:07
Speaker 3: grunt again. So I'm like, oh, it's got to be him.
49:09
Speaker 3: So I hunted that spot in the morning, and then
49:11
Speaker 3: the wind picked up as the day went on, and
49:14
Speaker 3: then I dropped down in the afternoon. I just got
49:16
Speaker 3: that stand. I dropped down in the bottom of the valley.
49:18
Speaker 3: I had a food plot there with the box plant.
49:19
Speaker 3: I slipped in that blind, and sure enough that buck
49:22
Speaker 3: popped out on that food plot at like three o'clock
49:23
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, but he kept on looking back in
49:26
Speaker 3: the woods like he had a dough with him. I
49:28
Speaker 3: had a decoy out and everything he wouldn't commit. It's
49:30
Speaker 3: got some really cool footage of him. It was a
49:33
Speaker 3: great encounter. But that was that. And then after that
49:35
Speaker 3: the pressure increased in that valley and things got more
49:38
Speaker 3: and more chaotic. So I was getting pictures of him,
49:42
Speaker 3: but I couldn't figure out where he was hanging out,
49:45
Speaker 3: and he wasn't showing up on food sources consistently, at
49:47
Speaker 3: least not on the camera. So again I was hunting
49:49
Speaker 3: the fringes, trying to play it safe, pressure wise, just
49:52
Speaker 3: trying to collect more intel to lead me to a
49:55
Speaker 3: theory that I could be more aggressive with, and ultimately
49:59
Speaker 3: what it came to down I was talking to my
50:02
Speaker 3: cousin the night before this all played out, and you know,
50:05
Speaker 3: this kind of goes back to being able to explain
50:07
Speaker 3: this approach. So over the past decade or so, there's
50:12
Speaker 3: been some tension in our family, you know, in the
50:15
Speaker 3: hunting side of things, like me being more successful than
50:18
Speaker 3: most of them but putting in a lot more time,
50:20
Speaker 3: and ultimately just trying to get them to understand, like
50:22
Speaker 3: if we work together on this, we're all going to
50:24
Speaker 3: be more successful. And you know, I was always like
50:26
Speaker 3: the young kid following them around in the woods. I'm
50:29
Speaker 3: like one of the youngest cousins in the group, So
50:31
Speaker 3: I was a kid following around with a stick when
50:34
Speaker 3: they were all hunting. So then when I've evolved to like,
50:36
Speaker 3: you know, more serious hunter, like trying to tell them
50:38
Speaker 3: like how we should approach things that you know, at
50:40
Speaker 3: first there's like no, no, no, you listened here, right, Yeah,
50:43
Speaker 3: But last year I think was a huge turning point
50:47
Speaker 3: in that relationship or all of those relationships in general.
50:51
Speaker 3: First and foremost they started to understand, like, you know
50:53
Speaker 3: this work. I'm doing this for everyone, and I finally
50:55
Speaker 3: just like, you guys, go hunt these spots, go hunt
50:57
Speaker 3: these blinds. As long as you're hunting them on the
50:58
Speaker 3: correct wind, you're gonna have opportunities. And they did, and
51:00
Speaker 3: they start having some really good sits. But the bigger
51:03
Speaker 3: thing was explaining the decisions that I was making in
51:07
Speaker 3: real time to these cousins. In years past, I would
51:10
Speaker 3: try to avoid them. They'd be down hunting mostly weekends.
51:12
Speaker 3: I'd hunt during the week just to try to avoid
51:14
Speaker 3: the situation. But last year I tried to make a
51:17
Speaker 3: conscious effort to at least overlap a couple days. I'm
51:20
Speaker 3: trying to time it on the days I think our
51:22
Speaker 3: best for the win that I need the cold fronts
51:24
Speaker 3: and everything, but I try to overlap those days and
51:26
Speaker 3: kind of bring them into the whole situation. So the
51:30
Speaker 3: night before I ultimately harvested this year, I was talking
51:34
Speaker 3: to my cousin. I was just like, you know, it's
51:36
Speaker 3: the weekend before rifle season, so for us, for me personally,
51:41
Speaker 3: that's like go time, Like that's when I get as
51:43
Speaker 3: aggressive as I'll ever get because once rifle season hits.
51:46
Speaker 3: There's seventeen gun hunters on this property, everybody in the area.
51:49
Speaker 3: I mean, it's very much like Michigan, right, you know
51:52
Speaker 3: the infamous pressure in Michigan. All of our neighbors are Amish,
51:56
Speaker 3: all of them. So the woods, you know, the Orange Army, right,
52:00
Speaker 3: it's a thing. Right. So talking to my cousin, No,
52:04
Speaker 3: this is mid November. November eleventh would have been the
52:09
Speaker 3: evening that we had this conversation. November twelfth. That's what
52:11
Speaker 3: I harvested this deer. So I was talking to my cousin,
52:14
Speaker 3: you know, I basically said, this deer is showing up
52:15
Speaker 3: on cameras in the same area I was hunting him in.
52:19
Speaker 3: But he's showing up like an hour after dark or
52:21
Speaker 3: half hour after dark. And I had sat nine all
52:24
Speaker 3: day sits on the fringes of these betting areas, these
52:27
Speaker 3: dough betting areas, anticipating him showing up there, bumping does
52:31
Speaker 3: or being with these dos and moving in and out
52:33
Speaker 3: of these betting areas at dawn of dusk, and purely
52:35
Speaker 3: sitting there all day because I was afraid to get
52:38
Speaker 3: down mid morning and put pressure on these betting areas
52:41
Speaker 3: and screw things up. Right. I told my cousin, I said,
52:45
Speaker 3: my theory is that this buck is betting in this
52:47
Speaker 3: other bedding area. There's a on the other side of
52:50
Speaker 3: the ridge. There's a real tight draw. This valley tightens up,
52:55
Speaker 3: and actually half of the valley is open MFL so
52:58
Speaker 3: it's public land and there's a ton of people hunting it,
53:01
Speaker 3: and then the other half of the valley's in the pasture,
53:03
Speaker 3: so it's not There's not a lot of great cover there,
53:05
Speaker 3: but topography itself creates this nice little bowl in there
53:09
Speaker 3: that's impossible to hunt. And I knew this because I've
53:12
Speaker 3: tried to pursue bucks in there the last few years.
53:14
Speaker 3: I find these mature bucks spending time in this area,
53:17
Speaker 3: and I try and set up in there on all
53:19
Speaker 3: different wind directions, and I'd always get busted the dose.
53:21
Speaker 3: The first doze that came through their bust me. I'd
53:23
Speaker 3: just pulled the set and get out of there to
53:24
Speaker 3: try not to disturb the area. So I told my cousin,
53:27
Speaker 3: you know, my theory is this buck, because of the
53:30
Speaker 3: pressure across the farm, he's betting in this tight little bowl,
53:35
Speaker 3: and then right at dark he's just popping out of
53:38
Speaker 3: that chunk of woods, and he's crossing the wide open
53:40
Speaker 3: field and he's making the rounds and doing his thing
53:42
Speaker 3: at night. And the forecasted wind was supposed to be
53:46
Speaker 3: out of the south pushing right up that valley the
53:48
Speaker 3: next morning. But it was supposed to be like fifteen
53:51
Speaker 3: to twenty mile an hour winds and gusts of like
53:54
Speaker 3: thirty miles an hour, and it was supposed to be warm.
53:56
Speaker 3: It was going to warm up. So I told him,
53:58
Speaker 3: you go hunt your stand. He's got his favorite stand
54:01
Speaker 3: at the bottom end of this valley, and I'm going
54:04
Speaker 3: to still hunt through this betting area in the morning
54:07
Speaker 3: and just try and figure out what's going on. My
54:09
Speaker 3: first game, or my first goal or objective was to
54:13
Speaker 3: see if that deer was in there, if there's fresh
54:14
Speaker 3: sign in that area, and then you know, again try
54:17
Speaker 3: to come up with a plan on how to set
54:19
Speaker 3: up on him and hunt him, you know, one or
54:20
Speaker 3: two more days this week before gun season hit the
54:22
Speaker 3: following weekend. My secondary goal, or you know, like the
54:26
Speaker 3: optimistic side of things, I was like, maybe I'll just
54:28
Speaker 3: come across this deer. I'll just get it done right.
54:30
Speaker 3: So I told him, like, you go hunt that sand
54:32
Speaker 3: end of the valley because if I bump this deer,
54:33
Speaker 3: he's going to run into the wind, and you're gonna
54:35
Speaker 3: be in a perfect situation to get a shot at
54:37
Speaker 3: this deer. And long story short, I slipped it in
54:41
Speaker 3: that betting area and just kind of still hunted my
54:42
Speaker 3: way in. From first light, I saw a deer bedded
54:47
Speaker 3: behind a log about eighty yards out, and I relocated,
54:52
Speaker 3: got a better advantage point glass for a little bit,
54:54
Speaker 3: and lo and behold it was the buck that I
54:55
Speaker 3: was after, and took me four hours, four hours and
54:59
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes actual to get into position. But I shot
55:01
Speaker 3: him in his bed at thirty seven yards after four hours.
55:05
Speaker 3: So but again, you know, the stock side of things
55:08
Speaker 3: seems crazy. You know, I never never would have anticipated
55:11
Speaker 3: stalking a mature white tail in our area, especially or
55:15
Speaker 3: shooting him in his bed. But that part, you know,
55:19
Speaker 3: hunting out west, I've kind of fine tuned that I'm not,
55:23
Speaker 3: by any means like an expert stalker compared to a
55:26
Speaker 3: lot of those guys. Right, But I've screwed up a
55:28
Speaker 3: lot of stalks, a lot of stocks, And every single
55:31
Speaker 3: time he screw up a stock, it's because he either
55:33
Speaker 3: didn't pay attention to the wind, or he moved too fast.
55:36
Speaker 3: It's usually because he moved too fast. And in my mind,
55:38
Speaker 3: I was just like, it's you and me. I've got
55:41
Speaker 3: all day. You know, best case scenario, you stay there
55:44
Speaker 3: and I get into position, I have control. Second best
55:48
Speaker 3: case scenario is you stand up and relocate and give
55:50
Speaker 3: me the opportunity. But as I'm playing through these scenarios,
55:53
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, every one of these shot opportunities is
55:55
Speaker 3: going to be like a fifty yard shot from this location,
55:58
Speaker 3: trying to range him through the brush, pick a spot,
56:01
Speaker 3: set a pin, and you know it would have been
56:03
Speaker 3: a rodeo. So it all worked out that way. But ultimately,
56:06
Speaker 3: again using that scientific approach to come up with a
56:10
Speaker 3: theory based on those four key elements is what took
56:14
Speaker 3: me to that spot. And the one in a million
56:16
Speaker 3: shot was me getting to advantage point to see that
56:19
Speaker 3: deer without him knowing I was there. And I think, actually,
56:22
Speaker 3: you know, when I dial that back, when I relocated
56:25
Speaker 3: to that secondary location, that buck had his head looking
56:30
Speaker 3: straight away from me. His attention was drawn down the
56:32
Speaker 3: valley and I basically saw him. I sat down, like
56:36
Speaker 3: hunkered down behind this tree, pulled out my camera and
56:40
Speaker 3: this other buck came up from the bottom of the valley,
56:42
Speaker 3: so he was drawn to that other buck coming towards him.
56:46
Speaker 3: And then after that he really settled in and went
56:48
Speaker 3: back to like you know, high alert. It's it's hard.
56:51
Speaker 3: You can get really close to deer when they're moving
56:54
Speaker 3: if you're you know, quiet and sneaky, but when they're
56:56
Speaker 3: stationary and they're like so in tune with their environment,
56:59
Speaker 3: it's it's tricky. So I think that was really the
57:02
Speaker 3: one of a million chants there, but you'll ultimately just
57:04
Speaker 3: finding them where they are.
57:23
Speaker 2: So so a big part of this approach, it seems like,
57:28
Speaker 2: is you know, to get to the point where you
57:30
Speaker 2: have a theory, and to get to the point where
57:32
Speaker 2: you can run these experiments which are a fancy word
57:35
Speaker 2: for saying hunts or scouting trips where you test a
57:39
Speaker 2: theory by observing. Right, you have to input like all
57:42
Speaker 2: this data and something you've talked about it, and then
57:46
Speaker 2: also from just other things I've seen and read from
57:48
Speaker 2: you and heard from you. You take your data collection
57:51
Speaker 2: to a different level than a lot of people. And
57:55
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about how you can't hunt them
57:57
Speaker 2: where they were. You have to hunt them where they
57:58
Speaker 2: will be. So it's all about anticipating where he's going
58:02
Speaker 2: to be, which you did in that case, like you
58:04
Speaker 2: thought he was going to be in that area because
58:06
Speaker 2: of you know that data you collected and these theories
58:08
Speaker 2: you've tested in other places that proved to be false.
58:12
Speaker 2: You can you just tell me a little bit more
58:14
Speaker 2: about the kind of data that you're collecting. We've talked
58:17
Speaker 2: about cameras a little bit, but I know you do
58:19
Speaker 2: something like food source tracking, you do pressure audits on stands,
58:28
Speaker 2: You track a lot of different things which are a
58:30
Speaker 2: little bit different than other people. And you've got this
58:33
Speaker 2: planner that you develop and that you use yourself that
58:37
Speaker 2: you're tracking a lot of these things we've talked about
58:40
Speaker 2: and more that is pretty extensive, and I think that's
58:43
Speaker 2: an important thing as we as we're into the season now,
58:46
Speaker 2: I imagine all of us could probably do a better
58:49
Speaker 2: job of tracking everything that's going on, because it's one
58:52
Speaker 2: thing to have these ideas, these theories to go do
58:54
Speaker 2: this stuff, but most of us throw something at the wall,
58:58
Speaker 2: We throw a hunt at the wall, and then we say, oh,
59:01
Speaker 2: it didn't go well, or hey, it went well, great,
59:02
Speaker 2: and then we're onto the next one. We could probably
59:05
Speaker 2: benefit more if we were actually tracking it so we
59:08
Speaker 2: can look back on this stuff a year after year
59:10
Speaker 2: or in more detail throughout a year. Can you just
59:12
Speaker 2: expand on how you do that, why you do that
59:15
Speaker 2: in some of these specifics.
59:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the planner you spoke about, I refer to
59:20
Speaker 3: as Annual Success Planner, And ultimately, you know, there's nothing
59:24
Speaker 3: in there that's that crazy or proprietary, but it's a
59:28
Speaker 3: way to kind of formulate a thought or collect that
59:32
Speaker 3: data and then help you formulate the thought or those theories.
59:35
Speaker 3: It all revolves an almost four key elements, so it
59:37
Speaker 3: lays out, you know, the initial concept of these four
59:39
Speaker 3: key elements, and then each one of those elements has
59:42
Speaker 3: an associated chart or table tool in there, and and
59:49
Speaker 3: what it does is it allows you to collect information
59:51
Speaker 3: directly related to those elements and then it helps you
59:53
Speaker 3: put together that theory. So, for example, with the wind,
59:57
Speaker 3: I have a tool and that I refer to as
59:59
Speaker 3: pattern tractor, and that's I was talking about earlier, where
1:00:01
Speaker 3: I'm logging time and date location of these animals and
1:00:06
Speaker 3: ultimately looking back at the wind direction so that it
1:00:10
Speaker 3: can tell me, you know, where I think those deer
1:00:12
Speaker 3: are going to be and that helps me anticipate, you know,
1:00:14
Speaker 3: when I'm looking ahead, if I'm gonna you know, whether
1:00:17
Speaker 3: I'm a weekend warrior just working off of the opportunities
1:00:20
Speaker 3: I have, or trying to predict where to be at
1:00:22
Speaker 3: the best time. I'm using that wind as such a
1:00:25
Speaker 3: valuable tool. The other tool and there is the pressure tracker.
1:00:29
Speaker 3: So I do a couple of those things, like you
1:00:30
Speaker 3: said the pressure audit. Like if I'm if I'm setting
1:00:33
Speaker 3: up a property for a client or we're on a
1:00:35
Speaker 3: coaching call, one of the things that we do is
1:00:37
Speaker 3: a stand location pressure audit, where we look at stand locations,
1:00:41
Speaker 3: either current or potential stand locations, and rank them based
1:00:45
Speaker 3: on the amount of pressure that they put on the property.
1:00:48
Speaker 3: And simply put, we just want to get a temperature
1:00:50
Speaker 3: check for how hunting that stand is going to affect
1:00:54
Speaker 3: us down to downstream. Right. So one of the things,
1:00:58
Speaker 3: a good example would be like the set up where
1:01:00
Speaker 3: I killed that buck early season, if I would have
1:01:02
Speaker 3: had a box blind there and a field of switch
1:01:06
Speaker 3: grass or some pine trees or low and behold and
1:01:09
Speaker 3: mascant this or you know, sorgum, whatever I had for
1:01:13
Speaker 3: a screen to get to and from that blind that
1:01:15
Speaker 3: would have been pretty good access. That would have been
1:01:17
Speaker 3: a low numbered stand, that would have been a one
1:01:19
Speaker 3: or a two, depending on the situation. That's a stand
1:01:22
Speaker 3: location I can hunt a lot of different winds, especially
1:01:25
Speaker 3: being a box blind that contains your scent so well.
1:01:27
Speaker 3: You don't have that open air pushing your scent all
1:01:29
Speaker 3: over the valley, so I can hunt that a lot. Inversely,
1:01:33
Speaker 3: we'd have a higher numbered stand, like on the fringe
1:01:35
Speaker 3: of one of those betting areas, where if you're gonna
1:01:38
Speaker 3: hunt that stand, you should really only hunt it if
1:01:40
Speaker 3: you have the intel that supports the decision to move
1:01:43
Speaker 3: in there, knowing that it's it's potentially high reward but
1:01:47
Speaker 3: also very high risk. You can only hunt that spot
1:01:49
Speaker 3: one or two times, and then you're probably gonna screw
1:01:52
Speaker 3: up that spot. And if you're hunting a small property,
1:01:54
Speaker 3: you might burn out your whole entire property by hunting
1:01:57
Speaker 3: that location. So I was keep that in mind. But
1:02:00
Speaker 3: the tool that's in the planner, you can list all
1:02:03
Speaker 3: your stand locations and rank them, But the tool that's
1:02:07
Speaker 3: in there for tracking pressure. Ultimately, I'm either taking note
1:02:12
Speaker 3: from again observations in the field or what I see
1:02:15
Speaker 3: on trail cameras. But I'm trying to log activity that
1:02:18
Speaker 3: I see that might put pressure on deer. Most of
1:02:20
Speaker 3: it's human activity because there's so much other pressure.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: You know.
1:02:23
Speaker 3: I talk about how environmental pressures affect deer, biological pressures
1:02:28
Speaker 3: affect deer, herd, social pressure, number of dos, and the
1:02:31
Speaker 3: property effects deer, but ultimately the human pressure is the
1:02:34
Speaker 3: most trackable side of things. So when I see the
1:02:37
Speaker 3: neighbor out there again, either visually or the trail camera,
1:02:40
Speaker 3: If I see the neighbor out fixing fences, or you know,
1:02:44
Speaker 3: one of our neighbors runs beef cattle, one of the
1:02:47
Speaker 3: Amish neighbors runs sheep. You know, they're always out there
1:02:49
Speaker 3: doing stuff on the fences and stuff. If I know
1:02:51
Speaker 3: that neighbors in the area, I simply log that time
1:02:54
Speaker 3: and date in the general location, and then a lot
1:02:56
Speaker 3: of times I can go back and I can can
1:02:58
Speaker 3: cross reference that pattern page again. When I see those
1:03:01
Speaker 3: anomalies or those one off pictures in the middle of
1:03:03
Speaker 3: the day, why was that deer moving through that area
1:03:05
Speaker 3: at this time? What promoted that movement? Okay, it was pressure, Well,
1:03:09
Speaker 3: then I drill that or I dial back a little
1:03:11
Speaker 3: bit further and I go, okay, well, if he was
1:03:13
Speaker 3: in this area, you know, and looking at the wind
1:03:16
Speaker 3: history that day, yeah, okay, the wind was out of
1:03:19
Speaker 3: this direction, that would have potentially placed him in this
1:03:20
Speaker 3: betting area. But then this guy came through here and
1:03:23
Speaker 3: bumped him out. Now I can kind of prove that theory.
1:03:26
Speaker 3: So it all goes back to helping prove or disprove
1:03:28
Speaker 3: these theories I have on where they're betting, where they're feeding,
1:03:31
Speaker 3: how they're moving. The food source tracker, that one's a
1:03:34
Speaker 3: little bit trickier it. You know, you can get as
1:03:37
Speaker 3: detailed as you want with something like that. I don't
1:03:40
Speaker 3: go out some properties. I will, but I don't go
1:03:43
Speaker 3: out and go so far as to like log every
1:03:46
Speaker 3: single acorn producing tree, you know, every oak out there,
1:03:50
Speaker 3: every white oak versus red oak, all those things. But
1:03:53
Speaker 3: I will log years where there's a very noticeable acorn
1:03:57
Speaker 3: crop versus years that there's not, and then I can
1:03:59
Speaker 3: look back on like that, I'd be like, Okay, this
1:04:01
Speaker 3: year there wasn't very good acorn crop, and it's pretty
1:04:03
Speaker 3: obviously deer were hammering these food plots this year. You know,
1:04:06
Speaker 3: lfalfa is a big one. I talked about A big
1:04:10
Speaker 3: thing with alfalfa that I've noticed over the last decade
1:04:13
Speaker 3: is the first year that alfalfa's planted, it's the most attractive.
1:04:18
Speaker 3: You know, they're gonna eat that alfalfa all the time.
1:04:20
Speaker 3: But a new seting field is night and day different
1:04:25
Speaker 3: from a stand of alfalfa that's two or three years old.
1:04:28
Speaker 3: And the second year it's still pretty attractive, but less
1:04:31
Speaker 3: attractive than the first year. And every year that goes by,
1:04:34
Speaker 3: it's less and less attractive. And I've seen, you know,
1:04:36
Speaker 3: a new seating in alfalfa. You can't outcompete that with
1:04:39
Speaker 3: most food plots, But second year alfalfa, I can out
1:04:41
Speaker 3: compete that with a lot of my food plots, especially
1:04:44
Speaker 3: when I'm using that bioegg fertilizer. That mineralized fertilizer really
1:04:48
Speaker 3: seems to increase the palatability and nutrient content of those plots,
1:04:51
Speaker 3: and those deer are really drawn to it. So that's
1:04:54
Speaker 3: a big one. But as far as food source tracker goes,
1:04:57
Speaker 3: you know, it's a lot of it's just keeping record.
1:04:59
Speaker 3: So that again, and like every year that comes around,
1:05:02
Speaker 3: you're trying to predict that movement ultimately driven by food.
1:05:06
Speaker 3: You can look at what those food sources are and
1:05:08
Speaker 3: what they were and if they've changed. Because the more
1:05:11
Speaker 3: consistent these elements become year to year to year, and
1:05:15
Speaker 3: if I'm tracking a specific year year to year to
1:05:18
Speaker 3: year and those elements are the same, then I can
1:05:21
Speaker 3: anticipate him following a similar pattern historically, you know. And
1:05:24
Speaker 3: that's where that timing element comes in, where short term
1:05:27
Speaker 3: timing and again pattern tracker comes into play there and
1:05:31
Speaker 3: just tracking these deer over the years, but short term
1:05:33
Speaker 3: timing we're looking at wind and weather long term or
1:05:37
Speaker 3: you know, the annual scale, we're looking at that historical data.
1:05:42
Speaker 3: And I think it was I don't know if it
1:05:44
Speaker 3: was at MSU or University of Tennessee. They had a
1:05:47
Speaker 3: really good I think they did a podcast on it,
1:05:49
Speaker 3: but they had a really good research article talking about
1:05:52
Speaker 3: the specific gene that's linked to the time period that
1:05:56
Speaker 3: does come into estrus. So they been able to track
1:05:58
Speaker 3: that to genetics. And it makes perfect sense because you know,
1:06:01
Speaker 3: it's influenced on a big, you know, big big timeline environmentally,
1:06:06
Speaker 3: but it's it's passed on genetically to the offspring of
1:06:09
Speaker 3: those dough so you know, deer in northern climates they
1:06:13
Speaker 3: the ruts later because if that dough gets bred too early,
1:06:16
Speaker 3: then that fawn is born too early. A late snowfall
1:06:18
Speaker 3: reduces the survivability of that dough. So just in time evolution,
1:06:23
Speaker 3: these deer have this genetic code that they pass on
1:06:26
Speaker 3: that says we're going to come into heat around this time.
1:06:29
Speaker 3: And it can fluctuate, you know, a couple of weeks
1:06:31
Speaker 3: on a property and I see that, you know, one
1:06:32
Speaker 3: corner of our farm every year around Halloween it's the
1:06:35
Speaker 3: hot spot to be. Go over the ridge it's November fourth,
1:06:38
Speaker 3: you know, go down the valley it's November tenth, or
1:06:40
Speaker 3: whatever it might be. So when I look back at
1:06:42
Speaker 3: the historical information, whether it's a specific buck showing up
1:06:47
Speaker 3: in a certain area, you know, that's something this podcast
1:06:50
Speaker 3: comes out. Everyone should be anticipating the October shift, and
1:06:54
Speaker 3: if you don't have a game plan right now. Usually
1:06:58
Speaker 3: I see that shift happen between like the seventh the
1:07:00
Speaker 3: fourteenth here in southwestern Wisconsin. But if you don't have
1:07:03
Speaker 3: a game plan right now, and I've had years like
1:07:05
Speaker 3: that where I had no deer on my radar and
1:07:08
Speaker 3: I just went back I go through my historical data
1:07:10
Speaker 3: the last couple of years certain areas, and when we're
1:07:13
Speaker 3: the mature bucks starting to show up on camera in
1:07:15
Speaker 3: these areas, and that's when I start, you know, that's
1:07:18
Speaker 3: what kind of directs me towards narrowing down my focus
1:07:22
Speaker 3: and trying to zone in or hone in on that
1:07:24
Speaker 3: information specific to that area of the farm. But it's
1:07:28
Speaker 3: very predictable, and I'm sure you've probably talked about before
1:07:31
Speaker 3: people will understand. You know, you see these bucks show
1:07:33
Speaker 3: up on your property the same three to five day
1:07:35
Speaker 3: window every year. Sometimes they're there, you know, all fall,
1:07:38
Speaker 3: they shift at a certain time, and sometimes they're literally
1:07:40
Speaker 3: only there for a week and then they're gone. So
1:07:43
Speaker 3: you know, that's a good way to anticipate and plan
1:07:45
Speaker 3: out your rut caation if you have, you know, a
1:07:47
Speaker 3: finite amount of opportunities to attack.
1:07:52
Speaker 2: So a lot of that, a lot of that data,
1:07:55
Speaker 2: some of at least some of this, like you know,
1:07:58
Speaker 2: specific deer behavior data that you're talking about logging and
1:08:01
Speaker 2: looking at the wind and the weather conditions and everything
1:08:03
Speaker 2: that's trail camera related in addition to observations. You mentioned
1:08:07
Speaker 2: something earlier that I just wanted to make sure I
1:08:08
Speaker 2: asked you about which is some trail camera rules. Can
1:08:12
Speaker 2: you walk me through what your trail camera rules are,
1:08:15
Speaker 2: because if we're trying to collect data with trailcms, we
1:08:17
Speaker 2: got to be using in the right way. I'd love
1:08:19
Speaker 2: to hear your thoughts on that.
1:08:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, to preface this a little bit,
1:08:24
Speaker 3: I spent ten years working for a trail camera company, right,
1:08:27
Speaker 3: So I went to college for wildlife biology, and you know,
1:08:31
Speaker 3: my goal was to be a wildlife biologist or researcher,
1:08:34
Speaker 3: and then this weird turn of events, I actually worked
1:08:36
Speaker 3: for a trail camera company, so I was helping these
1:08:38
Speaker 3: researchers on the technology side. So I've put together, you know,
1:08:43
Speaker 3: five rules or considerations for trail camera success based on
1:08:47
Speaker 3: my experience working myself, you know, the research background, but
1:08:52
Speaker 3: also working with hundreds of thousands of customers over the years.
1:08:55
Speaker 3: So it is you hit the nail on the head.
1:08:58
Speaker 3: It's it's absolutely critical to understand these things to use
1:09:02
Speaker 3: these trail cameras the right way, you know, and not
1:09:05
Speaker 3: saying there's not other ways to utilize them, but if
1:09:08
Speaker 3: you follow these rules, you'll have significantly higher levels of
1:09:11
Speaker 3: success with the information that you collect for these cameras.
1:09:14
Speaker 3: So those five rules are five considerations. The first one
1:09:17
Speaker 3: is a trail camera only tells you where he should
1:09:19
Speaker 3: have been, not where he should be, and a cell
1:09:22
Speaker 3: camera just tells you where he should have been a
1:09:23
Speaker 3: lot sooner. Now, there's situations where if you're planning ahead,
1:09:28
Speaker 3: you know, that's ultimately what you want to do with
1:09:30
Speaker 3: these cameras again, is use them to prove or disprove theories.
1:09:33
Speaker 3: But if you're planning ahead, and you know, like the
1:09:36
Speaker 3: dough betting area thing from last year, once I got
1:09:39
Speaker 3: intel on that camera that bucks were in the area,
1:09:41
Speaker 3: I was going to make a move. And that's that's
1:09:43
Speaker 3: the closest I've ever come to killing a deer directly
1:09:47
Speaker 3: based on cell camera data. But usually what I'm doing
1:09:50
Speaker 3: with just these trail cameras is using them to collect
1:09:52
Speaker 3: historical data. And a lot of times, you know, I
1:09:54
Speaker 3: have cameras across the farm that I don't even check
1:09:57
Speaker 3: most of the year. And we'll get to that here
1:09:58
Speaker 3: in a second with these other rules, But the cameras
1:10:01
Speaker 3: tell you where he should have been, not where he
1:10:02
Speaker 3: should be, So use them to anticipate that movement and
1:10:05
Speaker 3: prove these theories, and then when the when the elements,
1:10:08
Speaker 3: those four key elements kind of come into play again
1:10:11
Speaker 3: or you know, those variables are coming into play or anticipated,
1:10:14
Speaker 3: like the forecast, the wind, the food sources are the same,
1:10:17
Speaker 3: you know, the pressure is the same. That's when you
1:10:19
Speaker 3: can move on those. So it's it's really important to
1:10:21
Speaker 3: understand that, or else you're just always going to be
1:10:23
Speaker 3: a step behind. The second one, which we talked about already,
1:10:26
Speaker 3: is that trail cameras only tell you what's going on
1:10:28
Speaker 3: directly in front of them, right, so it's only giving
1:10:30
Speaker 3: you a sampling rate. And you know, again, look at
1:10:33
Speaker 3: the running mates of these bucks early in the season.
1:10:36
Speaker 3: Just use them to get a feel for deer activity
1:10:38
Speaker 3: in general. But don't one hundred percent rely on that
1:10:41
Speaker 3: camera to tell you if that deer is in the area.
1:10:44
Speaker 3: If you get one picture of that deer, there's really
1:10:46
Speaker 3: good chance that he's probably been in that area quite
1:10:48
Speaker 3: a bit and or at least a fair amount, right,
1:10:51
Speaker 3: you know, And depending on the timing of that picture,
1:10:53
Speaker 3: it might might dictate how often he's there. But you know,
1:10:57
Speaker 3: a big thing people need to consider, especially with mature books,
1:10:59
Speaker 3: is they're very tactful with their movements, right, they don't
1:11:02
Speaker 3: use the same trail every day. They might say they
1:11:05
Speaker 3: might use the same travel corridor, but most of the time,
1:11:08
Speaker 3: when they get up from their bed and they're moving
1:11:10
Speaker 3: to a food source, they're browsing along the way, right,
1:11:13
Speaker 3: they're trying to take advantage of that route. So if
1:11:15
Speaker 3: they follow the same trail every day, there's not going
1:11:17
Speaker 3: to be browse on that trail every day. And also,
1:11:20
Speaker 3: you know, maybe they stay in a little bit thicker
1:11:22
Speaker 3: cover than what the younger deer do, So that's an
1:11:24
Speaker 3: important thing to note too, But they only tell you
1:11:26
Speaker 3: what's going on directly in front of them. The third thing,
1:11:29
Speaker 3: and arguably one of the most important things here, is
1:11:33
Speaker 3: to be intentional with your trail camera setups. You know, again,
1:11:38
Speaker 3: use them when you go out and put that camera out,
1:11:40
Speaker 3: or you're checking that camera or you know, looking at
1:11:44
Speaker 3: it on your cell phone, think about the location of
1:11:46
Speaker 3: that camera and how that plays into this whole system.
1:11:51
Speaker 3: You know, you're using it to prove a theory. So
1:11:53
Speaker 3: is that deer showing up on this food source, is
1:11:55
Speaker 3: that deer using this adjacent bedding area, or you know,
1:11:58
Speaker 3: maybe it is just purely inventory, But inventory is only
1:12:01
Speaker 3: going to tell you that that deer is in the area.
1:12:03
Speaker 3: It's not going to tell you, oh, I need to
1:12:05
Speaker 3: hunt this mineral lick or this corn pile that this
1:12:08
Speaker 3: deer showed up on in August, right, It's not going
1:12:10
Speaker 3: to tell you where to hunt in October or November.
1:12:13
Speaker 3: So be intentional with those setups. The fourth one is
1:12:17
Speaker 3: to understand the pressure trail cameras put on mature books
1:12:20
Speaker 3: and try to avoid it. And that's where it kind
1:12:22
Speaker 3: of comes back to the second rule of I'm only
1:12:24
Speaker 3: telling you what's going on directly in front of them.
1:12:26
Speaker 3: These bucks they know that these cameras are there a
1:12:29
Speaker 3: lot of times, you know, so I always try to
1:12:32
Speaker 3: put the camera as high as I can reach angle
1:12:34
Speaker 3: it down. There's limitations to that because when you place
1:12:38
Speaker 3: it high and angle it down, you trigger range or
1:12:40
Speaker 3: your target range is shortened quite a bit. You know,
1:12:42
Speaker 3: if it's low looking out across an open area, you're
1:12:45
Speaker 3: going to trigger way out. But most of the time
1:12:48
Speaker 3: you have a very specific target area, whether it's a scrape,
1:12:51
Speaker 3: a mock scrape, a water hole, you know, a specific
1:12:54
Speaker 3: trail or something, so you can get away with raising
1:12:56
Speaker 3: that camera up and pointing it a really well defined air,
1:13:01
Speaker 3: and that kind of goes hand in hand with the
1:13:02
Speaker 3: setup itself and try to keep pressure off. What I've
1:13:05
Speaker 3: seen over the years is you could put cameras low
1:13:09
Speaker 3: on food plots, you know. I think that's where you
1:13:11
Speaker 3: can get away with like a pick and stick type setup.
1:13:14
Speaker 3: You can put them lower on food plots where those
1:13:16
Speaker 3: deer can see that foreign object from a distance and
1:13:19
Speaker 3: then they get to choose if they want to approach
1:13:21
Speaker 3: it or not. Versus in the woods where you know
1:13:23
Speaker 3: they're kind of going down that trail milling along, maybe
1:13:26
Speaker 3: they work that scrape and also they picked their head
1:13:28
Speaker 3: up and boom, there's this thing there that they haven't seen. Yeah,
1:13:30
Speaker 3: and it freaks them out. And that analogy that I
1:13:33
Speaker 3: always used when I worked for the trail camera company
1:13:35
Speaker 3: when people will be like, oh, I thought this was
1:13:37
Speaker 3: supposed to be a covert camera. These deer are clearly
1:13:39
Speaker 3: looking at it like if I went in your house
1:13:41
Speaker 3: and I put a can of beer on your nightstand
1:13:43
Speaker 3: and you came home, You're going to notice it and
1:13:45
Speaker 3: it's going to make you feel really uneasy that someone
1:13:48
Speaker 3: was in your house.
1:13:49
Speaker 2: Right.
1:13:49
Speaker 3: It's no different with those mature bucks you put foreign
1:13:52
Speaker 3: object there in the woods. It surprises them, they notice it.
1:13:56
Speaker 3: They're not necessarily going to vacate the area, but they're
1:14:00
Speaker 3: to avoid that trail. And a lot of times, you know, again,
1:14:03
Speaker 3: if you're not following these rules, a lot of times
1:14:06
Speaker 3: I can really throw you off on your intel or
1:14:08
Speaker 3: trying to create these theories. Oh that buck was on camera,
1:14:10
Speaker 3: I'll fall and now I haven't had any pictures though
1:14:13
Speaker 3: he's clearly gone. Well he might be he maybe he shifted,
1:14:16
Speaker 3: but I've seen it time and time again where I'm
1:14:18
Speaker 3: in the woods hunting, I can see the trail camera
1:14:21
Speaker 3: and the adjacent pinch point, and that buck comes up
1:14:23
Speaker 3: and he goes around behind that camera, skirts it by
1:14:25
Speaker 3: twenty yards back on the trail, just completely avoids it.
1:14:28
Speaker 3: So that's a big one. And then the last one
1:14:30
Speaker 3: is simply just sorry.
1:14:32
Speaker 2: I'm gonna pause you before you give me the last one,
1:14:34
Speaker 2: because I've got one foll up to that. Given your
1:14:37
Speaker 2: experience working for a trail camera company for a decade,
1:14:41
Speaker 2: and i don't know if this came up or not
1:14:42
Speaker 2: during your time frame or not, but I'm starting to
1:14:45
Speaker 2: hear people questioning if cell cameras are spooking deer in
1:14:50
Speaker 2: a different way than standard ones did. Like, is this
1:14:53
Speaker 2: signal that's beaming up into the sky from a cell
1:14:56
Speaker 2: camera in some way being detected by dear? Have you
1:15:01
Speaker 2: heard anything about that? Have you seen anything to that? Is?
1:15:04
Speaker 2: Is that crazy hogwasher something?
1:15:07
Speaker 3: I think that it's plausible. I really do, actually funny
1:15:13
Speaker 3: story on that, So not to get too crazy far
1:15:17
Speaker 3: out there, but so I worked for this trail camera company,
1:15:20
Speaker 3: uh Raconics trail Cameras. I worked for Iconics, and I
1:15:23
Speaker 3: did most of the testing and development and all the
1:15:27
Speaker 3: prototyping on the cameras, and then I ran the whole
1:15:30
Speaker 3: customer service department. And one of my actually one of
1:15:34
Speaker 3: my favorite customers over the years was this absolutely brilliant
1:15:39
Speaker 3: human being, brilliant, like on the spectrum, a brilliant human being,
1:15:44
Speaker 3: incredibly smart. But he was part of the Bigfoot research organization, Okay,
1:15:51
Speaker 3: And I wanted to preface that because you know, it's
1:15:53
Speaker 3: easy to be like bigfoot hunter. You know, actually we
1:15:56
Speaker 3: want to refer to them as researchers. They always appreciate that.
1:15:59
Speaker 3: But the reason I appreciated this guy so much was
1:16:01
Speaker 3: one again, he was just brilliant and He actually dropped
1:16:04
Speaker 3: out of the organization when it started to get more
1:16:07
Speaker 3: popular with all the shows and stuff on Discovery Channel
1:16:09
Speaker 3: because he didn't want that hype. He was convinced that
1:16:11
Speaker 3: he was going to find these cryptic animals, and he
1:16:15
Speaker 3: was using trail cameras heavily for that. That's how I
1:16:18
Speaker 3: got connected with him. But he built his own high
1:16:22
Speaker 3: frequency noise test chamber because he was convinced that they
1:16:27
Speaker 3: weren't getting high quality pictures of Bigfoot because the sasquatch
1:16:32
Speaker 3: could hear these high frequency noises emitted from electronics. And
1:16:36
Speaker 3: he sent me all the test files and it was
1:16:38
Speaker 3: pretty crazy. Some of these cameras, and you know, we
1:16:41
Speaker 3: don't need to go in the details on them. And
1:16:43
Speaker 3: this was years before cell cameras were really a thing.
1:16:46
Speaker 3: But some of these cameras made zero noise until they
1:16:49
Speaker 3: were triggered, and then there'd just be this insane high
1:16:51
Speaker 3: frequency squeal. And some cameras had like a constant little
1:16:55
Speaker 3: squal and then when they took pictures, it was insane
1:16:57
Speaker 3: like the noise.
1:16:58
Speaker 2: You know.
1:16:58
Speaker 3: So we think about like high frequency noise, you know,
1:17:00
Speaker 3: like a dog whistle, right, it's at a frequency that
1:17:03
Speaker 3: humans can't really hear, but dogs can hear it. So
1:17:05
Speaker 3: to think that wild animals can hear these noises that
1:17:09
Speaker 3: we can't hear is very very plausible. And a cell
1:17:13
Speaker 3: camera where it has a radio that's constantly connecting, you know,
1:17:17
Speaker 3: however many times a second. You know, just like your
1:17:19
Speaker 3: cell phone and cameras are a little bit less because
1:17:21
Speaker 3: they don't have to be you know, on point all
1:17:23
Speaker 3: the time. But that concept there of those radios communicating
1:17:28
Speaker 3: all the time, it's very very possible that they're emitting
1:17:31
Speaker 3: high frequency noise that animals can pick up on. And
1:17:34
Speaker 3: you know, not to go crazy down that rabbit hole.
1:17:38
Speaker 3: But I've had some really good hunts. I've killed so
1:17:41
Speaker 3: of my biggest deer on days where I didn't take
1:17:43
Speaker 3: my cell phone with me. You know, there was one
1:17:45
Speaker 3: night you can see over my shoulder here this two
1:17:48
Speaker 3: hundred inchure, my first two hundred inch I killed. They're
1:17:51
Speaker 3: technically one hundred ninety seven inch. That night, I was
1:17:54
Speaker 3: like stressed out with work. I got to my truck
1:17:56
Speaker 3: and I've just shut my phone off and left it
1:17:58
Speaker 3: in the truck and I went out out there, had
1:18:00
Speaker 3: gotten the stand and I killed that deer, you know,
1:18:02
Speaker 3: it could have just been coincidence. But you know, I
1:18:04
Speaker 3: think cell phones in general kind of affect us either
1:18:06
Speaker 3: from distractions or potentially noise. But but the camera thing,
1:18:09
Speaker 3: I think is very plausible because the electronics in those
1:18:15
Speaker 3: trail cameras are obviously not as advanced. You know, it's
1:18:18
Speaker 3: a lot of the same chips and everything, but they're
1:18:20
Speaker 3: not the same as like your cell phone camera, right.
1:18:24
Speaker 3: A lot of them are bigger, clunkier, lower cost components.
1:18:29
Speaker 3: They're bigger, you know, some of these inductors and capacitors
1:18:32
Speaker 3: in these circuits that are charging up and dumping all
1:18:35
Speaker 3: this energy and stuff. They're probably not fine tuned to
1:18:39
Speaker 3: be as efficient in general. But overall that concept and
1:18:42
Speaker 3: knowing that there there are you know, significant high frequency
1:18:46
Speaker 3: noises emitted from these electronics, from that researcher's results and
1:18:51
Speaker 3: testing them, it's very very plausible, very plausible. And I've
1:18:54
Speaker 3: had situations actually this year over here, the year before
1:18:59
Speaker 3: I killed him, I had a camera on the back
1:19:02
Speaker 3: end of our farm and it was a cell camera.
1:19:06
Speaker 3: It was up in the tree and this like back
1:19:08
Speaker 3: corner of the field where the deer kind of cut
1:19:10
Speaker 3: this corner, you know, between two betting areas was also
1:19:12
Speaker 3: a food source. It was a good hybrid type setup,
1:19:15
Speaker 3: but it was up in the tree high enough where
1:19:16
Speaker 3: I had to drive my ATV up to it and
1:19:19
Speaker 3: stand on the handlebars to reach the camera. So ten
1:19:22
Speaker 3: plus feet up in the air, in the middle of
1:19:24
Speaker 3: a snowstorm, the middle of a snowstorm, that deer came
1:19:28
Speaker 3: across that field and his eyes went straight up to
1:19:31
Speaker 3: that camera and he turned around and ran off. So
1:19:34
Speaker 3: you can't tell me that he saw the flash or
1:19:36
Speaker 3: heard a click or anything. In that snowstorm, something drew
1:19:40
Speaker 3: his attention to that camera.
1:19:41
Speaker 2: You know.
1:19:41
Speaker 3: Again, maybe it was a coincidence. I don't know, but
1:19:44
Speaker 3: I think that is a very plausible theory that cell
1:19:46
Speaker 3: cams affect deer. And I think it's you know, for
1:19:50
Speaker 3: any anyone out there who wants to argue at the point.
1:19:52
Speaker 3: I think it's very similar to like the white flash
1:19:55
Speaker 3: systems on cameras where some guys were like, oh, white flash,
1:19:57
Speaker 3: don't spook deer, or even just you know again, general
1:20:00
Speaker 3: camera set up. You know, some people put their cameras
1:20:03
Speaker 3: low all the time, never really affects their deer. Every
1:20:06
Speaker 3: deer is going to be different. Every property is going
1:20:07
Speaker 3: to be different. Every area is going to be different.
1:20:09
Speaker 3: But in general, I think that it's very, very plausible.
1:20:12
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing to keep track of. I guess
1:20:14
Speaker 2: if on the theory of tracking things, that's one thing
1:20:17
Speaker 2: that I think, you know, we just need to keep
1:20:21
Speaker 2: tabs on it and kind of see if that means
1:20:23
Speaker 2: we need to adjust in any kind of way. But
1:20:25
Speaker 2: you had one more trail camera.
1:20:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, the last trail camera rule is pretty straightforward and simple.
1:20:30
Speaker 3: It is just simply to put high value on that
1:20:33
Speaker 3: information right and catalog it. You talked about earlier, cataloging
1:20:38
Speaker 3: and folders and saving it. I cannot stress the importance
1:20:40
Speaker 3: of that. Even if you are running cell cameras, and
1:20:43
Speaker 3: most guys, I shouldn't say most guys, but a lot
1:20:45
Speaker 3: of guys nowadays are running all cell cameras. Try to
1:20:48
Speaker 3: get in the habit at the end of the season
1:20:50
Speaker 3: to swap that card, dump that car on your computer,
1:20:52
Speaker 3: catalog it by location, because then next year it's way
1:20:56
Speaker 3: easier to go back on your computer and scroll through
1:20:58
Speaker 3: those pictures. Then try to scroll through that app and
1:21:00
Speaker 3: find you know, a little tiny thumbnail or something, or
1:21:03
Speaker 3: you know, even better yet is go through those pictures
1:21:06
Speaker 3: and catalog the information. Whether you're using a planner like
1:21:09
Speaker 3: this or you know what Xcel spreadsheet or whatever it
1:21:11
Speaker 3: might be, but catalog the important information there and save
1:21:16
Speaker 3: that because that historical data is so important and it
1:21:18
Speaker 3: really will help you anticipate, even if it's a completely
1:21:20
Speaker 3: different deer that you're pursuing. That historical data is going
1:21:23
Speaker 3: to help you kind of reveal those trends and prove
1:21:25
Speaker 3: those theories.
1:21:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, there's there's a few more things I
1:21:30
Speaker 2: want to make sure we hit on before we go.
1:21:32
Speaker 2: But we're also I've been keeping here a long time,
1:21:34
Speaker 2: so I want to kind of move a little more.
1:21:37
Speaker 2: I want to say, like rapid fire, but like we're
1:21:39
Speaker 2: going to shift the tempo up just a little bit
1:21:42
Speaker 2: so we can cover a handful more things. One thing
1:21:45
Speaker 2: really quick, I've heard you talk about playing defense for
1:21:49
Speaker 2: Big Bucks, and this is a kind of a similar
1:21:51
Speaker 2: concept to something that came up last week. So I
1:21:53
Speaker 2: just want to get your thoughts on that real quick.
1:21:55
Speaker 2: What do you mean by playing defense and why is
1:21:57
Speaker 2: that important?
1:21:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, playing defense? You know, this kind of goes back
1:22:01
Speaker 3: to that pressure thing. And at the time we're recording this,
1:22:04
Speaker 3: this next weekend is the youth hunt. And that's when
1:22:06
Speaker 3: I talk about it a lot, because you know, maybe
1:22:08
Speaker 3: it's little different this ye because I'm actually taking my
1:22:10
Speaker 3: son out on the youth hunt, so I want my
1:22:12
Speaker 3: neighbors to not play defense. But ultimately, you know, if
1:22:16
Speaker 3: we're trying to harvest mature deer, we have to have
1:22:19
Speaker 3: mature deer to begin with. So this comes into play
1:22:22
Speaker 3: whether you're pursuing a specific deer or you're trying to
1:22:25
Speaker 3: grow or increase the age class or age structure of
1:22:27
Speaker 3: deer on your property. But it ultimately goes back to
1:22:30
Speaker 3: that pressure thing. You don't want to push deer off
1:22:32
Speaker 3: your property. You don't want to disturb those deer. You
1:22:35
Speaker 3: want to make sure that when you're hunting, you're utilizing
1:22:38
Speaker 3: the high quality sits versus just getting out there to
1:22:41
Speaker 3: get out there. And that's where having a easy access stand.
1:22:45
Speaker 3: Whether it's box blind or just a non invasive location
1:22:47
Speaker 3: where maybe you do only have a couple of days
1:22:49
Speaker 3: to hunt. Okay, go hunt that, but don't go into
1:22:52
Speaker 3: the depths of your property unless you have a good plan.
1:22:54
Speaker 3: And back to the wind element and again the pressure.
1:22:58
Speaker 3: Understand that if you bump deer they're going to run
1:23:00
Speaker 3: into the wind, and they almost always run into the wind,
1:23:03
Speaker 3: and then they're going to go to the next best cover,
1:23:05
Speaker 3: depending on how hard they're bumped or what the quality
1:23:08
Speaker 3: of that cover is. You know, they might just go
1:23:11
Speaker 3: to the other side of the valley on your property,
1:23:13
Speaker 3: or they might vacate your property altogether. Then they end
1:23:15
Speaker 3: up on the neighbor's property and some kid that's you know,
1:23:18
Speaker 3: never step foot in the woods goes out and shoots
1:23:20
Speaker 3: a giant buck, which you know, that's great, but I
1:23:23
Speaker 3: think that they should earn it right, So that's a
1:23:25
Speaker 3: big thing. But also again, like you put in all
1:23:27
Speaker 3: his time and effort and work on your property or
1:23:29
Speaker 3: just the time that goes into pursuing these deer, you
1:23:32
Speaker 3: want to take smart or make smart moves when you
1:23:35
Speaker 3: pursue them so that you don't bump them off your
1:23:37
Speaker 3: property because once they're dead, they're dead, right then there's
1:23:40
Speaker 3: no opportunity. So that's what I always mean by playing
1:23:42
Speaker 3: defense in that situation.
1:23:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned the wind thing and how oftentimes they'll
1:23:48
Speaker 2: escape into the wind. I guess using that to tell
1:23:51
Speaker 2: where safety is. And you mentioned earlier, you know, when
1:23:55
Speaker 2: you were discussing the wind is king that all things
1:23:57
Speaker 2: being equal, when possible, a buck is going to bet
1:24:00
Speaker 2: with the wind to his back so he can smell
1:24:02
Speaker 2: what he can't see. But what about when they travel?
1:24:05
Speaker 2: This is one of those things that a lot of people
1:24:06
Speaker 2: talk about. Some people will say, man, bucks will almost
1:24:09
Speaker 2: always travel with the wind to their advantage in some way.
1:24:12
Speaker 2: Other people will say, geez, I've seen deer walking with
1:24:15
Speaker 2: the wind at the back plenty of times, and there's
1:24:17
Speaker 2: no way they could go around all the time through
1:24:19
Speaker 2: their daily life. So the wind in their favorite because
1:24:21
Speaker 2: they'd walk in circles half the time, or whatever it is.
1:24:23
Speaker 2: What's your take on that? Real quick?
1:24:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think i've kind of dialed this in. Actually
1:24:29
Speaker 3: this year confirmed it for me, and I've heard all
1:24:31
Speaker 3: the same things that you just said. I think bucks
1:24:35
Speaker 3: specifically will travel with the wind at their back if
1:24:38
Speaker 3: they're in cover, and that's a big thing, you know.
1:24:41
Speaker 3: I've talked to guys and I've seen it myself. A
1:24:43
Speaker 3: buck walking through tall grass through a swamp bottom traveling
1:24:47
Speaker 3: with the wind at their back. I think that's actually
1:24:48
Speaker 3: advantageous for them. Right, they can't see a whole lot,
1:24:51
Speaker 3: but they can smell what's coming from behind them, and
1:24:53
Speaker 3: they're moving forward, then they have a little bit of
1:24:56
Speaker 3: advantage there. They really in there's a direct relationship between
1:25:01
Speaker 3: how deer used the wind and the pressure on the
1:25:03
Speaker 3: property or in the surrounding area. So the higher the
1:25:05
Speaker 3: pressure is, the more they're going to use the wind.
1:25:08
Speaker 2: Bar none.
1:25:09
Speaker 3: But what I saw the other night, that first night
1:25:11
Speaker 3: that I saw that my target buck was they came
1:25:15
Speaker 3: from cover of betting and the wind was ultimately at
1:25:18
Speaker 3: their back. I guess I can't one hundred percent confirm
1:25:20
Speaker 3: that because across the valley maybe the wind was swirling
1:25:22
Speaker 3: a little bit more over there, But just looking at
1:25:25
Speaker 3: a map and drawing some lines, the wind would have
1:25:28
Speaker 3: been at their back. But they maintained cover the whole
1:25:30
Speaker 3: time they dropped down on this creek bottom, and then
1:25:32
Speaker 3: they approached the food source with the wind at their face.
1:25:35
Speaker 3: So I think if you're hunting a food source or
1:25:39
Speaker 3: the fringes of a dough betting area during the rut,
1:25:43
Speaker 3: in a food source during the rut is a really
1:25:45
Speaker 3: good spot to hunt too. I would stay on the
1:25:47
Speaker 3: down wind side of it, or anticipate movement from the
1:25:49
Speaker 3: downwind side, because whether that buck's approaching that food source
1:25:52
Speaker 3: to feed and anticipating, you know, the potential of an
1:25:55
Speaker 3: ambush from a predator. Or he's approaching that food source
1:25:59
Speaker 3: to pick up a cent trail from a dough and
1:26:01
Speaker 3: follow her back to a bedding area. He's gonna follow,
1:26:03
Speaker 3: he's gonna get down wind of it. So I think
1:26:05
Speaker 3: that's a big thing there.
1:26:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. We've talked a lot
1:26:23
Speaker 2: about the four key elements. We've talked about building this
1:26:26
Speaker 2: data source to then inform you of where the right
1:26:29
Speaker 2: places are to be. We've talked about being careful with
1:26:32
Speaker 2: your sits and playing defense, but really key thing and
1:26:35
Speaker 2: all that, and one of the things you mentioned as
1:26:37
Speaker 2: kind of the glue to this whole thing is the timing.
1:26:40
Speaker 2: So when to take your shots, when to make your plunge,
1:26:42
Speaker 2: when to get aggressive, when to sit that best spot
1:26:46
Speaker 2: or that spot you've been waiting and waiting and waiting for.
1:26:49
Speaker 2: You touched on in your hunt earlier this year that
1:26:51
Speaker 2: the cold front was the trigger for you. But there's
1:26:54
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of other kind of variables that different
1:26:57
Speaker 2: people really assign a lot of value to when it
1:26:59
Speaker 2: comes to timing their hunts. Can you run me through
1:27:02
Speaker 2: really quick the most important variables you look at from
1:27:05
Speaker 2: a weather perspective, you know, whether it be precipitation or temperature,
1:27:09
Speaker 2: or barometric pressure, or wind or moon. Those are things
1:27:14
Speaker 2: that some people have got strong opinions on. Would love
1:27:17
Speaker 2: to hear yours real quick.
1:27:18
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't track the moon very much. You know.
1:27:21
Speaker 3: I'll look at that, and you know the same thing.
1:27:25
Speaker 3: You know, Mercury is really good talking about that stuff
1:27:27
Speaker 3: and how they anticipate, you know, before a full moon,
1:27:29
Speaker 3: after full moon, what that's going to do for feeding patterns,
1:27:32
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So I'll take it into consideration if
1:27:34
Speaker 3: it if I'm building a theory, you know, again, it's
1:27:37
Speaker 3: more information that's either going to lend to that theory
1:27:40
Speaker 3: and give me more precise information. But for the most part,
1:27:44
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't invest a ton in that. I
1:27:46
Speaker 3: don't invest a ton in the in the red moon
1:27:47
Speaker 3: or anything like that. I mostly look at the weather
1:27:52
Speaker 3: and the wind, specifically the wind direction and temperature changes.
1:27:58
Speaker 3: So I really really really like to hone in on
1:28:02
Speaker 3: wind direction changes. I've killed my biggest deer on wind changes.
1:28:09
Speaker 3: You know, whether that wind changed midday and I went
1:28:11
Speaker 3: out that afternoon or that wind changed overnight and moved
1:28:15
Speaker 3: them to a new area, and then I went out
1:28:17
Speaker 3: and hunted them. But I really try to dial in
1:28:20
Speaker 3: on that, and more often than not, when there's a
1:28:21
Speaker 3: wind change, there's a temp change. You know, it either
1:28:23
Speaker 3: maybe it flips and it warms up, but a lot
1:28:25
Speaker 3: of times it flips and it cools down. Now, when
1:28:28
Speaker 3: it comes to cold fronts in general, I think, honestly,
1:28:32
Speaker 3: I think that those are harder to really be super
1:28:35
Speaker 3: precise with. You know, some cold fronts, like last night,
1:28:38
Speaker 3: we had a cold front move through here, but it
1:28:40
Speaker 3: wasn't really that good of a night for movement. You know,
1:28:43
Speaker 3: I talked to a lot of guys that were oute.
1:28:44
Speaker 3: I've got a handful of cell cams out on food
1:28:46
Speaker 3: sources right now, and there really wasn't much movement. I
1:28:48
Speaker 3: would anticipate tonight that there's more movement, and that's a
1:28:52
Speaker 3: lot of times what I'll see is especially like as
1:28:54
Speaker 3: we progress into the fall and we get like real
1:28:56
Speaker 3: cold fronts, you know where it goes from fifty degrees
1:28:59
Speaker 3: to twenty eight degrees and a little bit of snow.
1:29:01
Speaker 3: A lot of times that first day of that cold front.
1:29:03
Speaker 3: The deer just shut right down, they don't move, and
1:29:06
Speaker 3: then the next day they start moving a lot. More So,
1:29:10
Speaker 3: to answer your question, I try to just collect as
1:29:12
Speaker 3: much information as possible, and I start with the wind,
1:29:16
Speaker 3: but most of the time I'm looking at that timing element.
1:29:18
Speaker 3: So again, and I think this is probably gonna be
1:29:21
Speaker 3: the most helpful for anyone listening to this, try to
1:29:25
Speaker 3: hone in on your timing in general. You know, we're
1:29:28
Speaker 3: already getting past the early season by the time this
1:29:32
Speaker 3: podcast drops, I would say we're already out of early season,
1:29:35
Speaker 3: not saying that there's not some early season stuff still trickling.
1:29:37
Speaker 3: And you know, I've seen bucks pretty consistent on food
1:29:40
Speaker 3: plots patternable into mid October before. But for the most part,
1:29:45
Speaker 3: think timing, think ahead, and i'd be looking at historical information.
1:29:49
Speaker 3: Where are those doughs, And if you don't have this
1:29:50
Speaker 3: data yet, start tracking your does, start following those doughs,
1:29:54
Speaker 3: and try to figure out where those doughs are spending
1:29:56
Speaker 3: their time, because obviously the bucks are going to start
1:29:58
Speaker 3: showing up there. But once I drill in on my timing,
1:30:00
Speaker 3: so say I've got this three to five day window
1:30:03
Speaker 3: that I'm trying to target in you know, whenever it is.
1:30:05
Speaker 3: It could be early October, could be late October, early November.
1:30:10
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out the timing there and then
1:30:12
Speaker 3: ultimately I'm looking at my setup. Right. So one thing
1:30:15
Speaker 3: that we didn't really touch on earlier is that, you
1:30:19
Speaker 3: know the second half of my holistic approach, and just
1:30:21
Speaker 3: to kind of hit that on a high level quick,
1:30:24
Speaker 3: what I what I do is, you know, I refer
1:30:26
Speaker 3: to it as holistic hunting land management. So we in
1:30:28
Speaker 3: the first podcast we talked about the habitat itself, but
1:30:31
Speaker 3: it's I think it's important to talk about the setups
1:30:34
Speaker 3: and the systems on property. So from a holistic standpoint,
1:30:37
Speaker 3: what I'm always doing is I'm looking at the properties
1:30:40
Speaker 3: and how that property functions as a system as a whole, right,
1:30:43
Speaker 3: you know, again, habitat is a big part of that,
1:30:45
Speaker 3: but specifically talking about the hunting side of things, how
1:30:49
Speaker 3: does that property function as a system where dear betting,
1:30:52
Speaker 3: how are they moving, where are they feeding? And then
1:30:54
Speaker 3: I you know, we dial back a little bit on
1:30:55
Speaker 3: that and how does that property fit into a bigger
1:30:58
Speaker 3: system on the landscape, especially if you have a small
1:31:01
Speaker 3: property and even our farm you know, IVE got fifteen
1:31:03
Speaker 3: hundred acre farm. One of the big advantages I always
1:31:06
Speaker 3: had was it's broken up. It's connected, but it's broken
1:31:09
Speaker 3: up by topography so much so that it almost hunts
1:31:12
Speaker 3: like four different properties. And those deer, you know, they
1:31:15
Speaker 3: might spend a lot of time on our farm, but
1:31:17
Speaker 3: it's only a small amount of their actual range, and
1:31:20
Speaker 3: whether they're not on our farm, we don't know where
1:31:22
Speaker 3: they are. So it's part of a much bigger system.
1:31:24
Speaker 3: So kind of anticipating and understanding that, but more importantly
1:31:28
Speaker 3: than anything else is to drill in to see how
1:31:31
Speaker 3: the property is made up of these smaller systems or setups,
1:31:35
Speaker 3: and that's a big one. So we talk about timing,
1:31:37
Speaker 3: and I've got my time frame kind of narrowed in. Okay,
1:31:41
Speaker 3: I really need to focus on this time frame, whether
1:31:43
Speaker 3: it's the ideal time frame or I need to schedule
1:31:47
Speaker 3: a week off of work period. Right. I haven't had
1:31:50
Speaker 3: to deal with that for a while now because I
1:31:52
Speaker 3: make my own schedule. But for a long time it
1:31:55
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, I got to put in a notice
1:31:57
Speaker 3: a month or two in advance of when I'm going
1:31:58
Speaker 3: to be gone from work. Looking at that historical information
1:32:01
Speaker 3: drilling in that timing, and then within that timing, I'm
1:32:04
Speaker 3: looking at my specific setups. Where is that buck going
1:32:08
Speaker 3: to be, where do I anticipate him going to be,
1:32:10
Speaker 3: and what wind direction do I need to hunt that setup? Now,
1:32:15
Speaker 3: not specifically the safe wind to you know, this is
1:32:19
Speaker 3: obviously important, but I think that's one oh one level
1:32:21
Speaker 3: of like how do I get in and out of
1:32:23
Speaker 3: there and hunt it without deer busting me? More importantly
1:32:26
Speaker 3: is what wind is going to place that buck in
1:32:29
Speaker 3: that betting area or that adjacent betting area that feeds
1:32:31
Speaker 3: that setup. You know, so simple at setup possible, right,
1:32:35
Speaker 3: just think food, where they're going to end up betting,
1:32:37
Speaker 3: where they're coming from. If it's an afternoon setup or
1:32:40
Speaker 3: you know, inverse of that in the morning, and a
1:32:43
Speaker 3: pinch point in between. You know, it could be a
1:32:44
Speaker 3: lot of different types of pitch points. But that's a
1:32:47
Speaker 3: setup at a high level. So what is the wind
1:32:49
Speaker 3: that I need to hunt that? And if I'm looking
1:32:51
Speaker 3: at that time frame and I plan that out now
1:32:53
Speaker 3: I'm looking at that and I might get screwed and
1:32:55
Speaker 3: oh the wind's out of the same direction the whole week,
1:32:58
Speaker 3: Well then I'm just going to hunt it the best
1:32:59
Speaker 3: I can, but it's not really putting me in a
1:33:01
Speaker 3: position where I'm I have the highest donds possible. But
1:33:03
Speaker 3: if there's some fluctuation in the wind that week, and
1:33:06
Speaker 3: I know the wind, that's gonna again have the wind
1:33:08
Speaker 3: at that bucks back in that betting area, or it's
1:33:10
Speaker 3: a betting area where he's gonna cruise down window to
1:33:12
Speaker 3: pick up do set. I'm gonna stay out of that
1:33:15
Speaker 3: setup until that wind is perfect for that situation. I'm
1:33:19
Speaker 3: gonna hunt the fringe. You know. Maybe I'll just sit
1:33:22
Speaker 3: in the truck and glass a field that night, you know,
1:33:24
Speaker 3: rather than adding pressure to that location. But I think
1:33:27
Speaker 3: that's probably the most important element there again, the wind
1:33:30
Speaker 3: in combination with the timing.
1:33:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what you just described I think is going
1:33:37
Speaker 2: to greatly apply to my final set of questions here,
1:33:41
Speaker 2: but maybe not. Let's imagine you're sitting at the diner
1:33:45
Speaker 2: or the bar or something with a really good deer hunter,
1:33:48
Speaker 2: like he or she has killed good mature bucks, let's
1:33:53
Speaker 2: say every other year for a decent amount of time. Now,
1:33:56
Speaker 2: so I've done this pretty well, but they're also hard
1:33:59
Speaker 2: charging driven want to get better. You know, every other
1:34:03
Speaker 2: year is not good enough. I should be getting it
1:34:05
Speaker 2: done every single year. So that person is sitting with
1:34:08
Speaker 2: you at the table, and you've got five minutes to
1:34:11
Speaker 2: tell them one thing that would help them take that
1:34:15
Speaker 2: final next step for the late October time period, and
1:34:20
Speaker 2: then one piece of advice for like peak run, because
1:34:25
Speaker 2: those are maybe the two windows where most people think
1:34:27
Speaker 2: they've got their best chance, right that late October window, Man,
1:34:30
Speaker 2: there's this great opportunity to still have a pattern on
1:34:32
Speaker 2: a deer that big boy might be getting on his feet,
1:34:34
Speaker 2: So that's a special window. And then there's that special
1:34:36
Speaker 2: window when everything's just on their feet. Can you give
1:34:39
Speaker 2: me that one advanced idea for each of those windows
1:34:42
Speaker 2: for that person?
1:34:43
Speaker 3: I think that's that's probably a tough, tough answer, you know,
1:34:47
Speaker 3: without having background info on that specific person, because I
1:34:50
Speaker 3: might tell them something they'd be like, yeah, dude, I
1:34:52
Speaker 3: already know that, right. I will say that the bulk
1:34:56
Speaker 3: of the clients that I do virtual coaching with are
1:34:59
Speaker 3: those people. They're they're pretty successful hunters in general, but
1:35:03
Speaker 3: they're trying to take it to the next level. And
1:35:06
Speaker 3: I think that it's exactly what I just said on
1:35:09
Speaker 3: that wind direction thing. You know, I've consulted on some
1:35:12
Speaker 3: properties with some pretty successful hunters, some fairly big names
1:35:16
Speaker 3: in the industry, business owners within the outdoor industry. You know,
1:35:20
Speaker 3: they've killed a lot of good deer over the years,
1:35:21
Speaker 3: a lot of great deer over the years. But it
1:35:23
Speaker 3: comes back to that wind thing. And you know, again,
1:35:26
Speaker 3: I could explain this to one guy like, yeah, I
1:35:27
Speaker 3: already know that, but looking at the wind and how
1:35:30
Speaker 3: it places those deer is such an important things, so important,
1:35:34
Speaker 3: you know, I think all too often we just look
1:35:36
Speaker 3: at simply that's a stand I can hunt on this
1:35:38
Speaker 3: wind direction, but it's not necessarily going to put that
1:35:42
Speaker 3: buck in the area because of that wind direction. You know,
1:35:45
Speaker 3: in combination of where they bed and also how they travel.
1:35:49
Speaker 3: You know, those bucks really want to travel on that
1:35:51
Speaker 3: leeward side of the hill, the down wind side of
1:35:53
Speaker 3: the hill more often than not, not saying they won't
1:35:55
Speaker 3: travel on the other side, but they usually are going
1:35:57
Speaker 3: to spend most of their time on the down wind
1:35:58
Speaker 3: side of the hill when they're traveling. If you have
1:36:00
Speaker 3: topography or just in general, you know, I say the
1:36:03
Speaker 3: hill a lot or topography. Topography is the greatest form
1:36:07
Speaker 3: of cover. Just think of topography as cover, plain and simple.
1:36:10
Speaker 3: It's cover without food value, and that's all it is.
1:36:13
Speaker 3: So if you're hunting flat land in Iowa or Illinois
1:36:17
Speaker 3: or something, those bucks are going to travel more on
1:36:19
Speaker 3: the down wind side of the cover while still maintaining cover.
1:36:23
Speaker 3: So having those buffer areas or transition areas is important.
1:36:26
Speaker 3: But I'm sure you talk about all the time the
1:36:28
Speaker 3: hard edges and different edges and stuff. Right, they're going
1:36:30
Speaker 3: to follow that edge on the down wind side. But
1:36:32
Speaker 3: I think it's the most important thing to consider there
1:36:35
Speaker 3: is that wind element in general, and most of the
1:36:39
Speaker 3: properties that I'm on they have one or two really
1:36:42
Speaker 3: good stands. You know, maybe there's some that are not
1:36:44
Speaker 3: in the best locations to hunt and wind swirls or
1:36:47
Speaker 3: it's just not great. But more often than not, guys
1:36:49
Speaker 3: have stands in pretty good locations. They just hunt them
1:36:51
Speaker 3: on the wrong wind directions or they access them the
1:36:53
Speaker 3: wrong way. So understanding the wind and how it places
1:36:56
Speaker 3: those deer is one going to give you a huge
1:36:59
Speaker 3: advantage in anticipating when to hunt that location, but it's
1:37:02
Speaker 3: also going to give you an advantage of how to access
1:37:04
Speaker 3: that right. So just trying to avoid a potential betting area,
1:37:08
Speaker 3: so your sense not pushed into that to access that
1:37:10
Speaker 3: stand is obviously what's going to create the opportunity. Because
1:37:13
Speaker 3: if you blow them out of there or just alert them, right,
1:37:15
Speaker 3: I've seen this time and time again, where dose deer
1:37:18
Speaker 3: know you're there, it doesn't necessarily mean they're blown out
1:37:20
Speaker 3: of the country, right because most areas it's deer are
1:37:24
Speaker 3: going to see, smell, or hear people on a daily basis.
1:37:26
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean they're running all the time, but they're
1:37:28
Speaker 3: simply not going to move towards the direction of a
1:37:31
Speaker 3: potential threat.
1:37:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right. If folks, which I think many
1:37:37
Speaker 2: folks have enjoyed this, If folks enjoy this and want
1:37:40
Speaker 2: more of what you have to offer, whether it be
1:37:42
Speaker 2: your videos or your consulting or the planner you mentioned
1:37:45
Speaker 2: or anything like that, where should folks go to connect
1:37:48
Speaker 2: with you and your work?
1:37:50
Speaker 3: Yep? So the Untamed Ambition dot com is my website
1:37:55
Speaker 3: and you can click on white Tail Ambition there or
1:37:57
Speaker 3: untamed Ambition dot com slash white tail ambit. That's where
1:38:00
Speaker 3: you're going to find all the white Tail related stuff.
1:38:03
Speaker 3: I offer a handful of different services on there, a
1:38:06
Speaker 3: lot of online stuff you know, especially this time of year,
1:38:08
Speaker 3: people trying to get you know, a more one on
1:38:11
Speaker 3: one look at their situation. One of the most popular
1:38:14
Speaker 3: services I offer this time of year specifically is what
1:38:17
Speaker 3: I call the Golden Hour. It's a one hour consultation.
1:38:20
Speaker 3: It's going to give you access to kind of like
1:38:22
Speaker 3: a little mini course talking more about the scientific approach
1:38:25
Speaker 3: and now we sit down and we break down your
1:38:27
Speaker 3: situation and talk about all these concepts and how it applies,
1:38:30
Speaker 3: and that a lot of times will will be all
1:38:33
Speaker 3: all most guys need, just kind of shift their perspective
1:38:36
Speaker 3: and get them going to where they're collecting information that
1:38:39
Speaker 3: they can build off of and you know, again start
1:38:41
Speaker 3: putting together these theories. The other thing actually pretty exciting
1:38:47
Speaker 3: from my position is I'm actually working with the white
1:38:49
Speaker 3: tail Master Academy now. So if you go to whitetail
1:38:52
Speaker 3: masteracademy dot com and actually it gave me a code
1:38:55
Speaker 3: so you can get twenty dollars off WA for white
1:38:58
Speaker 3: tail Ambition WA white tail Master Academy. There's gonna be
1:39:02
Speaker 3: a lot more detailed videos coming out on my approach,
1:39:06
Speaker 3: which you know, white tail Master Academy's got a lot
1:39:09
Speaker 3: of great videos Bobby Kendall's on there. He's got a
1:39:12
Speaker 3: lot of great videos with land plans. Don Higgins obviously
1:39:14
Speaker 3: he's got all his land plans and stuff on there.
1:39:17
Speaker 3: I think what I offer is probably a little bit
1:39:19
Speaker 3: different from those guys, where mine's again trying to address
1:39:24
Speaker 3: more common scenarios where you have less control or limited control,
1:39:29
Speaker 3: trying to make the most of the situation. So you
1:39:31
Speaker 3: can go there, sign up for that. You can get
1:39:33
Speaker 3: access to all those videos and all this stuff I'm
1:39:35
Speaker 3: talking about, and use that code w A twenty on there. Otherwise,
1:39:40
Speaker 3: social media, the Untamed Ambition and White Tail Ambition. Again,
1:39:45
Speaker 3: white the Untamed Ambition is my primary business. White Tail
1:39:48
Speaker 3: Ambition is kind of the coaching division specifically for white tails.
1:39:51
Speaker 3: But you can find me on social media Instagram the
1:39:55
Speaker 3: Untamed Ambition, and then on YouTube the Untamed Ambition.
1:39:58
Speaker 2: All right, perfect, well, Thomas, this is great. I thoroughly
1:40:02
Speaker 2: enjoyed geeking out with you. You speak my language, so
1:40:06
Speaker 2: this is this is right my alley. Thank you.
1:40:08
Speaker 3: Oh, I appreciate it.
1:40:09
Speaker 2: Mark, all right, and with that, I think we should
1:40:15
Speaker 2: wrap this one up. Definitely take Thomas's suggestion there. Check
1:40:19
Speaker 2: out his website, check out the opportunities that he has
1:40:23
Speaker 2: there for you to connect with him or check out
1:40:24
Speaker 2: his videos, et cetera. Good stuff all across the board.
1:40:28
Speaker 2: So without any further ado, let's wrap this one up
1:40:31
Speaker 2: send you out there to the woods. Best of luck
1:40:34
Speaker 2: out there. Hope you guys are having a great start
1:40:37
Speaker 2: to your hunting season so far, and until next time,
1:40:40
Speaker 2: stay wired to Hunt.