Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #173: Bernie Barringer Talks Public Land, Hunting Scrapes and the October Lull

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #173: Bernie Barringer Talks Public Land, Hunting Scrapes and the October Lull · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This is episode number one seventy three,
0:20
Speaker 1: and today the show we're joined by Bernie Berenger, a
0:23
Speaker 1: d I Y white tail bow hunter, outdoor writer and author,
0:27
Speaker 1: and we're talking public land scrape, hunting tactics, October lull tips,
0:31
Speaker 1: red hunting strategies, and so much more. Welcome to the
0:48
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by sit Ki Gear,
0:53
Speaker 1: and today in the show we are joined by Bernie Benger.
0:57
Speaker 1: He is an avid d I y white tail bow hunter.
1:00
Speaker 1: He's an outdoor writer whose work has been published in
1:03
Speaker 1: North American Whitetail Field and Stream white Tail Journal and elsewhere.
1:08
Speaker 1: And he's the author of a book that I've really
1:10
Speaker 1: enjoyed called The Freelance bow Hunter, which is all about
1:13
Speaker 1: pulling off d I Y deer hunting trips. And way
1:17
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and fourteen when we first started
1:20
Speaker 1: the wire Hunt podcast, me and Dan shatted with Bernie
1:23
Speaker 1: on the show um all about that book and his
1:26
Speaker 1: ideas for doing those types of deer hunting trips, and
1:28
Speaker 1: we had a great time, was a great conversation. We
1:31
Speaker 1: covered a lot of interesting stuff, but there was so
1:33
Speaker 1: much more that that we didn't get to. And so
1:36
Speaker 1: now three years later, or three and a half or
1:39
Speaker 1: something like that years later, we finally have Bernie back
1:42
Speaker 1: with us, and I'm excited to be able to dive into,
1:45
Speaker 1: you know, a whole lot more many many other topics.
1:48
Speaker 1: I think Bernie can speak to. UM. I'm hoping we
1:51
Speaker 1: can hear about his you know, even more about his
1:52
Speaker 1: public line hunting tactics. I think we're gonna talk about
1:55
Speaker 1: the October lull, some of his other thoughts about hunting
1:58
Speaker 1: throughout the month of October. UM. I want to I
2:00
Speaker 1: kind of want to walk through the season with him
2:02
Speaker 1: here more about what he's doing during the rut um.
2:05
Speaker 1: He's had some really impressive success already this year that
2:08
Speaker 1: I think we should talk about. UM. So we're gonna
2:11
Speaker 1: dive into a lot, you know, well, as we do
2:13
Speaker 1: with a lot of our guests. I want to try
2:15
Speaker 1: to dissect Bernie as much as possible, UM, and then
2:19
Speaker 1: I think Dan will try to humiliate or embarrass or
2:22
Speaker 1: do something like that. You know typically so um before
2:27
Speaker 1: we do that though, Um, you heard that laughter over there,
2:31
Speaker 1: that's that's my man, Dan Johnson. If you're not familiar
2:33
Speaker 1: with the word hunt, if you're new to the show,
2:37
Speaker 1: we like to do this thing. We like to kind
2:38
Speaker 1: of prolong your weight before hearing from each of our
2:41
Speaker 1: guests each week. I guess you could call it maybe
2:44
Speaker 1: maybe a preamble, um or a preface, or a prologue
2:49
Speaker 1: or some other world that starts at P. I'm not sure,
2:51
Speaker 1: but what I'm trying to say is that myself and
2:53
Speaker 1: Mr Dan Johnson, my co host, we've got a few
2:56
Speaker 1: things that we need to cover first before we get
2:58
Speaker 1: into topics of their guests. For instance, today I'm excited
3:06
Speaker 1: to share that despite of all of our worries, all
3:10
Speaker 1: of our concerns, despite the doubters, Dan actually got to
3:14
Speaker 1: hunt during the month of October. Ladies, I know you
3:17
Speaker 1: hear that, say that, say that one more time. It
3:19
Speaker 1: sounded really good. Dan Johnson hunted in October. Congratulations, man,
3:26
Speaker 1: that's good, Thank you man. Uh. Out of the blue,
3:30
Speaker 1: Out of the blue, the wife says, so you're gonna
3:34
Speaker 1: you're gonna hunt tonight? Or I was like Saturday or Friday,
3:38
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna hunt Sunday night. And I said,
3:40
Speaker 1: I hadn't planned on it. Why, well, don't you need to?
3:44
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, man, is is this a Is this
3:48
Speaker 1: a trick? Are you trying to trap me? I mean
3:51
Speaker 1: because I I've already agreed to basically not hunt for
3:55
Speaker 1: most of October? And she's like, well, you got a
3:58
Speaker 1: podcast about hunting, why you should probably go hunt. And
4:02
Speaker 1: I'm just like, you know what, You're right, Like, it
4:08
Speaker 1: took me about an hour or two. You know, I
4:11
Speaker 1: threw my I threw my clothes in the in my
4:15
Speaker 1: osonics bag. I uh, I took a shower, I got
4:20
Speaker 1: my tree stand up, and I hit the I hit
4:23
Speaker 1: the woods man. That is awesome. I'm very glad to
4:26
Speaker 1: hear it. I'm glad that all these vibes like I've
4:28
Speaker 1: been I've been trying to transmit my thoughts across the states,
4:32
Speaker 1: all the way to Sarah. I've been trying to infiltrate
4:34
Speaker 1: her sleep so that she would hear these words. You know,
4:37
Speaker 1: Dan has a hunting podcast. He needs to hunt. Dan
4:40
Speaker 1: has a hunting podcast he needs done. So I'm glad
4:43
Speaker 1: it's sunk in and she's got it. She heard you,
4:46
Speaker 1: and hell, you didn't even have to send a check.
4:48
Speaker 1: There you go. I promise I will get that check
4:51
Speaker 1: in the mail. It's just a horrible procrastinator. But you're
4:53
Speaker 1: gonna get You're gonna get your extra night of hunting.
4:56
Speaker 1: You check this out. I don't even know what this
5:00
Speaker 1: weekend's plans are, but there is even a chance that
5:03
Speaker 1: if I clean the house, let my wife be alone
5:08
Speaker 1: without the kids for a little bit, I might be
5:10
Speaker 1: able to get out at some point in this weekend. Man,
5:14
Speaker 1: things have taken a turn towards the optimistic here on
5:18
Speaker 1: the Weird Podcast, and I like it right right, Well,
5:21
Speaker 1: I tell you what. I basically just straight up lied
5:23
Speaker 1: to her and told her that, you know, my podcast
5:26
Speaker 1: was doing so well. I mean, it's just a matter
5:28
Speaker 1: of time before I'm getting like million dollar deals. So
5:31
Speaker 1: so she so she thinks, I'm I'm I'm cooler than
5:35
Speaker 1: I really am. Basically, well, what do they say, fake
5:37
Speaker 1: it till you make it, that's right, I think, I problem.
5:41
Speaker 1: There you go, do what you gotta do. Man, that's good.
5:44
Speaker 1: So how did I how the first sit go? You know,
5:47
Speaker 1: it went really well. Um, and as we all know
5:51
Speaker 1: first sits of the year. Mine was a run and gun.
5:55
Speaker 1: I I narrowed it down between two different locations, and
6:01
Speaker 1: I said to myself, Okay, well, I'm gonna go drive
6:03
Speaker 1: by both properties before they're they're relatively close to each other,
6:08
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go drive by both of them just
6:10
Speaker 1: to see to get a visual observation of, like, are
6:14
Speaker 1: there crops in around there? What the deal is? I
6:17
Speaker 1: pulled into the drive of the very first place, and
6:22
Speaker 1: the entire fence road that I had used the previous
6:25
Speaker 1: year for access to get back in there, this is
6:27
Speaker 1: a cornfield this year. And as you all know, walking
6:30
Speaker 1: through a cornfield if the rows are planted pretty tight,
6:33
Speaker 1: can be loud. And the fence road that I used
6:37
Speaker 1: to walk in the previous year was overgrown with cock
6:42
Speaker 1: birds and those I don't know what the scientific name
6:46
Speaker 1: for these plants are, but there they have the long
6:49
Speaker 1: strip with about twenty of these little, small, small stickers
6:54
Speaker 1: on each side, and if you bump up against them,
6:57
Speaker 1: they just stay on your clothes forever the worst. Yeah.
7:01
Speaker 1: So I saw that and I said screw that, and
7:04
Speaker 1: I got into my truck and I just went to
7:05
Speaker 1: this the other location it was. It's my buddy's farm
7:10
Speaker 1: where he owns like fifteen acres, but it's just like
7:13
Speaker 1: the right fifteen acres the backyard spot, right, Yeah, the
7:17
Speaker 1: backyard spot is basically just thick, overgrown bedding. And I
7:22
Speaker 1: walked in there, and um, I took my pack off
7:26
Speaker 1: and I set it down at the base of the
7:27
Speaker 1: tree that I wanted to hang my stand on. And
7:31
Speaker 1: I have you ever heard, like, um, a bedded deer
7:36
Speaker 1: like burp or like any type of gas I've heard? Yeah, Well,
7:43
Speaker 1: I could hear this deer belching and like having I
7:47
Speaker 1: don't know if it's farting or whatever, but it was
7:49
Speaker 1: a deer and it was like it had gas, and
7:54
Speaker 1: I could hear it while I'm setting up my tree stands.
7:56
Speaker 1: So sure, are you sure you weren't just like projecting
7:58
Speaker 1: your own situation on deer? No no, no, no, no no, no.
8:03
Speaker 1: I own that. I own that if it's me. So, so,
8:08
Speaker 1: there's a there's a betted deer that's got the got
8:11
Speaker 1: the farts continue, yep, yep, yep. So I got up
8:14
Speaker 1: into the tree and I'm I got my just say
8:18
Speaker 1: that there's there's never been a deer hunting story that
8:22
Speaker 1: has started like that probably ever told her before. Well,
8:26
Speaker 1: the deer had the farts and I got my tree stand. Hey,
8:29
Speaker 1: I got another story for you, and I'll tell it
8:31
Speaker 1: real quick. Me and my the only time my brother
8:34
Speaker 1: has ever been in a tree stand with me. He
8:35
Speaker 1: doesn't hunt, And one day I talked him into uh
8:38
Speaker 1: coming with me, and it was a morning hunt. We
8:42
Speaker 1: got into this tree stand and all of a sudden
8:44
Speaker 1: we hear this, these weird noises coming from this crp
8:47
Speaker 1: field and here comes a doe with two yearlings and
8:51
Speaker 1: she is literally farting so loud that me and my
8:55
Speaker 1: brother are laughing out loud, and we scare the deer away.
9:00
Speaker 1: That's for real, that's a real story. Yeah. So anyway back,
9:08
Speaker 1: you know when Mark mentions preface, this is the portion
9:12
Speaker 1: of the show that you usually fast forward for good reason,
9:17
Speaker 1: right right, right, So so anyway, I I get my
9:23
Speaker 1: fourth stick hung, and I got my stand on my back,
9:27
Speaker 1: and I'm getting ready to hang it, and what do
9:28
Speaker 1: I see? Two does work their way right by me
9:33
Speaker 1: and my bow is on the ground, of course, of course,
9:38
Speaker 1: so I have to sit there. I pull out the
9:40
Speaker 1: cell phone take a little bit of video of it.
9:42
Speaker 1: And uh just chill out and watch nature and get
9:46
Speaker 1: calf cramps, getting old man cramping up. Okay, so so
9:51
Speaker 1: did she did she end up seeing you or anything?
9:53
Speaker 1: Or do they just move on and you're able to
9:55
Speaker 1: get set up and stuff. Well, in this really thick area,
9:59
Speaker 1: it's a whole b honeysuckle and you know how those
10:01
Speaker 1: plants are almost green all year round. They're kind of thick.
10:04
Speaker 1: And so she really couldn't see me because I was elevated,
10:10
Speaker 1: but I could see her and um, you know, these
10:13
Speaker 1: these bushes are about four ft high and they're just
10:16
Speaker 1: real thick, real nasty, and so they were just kind
10:19
Speaker 1: of feeding in that area, uh, keeping an ear out.
10:23
Speaker 1: So I just continued to set up my tree stand.
10:25
Speaker 1: I got set up, I got my bow pulled up,
10:29
Speaker 1: and um, and then by the time that I got
10:33
Speaker 1: my bow and my pack up, they were they had
10:36
Speaker 1: moved out of the area, out of range. And uh
10:40
Speaker 1: that was those were the only two deer within range
10:43
Speaker 1: that night. Uh. However, a handful of deer did come
10:47
Speaker 1: out further down that bedding area across the creek and
10:49
Speaker 1: went into a a food plot on the neighboring farm.
10:53
Speaker 1: It's just I can't. I can't go that far without
10:56
Speaker 1: being on a different property. So um, basically, the stand
11:01
Speaker 1: that I set was because I didn't have a stand
11:05
Speaker 1: set there already this year, because I thought my buddy
11:08
Speaker 1: was gonna sell that property, so I didn't, I didn't
11:10
Speaker 1: do any work. He decided he's gonna wait till the
11:12
Speaker 1: spring to sell it, so that means I can go
11:15
Speaker 1: back in there, I can set up and uh So,
11:18
Speaker 1: basically what I did is I went in, I hung
11:21
Speaker 1: a rut stand, I hunted it, and now I won't
11:24
Speaker 1: hunt it probably until the first week of November, last
11:27
Speaker 1: week of October. Alright, cool, well, multipurpose set, that's right,
11:32
Speaker 1: that's right. That's awesome. Man. Well, I'm glad to hear
11:34
Speaker 1: you got out there saw some deer. It's always good
11:36
Speaker 1: just to just to be in a tree and opening night.
11:38
Speaker 1: It's a good feeling. Dude. It's one of those things
11:40
Speaker 1: that I was talking to, uh, a buddy from New
11:43
Speaker 1: York about this, and he was he's just like, dude,
11:47
Speaker 1: I didn't even care if I saw a deer, and
11:49
Speaker 1: I agreed with him. I was just like, man, this
11:52
Speaker 1: is what it's all about. You know. We always say
11:55
Speaker 1: this is what it's all about. And literally for me there,
11:58
Speaker 1: my phone didn't ring. I shut it off. I kept
12:01
Speaker 1: it in my pocket. I sat, I watched leaves blowing
12:05
Speaker 1: the wind, listened to the sounds of nature, birds chirping,
12:09
Speaker 1: squirrels running around like I needed that. Yeah, for sure.
12:14
Speaker 1: I'm glad you got it. I'm glad you got it.
12:17
Speaker 1: And you got a little blind time too, though I did. Yeah,
12:20
Speaker 1: not tree stand time, but like you said, blind time. Um.
12:23
Speaker 1: And you know, we talked last week about my game
12:25
Speaker 1: plan for this hunt. Um, and I basically executed on
12:29
Speaker 1: that game plan just like I talked about. So I
12:31
Speaker 1: was gonna try to take one stab at holy Field
12:34
Speaker 1: here in the early season. Um. You know the buck
12:36
Speaker 1: I've been after this year, number three, And UM, I
12:40
Speaker 1: felt really good about my chances of getting in there
12:42
Speaker 1: and and pulling off a low impact hunt. I didn't
12:44
Speaker 1: necessarily think I had the very highest odds in the world.
12:47
Speaker 1: I've seen him, but I thought there was some things
12:50
Speaker 1: in my favor. Um. You know, it was the first
12:52
Speaker 1: night of the season, so these deer hadn't been pressured. Um.
12:55
Speaker 1: It was cooler than I had been earlier in the week.
12:57
Speaker 1: It had been like mid eighties and I was now
12:59
Speaker 1: down to the mid sixties, so it was pretty good.
13:01
Speaker 1: Even though this wasn't like the the first day or
13:03
Speaker 1: two after the front. This is like four days after
13:05
Speaker 1: the front, still decent um. It was the first south
13:10
Speaker 1: wind after four or five days in north winds, which
13:12
Speaker 1: is something that Mark Drewry always talks about as being
13:14
Speaker 1: a trigger sometimes. So I haven't necessarily seen that myself,
13:17
Speaker 1: but I thought, in the back of my mind, well,
13:19
Speaker 1: that's one more little thing, one more tally in the
13:21
Speaker 1: in the pro column um there was that early rising moon,
13:25
Speaker 1: which supposed was another one of those things that maybe
13:27
Speaker 1: you can see a little bit more movement. So there's
13:29
Speaker 1: all these little things and maybe think, hey, you know,
13:31
Speaker 1: it's possible. And I was going to hunt this spot
13:33
Speaker 1: that traditionally holy fields showed up a lot um so
13:37
Speaker 1: long story short, kind of like you did. I I
13:40
Speaker 1: accessed through a standing cornfield and then was able to
13:44
Speaker 1: get about perpendicular just about adjacent to where this ground
13:48
Speaker 1: blind is. I dropped down to a creek, walk a
13:50
Speaker 1: creek right to the back of this blind and hop
13:52
Speaker 1: right into it. So it's like a awesome access route
13:54
Speaker 1: to get in there without spook and anything. And I
13:57
Speaker 1: had a southeast wind, which is like the perfect wind
13:59
Speaker 1: for hunting this area. I put this blind in there
14:02
Speaker 1: specifically for a south or southeast wind. UM, because essentially
14:07
Speaker 1: there's this food plot system out in front of me,
14:09
Speaker 1: and then there's really good betting to the east and
14:14
Speaker 1: the southeast and then to the west and kind of
14:18
Speaker 1: almost that whole dred degrees front in front of me
14:22
Speaker 1: um is good betting or good food. And that's where
14:24
Speaker 1: the deer typically come from. The only place that I
14:27
Speaker 1: would have any danger of spooking deer would be if
14:29
Speaker 1: they came from the look the direction that I walked
14:31
Speaker 1: in from, from the road, from the standing cornfield. But
14:34
Speaker 1: there's there's nothing else over there's no timber, there's no betting,
14:36
Speaker 1: there's no anything um. So I felt, you know, of course,
14:39
Speaker 1: there's never a sure thing, but I felt pretty darned
14:41
Speaker 1: good about the fact I could get in here, have
14:43
Speaker 1: a decent chance of seeing him, and be able to
14:45
Speaker 1: get out without spooking a bunch of deer. So the
14:49
Speaker 1: night starts out, a couple of dolls are feeding, gets
14:53
Speaker 1: towards prime time. Now it's like four dos, then it's
14:56
Speaker 1: six does, and it's twelve doz, that's fifteen does was
15:00
Speaker 1: deer were just piling in And now it's like the
15:02
Speaker 1: last half hour daylight. I'm feeling pretty good about there's
15:05
Speaker 1: a lot of deer moving. Um, I'm getting to that point.
15:10
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, you know, something could happen. You know,
15:12
Speaker 1: this is this is what I was hoping would be happening.
15:14
Speaker 1: But I hadn't been seeing this on a trail camera. Um.
15:18
Speaker 1: Later I found out my placement of that trail camera,
15:20
Speaker 1: I think is just not showing me much of what's
15:21
Speaker 1: going on in this little area. Um, there's a lot
15:24
Speaker 1: more happening that I wasn't able to to see. So
15:26
Speaker 1: I'm feeling good. And then with like twenty five minutes
15:30
Speaker 1: left to daylight, maybe just when you're waiting for the
15:32
Speaker 1: big boy to step in right over my back, right shoulder. Wow,
15:40
Speaker 1: And the worst sound in the world as a hunter,
15:44
Speaker 1: the one place I couldn't have him come from. One
15:47
Speaker 1: single dough came from. While there's all these deer in
15:50
Speaker 1: the food plot happily hanging out calmus could be And
15:53
Speaker 1: what's cool is with this ground blind, this hey bell blind,
15:55
Speaker 1: they really don't give one rip about it. I mean,
15:58
Speaker 1: there was deer three yards away from me feeding like
16:00
Speaker 1: I could almost reach out my bowe and touch him
16:02
Speaker 1: there that close, and just no clue I was there. Um,
16:06
Speaker 1: So it stunk that that dear blue. And then the
16:09
Speaker 1: whole food plot cleared out, everything went running. So I'm
16:12
Speaker 1: sitting there piste, darkness is coming in. It's it's basically dark.
16:17
Speaker 1: Now I'm getting ready to leave, and then I see
16:21
Speaker 1: deer start piling back in. So it's just at the
16:23
Speaker 1: end of daylight. And now deer start piling back into
16:26
Speaker 1: the food plot and some bucks come to the food plot.
16:28
Speaker 1: I got bucks sparring in front of me. There's bucks
16:30
Speaker 1: fighting in the food plot in front of a bunch
16:32
Speaker 1: more deer coming and I'm like, well, jeez, now what
16:34
Speaker 1: um And then back over my right shoulder blew the
16:41
Speaker 1: field out again. So I was just devastated. Like my
16:48
Speaker 1: low impact hunt, my one time in that was supposed
16:51
Speaker 1: to be in and out, not gonna spook any deer.
16:54
Speaker 1: Um of course, UM my over confidence bit me in
16:58
Speaker 1: the butt and UM educated some deer there. Unfortunately I
17:03
Speaker 1: was able to get out after that fine, but not
17:06
Speaker 1: the first night set I was hoping for UM, but
17:11
Speaker 1: on the bright side, I ended up getting trail camera
17:14
Speaker 1: pictures of holy Field in that very food plot. That
17:17
Speaker 1: night at three am, he showed up on trail camera,
17:20
Speaker 1: my wireless trail camera, just moseying through. So my my
17:23
Speaker 1: hope is that he wasn't in the area when when
17:26
Speaker 1: all the commotions going down, and and hopefully that didn't
17:30
Speaker 1: bother him at all. Now I'm planning on staying out
17:32
Speaker 1: of there for several weeks now, letting everything calmback down,
17:35
Speaker 1: and and I have been able to see that there's
17:37
Speaker 1: still deer feeding out there in daylight on my trail cam,
17:40
Speaker 1: so so they're okay. I don't think it was a
17:44
Speaker 1: horribly negative situation. It could have been worse. At least
17:48
Speaker 1: he wasn't, you know, spooked off the food plot. So
17:51
Speaker 1: now I'm just gonna wait and see, wait for later
17:53
Speaker 1: in the season when conditions are better for going there
17:55
Speaker 1: and there after him. But it was fun to be
17:57
Speaker 1: out there, just a beautiful night and got to see
17:59
Speaker 1: a lot of deer. I love that. And uh, I'm
18:02
Speaker 1: heading up to do some Northern Michigan deer hunting in
18:04
Speaker 1: a few days, which should be fun too. So the
18:07
Speaker 1: season continues, So you think that he caught your scent
18:15
Speaker 1: at all while he was in that ground blind or
18:17
Speaker 1: do you think you know he had no idea you
18:19
Speaker 1: were there? Oh well, I've got no idea. I mean
18:23
Speaker 1: he he I don't think. I guess I don't know this,
18:26
Speaker 1: but I don't think he was in the area when
18:30
Speaker 1: those deer winded me. Um, because he didn't show up
18:33
Speaker 1: on traial camera until eight hours later. Um. Now, hypothetically
18:37
Speaker 1: he could have been in the distance. Maybe he was
18:39
Speaker 1: heading that way and then the deer cleared the field
18:41
Speaker 1: and then he headed off somewhere else and came back
18:42
Speaker 1: later at night. That's possible. Um, you never know. But
18:46
Speaker 1: my hope is that you know, since he showed up
18:49
Speaker 1: so late on traial camera, that that's because he was
18:51
Speaker 1: somewhere else earlier in the night. Um. Now, yes, I
18:54
Speaker 1: mean there's always a chance that you know, he could
18:56
Speaker 1: walk through that standing cornfield and catch my scent where
18:59
Speaker 1: I walked through there, so thing. Um So, I don't know,
19:02
Speaker 1: But I do know that two doughs, at least two
19:04
Speaker 1: doughs winded me because they blew at me that night. Um.
19:08
Speaker 1: But the other deer definitely didn't win me. Um. So
19:11
Speaker 1: that's good. So even though I bumped, you know, fifteen
19:13
Speaker 1: deer blow out of that field, they didn't win me
19:16
Speaker 1: the wind. It wasn't like the wind was blowing to
19:17
Speaker 1: all those deer. It was just this one single deer
19:19
Speaker 1: that came out behind me that scared everything else away.
19:22
Speaker 1: So my hope is that a couple of deer winded me.
19:25
Speaker 1: Most of these deer just heard the blow got out
19:27
Speaker 1: of there, but you know, weren't too too negatively impacted.
19:31
Speaker 1: And based on what I'm seeing so far, you know,
19:33
Speaker 1: it's moving back towards normal behavior in that location. And
19:37
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give it time, and once we get
19:40
Speaker 1: to October, the twenties of October, I think, um, things
19:44
Speaker 1: should be in good shape and hopefully get a good
19:46
Speaker 1: cold front around that time period that he likes to
19:49
Speaker 1: start moving again in daylight, and then I can slip
19:52
Speaker 1: back into that area or one of the handful of
19:53
Speaker 1: other spots I have prepared and give it a go.
19:58
Speaker 1: So you think, since then has he showed back up
20:01
Speaker 1: on camera? Well, so this was what today's Wednesday. So
20:06
Speaker 1: he showed up Monday morning at three am, um, and
20:09
Speaker 1: that was the only picture I've got of him there.
20:12
Speaker 1: But you know, I've only gotten trail camera pictures of
20:15
Speaker 1: him four different times in the last thirty days, so
20:20
Speaker 1: he's not he's not been as frequent of a visitor
20:22
Speaker 1: as he's been in the past. UM. My hope is that, um,
20:27
Speaker 1: that might be changing now that the hunting pressure is
20:29
Speaker 1: increasing all around this area and there's been a bunch
20:32
Speaker 1: of hunters out. I've been seeing a lot of cars
20:33
Speaker 1: in the surrounding properties and stuff, so the pressure is
20:37
Speaker 1: ramping up significantly around me, and um, I'm hoping that
20:41
Speaker 1: this will give him another reason to spend more time
20:43
Speaker 1: on me, because pressure won't be there until one special night,
20:48
Speaker 1: which will hopefully be the night that he shows up
20:50
Speaker 1: underneath the trees day nice. So I'm pulling for you, Bud,
20:55
Speaker 1: Thank you man. Are you gonna do some public land
20:57
Speaker 1: hunting here over the next couple of weeks, do the
20:59
Speaker 1: Northern Michigan thing over the next couple of weeks. Um,
21:02
Speaker 1: by my time, and some of these other secondary properties
21:05
Speaker 1: I've got permission onto. So that's the game plan. Um
21:09
Speaker 1: A man, I wanted to talk today about another topic,
21:13
Speaker 1: but I just don't think we've got time to talk
21:15
Speaker 1: about it. Um, So we're gonna to do this maybe
21:17
Speaker 1: next week, UM, because yesterday I went to a c
21:22
Speaker 1: w D symposium here in Michigan. Yeah, and so this
21:26
Speaker 1: is like, this is the first national get together of
21:30
Speaker 1: c w D chronic wasting disease experts from all across
21:33
Speaker 1: the country and even internationally. It's the first time this
21:36
Speaker 1: event has been held since two thousand eight, an event
21:38
Speaker 1: like this since two thousand eight. So this is a
21:40
Speaker 1: really big deal. Some of the absolute most respected UM
21:45
Speaker 1: top researchers and professors and scientists that are looking into
21:50
Speaker 1: what's happening here, as well as representatives from from many
21:53
Speaker 1: many of the states that are being impacted by c
21:56
Speaker 1: w D right now, and all sorts of other stakeholders.
21:58
Speaker 1: We're all there, uh, yesterday and so I got to
22:02
Speaker 1: hear some very interesting discussions, seminars and talks um on
22:06
Speaker 1: the topic of chronic wasting disease specifically yesterday with the
22:09
Speaker 1: talk was all about the science of CWD right now,
22:12
Speaker 1: so what do we know? UM? And then today at
22:15
Speaker 1: the seminar, I unfortunately couldn't attend today, but today's seminar
22:18
Speaker 1: was talking about Okay, what's the management response to that?
22:21
Speaker 1: So today they were going to be hearing from people
22:23
Speaker 1: from all these different state agencies from across the country
22:26
Speaker 1: that are dealing with it, and hearing about what they're doing,
22:28
Speaker 1: why they're doing it, how it's working. UM. So I'm
22:31
Speaker 1: hopefully're gonna talk to some other people that that that
22:33
Speaker 1: were there today to hear about what they heard. Um.
22:36
Speaker 1: But there's lots of interesting stuff to share. I think
22:38
Speaker 1: it's worth, um, you know, reiterating and talking through some
22:42
Speaker 1: of the basics of just making sure that people really
22:45
Speaker 1: do understand the facts around CWD because there's just a
22:48
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of misinformation out there. UM. So I want
22:53
Speaker 1: to talk about that a little bit. I want to
22:55
Speaker 1: talk about some of the things that I was reminded
22:57
Speaker 1: of and that we're reiterated to me. And then there
22:59
Speaker 1: were a few things that even though I've I've followed
23:01
Speaker 1: this quite closely over the years, there are some things
23:03
Speaker 1: that I didn't even know about that I learned. So, UM,
23:06
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess I say all that as a teaser.
23:08
Speaker 1: I think next week, let's try to carve out like
23:11
Speaker 1: ten minutes during our our prologue to talk about that,
23:14
Speaker 1: because I think it's something that it is. It is
23:17
Speaker 1: really a serious, important issue, very important, and I think
23:23
Speaker 1: sometimes we like to try to push it aside or think,
23:27
Speaker 1: oh no, this isn't something we need to worry about,
23:28
Speaker 1: or it's just a foregone conclusion, there's nothing we can
23:31
Speaker 1: do about it. I just want to hunt. Um. It's
23:35
Speaker 1: especially this time of year, right right, I mean, everybody's
23:38
Speaker 1: thinking about me, myself and my hunting, and then you
23:42
Speaker 1: know there's bigger there's bigger fish to fry. Yeah so
23:46
Speaker 1: so so yeah, so what We'll we'll keep that till
23:48
Speaker 1: next episode. Um, but it'll be a conversation that I
23:52
Speaker 1: think is an important, one, important one for everyone to
23:55
Speaker 1: make sure we're keep on top of mind. So with
23:57
Speaker 1: that said, um, let's take a pause here to thank
24:02
Speaker 1: our partners at Sack of Gear here are sick of story,
24:05
Speaker 1: And then we'll bring Bernie on and we'll talk I've
24:09
Speaker 1: told her lull. We'll talk trail cans and rubs and
24:13
Speaker 1: scrapes and grunting bucks and all that good fun stuff
24:17
Speaker 1: that we always like to talk about. Sound good, sounds good?
24:20
Speaker 1: All right? For this week's tick of story, we're joined
24:24
Speaker 1: by Bomartinic, who tells us about a spring turkey hunt
24:27
Speaker 1: where everything went right. It was last spring in Pennsylvania
24:32
Speaker 1: when the temperatures were a lot lower than normal to
24:36
Speaker 1: turkey hunt. I left my house early in the morning,
24:40
Speaker 1: well before light. I wanted to get a quickly hunting
24:43
Speaker 1: for work, and as I started crossing the valley, I
24:48
Speaker 1: heard some gobbles coming across the other of this line.
24:51
Speaker 1: I heard up went down through the thick bottom. It
24:54
Speaker 1: was a very windy and cold on thirty eight degrees
24:58
Speaker 1: and quite a bit of rain coming down at this time,
25:01
Speaker 1: so allowed to get in pretty close to the roost
25:03
Speaker 1: of gold was. As soon as it got light enough
25:06
Speaker 1: for the for then to come out of the roofs.
25:09
Speaker 1: I gave a few soft calls with my my Grandpa's
25:13
Speaker 1: homemade call, and they flew down, came over the ridge,
25:17
Speaker 1: and the big tom gave me a good thirty five
25:21
Speaker 1: yard shot and put him down. Ran up to him,
25:25
Speaker 1: grabbed the whole of him and couldn't believe what I had.
25:28
Speaker 1: My my biggest turkey to date, inch and a half
25:31
Speaker 1: spurs and a ten and a half inch beard. And
25:33
Speaker 1: it was one of the craziest and quickest hunts that
25:36
Speaker 1: I was able to make it to work on time.
25:39
Speaker 1: On both hunt he was wearing sickst core lightweight bass layers.
25:43
Speaker 1: If you'd like to create a sick of story of
25:45
Speaker 1: your own, or to learn more about Sitky's technical hunting apparel,
25:48
Speaker 1: visit sitka gear dot com. All right, we are back
25:52
Speaker 1: now with Bernie Barringer. Welcome back to the Shelburne. Thank you.
26:00
Speaker 1: We were just chatting before we started recording that. It's
26:03
Speaker 1: been more than three years now since our first episode. Um,
26:07
Speaker 1: but we've gotten some some good feedback on that one
26:10
Speaker 1: from way back in the archives. So so I'm glad
26:12
Speaker 1: we can do this again, Bertie, and and thanks for
26:14
Speaker 1: making the time to do it. How have you been,
26:17
Speaker 1: because I know you are a traveling hunter. You're a
26:19
Speaker 1: traveling guy. You've been on the road a lot. How
26:21
Speaker 1: things been going so far this year? Boy, it's been great.
26:26
Speaker 1: Had some pretty good years here, killed some bucks and
26:29
Speaker 1: Kansas and um and a couple other states. Uh Um.
26:35
Speaker 1: I killed one in Iowa last time. I drew a
26:37
Speaker 1: tag and then I drew a tag there again this year,
26:39
Speaker 1: so I'm going to ill again this year. Um My.
26:42
Speaker 1: I shot one of my best bucks ever on September eight, um,
26:47
Speaker 1: just three weeks ago. So that was in Manitoba, and so, yeah, thanks,
26:53
Speaker 1: are going good. I'm I'm shooting a lot of bears too, nice.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah are you? Uh are you bear hunting? You'd fall
27:00
Speaker 1: bear hunting right now or spring bears or you're doing
27:02
Speaker 1: what you do both? I do both spring and fall.
27:05
Speaker 1: I write a column for bear Hunting magazine, so I
27:08
Speaker 1: do at least two bear hunts a year and and
27:10
Speaker 1: uh so that's that's my other passion besides white tails.
27:15
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I went on my first black bear hunt
27:17
Speaker 1: in this spring and I had a lot of fun.
27:19
Speaker 1: We didn't we didn't have any luck, but it was
27:21
Speaker 1: just nice to be out in the woods. And uh,
27:24
Speaker 1: I guess it's May and uh out there chasing something.
27:28
Speaker 1: So so I think that will definitely be something I'll
27:29
Speaker 1: do again in the future. Yeah, you bet. It's a
27:33
Speaker 1: lot of fun. It's kind of addictive, and I can
27:35
Speaker 1: I can hook you up if you want a little
27:36
Speaker 1: better hunt where you're I can put you in some
27:39
Speaker 1: places where you're guaranteed to see some bears. So we'll
27:42
Speaker 1: talk afterwards. Yeah, yeah, I'll say. Now that's what it's
27:45
Speaker 1: all about. Contacts. Yeah, contact, I'll take all the help
27:49
Speaker 1: I can get. I like, uh, I I enjoy learning
27:52
Speaker 1: as much as I possibly can about these critters, so
27:55
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'll be chasing them again here soon. But
27:58
Speaker 1: but but you know, we like to keep things a
28:00
Speaker 1: little white tail focused here. So you said you had
28:03
Speaker 1: a good hunt in September. How did that go? Well,
28:07
Speaker 1: it was it was really interesting. This is a buck
28:10
Speaker 1: that I hunted last year, and I this buck is
28:13
Speaker 1: a really nice ten pointer. Um, he's either four or
28:17
Speaker 1: five years old and I green scored, so he's a
28:21
Speaker 1: real he's a dandy. And uh, the hunt came about
28:24
Speaker 1: in an interesting way because it kind of goes back
28:26
Speaker 1: to the bear hunts. I've been bear hunting with an
28:28
Speaker 1: outfitter up in Manitoba and brought him a ton of
28:32
Speaker 1: business through my writings and so forth. And so one
28:35
Speaker 1: one year I was just when I was there in
28:37
Speaker 1: the fall the late August, I'm like, man, you've got
28:39
Speaker 1: some pretty nice box coming out in these hay fields here.
28:42
Speaker 1: Have you ever considered offering early season bow hunts? And
28:46
Speaker 1: he's like, well, no, I you know, I do sell
28:48
Speaker 1: some um some rifle hunts in November. But I said, man,
28:53
Speaker 1: I sure would like to come up here and hunt
28:55
Speaker 1: in uh, um, you know, the end of August and
28:58
Speaker 1: then into this season opens for set for Monday in September.
29:03
Speaker 1: And so last year he's like, why don't you come
29:05
Speaker 1: up kind of be a guinea pig and just see
29:06
Speaker 1: what you think, and you know, if it looks if
29:08
Speaker 1: it looks like it's gonna work, then I'll start marketing
29:11
Speaker 1: some early season bow hunts. Well, um, I hunted up
29:15
Speaker 1: there for seven days and I saw a lot of ice.
29:18
Speaker 1: Box ended up killing a real nice nine point about
29:20
Speaker 1: hundred thirty five in. But this one ten pointer that
29:24
Speaker 1: I had been hunting, he was about a one fifty
29:26
Speaker 1: class last year. And I mean I saw him most
29:29
Speaker 1: every day. He would come out in the hayfield over
29:32
Speaker 1: here when I'd be over there, and uh, you know,
29:35
Speaker 1: I got lots of trail camera pictures of him late
29:38
Speaker 1: eyes on him many many times. And then he one time,
29:41
Speaker 1: I'm actually on the right trail and he he's coming
29:44
Speaker 1: down the trail. He's about forty yards away and he's
29:47
Speaker 1: just moved and saw slow and along comes. I didn't
29:51
Speaker 1: realize it, but some does and fawns had worked out
29:53
Speaker 1: into the hay field on the other side of me
29:55
Speaker 1: while I was looking away. So when he goes behind
29:57
Speaker 1: the bush, I reach up to take my bowl off
29:59
Speaker 1: the hang, and they in the does and fawns saw
30:02
Speaker 1: it and they blew and snorted and stomped. And so
30:04
Speaker 1: I named him Lucky because he just always seemed to
30:07
Speaker 1: have I mean, it was so close so many times.
30:10
Speaker 1: I had him at fifty yards a couple of times,
30:12
Speaker 1: but that's just a little bit outside of my range
30:15
Speaker 1: for bow hunt. And uh so I went back again
30:19
Speaker 1: this year and on the second day, he comes out
30:23
Speaker 1: clear on the other end of the same hayfield, comes
30:25
Speaker 1: clear on the other end of the hayfield. There's a
30:27
Speaker 1: bunch of does standing around down by me, and he's
30:29
Speaker 1: walked right up to twenty five yards and I shot him,
30:31
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, wow, I guess his luck ran out.
30:37
Speaker 1: So but that was that was a beautiful deer. And
30:39
Speaker 1: it It's interesting because in Manitoba, you, um, you know,
30:43
Speaker 1: you have to go through an outfit or to get
30:44
Speaker 1: a deer tag. You have to actually buy your tag
30:46
Speaker 1: through an outfit or, which means normally you gotta pay
30:48
Speaker 1: for a white tail hunt. And um so I was
30:51
Speaker 1: really fortunate. I just kind of looked onto a basically
30:54
Speaker 1: a free hunt other than just happen to buy a
30:56
Speaker 1: three tag and killed a really nice buck. And I
30:59
Speaker 1: can out waiting to get back up there and do
31:01
Speaker 1: it again if you'll allow me to. Yeah, bet so.
31:04
Speaker 1: I'm curious you were describing, especially last year when you
31:07
Speaker 1: were first targeting this year. You mentioned that you were
31:10
Speaker 1: getting him on camera and then seeing him on different
31:12
Speaker 1: areas of these fields. What was like? And I asked
31:15
Speaker 1: this because I've hunted that time of year two and
31:18
Speaker 1: for my own selfish reasons, I've kind of bounced around
31:21
Speaker 1: in a similar situation. What was your kind of plan, like,
31:24
Speaker 1: what was your your approach to trying to narrow things
31:27
Speaker 1: down on this buck? Because you were going through that
31:29
Speaker 1: seven day hunt and then this year, I guess, what
31:31
Speaker 1: did you learn from last year and then applied it
31:32
Speaker 1: to getting that kill? Um? Yeah. The the key that
31:37
Speaker 1: I think that I learned over time with this buck,
31:40
Speaker 1: using the cameras and the visuals was trying to determine
31:44
Speaker 1: where he was betting and coming into the fields based
31:48
Speaker 1: on wind direction and weather patterns and so forth. And
31:51
Speaker 1: you know, over time with both the cameras and when
31:54
Speaker 1: I saw him in person, you know, I sort of
31:57
Speaker 1: narrowed down what he tended to do based um, you know,
32:02
Speaker 1: if the wind was from one direction, he tended to
32:04
Speaker 1: use a trail on the other side of the field,
32:06
Speaker 1: and it had more to do. And this is interesting
32:09
Speaker 1: because it wasn't with so much when the wind direction
32:14
Speaker 1: like in the evening when I was hunting, but what
32:16
Speaker 1: the wind direction was like in the mornings when he
32:19
Speaker 1: was going to his betting area, seemed to determine morey
32:22
Speaker 1: where he would bed than where he would come into
32:25
Speaker 1: the you know, then he'd come into the field and
32:27
Speaker 1: sometimes he'd come into the field with it when it's back,
32:29
Speaker 1: but he was coming from a betting area where when
32:32
Speaker 1: the wind determined that he would go there in the
32:35
Speaker 1: morning rather than the afternoon wind didn't make as much
32:39
Speaker 1: difference as the morning wind did. So I learned something
32:43
Speaker 1: from that that I hadn't really thought of before. That's
32:45
Speaker 1: a great point. I think that's something that I've heard
32:48
Speaker 1: people talk about in the past, and then it's kind
32:50
Speaker 1: of fallen off the radar for me. But it makes
32:52
Speaker 1: all the sense in the world if you're we talk
32:55
Speaker 1: a lot about this, and I think a lot of
32:57
Speaker 1: serious hunters have have found that where a bucks tend
33:00
Speaker 1: to bed many times as wind dependent, so they're betting
33:03
Speaker 1: in a certain place because of a certain wind direction.
33:06
Speaker 1: But I think we sometimes playing on all right, we're
33:08
Speaker 1: going for an evening hunt, and then we look at
33:10
Speaker 1: the wind for that time period that we're going hunt,
33:13
Speaker 1: and we don't even think about the fact that it
33:14
Speaker 1: could be different in the morning, which would have been
33:16
Speaker 1: when that deer is making that decision. Um. So that's
33:20
Speaker 1: a great reminder, um, And it explains to why some
33:24
Speaker 1: people are surprised. You know, they're seeing a buck enter
33:27
Speaker 1: a field with the window his back, like you mentioned,
33:28
Speaker 1: and they think, oh, oh, I don't know why I
33:30
Speaker 1: would do that. It seems counterintuitive, but to your point,
33:32
Speaker 1: it's probably because where he's coming from is more dependent
33:36
Speaker 1: on that morning wind than the evening wind. So I'm
33:40
Speaker 1: glad you mentioned I'm glad you mentioned that. So he
33:43
Speaker 1: he uh you said he was in the one sixties
33:46
Speaker 1: last year or this year. After he killed him, he
33:47
Speaker 1: ended up being it was I I estimated him at
33:50
Speaker 1: once fifty last year. And then you know, I have
33:54
Speaker 1: hardly measured any of the bucks that I've shot, but
33:56
Speaker 1: this one I knew when I showed people pictures, they're
33:58
Speaker 1: gonna say, what's that school? Or so I figured i'd
34:00
Speaker 1: better put a tape to it. So I just restored
34:03
Speaker 1: him at one at one so, but I estimated he
34:06
Speaker 1: was one fifty last year, and he probably was maybe
34:09
Speaker 1: between one fifty and one fifty five last year, so
34:12
Speaker 1: a little bigger this year. Yeah, that's a it's a
34:14
Speaker 1: beauty of a buck. That's awesome. We'll congrats again on that.
34:18
Speaker 1: Um So. So we're now in October and I recently
34:24
Speaker 1: read an article of yours. I think it was on
34:27
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I think it's your Bucks, Bulls and Bears website,
34:31
Speaker 1: Is that right? Sure? Yeah, And it was about how
34:35
Speaker 1: you like to hunt through the month of October and
34:37
Speaker 1: kind of specifically the October lull, but it covered, you know,
34:40
Speaker 1: all four weeks of October, and I liked, I like
34:42
Speaker 1: to kind of how you shared your perspective. They're broken
34:44
Speaker 1: down week by week. UM So, if I can bother
34:47
Speaker 1: you to to recant that description you've already written up
34:51
Speaker 1: on the web, can you share with us what your
34:53
Speaker 1: progression looks like throughout the month of October? Um and
34:57
Speaker 1: how you're hunting strategy is typically changing as we progress. Yeah. Um,
35:05
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting how so many people really think the
35:10
Speaker 1: the month of October is just a time to just wait,
35:15
Speaker 1: you know, forget it, let's just wait for November. And um,
35:19
Speaker 1: you know, the first week in October can be a
35:22
Speaker 1: really tough time because the um, the bachelor groups are
35:28
Speaker 1: broken up, and um, you know, the patterns. We're having
35:32
Speaker 1: a hard time figuring out where the deer are because, uh,
35:38
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the month of September, these deer sort
35:42
Speaker 1: of just changing in their food sources and their patterns,
35:47
Speaker 1: and um, you know, you'll be watching on your cameras
35:50
Speaker 1: and you'll see these deer in the fields and the
35:52
Speaker 1: evenings and stuff like that starting late August and right
35:55
Speaker 1: through the middle of September, and all of a sudden
35:57
Speaker 1: they're gone, you know. And then you know the Understateptember
36:00
Speaker 1: one of October, and all of a sudden, you've got
36:02
Speaker 1: a buck on your camera. You go, I haven't seen
36:04
Speaker 1: where this comes from. Well he came from somebody else.
36:07
Speaker 1: You know, they're wondering where he is. And uh so
36:11
Speaker 1: the first week in October, it's pretty much all about
36:14
Speaker 1: the food. Um, if you can find um acorns, hazelnuts, stuff,
36:19
Speaker 1: like that in my area, that's kind of what they're
36:21
Speaker 1: eating on. If there's still some dry some corn in
36:24
Speaker 1: the field, um, you know they're they're still in somewhat
36:27
Speaker 1: of a pattern. It's just that you'll have to find
36:29
Speaker 1: these deer again and you have to move quickly because
36:33
Speaker 1: the patterns are changing. UM. I like hunting October because
36:37
Speaker 1: the first week in October, especially, the weather is nice
36:40
Speaker 1: and usually here we've had a frost, so we don't
36:42
Speaker 1: have much about mosquitoes and stuff like that. But then um,
36:47
Speaker 1: as the second week of October wears on, then the
36:52
Speaker 1: it's getting colder, so the deer seeking out the high
36:54
Speaker 1: card foods like corn and stuff like that. When the
36:57
Speaker 1: if they're standing corns left that there, that's a real
37:00
Speaker 1: magnet for um. Um sometimes they're picking up corn that's
37:03
Speaker 1: been harvested and so forth and um. So that you know,
37:07
Speaker 1: second week is not a bad time to hunt either.
37:10
Speaker 1: And by the third week in October, now you're starting
37:13
Speaker 1: to see a lot of scrapes and rubs that are
37:16
Speaker 1: pretty active rather than you know, there's there's you start
37:19
Speaker 1: seeing scrapes and rubs. You know, at the end of
37:21
Speaker 1: August and even as the velvet comes off. But by
37:25
Speaker 1: the third week in October, the bucks are really paying
37:27
Speaker 1: attention to them, and so that's when I start paying
37:31
Speaker 1: attention to them too. And also that's when the effectiveness
37:35
Speaker 1: of calling and rattling is starting to work. UM. And
37:39
Speaker 1: then by the fourth week in October, then you know,
37:43
Speaker 1: calling and rattling is at its peak. That's it's it's
37:45
Speaker 1: the best last week in October, first week in November.
37:48
Speaker 1: I would even give the edge to the last week
37:50
Speaker 1: in October for for calling and rattling. UM. You know,
37:55
Speaker 1: that's the best time of the year also to haunt
37:56
Speaker 1: straps and rubs because the bucks are visiting them consisting
38:00
Speaker 1: lee and uh. You know something another issue with um
38:05
Speaker 1: with scrapes that a lot of people don't think about
38:08
Speaker 1: and UM the you know, it's kind of complicated, but
38:12
Speaker 1: you know, there's been several studies done that bucks, UM
38:18
Speaker 1: don't visit scrapes in the daylight. You've probably read the signiss.
38:21
Speaker 1: What they do is they put a camera at the
38:23
Speaker 1: scrape and they and then they say, well, we got
38:26
Speaker 1: eight percent of the pictures of mature bucks that we
38:28
Speaker 1: got were at night. And well, one thing that they
38:34
Speaker 1: that they're not noticing about this is the fact that
38:37
Speaker 1: they're only put a camera right at the scrape, and
38:41
Speaker 1: so bucks are checking scrapes during the day at this time,
38:45
Speaker 1: but they're just not walking right into them. Because most
38:48
Speaker 1: of your scrapes, if you think about it, they're on
38:49
Speaker 1: a power line cut or a road to track on
38:52
Speaker 1: the edge of the field or something like that. These
38:54
Speaker 1: mature bucks don't like to expose themselves to open areas
38:57
Speaker 1: during the daylight. So they'll whenever can't they and they'll
39:00
Speaker 1: stay thirty or forty yards down the wind of the
39:02
Speaker 1: scrape in cover, and they'll just check the scrape without
39:06
Speaker 1: walking right up to it. Now, if there's something good
39:07
Speaker 1: in the scrape, if there's fresh dope, or if you
39:11
Speaker 1: use a good lure or something like that, um you
39:14
Speaker 1: can you know, you can hunt right over these scrapes
39:16
Speaker 1: and bring these bucks right in. But um so, don't
39:19
Speaker 1: completely discount hunting scrapes during the daylight, because there's that
39:24
Speaker 1: last week in October. In fact, Halloween is kind of
39:26
Speaker 1: famous for, you know, for killing bucks over sign. So
39:32
Speaker 1: so at that time period is do you prioritize scrapes
39:35
Speaker 1: so much that during that last week of October that's
39:38
Speaker 1: that's one of the main areas that you're actually hunting
39:40
Speaker 1: over is specifically in a spot because of a scrape. Yeah,
39:45
Speaker 1: I'm looking for areas that are all torn up, and uh,
39:48
Speaker 1: I'm you know, by the last week in October, I'm
39:50
Speaker 1: not spending a lot of time worrying about beds and
39:53
Speaker 1: food and stuff like that. You know, I'm looking for
39:56
Speaker 1: a sign that that those bucks, you know, the testoster
40:00
Speaker 1: it is rising. They're gonna be checking those scrapes and
40:03
Speaker 1: and uh, try if you find an area that's got
40:06
Speaker 1: six or eight scrapes and a bunch of rubs and
40:08
Speaker 1: stuff like that, it's it's definitely worth spending the afternoon
40:12
Speaker 1: there during that last week in October. So one of
40:16
Speaker 1: the things that I feel like a lot of people
40:17
Speaker 1: do talk about when when we're on this topic of
40:19
Speaker 1: scrapes is that the places that you will see that
40:23
Speaker 1: daytime activity are usually going to be the scrapes some
40:26
Speaker 1: people refer to like primary scrape arias or something like that,
40:30
Speaker 1: being these places back in the cover. So the scrapes
40:32
Speaker 1: are on the field edge, don't focus on those. Try
40:35
Speaker 1: to find these areas of that are all tore up,
40:37
Speaker 1: But the ones that are back secluded somewhat. Is that
40:39
Speaker 1: the way you're looking at things too, or are you
40:42
Speaker 1: even taking advantage of field edge scrapes because you still
40:45
Speaker 1: think that they're they're coming down wind of at thirty
40:47
Speaker 1: or forty yards into the cover checking on those field
40:50
Speaker 1: that scrape somewhere. Yeah, I if the wind is right
40:54
Speaker 1: that you can get down wind of one of those
40:56
Speaker 1: scrapes that's on a field edge, Um, they're good plays hunt,
41:01
Speaker 1: you know, if you can have the wind blowing from
41:02
Speaker 1: you or from the scrape to you and getting a
41:06
Speaker 1: tree up there, the bucks will they'll check them and
41:09
Speaker 1: then they'll make a hook. They'll kind of circle around
41:12
Speaker 1: in a half circle. If if they smell something they like,
41:15
Speaker 1: then they'll kind of circle around and try to quarter
41:18
Speaker 1: into the wind with the you know, kind of the
41:20
Speaker 1: wind on the flat of their face so it's in
41:21
Speaker 1: one nostril basically, and they'll approach the scrapes that way.
41:25
Speaker 1: So to keep that in mind, But I would say,
41:28
Speaker 1: if I had to choose between the two, I'd take
41:30
Speaker 1: an area back in the cover more that's closer to
41:34
Speaker 1: the betting area that's all torn up, because you're more
41:35
Speaker 1: likely to encounter them in the daylight if you're closer
41:39
Speaker 1: to the betting area. But these these areas where they're
41:42
Speaker 1: all tore up on the edge of the fields, they
41:44
Speaker 1: shouldn't be completely overlooked. Fair enough, have you seen have
41:48
Speaker 1: you seen, you know, for from all your years of
41:52
Speaker 1: being in a tree stand and and just watching dear
41:54
Speaker 1: movement in general, is there a time where, you know,
41:59
Speaker 1: we're talking about hunting scrapes right now, where these dear
42:04
Speaker 1: really start to get up on their feet in daylight,
42:09
Speaker 1: whether that's getting up early or coming to back to
42:13
Speaker 1: bed late. Um, yeah, I would say the last week
42:18
Speaker 1: in October here in the Upper Midwest is when you
42:22
Speaker 1: start seeing that, and then by you know, the first
42:26
Speaker 1: week in November, and then you start seeing more of
42:28
Speaker 1: the chasing more so, you know, and so then the
42:34
Speaker 1: scrapes will work. But there, you know, you can concentrate
42:38
Speaker 1: more on the dough betting areas and where the doughs
42:40
Speaker 1: are feeding in the evening, because the bucks are going
42:42
Speaker 1: to be they're starting dose, are starting to smell pretty good,
42:45
Speaker 1: you know, around the first of November, so those bucks
42:47
Speaker 1: are going to be sniffing them out. Because yeah, if
42:51
Speaker 1: you can answer your question, then last week in October. Absolutely,
42:54
Speaker 1: Then where you were you asking about, like time of
42:58
Speaker 1: year or where you were asking more the factors that
43:02
Speaker 1: change it, well, not necessarily factors. I mean in regards
43:05
Speaker 1: to hunting the actual scrapes, right, that's something that I
43:09
Speaker 1: don't do a lot of. So just because I don't
43:14
Speaker 1: for me, I'm not seeing a lot of enough movement
43:19
Speaker 1: during the daylight, you know, I'm not necessarily going right
43:22
Speaker 1: into the bedroom in late October. Maybe if there is
43:25
Speaker 1: a um, maybe if there is a I guess a
43:30
Speaker 1: cold front coming for for an evening hunt, I guess,
43:32
Speaker 1: But I do like hunting, uh late October, the morning
43:38
Speaker 1: hunt back in the bedroom where the deer might be
43:41
Speaker 1: coming later back to that bedroom or maybe scent checking.
43:44
Speaker 1: So I guess my question was, um, there you know,
43:49
Speaker 1: what time of year, whether it's like you know, twenty nine,
43:54
Speaker 1: are are used typically seeing these deer not chasing yet,
44:00
Speaker 1: but getting up on their feet a little earlier, because
44:02
Speaker 1: you know, there's that smelling, that there's that smell in
44:05
Speaker 1: the air like hey, we gotta we gotta start getting ready.
44:07
Speaker 1: And I think, and I think Bernie, you you would
44:10
Speaker 1: go ahead and sorry, I was gonna say, I think
44:13
Speaker 1: your previous answer then answers that right that last week. Yeah, yeah,
44:16
Speaker 1: And I would like to mention the mornings too though
44:20
Speaker 1: that's a UM. I would say the closer you get
44:23
Speaker 1: to November, the better it gets. But as far as
44:26
Speaker 1: the morning goes, when they're primarily on a feeding t
44:28
Speaker 1: betting pattern, then they'll trickle back in, UM, and it's
44:33
Speaker 1: hard to it's hard to hunt mornings on feeding to
44:36
Speaker 1: betting patterns without bumping deer, particularly if they're hunting in
44:39
Speaker 1: open fields and you know, they'll start trickling back in
44:43
Speaker 1: well before daylight sometimes and and uh you know, you
44:46
Speaker 1: might not encounter the deer and you can it's it's
44:49
Speaker 1: hard not to uh spook them or you know, intrude.
44:55
Speaker 1: But the closer you get to November first, the more
44:58
Speaker 1: the bucks stay out a little later. So that's kind
45:01
Speaker 1: of an answer to your question that the effective us
45:04
Speaker 1: of morning hunting UM gets better as you approach the
45:08
Speaker 1: first November. Got Yeah. I feel like that's something that
45:12
Speaker 1: that we that I think we've all probably seemed too.
45:15
Speaker 1: It seems to be that that tends to be the case.
45:18
Speaker 1: UM you mentioned a little bit ago, though. UM. Continuing
45:21
Speaker 1: here on the topic of scrapes about how when they
45:24
Speaker 1: do scent check these scrapes many times, you know, if
45:27
Speaker 1: there's something good in there, like some fresh real dough
45:30
Speaker 1: yurine or a lure of some type, they might come
45:33
Speaker 1: in closer to check it out. Um. I've never really
45:36
Speaker 1: personally used a whole lot of lures um centler when
45:40
Speaker 1: I was when I was young, I tried to bunch,
45:42
Speaker 1: and then more recently I've kind of tapered away from that.
45:45
Speaker 1: Is that something that you found useful um in your
45:48
Speaker 1: own hunts? And if so, you know what actually is
45:50
Speaker 1: worth using. You know, I'm not big on just like
45:54
Speaker 1: sticking up a wick with some lure on it or
45:56
Speaker 1: something like that. But I've use a lot more scrape
46:02
Speaker 1: Excuse me, I've used a lot more scrape drippers over
46:06
Speaker 1: the years, and UH found them to be pretty effective.
46:10
Speaker 1: They really seem to they really draw the deer into
46:13
Speaker 1: the scrape to get a photo of them, first of all.
46:15
Speaker 1: And then secondly, I've seen bucks that were down when
46:20
Speaker 1: checking those scrapes, and they would they would actually circle
46:24
Speaker 1: around and just come into scrape because it's got some
46:27
Speaker 1: lure in it. Okay, So like, how much are you
46:31
Speaker 1: doing that? I mean, do you do you go out
46:33
Speaker 1: and set a dripper on every scrape of yours? That
46:36
Speaker 1: are every scrape that's near Treeston you might hunt in
46:39
Speaker 1: late October? Or do you just have you know? Or
46:41
Speaker 1: do you go out the day you're hunting and you
46:43
Speaker 1: know there's a scrape nearby, you walk in there, you
46:45
Speaker 1: hang the dripper that day? How are you actually, you know,
46:48
Speaker 1: utilizing them? I just put out a scrape dripper today,
46:53
Speaker 1: so I'm you know, I'm having I have monther quite
46:56
Speaker 1: a bit, and the ones where I know I'm going
46:58
Speaker 1: to be hunting, I start sweeping those scrapes up. As
47:02
Speaker 1: soon as it looks like it's going to be one
47:04
Speaker 1: of those places where I'm actually gonna spend some significant
47:07
Speaker 1: amount of time. I'm gonna go to work on them
47:09
Speaker 1: right away. Have you have you tried preorbital gland sense
47:15
Speaker 1: and lures at all? That's been something We've talked to
47:17
Speaker 1: a lot of people about and I've started trying some
47:19
Speaker 1: of that this year. Um results tb D. Have you
47:24
Speaker 1: seen anything with those? I have not, but I'm really
47:28
Speaker 1: intrigued by the horizontal rubs and that type of thing.
47:31
Speaker 1: In fact, the scrape dripper that I put out today. Um,
47:35
Speaker 1: I put it right next to a branch that is
47:39
Speaker 1: a horizontal branch on a jackpine tree that for some
47:43
Speaker 1: reason a buck started rubbing, and so I I just
47:47
Speaker 1: put a scrape dripper right there, put a camera on it,
47:50
Speaker 1: and I actually shined up the branch that he's been
47:53
Speaker 1: rubbing on with my pocket knife a little bit, so
47:56
Speaker 1: it has some visual attraction. So I mean it's more
47:59
Speaker 1: of an experiment in any than anything in this case.
48:02
Speaker 1: But interesting, you know, do do rubs factor in? Regular
48:09
Speaker 1: rubs factor a whole lot into I know you mentioned
48:12
Speaker 1: signed a little bit ago, but specifically or rubs something
48:15
Speaker 1: you're really using the key in on where you're moving
48:17
Speaker 1: around those of october stands. There's that kind of tertiary data. Um,
48:22
Speaker 1: that's kind of peripheral stuff. I guess I just know
48:26
Speaker 1: that there's bucks they're using the you know, if if
48:29
Speaker 1: they're freshening the rubs, and the size of the trees
48:33
Speaker 1: has a fair amount to do with it. You know,
48:36
Speaker 1: they always say that big bucks will rub small trees too,
48:39
Speaker 1: but small bucks generally don't rub big trees, you know,
48:43
Speaker 1: and in a general sense, and so i'm you know,
48:47
Speaker 1: the that's kind of peripheral stuff that just gives me
48:49
Speaker 1: a more confidence in the spot, I guess more than anything. Yeah, yeah,
48:53
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of exactly what I've found too. Dan.
48:55
Speaker 1: Do you do you pay much at tension to rubs
48:57
Speaker 1: anymore other than just kind of that type of thing
48:59
Speaker 1: that brings Yeah, I do, from the fact that that
49:03
Speaker 1: means that there is a there has been a buck there, right,
49:09
Speaker 1: and if it's like I, yeah, I agree with him.
49:12
Speaker 1: You know, little deer don't make bigger rubs, So yes,
49:17
Speaker 1: I take into consideration. I put it into a metal note.
49:20
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, we always talk about going
49:23
Speaker 1: through that mental checklist before we go to sit a
49:26
Speaker 1: stand location or before we hang a tree stand location
49:28
Speaker 1: in the specific area, and that may play into whether
49:33
Speaker 1: or not I go that direction based off of you know,
49:36
Speaker 1: it could be the tipping point saying well, there is
49:39
Speaker 1: a big rub from this year in that area. Yeah,
49:43
Speaker 1: that that seems fair. So, speaking of October still um,
49:49
Speaker 1: everybody likes to talk about the quote unquote October lull
49:53
Speaker 1: this mid October lull um. Bernie, do you do you
49:59
Speaker 1: think that's a real thing? Do you find that to
50:02
Speaker 1: be more of just a media sensation or a label
50:04
Speaker 1: that we're putting on something that maybe is human um
50:09
Speaker 1: influenced more so than dear. What are your thoughts there? Well,
50:14
Speaker 1: I have had a hard time shooting bucks in October,
50:17
Speaker 1: in the middle of October. Um, maybe I'm just in apt.
50:21
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it could it could be just me,
50:25
Speaker 1: but I it seems to me like it's harder to,
50:29
Speaker 1: uh you know, to to shoot mature bucks, especially during
50:33
Speaker 1: that time, just because their movement seems to be iratic erratic,
50:37
Speaker 1: And I don't know that it's maybe that I just
50:40
Speaker 1: haven't figured out. I mean, there's some people that killed
50:42
Speaker 1: big bucks. I I know guys that have killed booners
50:45
Speaker 1: consistently in October, and uh, you know, maybe I just
50:49
Speaker 1: haven't figured it out, or I'm not in the right places.
50:52
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting the right places now where I live.
50:55
Speaker 1: You know, a three year old buck is an anomaly
50:58
Speaker 1: here in central Minnesota where you know, we have a
51:01
Speaker 1: deer season, a rifle season that starts the first weekend
51:04
Speaker 1: in November. The bucker shot win or you're a half old.
51:08
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm just typically not going to travel
51:11
Speaker 1: to a state where um, I'm on a bow hunting
51:14
Speaker 1: road trip the middle of October, just because it's uh,
51:18
Speaker 1: it's a tough time. And you know, if there's a lull,
51:22
Speaker 1: I don't know what causes it or um. You know,
51:25
Speaker 1: there's people that know more about than I do. Put
51:27
Speaker 1: it that way, I haven't figured out the code. I
51:29
Speaker 1: haven't broke the code at all. Yeah, fair enough. It
51:32
Speaker 1: definitely seems like, you know, from everything I've seen and heard,
51:36
Speaker 1: studies show that buck movement does actually increase throughout the
51:40
Speaker 1: month of October. But that doesn't mean that daylight activity
51:44
Speaker 1: that the average hunter seas doesn't go down, you know,
51:47
Speaker 1: due to things like increase hunting pressure probably, or due
51:50
Speaker 1: to changing food sources probably, or leaves dropping, and so
51:54
Speaker 1: the available security cover for deer changes. So all of
51:57
Speaker 1: a sudden, all these things happen, and so dear habits change,
52:00
Speaker 1: which I think throws a lot of people for a
52:03
Speaker 1: loop that then looks like that lull um. Yeah, that's
52:06
Speaker 1: a lot of what like I kind of hypothesize, but
52:10
Speaker 1: so so, given then what you just said, though, Bernie,
52:12
Speaker 1: that this time of year is a little bit tougher
52:14
Speaker 1: for for most people, for you too, maybe what are
52:18
Speaker 1: you actually doing this year throughout these next couple of weeks.
52:20
Speaker 1: Are you still going to go after it? Are you
52:22
Speaker 1: gonna lay back? What's what's on your actual itinerary and
52:25
Speaker 1: plans for the next two three weeks. Well, I have
52:28
Speaker 1: a dough tag to fill here and then you know,
52:31
Speaker 1: I've I've got some cameras out and I'm checking cameras
52:34
Speaker 1: and just kind of if if something pops up that
52:36
Speaker 1: looks like a pattern, then I'll go after a buck. Um.
52:40
Speaker 1: You know, I've I do a Iowa bow tag this year,
52:44
Speaker 1: so I'm headed down there about Halloween. And uh, I
52:48
Speaker 1: have got a buddy down to southeast Iowa where I
52:51
Speaker 1: hunt down there, and I sent him six cameras and
52:54
Speaker 1: he just got them out last weekend, including a cell
52:57
Speaker 1: phone camera. I've got one of the covert Blackhawks for
53:00
Speaker 1: He's in cameras and it's already texting me pictures a
53:03
Speaker 1: deer here in Minnesota, deer in Iowa where I'm gonna
53:05
Speaker 1: be hunting. It almost seems unfair, but yeah, So I'm
53:11
Speaker 1: getting texts in the evenings and so far I haven't
53:13
Speaker 1: seen a shooter buck. There was pretty one pretty decent
53:15
Speaker 1: eight pointer on there last night and he made a
53:18
Speaker 1: mock scrape and put this camera on it in a
53:20
Speaker 1: betting area and uh, he'll he'll go back in there
53:23
Speaker 1: about two weeks probably and and move it. But it's
53:28
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of fun and and it's nice to
53:30
Speaker 1: have somebody on the ground that can help with stuff
53:33
Speaker 1: like that. And I'll mostly be hunting public land down there. Um.
53:37
Speaker 1: I do have permission on one piece of property that's
53:40
Speaker 1: adjacent to a public land that I did get permission
53:42
Speaker 1: on one piece of property, but mostly it's public land.
53:45
Speaker 1: And the nice thing is I hunted it down in
53:48
Speaker 1: that area, so I was also able to learn the
53:53
Speaker 1: area quite a bit. And when I go back, it's
53:55
Speaker 1: really helpful, you know, to have some history and understand
53:58
Speaker 1: a little bit about the travel patterns and and things
54:02
Speaker 1: like that. So I'm pretty excited about it. I always
54:04
Speaker 1: loved going to Iowa. I I usually apply for two
54:07
Speaker 1: or three states a year, um, but when I think
54:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna draw Iowa, I didn't apply for Kansas this
54:14
Speaker 1: year because I just want to focus all my attention.
54:16
Speaker 1: I got seven some dollars invested in this tag. You know,
54:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make the most of it. So um, when
54:23
Speaker 1: I'm done in Iowa if it if it happens fairly
54:25
Speaker 1: quickly there, then I'll probably go to either Nebraska or
54:28
Speaker 1: Missouri and uh, you know, spend a week or ten
54:31
Speaker 1: days in the second spot with over the counter tag.
54:35
Speaker 1: So then so most of October then is dedicated to
54:38
Speaker 1: honey locally there in Minnesota. Then right, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah.
54:43
Speaker 1: I had high hunt Conna sporadically this time of the year,
54:47
Speaker 1: and it's just more and you know, I'm checking cameras
54:50
Speaker 1: and I'm I had a dozen deer in my little
54:53
Speaker 1: food plot behind my house here last night. I just
54:55
Speaker 1: have five acres, but it's surrounded by a big state
54:58
Speaker 1: park where there's no hunting, so lots of deer. It's
55:01
Speaker 1: just that I don't have very many big bucks. But
55:05
Speaker 1: I ever saw often one comes through. And if I
55:07
Speaker 1: see that there, you know, if I got one that's
55:10
Speaker 1: coming into the food plot, I'm gonna jump right on
55:13
Speaker 1: it and try to get out there and get him
55:14
Speaker 1: shot before he disappears again. And that's what they do
55:17
Speaker 1: in October's there. You know, you'll see one. You might
55:20
Speaker 1: get him on camera for two nights or observe him
55:24
Speaker 1: in the field, and then who knows where he goes,
55:26
Speaker 1: you can't find him again. Yeah, alright, folks, I think
55:29
Speaker 1: this is a good point for us to take a
55:31
Speaker 1: quick break to hear from our partners at White Tailed
55:34
Speaker 1: Properties and our producer Spencer new Hearts. We'll take it
55:38
Speaker 1: from here this week with White Tail Properties, we are
55:42
Speaker 1: joined by Andrew Schultz, a land specialist out of Illinois.
55:45
Speaker 1: And Andrew is going to be telling us about the
55:47
Speaker 1: best ways to improve habitat on a small piece of ground.
55:51
Speaker 1: There are lots of things the land manager can do
55:54
Speaker 1: in order to help themselves kill bigger deer smaller property,
55:58
Speaker 1: and probably the most important of those things, in my opinion,
56:01
Speaker 1: would be creating funnels and tinge points, and one way
56:05
Speaker 1: to do that is through hinge cuts. If it's a
56:07
Speaker 1: smaller property, it's assumed that it might not necessarily hold
56:12
Speaker 1: a whole lot of deer, but hopefully they're passing through there,
56:15
Speaker 1: and by creating good funnels, um and ambush sites, you
56:19
Speaker 1: can have lots of success by catching them traveling through
56:22
Speaker 1: the property. If the property does lay in a way
56:25
Speaker 1: in which you can create some small food plots um
56:29
Speaker 1: that could help attract deer as well. And then obviously
56:32
Speaker 1: um keeping less pressure on the property. A small property
56:36
Speaker 1: can be easily pressured, especially if you get too many
56:39
Speaker 1: hunters out there trying to hunt it. So pay careful
56:42
Speaker 1: attention to the wind, pay attention to your entrance and
56:46
Speaker 1: exit to and from the stand, and try and keep
56:49
Speaker 1: that pressure to a minimum. If you'd like to learn
56:53
Speaker 1: more and to see the properties that Andrew currently has
56:55
Speaker 1: listed for sale, visit whitetail properties dot com. Backslash Schultz
57:01
Speaker 1: that's s h U l t z. So you mentioned
57:05
Speaker 1: that you're, you know, checking trail cameras during this time
57:08
Speaker 1: of year, maybe on that little spot or I don't
57:09
Speaker 1: know if you've got other places there in Minnesota too
57:11
Speaker 1: that you've got cameras. But I'm just kind of curious
57:13
Speaker 1: because I always battle with this in my own head.
57:16
Speaker 1: It's okay even if I'm staying out of an area
57:19
Speaker 1: and not hunting it for a period of time, but
57:22
Speaker 1: I want to keep tabs on it with the trail cameras.
57:25
Speaker 1: I've kind of convinced myself that if I go in
57:28
Speaker 1: there in mid day on an a t V and
57:30
Speaker 1: easy to access locations and not going into bedding years,
57:33
Speaker 1: it's just like feel that spot or something like that
57:36
Speaker 1: if I do that, you know, once a week or
57:37
Speaker 1: every other week or something, I'm having a low impact
57:40
Speaker 1: and that's okay. Um, I'm curious to hear number one,
57:44
Speaker 1: do you agree with that? And then number two? What
57:46
Speaker 1: are you personally doing when it comes to monitoring trail
57:49
Speaker 1: cameras in a low impact way? This month? I would
57:54
Speaker 1: say yes, I agree with that, But there's two things
57:56
Speaker 1: that I would add to that number. I started using
57:58
Speaker 1: a fat tire electric fat tire bike. Oh my goodness,
58:01
Speaker 1: has that It's incredible If we cover so much ground
58:04
Speaker 1: so fast, you're not leaving any scent and all that.
58:08
Speaker 1: It's that it's quiet. The deer look at you, like,
58:12
Speaker 1: what the heck are you doing? You know, I mean
58:14
Speaker 1: you literally why right by sometimes yards from and they
58:17
Speaker 1: stare and watch you go by on these on these bikes.
58:20
Speaker 1: That's a game changer as far as I'm concerned. The
58:23
Speaker 1: other thing is for batting areas and things like that.
58:26
Speaker 1: I like to check the cameras either during or right
58:29
Speaker 1: before a rain, which pretty much washes your impact away.
58:33
Speaker 1: So if you know, if I look like we've got
58:35
Speaker 1: some rain coming in, I can look at the radar.
58:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I need to check a camera, gonna run
58:40
Speaker 1: out there and do it right then? Um So, but yeah,
58:42
Speaker 1: I would, I would agree with you if you're trying
58:44
Speaker 1: to keep your impact down and avoids. You know, I'm
58:49
Speaker 1: I'm addicted these dogs on trail cameras. I probably hunt
58:52
Speaker 1: trail cameras too much, I'll admit that. But you know,
58:56
Speaker 1: it's like a sport in itself, and uh, it's hard
58:59
Speaker 1: not to go alcome. Sometimes you're you're all excited about it,
59:02
Speaker 1: but you've got to be patient, wait for the right
59:04
Speaker 1: time to get out there and get the information gathered
59:07
Speaker 1: up without hurting your chances. Yeah, very true. I know,
59:12
Speaker 1: I know we we all probably all hunters battle with
59:15
Speaker 1: that same challenge because they are addicting. They are so
59:18
Speaker 1: much fun. But you gotta think, Okay, what's more important
59:21
Speaker 1: getting a picture or getting an arrow in one? So
59:24
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to tell myself that, like, chill out, Mark,
59:27
Speaker 1: you want to get an narrow in one even more
59:28
Speaker 1: than you want that pick um. But man, these these
59:31
Speaker 1: cell phone cameras, to your point earlier, that's a really
59:35
Speaker 1: nice tool because you can you can get your pictures.
59:38
Speaker 1: It's like you can you can what do they say,
59:40
Speaker 1: have your cake and eat it too or whatever. That's
59:42
Speaker 1: kind of the deal with cell phone cameras. So yeah,
59:45
Speaker 1: they're very helpful. I have a completely I'm not a
59:50
Speaker 1: kidding Well, I'm just gonna say, I'm really not kidding
59:52
Speaker 1: about this quiet Cat bike too. Um, I'm not. It's
59:56
Speaker 1: just shocking how much difference that that has made for me,
59:59
Speaker 1: and how much round I can cover, and uh, you know,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: I think these are gonna be a big thing. And
1:00:05
Speaker 1: when I first saw him, I thought, come on, you know,
1:00:07
Speaker 1: at bikes three grand and who's gonna do that? What?
1:00:10
Speaker 1: How much impact can it really have? You know? But
1:00:13
Speaker 1: when I got one and started using it, it was
1:00:15
Speaker 1: just like a whole new world opened up to me.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: It's amazing for scouting, for just riding through the woods
1:00:22
Speaker 1: and scouting and riding around the field edge looking at
1:00:25
Speaker 1: scrapes and rubs and trails and stuff like that. It's
1:00:28
Speaker 1: a whole new world. I'm not kidding you. They they
1:00:31
Speaker 1: look they look pretty cool. I don't know if I'm
1:00:33
Speaker 1: ready to drop the cash on it myself, but if
1:00:36
Speaker 1: one mysteriously showed up on my doorstep, I wouldn't complain.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: Maybe you need to do a bunch of podcasts and
1:00:43
Speaker 1: trade for one or something like a hint hint if
1:00:46
Speaker 1: you're listening and Mark has worked out they sound cool.
1:00:57
Speaker 1: What were gonna say though? Oh well, I had two
1:01:01
Speaker 1: questions off that. The first one was, are are those
1:01:04
Speaker 1: electric bikes legal on public ground? Most public ground? They
1:01:10
Speaker 1: are legal if they're under seven hundred and fifty walks. Now,
1:01:14
Speaker 1: Quiet Cat makes two of a seven fifty and a thousand,
1:01:17
Speaker 1: and I used the seven fifty because most states it's
1:01:20
Speaker 1: not considered a motorized vehicle unless it's over seven watts,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: so it's basically a bicycle. And now they have three
1:01:28
Speaker 1: ways you can use them. You can peddle them just
1:01:30
Speaker 1: like a regular bike, or you can just you know,
1:01:33
Speaker 1: the quiet Cat has a like a throttle like a motorcycle,
1:01:36
Speaker 1: and he is to drive it like a motorcycle. Or
1:01:38
Speaker 1: you can use a pedal assist, which is what I
1:01:40
Speaker 1: use most of the time. And that's you can just
1:01:43
Speaker 1: set how much assist you want and you just pedal
1:01:46
Speaker 1: and it helps and it helps push you, and I
1:01:48
Speaker 1: mean you can go up steep hills. I pulled a
1:01:50
Speaker 1: big buck on a cart, you know, right behind I
1:01:54
Speaker 1: tied a cart behind the bike and just rotor right
1:01:56
Speaker 1: up a big steep hill. It's like crazy, how good
1:01:59
Speaker 1: it works? Hm? Nice? Nice? So my next question was,
1:02:04
Speaker 1: you know, this was this is kind of off subject,
1:02:06
Speaker 1: but when you when you are pulling a tag in
1:02:10
Speaker 1: southeast Iowa, you know those don't come every year unless
1:02:14
Speaker 1: Dan Johnson, unless your name is Dan Johnson, you live
1:02:17
Speaker 1: there like me, but you know you're an out you're
1:02:20
Speaker 1: a nonresident, and you're not pulling that tag every year.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: How much time are you going to dedicate or budget
1:02:29
Speaker 1: to Iowa when you know and you hunt all these
1:02:33
Speaker 1: other locations. Yeah, I'm because I don't draw an Iowa
1:02:40
Speaker 1: tag that often. I'm going to make it by number
1:02:43
Speaker 1: one priority and I'm just gonna go there and I'm
1:02:47
Speaker 1: gonna work hard until I can either get a buck
1:02:50
Speaker 1: or decide that my odds of getting a buck are
1:02:53
Speaker 1: too low to make it worth staying. That might be
1:02:56
Speaker 1: seven or ten days or whatever it takes, you know,
1:02:59
Speaker 1: being an outdoor right or I've got a flexible schedule.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: I keep my whole first half of November completely open,
1:03:05
Speaker 1: So if it takes the whole first half of November,
1:03:08
Speaker 1: I might end up doing I'm staying with my buddy,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: he's expecting me to stay a week or so. I
1:03:12
Speaker 1: might have to get a motel after the second year,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: you know, if he gets really tired of me. But um,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna prioritize that and then whatever's left.
1:03:22
Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, there's over the counter states
1:03:24
Speaker 1: that I like, like Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota. Those are
1:03:28
Speaker 1: three that I really like to hunt as a second choice,
1:03:32
Speaker 1: so I can just go buy and over the counter
1:03:34
Speaker 1: tag and and uh, you know, I've hunted all three
1:03:37
Speaker 1: of them before, so I've got spots that I know
1:03:39
Speaker 1: somewhat and I can jump right in and be hunting.
1:03:42
Speaker 1: It'll take me twenty four hours after I get there,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: probably to really walk it out, you know, look at
1:03:47
Speaker 1: movements and feeding patterns and see where the nearer betting
1:03:51
Speaker 1: and then get a stand up. And you know, I
1:03:53
Speaker 1: usually don't hunt the first day. I usually just scout
1:03:55
Speaker 1: the first day. But after you've been there a time
1:03:59
Speaker 1: or two, then the scout outing, uh is not as necessary,
1:04:02
Speaker 1: so you can get in the stand a lot sooner.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: So did you did you hunt? I think you had
1:04:06
Speaker 1: said it was two thousand fourteen when you hunted down
1:04:08
Speaker 1: their last Um did you kill a buck on that trip?
1:04:12
Speaker 1: I did kill a bucket wasn't really the buck I wanted.
1:04:14
Speaker 1: But it's kind of a crazy story because my wife's
1:04:19
Speaker 1: mother died while I was down there, and uh, and
1:04:23
Speaker 1: you know, she grew up we both grew up in Iowa.
1:04:25
Speaker 1: And I don't know why I moved in Minnesota. I
1:04:27
Speaker 1: guess because I was in the fishing business here what
1:04:29
Speaker 1: I did. But um, but so you know, we were
1:04:33
Speaker 1: to have a funeral and uh, then I was going
1:04:35
Speaker 1: to go to Kansas from there. Well, the morning that
1:04:39
Speaker 1: I'm trying to decide how this is gonna all work
1:04:42
Speaker 1: for me to get to a funeral and everything, a
1:04:44
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty inch buck walks up and stands there
1:04:47
Speaker 1: at Broadside and went, well, this is the answer to
1:04:49
Speaker 1: my question. So I shot it, and uh and quartered
1:04:54
Speaker 1: it up, put it in coolers, went to the funeral,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: and my wife took it home from the fund and
1:04:58
Speaker 1: she met me there, took it home from the funeral,
1:04:59
Speaker 1: I went to Kansas. So it just worked out, you know.
1:05:03
Speaker 1: And uh, I had better bucks, like on camera than that.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: But it's just there's a lot of other factors than
1:05:10
Speaker 1: just shooting the best buck. You can find. And in
1:05:13
Speaker 1: that case, the whole the death of her mother kind
1:05:17
Speaker 1: of threw a monkey wrench into it. But I was
1:05:19
Speaker 1: satisfied with that buck considered. You know, it's a three
1:05:21
Speaker 1: year old buck, and you know, going to another state
1:05:24
Speaker 1: and shooting a three year old buck is harder than
1:05:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people realize. What about what about this year?
1:05:29
Speaker 1: What's your goal for this year? I'm gonna be a
1:05:32
Speaker 1: little more picky. I think, uh, um, you know, I
1:05:35
Speaker 1: have some history there now, and we'll see how bad
1:05:38
Speaker 1: the e h D has been, and also what shows
1:05:42
Speaker 1: up on camera here. Um, when I start seeing pictures
1:05:45
Speaker 1: from the cameras that my friend John put out, Um, well,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: we'll start seeing what happens, and then I'll have a
1:05:52
Speaker 1: better idea. But once you have an inventory of the deer,
1:05:55
Speaker 1: then you you kind of know what you can expect.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: If there's three or four fifty's on camera, I'm gonna
1:06:01
Speaker 1: be really really selective, you know, and try to get
1:06:03
Speaker 1: one of them. And if there's only one in a
1:06:05
Speaker 1: bunch of one thirties, then I might say, well, one
1:06:08
Speaker 1: of those one thirties probably gonna be good enough if
1:06:10
Speaker 1: he walks by. So um, I like to think that. Um,
1:06:15
Speaker 1: when I'm in a in a state far from home.
1:06:19
Speaker 1: You know, a three to four year old buck in
1:06:21
Speaker 1: the one thirty to forty ranges on public land, that's
1:06:24
Speaker 1: kind of about what you can expect if you really
1:06:27
Speaker 1: work hard. Yeah, So what's your game plan? So you're
1:06:31
Speaker 1: gonna show up there? You said, probably like late October,
1:06:33
Speaker 1: early November most likely. Um, what could you describe like
1:06:38
Speaker 1: your hypothetical week? First week game plan might look like? Yeah,
1:06:44
Speaker 1: my the first day, I'm gonna spend on that bike
1:06:47
Speaker 1: and uh, just really scout out the areas that I've
1:06:49
Speaker 1: known have been good in the past and see what
1:06:52
Speaker 1: I can find for sign and so forth. Um, you know,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: go through the trail camera pictures and and really analyze
1:06:58
Speaker 1: what things look like. Um. And when I say sign,
1:07:01
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking dear sign. I'm talking to human
1:07:03
Speaker 1: sign too, because I want to know where the hunting
1:07:05
Speaker 1: pressure is coming from public land. You're patterning other hunters
1:07:09
Speaker 1: as well as patterning deer, you know what I'm saying. So,
1:07:13
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to get a field for
1:07:14
Speaker 1: the lay of the land, and I'm gonna spend at
1:07:16
Speaker 1: least a day day and a half and I'm gonna
1:07:18
Speaker 1: try to get at least two stands up before I
1:07:20
Speaker 1: actually hunt, because I've made the mistake in the past
1:07:23
Speaker 1: to find a really good spot and put up a
1:07:25
Speaker 1: stand and a hunt in the evening and then it
1:07:27
Speaker 1: gets dark and all of a sudden, going back to motel, gooing, Man,
1:07:29
Speaker 1: this is a terrible stand for in the morning. I
1:07:31
Speaker 1: don't have any place to hunt in the morning. So
1:07:33
Speaker 1: you know, I want to get two stands up before
1:07:35
Speaker 1: I actually get in one. I want a morning spot
1:07:37
Speaker 1: in an evening spot, or or at least two stands
1:07:40
Speaker 1: for two different wind directions. So I'm I'm pretty adamant
1:07:44
Speaker 1: about um, you know, really scouting things out before I
1:07:49
Speaker 1: actually start to hunt, because when I get in the stand,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: I want to have the confidence that I'm in the
1:07:55
Speaker 1: right spot. Otherwise you get fidgety and you're thinking maybe
1:07:57
Speaker 1: I should be over here over there, And the only
1:08:00
Speaker 1: way to know that you have confidence that you're in
1:08:02
Speaker 1: the right spot is by thorough scouting. So that's my priority,
1:08:06
Speaker 1: is really heavy scouting and then hunt and then you're
1:08:11
Speaker 1: I go into a lot of detail on that in
1:08:12
Speaker 1: my book, The Freelance bow Hunter Book. I cover that
1:08:15
Speaker 1: in a lot more detail. Yeah, I remember, I really
1:08:18
Speaker 1: did enjoy that book, and I liked your perspective on
1:08:21
Speaker 1: on how you go about transitioning from that you know,
1:08:24
Speaker 1: scouting to then kind of observation stands and then kind
1:08:27
Speaker 1: of adjusting each time. Um, I mean that that that's
1:08:31
Speaker 1: something I've definitely adopted to my own style of hunting
1:08:33
Speaker 1: too when I've done some of these public eye hunts
1:08:35
Speaker 1: and it it definitely seems to work. Um, has anything,
1:08:40
Speaker 1: because because we talked about this piece of your of
1:08:43
Speaker 1: your strategy a lot, you know, our first time we
1:08:45
Speaker 1: chatted on the podcast, we kind of dove into your
1:08:48
Speaker 1: whole public land philosophy, this whole you know, kind of
1:08:52
Speaker 1: game plan that you go through on most of your
1:08:53
Speaker 1: public land hunts. So if that was if that was
1:08:56
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, that I think that we had that conversation.
1:08:58
Speaker 1: Now it's two thousands Elevantine, Has anything changed? Have you
1:09:02
Speaker 1: learned something new that has that has changed how you
1:09:05
Speaker 1: approach these hunts at all, at least when it comes
1:09:07
Speaker 1: to the public land side of things in the last
1:09:08
Speaker 1: you know, to three years. Is there anything pretty profound
1:09:11
Speaker 1: that you now say, Ah, I'm doing something different. I
1:09:16
Speaker 1: can't say that there's anything really profound. I've tweaked things
1:09:19
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um, I believe it or not. This
1:09:22
Speaker 1: might sound crazy, but I hardly ever hunt mid days anymore.
1:09:25
Speaker 1: I tend to think that I get more value out
1:09:29
Speaker 1: of scouting and checking cameras um during the middle part
1:09:32
Speaker 1: of the day rather than sitting in a stand. There.
1:09:36
Speaker 1: There may be times when I really feel like I'm
1:09:39
Speaker 1: in a spot that could have dear activity at any moment,
1:09:43
Speaker 1: and I'll stay there all day. But part of it's
1:09:46
Speaker 1: just that, Um, I'm I just don't sit well. I'm
1:09:51
Speaker 1: just not one of these guys. I mean, I know
1:09:53
Speaker 1: guys that could get to stand an hour before daylight
1:09:56
Speaker 1: and get out an hour after dark, and they could
1:09:58
Speaker 1: do a day after day after day, and I'm like,
1:10:00
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that sounds like a nightmare to me,
1:10:03
Speaker 1: you know. So, but I really want to know what's
1:10:05
Speaker 1: going on um around me and stuff. So I'm gonna
1:10:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get out and stretch a little bit so
1:10:11
Speaker 1: I can really be focused for the you know, four
1:10:15
Speaker 1: or five hours in the morning, four or five hours
1:10:16
Speaker 1: in the evening, and take two or three hours in
1:10:19
Speaker 1: the middle of the day off and do some more
1:10:21
Speaker 1: scouting or something like that. That's that's interesting. I mean,
1:10:26
Speaker 1: I know that Dan likes hearing that because he's always
1:10:28
Speaker 1: looking for excuses not tone all day. Right, you're exactly
1:10:31
Speaker 1: right nailed it, um Bernie. What kind of places during
1:10:37
Speaker 1: that time period, during your rut time period when you're
1:10:40
Speaker 1: taking your midday break? What kinds of scouting is safe
1:10:44
Speaker 1: to do at that time of year versus stuff that's
1:10:46
Speaker 1: just too much of a negative or is there anything
1:10:49
Speaker 1: at that point? Can you go in anywhere and you're
1:10:51
Speaker 1: not so worried about it because it's the rut. Well,
1:10:55
Speaker 1: I would really avoid the betting areas, of course, because
1:10:58
Speaker 1: the deer likely to be at that time. I'm I
1:11:02
Speaker 1: would check cameras at creek crossings and field edges and
1:11:08
Speaker 1: on you know, funnels and pitch points and things like
1:11:11
Speaker 1: that that I've got set up that that's where I
1:11:13
Speaker 1: would tend to check the cameras. Um. But you also
1:11:17
Speaker 1: have to realize that you've got a limited time to hunt.
1:11:20
Speaker 1: You're on public land where the deer somewhat acclimated to
1:11:24
Speaker 1: human activity, and you just have to hunt more aggressively
1:11:27
Speaker 1: than you would if you know, if I had hundred
1:11:30
Speaker 1: sixty acres of well managed deer hunting property. You know,
1:11:34
Speaker 1: I would probably hunt some of these stands once twice
1:11:37
Speaker 1: three times a year. Where you know, if I'm in
1:11:40
Speaker 1: a UM in a public land and I've got a
1:11:44
Speaker 1: week or ten days to get it done, i might
1:11:47
Speaker 1: hunt them, you know, three or four or five times
1:11:50
Speaker 1: a week. So you just have to be more aggressive. Uh,
1:11:54
Speaker 1: it's just necessary. Yeah, does that apply? And I assume
1:11:59
Speaker 1: it is. But does that apply to other aspects of
1:12:03
Speaker 1: your your hunting strategy at that time? So are you
1:12:06
Speaker 1: just are you more apt to call or rattle or
1:12:09
Speaker 1: decoy or just try other off the wall tactics because
1:12:12
Speaker 1: of that same fact or are you more conservative because
1:12:14
Speaker 1: there's more hunters and they're just less likely to be
1:12:18
Speaker 1: interested in those supes of things because of all the pressure.
1:12:21
Speaker 1: I think I'm probably more likely to call um and rattle,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: and I do use a buck decoy quite a bit.
1:12:30
Speaker 1: I have started using buck decoys more and more, actually,
1:12:33
Speaker 1: especially if I'm sitting up in an area like on
1:12:36
Speaker 1: the edge of a field, where I can put that
1:12:37
Speaker 1: thing out there, um and make it in a visible spot.
1:12:42
Speaker 1: I rarely use a dough decoy alone. Um in fact,
1:12:46
Speaker 1: I don't think I have for years. I use a
1:12:48
Speaker 1: dough decoy in association with a buck decoy at times,
1:12:51
Speaker 1: but um, you know, since you mentioned decoys, I should
1:12:56
Speaker 1: just say this. I I think most times just using
1:12:59
Speaker 1: a oh decoy is more harm than good because other
1:13:04
Speaker 1: doughs or smaller bucks come along and they look at
1:13:07
Speaker 1: it and they're used to know when everybody around there,
1:13:08
Speaker 1: and that freaks them out. They're stomping at it and um,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: but they don't necessarily do that with the young buck
1:13:14
Speaker 1: decoy with one antler missing, which is the way I
1:13:17
Speaker 1: normally set them up. Yeah, can you elaborate on the
1:13:21
Speaker 1: set up, um, how you're typically angling at position at etcetera, etcetera. Yeah.
1:13:28
Speaker 1: I typically position the bucks so it's facing towards the
1:13:32
Speaker 1: base in my tree with one antler missing, and the
1:13:36
Speaker 1: deer usually will circle the buck to the side with
1:13:40
Speaker 1: the antler missing and give me a broadside shot. Um.
1:13:44
Speaker 1: It depends on the wind direction somewhat, and I've and
1:13:47
Speaker 1: some bucks just want to be down wind of that decoy,
1:13:50
Speaker 1: but more often than not, they tend to circle that decoy,
1:13:54
Speaker 1: um towards what probably appears to be its weak side,
1:13:58
Speaker 1: not having an antler there, so if it's facing right
1:14:01
Speaker 1: towards you, then they start circling towards the front of
1:14:04
Speaker 1: the decoy, then they're gonna give you a broadside shot.
1:14:07
Speaker 1: So that's my setup, And if I use a dough
1:14:09
Speaker 1: with it, I'll just park the dough about ten yards
1:14:13
Speaker 1: are so in front of the buck and it just
1:14:16
Speaker 1: looks like it's a rut situation where he's got her
1:14:18
Speaker 1: pinned down and he's standing there staring at her, and
1:14:21
Speaker 1: man that that brings him in like you're reeling them
1:14:23
Speaker 1: in with us fishing reel. You know, I've never had
1:14:28
Speaker 1: any luck with decoy. It's would you agree it's kind
1:14:33
Speaker 1: of one of those high risk, high reward type things, Bernie.
1:14:36
Speaker 1: That's the way I look at it, at least, Yeah,
1:14:38
Speaker 1: I think so. I think there's more risk. Um the
1:14:42
Speaker 1: risk comes from other doughs. I think most of the time.
1:14:45
Speaker 1: You know, if you're gonna if you're gonna have trouble
1:14:47
Speaker 1: with deer that are not comfortable around your decoy, it's
1:14:50
Speaker 1: gonna be an old, mature dough that gives you the problem.
1:14:54
Speaker 1: And they'll usually give you the most problem with us
1:14:56
Speaker 1: with the dough decoy. So Um, you know, there's some
1:14:59
Speaker 1: risk involved, but I've been using buck decoys more and
1:15:03
Speaker 1: more over the years. That's that's kind of a trend
1:15:06
Speaker 1: for me, that I'm using them a lot. Mhm um.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: Do you so? One of the things I think about
1:15:13
Speaker 1: when it comes to decoys, at least for me, is
1:15:16
Speaker 1: that I'm much more apt to use a decoy in
1:15:19
Speaker 1: an area where I think the hunting pressure is pretty low,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: where I think there's also like a larger number of
1:15:24
Speaker 1: mature bucks. So I'll use a dear decoy when I'm
1:15:26
Speaker 1: hunting in southern Ohio. But when I'm home in Michigan,
1:15:29
Speaker 1: where there's just tons and tons of hunters and there's
1:15:31
Speaker 1: not many mature bucks, I've always shied away from them.
1:15:34
Speaker 1: Do you have a similar thought process or are you
1:15:37
Speaker 1: just using them anywhere Central Minnesota, Southeast Iowa. You'll try
1:15:41
Speaker 1: it wherever. Yeah, I guess I hadn't really thought about
1:15:45
Speaker 1: it that way, But decoy's calling and rattling are all
1:15:48
Speaker 1: kind of similar in that way that if you've got
1:15:51
Speaker 1: more mature bucks and you have a more balanced buck
1:15:54
Speaker 1: doo ratio, then you've got more competition for the does.
1:15:58
Speaker 1: And rattling calling a decoy and just work better because
1:16:01
Speaker 1: that's what the deer accustomed to. Now Here, anybody every
1:16:05
Speaker 1: every year and Apple gets to breathe a dough where
1:16:07
Speaker 1: I live at home, you know, so like you can
1:16:10
Speaker 1: rattle and call and they just kind of look like what,
1:16:13
Speaker 1: you know, who cares? Right, Um, they're not even a custody.
1:16:16
Speaker 1: They don't even really hear a mature buck fight hardly.
1:16:20
Speaker 1: A lot of little bucks go through their whole lives,
1:16:22
Speaker 1: probably never even hearing that. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
1:16:25
Speaker 1: that's but at least I always thought that was the case.
1:16:28
Speaker 1: Um here in Michigan. And now I've actually seen maybe
1:16:33
Speaker 1: not a mature buck fight, but I've just seen more
1:16:35
Speaker 1: rattling or more sparring happen, and it kind of has
1:16:38
Speaker 1: made me wonder maybe I should try more rattling here.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: But but I always fall back to just worrying about
1:16:44
Speaker 1: the potentialist spook. Dear. But I don't know, Um, I
1:16:47
Speaker 1: don't think that is a Do you think that's a
1:16:50
Speaker 1: genetic or inherited thing? To run to that noise even
1:16:57
Speaker 1: though they may have never heard it before, is similar
1:17:00
Speaker 1: to maybe a snort wese. I don't know, Um, if
1:17:04
Speaker 1: might be a curiosity, would you would I think it's
1:17:07
Speaker 1: curiosity more than anything. Yeah, well, I don't know that
1:17:10
Speaker 1: it would be genetic. I think I would say it's curiosity. Yeah, yeah,
1:17:15
Speaker 1: I think that probably makes sense. And I do think
1:17:17
Speaker 1: that it's a it's a learned thing to a degree.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: And I think for those bucks that live in areas
1:17:23
Speaker 1: where there's much more competition and that type of thing
1:17:26
Speaker 1: is happening much more often, I just think those those
1:17:28
Speaker 1: deer just become more conditioned to know that something they
1:17:34
Speaker 1: need to get in on, or they need to see
1:17:35
Speaker 1: what's going on there, versus an area where there's a
1:17:38
Speaker 1: very sparse deer population, very few older bucks that are
1:17:41
Speaker 1: gonna be sparring. I think in that type of area
1:17:43
Speaker 1: where it just happens so rarely when a deer here's
1:17:46
Speaker 1: that it's it's either what Bernie just said, and maybe
1:17:49
Speaker 1: they do have a curiosity reaction, or they have the
1:17:52
Speaker 1: I don't like the sound of that I'm getting out here,
1:17:54
Speaker 1: especially if it's a spot where they're getting rattled that
1:17:57
Speaker 1: all the time and they just here and they associate
1:17:59
Speaker 1: that with hunter. Yeah. And the other thing is um
1:18:03
Speaker 1: dearer individuals bucks or individuals, And I use the word personalities,
1:18:08
Speaker 1: although it's probably not the accurate term. But you know,
1:18:12
Speaker 1: one buck is just more curious, or he maybe just
1:18:14
Speaker 1: a fighter and he wants to go over there and
1:18:16
Speaker 1: see who's what's happening, get in on the action. Another
1:18:19
Speaker 1: bite buck might he might tuck his tail and sneak
1:18:22
Speaker 1: off when he hears something like that. You know, they
1:18:24
Speaker 1: all have different temperaments and individual traits. Yeah, have you
1:18:30
Speaker 1: ever have you ever been able to use something you've
1:18:35
Speaker 1: learned about a specific bucks personality to kill him. I
1:18:39
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen a buck several days in
1:18:41
Speaker 1: a row and you've learned something about him, or over
1:18:44
Speaker 1: the course of a year or multiple years, has that
1:18:46
Speaker 1: ever played into an actual strategy for you. Um, I
1:18:51
Speaker 1: can't remember any case where it has. I was just
1:18:55
Speaker 1: thinking a couple of days ago about when I lived
1:18:58
Speaker 1: in Iowa in the postseason open on October one, and
1:19:01
Speaker 1: I had this buck tinned down. I mean I had
1:19:03
Speaker 1: him so patterned. In fact, I was bragging at the
1:19:06
Speaker 1: archery shop that I was going to kill this buck
1:19:08
Speaker 1: on opening day. And I don't know what happened to him,
1:19:11
Speaker 1: but I looked like an idiot because the day before
1:19:14
Speaker 1: the season, he was gone and I never did find
1:19:16
Speaker 1: him again. So uh yeah, but so you know, off
1:19:23
Speaker 1: the top of my head, I really can't think of
1:19:25
Speaker 1: anything that is a chink in the buck's armor that
1:19:28
Speaker 1: allowed me to kill him. Yeah, just a matter of
1:19:32
Speaker 1: be in the right place at the right time. Especially,
1:19:34
Speaker 1: I think on a lot of these public line hunts too,
1:19:36
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot harder to figure out specific bucks
1:19:40
Speaker 1: when you've got other people in there. You're usually only
1:19:42
Speaker 1: able to hunt a spot for a limited amount of time.
1:19:45
Speaker 1: That's a tough a tough angle. So yeah, it is.
1:19:49
Speaker 1: You're you're hunting areas. What you do is you're you're
1:19:51
Speaker 1: trying to hunt specific spots where you think you'd have
1:19:54
Speaker 1: a chance to shoot a buck, rather than trying to
1:19:57
Speaker 1: pattern an individual buck. He only got a week or
1:20:00
Speaker 1: in days to do it. It's really really difficult. So
1:20:02
Speaker 1: you know, I'm concentrating on terrain and and uh you know,
1:20:07
Speaker 1: tracks and trails and and sign and so forth, trying
1:20:10
Speaker 1: to determine where I've got a really good chance of
1:20:14
Speaker 1: of having a buck come by and hoping it's a
1:20:16
Speaker 1: good one. Yeah. Now, we we talked about this a
1:20:18
Speaker 1: little bit. We're probably a decent bit last time. Um,
1:20:22
Speaker 1: But I'm always curious and like hearing like real specific examples,
1:20:26
Speaker 1: because I think people hear some of these general terms
1:20:28
Speaker 1: a lot, like pinch point or betting area. They hear
1:20:32
Speaker 1: these things a lot, but what does that actually look
1:20:34
Speaker 1: like in the real world. So my question, Bernie is,
1:20:36
Speaker 1: could you maybe describe for us a few of those
1:20:39
Speaker 1: types of areas or places that you key in on
1:20:41
Speaker 1: and maybe give us a specific example of a few
1:20:44
Speaker 1: of those spots that you've found on public land that
1:20:48
Speaker 1: have been worth spending some time during these trips of yours. Um,
1:20:51
Speaker 1: they might help us, you know, better envisioned what we
1:20:53
Speaker 1: should look for ourselves. Yeah, I can speak specifically to
1:21:00
Speaker 1: is like pinch points and betting areas and so forth.
1:21:02
Speaker 1: The I've got a spot on a public hunting property
1:21:05
Speaker 1: in Kansas. That's I've killed three mature bucks in the
1:21:09
Speaker 1: last four years, um, and actually five years, four years
1:21:13
Speaker 1: that I've drawn a tag um. Uh yeah for three
1:21:16
Speaker 1: bucks and five years I've hunted four times in five years.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: So uh. And what it is. It's a river. It's
1:21:22
Speaker 1: a pretty good sized river with a really steep bank
1:21:25
Speaker 1: and then it's open fields on one side. With a
1:21:30
Speaker 1: strip of timber that connects two other larger blocks of
1:21:35
Speaker 1: timber that's along the river. And it's the only reason
1:21:39
Speaker 1: that there's not a lot of other hunters back in
1:21:41
Speaker 1: there is because it's like a mile and three quarters
1:21:43
Speaker 1: from the road, and uh, it's hard to get back into. Well, um,
1:21:49
Speaker 1: if you guys really willing to work and put a
1:21:51
Speaker 1: stand in there, you know, just park your butt there
1:21:54
Speaker 1: and hunt mornings and evenings for a week. Yere, chances
1:21:57
Speaker 1: of killing a pretty decent buck are pretty good, you know,
1:22:00
Speaker 1: really good in fact. And it's just one of those
1:22:03
Speaker 1: places where you've got to You've got a lot of
1:22:07
Speaker 1: doughs betting on the hillsides to the north, and then
1:22:12
Speaker 1: you've got a bottom that's like a kind of a
1:22:15
Speaker 1: flat I don't know how to describe it, but it's, uh,
1:22:18
Speaker 1: it's mostly mature timber, but it's big enough that the
1:22:22
Speaker 1: canopy hasn't um you know, blocked all of the undercover
1:22:26
Speaker 1: from the sunlight. And there's a lot of doughs down
1:22:29
Speaker 1: in that area. So it's two areas with a lot
1:22:31
Speaker 1: of doughs that are connected by a narrow strip of
1:22:33
Speaker 1: timber with open field on one side and the river
1:22:36
Speaker 1: bank on the other and you look at it, and
1:22:39
Speaker 1: the thing is, you don't really see it. If you
1:22:41
Speaker 1: look at it on Google Earth, you wouldn't really look
1:22:43
Speaker 1: at that and go wild. That's a classic pinch point.
1:22:46
Speaker 1: But when you get out there and you see how
1:22:48
Speaker 1: the deer actually moved through it, then you're just like
1:22:50
Speaker 1: co lea cow, this is a gold mine and it
1:22:53
Speaker 1: really is. Um. So that's a good example, especially a
1:22:56
Speaker 1: good example of why it's important to do that day
1:23:00
Speaker 1: of walking around like you talked about doing, because if
1:23:03
Speaker 1: you just looked at the Google or if you just
1:23:05
Speaker 1: looked at your satellite imagery or whatever it is you're
1:23:07
Speaker 1: looking at, like you said, you might miss that. So
1:23:09
Speaker 1: that's that's an an interesting example of that. Mm hmm.
1:23:13
Speaker 1: So sorry what we're gonna say for that. Oh um.
1:23:18
Speaker 1: I was gonna also mention the betting areas. Um, there's
1:23:23
Speaker 1: a I was thinking of a specific property in Missouri
1:23:25
Speaker 1: that I've haunted as a big piece of public land,
1:23:28
Speaker 1: and I discovered where a lot of the does like
1:23:31
Speaker 1: the bed on the hillside. It's pretty thick in there.
1:23:34
Speaker 1: And then it's also an area where um, they can
1:23:37
Speaker 1: kind of get out of the wind and they could
1:23:39
Speaker 1: see in front of them, but the wind that's in
1:23:41
Speaker 1: a northwest wind, which you get a lot, you know
1:23:44
Speaker 1: in November, they can smell what's behind them and see
1:23:47
Speaker 1: what's in front of them, and then they can duck
1:23:49
Speaker 1: into some really thick multi flora rose if they get disturbed.
1:23:54
Speaker 1: And that particular spot I just hunt down wind of
1:23:57
Speaker 1: that spot and bucks ten the circle down wind of it,
1:24:01
Speaker 1: along the edge of a food plot that the Missouri
1:24:04
Speaker 1: DNR has put in there, and that that's been a
1:24:08
Speaker 1: pretty good spot for me. I haven't actually killed a
1:24:10
Speaker 1: buck in that spot, but it's just a matter of time. Um.
1:24:13
Speaker 1: I've let some pretty decent ones going just because it
1:24:16
Speaker 1: feels so good. I keep thinking one of these days
1:24:19
Speaker 1: of one is gonna walk by me, and so that
1:24:23
Speaker 1: that's just another example of the type of things that
1:24:25
Speaker 1: you really like to find on public land. And it's
1:24:27
Speaker 1: those are things that most people don't see. Um. You know,
1:24:30
Speaker 1: some guy might go out there and see a trail
1:24:33
Speaker 1: where the deer walking in and out of this. Um,
1:24:36
Speaker 1: this corn plot the d NR in there has planted
1:24:40
Speaker 1: about twenty acres of corn and you would circle that
1:24:42
Speaker 1: and there's three or four really well beat down trails.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: Most people just set up on one of those trails
1:24:47
Speaker 1: and they'll see those all day long. But if you
1:24:52
Speaker 1: really figure out how the bucks are working if they're
1:24:54
Speaker 1: not using those trails, Yeah, that makes sense. I've always
1:25:00
Speaker 1: and to your point, whenever I see something like that,
1:25:03
Speaker 1: like a food plot or some type of man made
1:25:06
Speaker 1: opening on this public land, some type of habitat improvement,
1:25:09
Speaker 1: I always assume that every hunter that does come out
1:25:12
Speaker 1: here is going to key in on that, and so
1:25:14
Speaker 1: I sometimes avoid that because I'm like, wow, this is
1:25:16
Speaker 1: just where everyone's going to obviously try to be. But
1:25:19
Speaker 1: to your point, there's probably still ways to to to
1:25:23
Speaker 1: utilize the information. Okay, yes this is still gonna be
1:25:26
Speaker 1: a draw, but I know other hunters are going to
1:25:28
Speaker 1: be here and here. How can I still utilize that
1:25:31
Speaker 1: to to inform where I go just back off away
1:25:33
Speaker 1: from where those hunters might be, or figure out what
1:25:35
Speaker 1: the betting is in relation to that. Um, that's an
1:25:38
Speaker 1: important point. Here's the question I like to ask a
1:25:42
Speaker 1: lot of public guys, land guys. When you find a
1:25:48
Speaker 1: piece of property and maybe you you've seen a big
1:25:52
Speaker 1: buck that you're kind of targeting, but there's also other
1:25:56
Speaker 1: hunters that are hunting it. How often does an other
1:26:00
Speaker 1: hunter's location or their pattern effect where you're going to hunt? Basically?
1:26:05
Speaker 1: Are are you using where other hunters are at to
1:26:08
Speaker 1: establish your tree stand locations? Um? You mean am I
1:26:15
Speaker 1: using basically hunters as a way to move dear to me? Yea, Um,
1:26:23
Speaker 1: I can't say that. I really do that. Um. I
1:26:27
Speaker 1: know that dear pattern the hunters on a property, but
1:26:30
Speaker 1: it tends to be more where these hunters are walking
1:26:33
Speaker 1: in and out and not so much where, because I mean,
1:26:39
Speaker 1: it's so random where hunters put up their stands. I
1:26:41
Speaker 1: I walked through the woods and I go, well, there's
1:26:43
Speaker 1: a climber in there at the base of the tree.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: The guys obviously coming back, and what is he doing here?
1:26:49
Speaker 1: You know? And uh, But there's been other times when I, um,
1:26:53
Speaker 1: I've had a tree stand, went out there before daylight,
1:26:57
Speaker 1: climbed up the three stand, got settled in, and start
1:27:00
Speaker 1: to get daylight, and all sudden I hear rattling and
1:27:03
Speaker 1: I'm like, holdly, cow, that's really close. And I look,
1:27:05
Speaker 1: it gets just daylight enough. I look over, here's a
1:27:08
Speaker 1: guy in a tree stand forty yards from me, Like,
1:27:10
Speaker 1: holy's this a little too close. And another case where
1:27:15
Speaker 1: I found a really good spot on a ridge and
1:27:18
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I got to get a stand in
1:27:20
Speaker 1: here after the morning hunt. So um hunting for a
1:27:23
Speaker 1: few hours in the morning, and I went back to
1:27:26
Speaker 1: my truck and grabbed a stand, a set of sticks,
1:27:29
Speaker 1: and I get out there. I start trimming branches. I
1:27:31
Speaker 1: get about three sticks up and I hear this. I
1:27:35
Speaker 1: look over and here's the guy in a tree stand
1:27:37
Speaker 1: literally twenty yards from me. And he let me get
1:27:40
Speaker 1: the third stick up there before he even said anything.
1:27:42
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, and I just said, uh, you know,
1:27:46
Speaker 1: I'm half done here. Are you gonna hunt here in
1:27:48
Speaker 1: the evening? And he goes, well, I just hunt here
1:27:50
Speaker 1: in the morning. I said, do you mind if I
1:27:52
Speaker 1: just put my stand up here because I I want
1:27:54
Speaker 1: to hunt in here this evening And he said, okay,
1:27:58
Speaker 1: that was that was weird. But you know, um, but
1:28:03
Speaker 1: I can't really say that I've ever tried the pattern
1:28:06
Speaker 1: hunters and use them to, you know, try to flank
1:28:10
Speaker 1: them based on the way the deer movement or something.
1:28:12
Speaker 1: You just don't know when they're coming and going. The
1:28:14
Speaker 1: thing with public land hunters, most of them just hunt
1:28:17
Speaker 1: on the weekends, or maybe they run out to their
1:28:20
Speaker 1: stand a couple of evenings a week after they get
1:28:22
Speaker 1: off work or something like that. So most weekday mornings
1:28:25
Speaker 1: you have the place to yourself. Um, not so much
1:28:29
Speaker 1: on the weekends, but mornings you you normally do. And
1:28:31
Speaker 1: then some evenings. And because most local hunters are hunting
1:28:37
Speaker 1: after work, they're not getting very far from the road.
1:28:41
Speaker 1: And uh, more and more people are getting way back
1:28:43
Speaker 1: in off the road. People are willing to work harder
1:28:46
Speaker 1: than they ever used to. So you know, you get
1:28:49
Speaker 1: a mile back off the road and you run into
1:28:51
Speaker 1: a guy and you're like, man, I really didn't expect
1:28:52
Speaker 1: to see anybody back in here, but it happens more
1:28:55
Speaker 1: and more. Still, those deer are mostly undisturbed, though, was
1:29:00
Speaker 1: what I was just gonna ask, because I feel like
1:29:01
Speaker 1: more and more people are talking about how to hunt
1:29:04
Speaker 1: these public places. More people are hearing get as far
1:29:07
Speaker 1: away from the parking lots or get into these hard
1:29:10
Speaker 1: to reach areas. I I was curious. So it sounds
1:29:13
Speaker 1: like that is the case that more people are doing that.
1:29:15
Speaker 1: Has that forced you to change how you're hunting public
1:29:17
Speaker 1: land at all recently? Or is it just you know,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: you're just more apt to have you're your plan screwed up,
1:29:24
Speaker 1: just persevere. Yeah, I think that's the second part of that.
1:29:28
Speaker 1: It's the way it is. I haven't figured out how
1:29:30
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Um. You know, in most lands,
1:29:34
Speaker 1: you can't just you can't go any deeper. You know,
1:29:36
Speaker 1: you get you get to the point where you're at
1:29:39
Speaker 1: the best quality habitat as deep as you can go.
1:29:42
Speaker 1: And then I mean two years ago, I walked back
1:29:45
Speaker 1: into a place and uh, I was hanging a trail
1:29:50
Speaker 1: camera and I saw a movement of a guy coming
1:29:53
Speaker 1: to guy was coming down the trail, and uh I
1:29:56
Speaker 1: walked up to him. Because I always try to make
1:29:57
Speaker 1: friends with everybody, you know, I rather sit down with
1:30:01
Speaker 1: a guy and say, okay, you know, where are you hunting?
1:30:03
Speaker 1: How are you hunting? Um, I'd rather do that than
1:30:06
Speaker 1: trip over him, you know, compare notes. You know. I
1:30:09
Speaker 1: even trade phone numbers sometimes with him and say, you know,
1:30:11
Speaker 1: where are you going in the morning. And I've made
1:30:13
Speaker 1: good friends that way. But the surprising thing about this
1:30:17
Speaker 1: guy is that when um, he he had he bought
1:30:22
Speaker 1: my book and he's like, yeah, I read your book. Great,
1:30:28
Speaker 1: that was brilliant you know, so, um, just uh yeah,
1:30:34
Speaker 1: so I'm partly responsible for it. You know, I've saw
1:30:36
Speaker 1: a lot of those freelance hunter books, and anybody that
1:30:39
Speaker 1: likes to hunt public land, you know, just about everybody
1:30:42
Speaker 1: wants one and and there it's gonna lead you to
1:30:46
Speaker 1: the same types of places where I'm hunting. So there
1:30:48
Speaker 1: you go. You can only blame yourself. Are you saying
1:30:52
Speaker 1: to not buy your book? No, at least don't buy
1:30:55
Speaker 1: that book. Yeah. Well there's a piece of property at
1:30:59
Speaker 1: southeast I well, if you're playing hunt that this year,
1:31:01
Speaker 1: don't play my book. But anywhere else that's fine. Yeah.
1:31:05
Speaker 1: So speaking of you ruining good secrets, Bernie, um, you
1:31:11
Speaker 1: you've got an interesting series that you've been putting together
1:31:14
Speaker 1: for North American Whitetail for a little while now, um,
1:31:17
Speaker 1: towards the back of their issues, where you talk about
1:31:21
Speaker 1: some maybe a little bit under the radar areas that
1:31:24
Speaker 1: are worth taking a look at from a public land standpoint. Um.
1:31:28
Speaker 1: And so since it's already out in the world, North
1:31:30
Speaker 1: American White Tails published it, I'm sure tens or thousands
1:31:34
Speaker 1: of people have seen that. Now I think it's fair
1:31:37
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Can you share that's a handful
1:31:39
Speaker 1: of those places that you've found to be good general
1:31:42
Speaker 1: spots that you've recommended in those columns or elsewhere, that
1:31:45
Speaker 1: maybe people aren't taking advantage of yet. Yeah, if a
1:31:48
Speaker 1: guy wants to go hunt um public land where there's
1:31:53
Speaker 1: loads and loads of public land. Um, you're not going
1:31:56
Speaker 1: to see a hundred fifty class dear, but you've got
1:31:58
Speaker 1: a chance to shoot at three year or year old
1:32:00
Speaker 1: one thirty one thirty five. And that's North Dakota along
1:32:04
Speaker 1: the Missouri River system. There is you'll have plenty available room,
1:32:08
Speaker 1: there's a few people hunting them. It's low population, tons
1:32:12
Speaker 1: of public land. UM. North Dakota also has a program
1:32:16
Speaker 1: they call plots p o lts. It's private land open
1:32:18
Speaker 1: to sportsman and it's UM. It's primarily upland bird habitat.
1:32:24
Speaker 1: You know, it's a lot of pheasant hunting stuff, but
1:32:26
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good deer hunting on it and
1:32:28
Speaker 1: most people don't even think about it as deer habitat.
1:32:31
Speaker 1: So that's one of them I would talk. I would
1:32:33
Speaker 1: recommend um the whole you know, the western part of Kentucky.
1:32:38
Speaker 1: And the season opens in Kentucky on the first Saturday
1:32:41
Speaker 1: in September. So if you ever want to shoot a
1:32:44
Speaker 1: velvet buck, um, Western Kentucky is really good and there's
1:32:48
Speaker 1: some huge properties. The land between the lakes Um gets
1:32:52
Speaker 1: a fair amount of hunting pressure. But then there's also
1:32:55
Speaker 1: a couple other large properties that you can hunt. It's
1:32:58
Speaker 1: all public land and uh so that's another good one.
1:33:02
Speaker 1: You know, the walk in hunting areas in Kansas. I
1:33:04
Speaker 1: mentioned North Dakota has the plots program. The one in
1:33:07
Speaker 1: Kansas is called Weehaw walk In Hunting Area and that's
1:33:12
Speaker 1: also geared at, you know, quail and pheasant hunters. But
1:33:16
Speaker 1: there is a lot of good deer hunting property available
1:33:20
Speaker 1: and there's just so much of it that it spreads
1:33:22
Speaker 1: the pressure out pretty well. So those are three that
1:33:25
Speaker 1: I can think of off the top of my head,
1:33:27
Speaker 1: and you know I'm working on more. I just did
1:33:29
Speaker 1: one on the Tennessee Tom big Bay Tom Bigbie what
1:33:34
Speaker 1: I think Tennessee Tom Bigbie um property UM in Louisiana
1:33:40
Speaker 1: and Georgia, and uh that looks like a lot of
1:33:44
Speaker 1: fun hunt because it's almost all boat based hunting where
1:33:47
Speaker 1: you have to go out to islands and stuff. The
1:33:49
Speaker 1: Mississippi Rivers like that too, Um, so, you know, some
1:33:53
Speaker 1: of these are places that I've hunted and others are
1:33:55
Speaker 1: just places that Gordon Whitinton, editor in North American White Jail,
1:33:59
Speaker 1: and I have sat down and said, let's do some research,
1:34:02
Speaker 1: let's find out what are available at these and and uh,
1:34:06
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a series of about a dozen of them.
1:34:09
Speaker 1: And I think I've done six or seven of them
1:34:11
Speaker 1: so far. And most of those are places I've actually
1:34:14
Speaker 1: hunted myself, and some of them aren't. But I've just
1:34:17
Speaker 1: done the research, made calls to biologists and you know,
1:34:20
Speaker 1: looked at at at satellite photos and stuff like that
1:34:23
Speaker 1: to really learn the properties that so I can give
1:34:26
Speaker 1: some decent advice on how to haunt them. Yeah. Yeah,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: I found him interesting so far. Um, I think it's
1:34:31
Speaker 1: a good idea. Although there's probably a handful of guys
1:34:35
Speaker 1: out there when they read these articles that are just
1:34:37
Speaker 1: cursing you after after you put them out there. Not
1:34:40
Speaker 1: my secret spot. Yeah, well they're pretty big areas, so yeah,
1:34:47
Speaker 1: and realistically there there there isn't like there's a million
1:34:50
Speaker 1: people that are out there doing this. You know. It's
1:34:52
Speaker 1: a growing number of people that I call freelance bowl
1:34:55
Speaker 1: hunters where they're packing their truck and going to a
1:34:58
Speaker 1: new area and and just try and a new spot.
1:35:00
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. It's a fun way to hunt,
1:35:03
Speaker 1: and it's challenging and you'll learn a lot. And uh,
1:35:07
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of people in Michigan and
1:35:10
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and the East Coast that they're watching the Outdoor
1:35:13
Speaker 1: Channel and they're going, Man, I could never kill a
1:35:15
Speaker 1: buck like that where I live. Well, you can go
1:35:18
Speaker 1: in two places that have bucks like that. You just
1:35:20
Speaker 1: got to work for them, for sure. Is there anything
1:35:25
Speaker 1: else from a mental standpoint for a guy that's going
1:35:29
Speaker 1: out to do something like that, let's say in Michigan
1:35:32
Speaker 1: or New Hampshire or Georgia or wherever. And let's say
1:35:35
Speaker 1: in a lot of these places, heavier hunting pressure, lower
1:35:38
Speaker 1: numbers of mature bucks they go out on one of
1:35:41
Speaker 1: these hunts. Um, is there anything from a mental side
1:35:45
Speaker 1: that you think that this guy or girl should be
1:35:47
Speaker 1: keeping in mind, maybe about how to handle the hunt,
1:35:50
Speaker 1: or the moment of truth or anything else. I think
1:35:54
Speaker 1: the most important advice I could give people would just
1:35:57
Speaker 1: be the first time you go, just don't get your
1:36:00
Speaker 1: expectations too high. Just go out there. Try to learn,
1:36:02
Speaker 1: have fun, um, really scout hard, and and um, you know,
1:36:07
Speaker 1: just go with the expectation that you're just gonna try
1:36:10
Speaker 1: to learn the properties and learn how to be a
1:36:13
Speaker 1: better deer hunter. Spend a whole week just you know,
1:36:16
Speaker 1: learning how to be a better deer hunter. And um,
1:36:19
Speaker 1: if you shoot a buck, fine, if you don't, that's
1:36:21
Speaker 1: fine too. The more you go back to a property,
1:36:24
Speaker 1: the better you'll hunt it, because you've got a you know,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: you've got a library of information in your mind about
1:36:31
Speaker 1: what you've seen in the past. So um, there's two
1:36:34
Speaker 1: kinds of people that like to do this. Um. Some
1:36:37
Speaker 1: of them like to find a really good piece of property,
1:36:39
Speaker 1: really learn it good, and then just go back their
1:36:41
Speaker 1: year after year after year after year. And there's other people,
1:36:44
Speaker 1: which is kind of more like me, where I just
1:36:46
Speaker 1: get such a thrill out of seeing what's over the
1:36:48
Speaker 1: next hill, and I sometimes go back to the same
1:36:51
Speaker 1: properties that I really like, like that one in Kansas.
1:36:55
Speaker 1: But I also, you know, I got a spot in
1:36:58
Speaker 1: western Nebraska where I was on my way to Kansas
1:37:01
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and I put out some cameras
1:37:04
Speaker 1: while I was in in Nebraska, and then I just
1:37:07
Speaker 1: put them out and then I went and hunted in
1:37:08
Speaker 1: Kansas and I came back and picked him up on
1:37:10
Speaker 1: my way back, and I'm just like, man, I gotta
1:37:13
Speaker 1: get out there and hunt. Well these days, I just
1:37:14
Speaker 1: can't wait to try this new spot. So um that
1:37:18
Speaker 1: that'd be my advice. Just relax, have fun with it,
1:37:21
Speaker 1: and if it happens, it happens, and the second year
1:37:25
Speaker 1: you go back, you can get a lot more focused
1:37:26
Speaker 1: on really trying to get a buck. Then the first
1:37:29
Speaker 1: year you're just learning. Yeah, yeah, I think that's good advice.
1:37:33
Speaker 1: Speaking of um, speaking in the mental side of things,
1:37:37
Speaker 1: This is this is just in general is something that
1:37:39
Speaker 1: I think I'm just personally kind of becoming more and
1:37:41
Speaker 1: more fascinated with because with the podcast, right, we've gotten
1:37:44
Speaker 1: to talk to dozens and dozens and dozens, if not hundreds,
1:37:47
Speaker 1: of different very successful deer hunters, and I keep finding
1:37:51
Speaker 1: that there's so many different ways to go about it
1:37:53
Speaker 1: to kill mature buck. Um. So now I've been thinking
1:37:58
Speaker 1: through and reflecting and all the different people have talked to,
1:38:01
Speaker 1: trying to parse out, like, what are the consistencies, what
1:38:05
Speaker 1: are the things that most of these people, even though
1:38:07
Speaker 1: they go about things very differently almost always do have
1:38:10
Speaker 1: in common? Like, what are those common threads that bind
1:38:12
Speaker 1: together all these most successful people? And I'm I'm developing
1:38:17
Speaker 1: some of my own theories, but I'm curious for you,
1:38:19
Speaker 1: whether it be based on people you've talked to or
1:38:21
Speaker 1: maybe just assumptions you have. What do you what do
1:38:23
Speaker 1: you think are some of those key characteristics, Um, maybe
1:38:29
Speaker 1: that that are most commonly found in those very most
1:38:33
Speaker 1: successful people. I think I would say there's two of
1:38:38
Speaker 1: the number. The number one and most important one is
1:38:40
Speaker 1: the willingness to work hard. Um, the willingness are really
1:38:43
Speaker 1: put in the time and walk the miles and do
1:38:46
Speaker 1: what needs to be done. Um, that's the number one characteristic.
1:38:50
Speaker 1: I you know, I just did a story for North
1:38:54
Speaker 1: American Whitetail Online. It was called six Reasons You've never
1:38:57
Speaker 1: shot a booner. And I've I interviewed like, um, four
1:39:03
Speaker 1: or five people who have shot multiple booners. And you know,
1:39:08
Speaker 1: it's not pure luck, it's these guys are dedicated, They
1:39:10
Speaker 1: put in their time and h So you know, that
1:39:14
Speaker 1: would be the number one thing. And the second thing
1:39:17
Speaker 1: is some people are just better at absorbing knowledge and um,
1:39:22
Speaker 1: you know, seeing things and filing that away and then
1:39:25
Speaker 1: using it the next time they see it. I don't
1:39:28
Speaker 1: know if there's a name for it or how to
1:39:29
Speaker 1: actually describe, um, how this works, but some people are
1:39:34
Speaker 1: are just kind of better at learning and applying what
1:39:39
Speaker 1: they see to make them a better hunter. Does that
1:39:41
Speaker 1: make sense? Yeah? I mean yeah, And and I might
1:39:47
Speaker 1: um suggest or I might guess that maybe the biggest
1:39:51
Speaker 1: difference there is that a lot of guys hear stuff,
1:39:54
Speaker 1: but a very much smaller portion of that number of
1:39:58
Speaker 1: people to hear about something actually execute on it. Would
1:40:01
Speaker 1: you here with that? Yeah, I would definitely agree with that.
1:40:04
Speaker 1: And then that kind of goes back to what I
1:40:07
Speaker 1: just said to about the actual you know, picking up
1:40:10
Speaker 1: knowledge kind of filing in a way, comparing it um observation.
1:40:16
Speaker 1: Some people are really good observers. Um. One guy can
1:40:19
Speaker 1: walk through the woods and not hardly see anything, and
1:40:22
Speaker 1: the next guy, you know, walks through and learned a lot.
1:40:25
Speaker 1: And that that's partly personality, but it's also something that
1:40:29
Speaker 1: can be developed and learned and trained. Mm hmm. Do
1:40:34
Speaker 1: you do you have any ideas on how to get
1:40:37
Speaker 1: better at that? Is it just like recognizing the need
1:40:40
Speaker 1: to get better and just paying more attention or has
1:40:42
Speaker 1: there been anything that has helped you get better at
1:40:44
Speaker 1: that that you can speak to. Yeah, I think paying
1:40:48
Speaker 1: more attention is a good way to put it, because
1:40:50
Speaker 1: slow down and just really observe what's going on around you. Um.
1:40:55
Speaker 1: You know, I read books about some of these guys
1:40:58
Speaker 1: that are incredible trackers, and you know, the things that
1:41:03
Speaker 1: they notice and things like that, and um, these guys
1:41:07
Speaker 1: are so detail oriented that that's my That's one thing
1:41:11
Speaker 1: that I have to work on. I'm you know, I'm
1:41:14
Speaker 1: just not detail oriented enough. I have to really learn
1:41:17
Speaker 1: and work on being detail oriented. What what am I seeing?
1:41:22
Speaker 1: What do these tracks mean? Um? You know which because
1:41:26
Speaker 1: this book is facing this way and my trail camera picture,
1:41:30
Speaker 1: you know, what can I learn from where he's coming
1:41:33
Speaker 1: from at what time and where he's going to and
1:41:36
Speaker 1: things like that. There's um you know, it's it's just
1:41:40
Speaker 1: really detail oriented stuff that makes you get better and better. Yeah,
1:41:45
Speaker 1: I think i'd I definitely have to agree with that.
1:41:48
Speaker 1: Um Dan, do you have any final thoughts here as
1:41:52
Speaker 1: we start wrappings out? You're there to sleep on us?
1:42:01
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I'm here, I'm here. I'm sorry.
1:42:04
Speaker 1: My dog was barking, so I had to shut my
1:42:06
Speaker 1: mic off anyway. Uh. Over the last couple of years, uh,
1:42:12
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, let's say five ten years. You know,
1:42:14
Speaker 1: you've started to get into a rhythm of you know,
1:42:18
Speaker 1: going and doing what it is that you do. Um,
1:42:22
Speaker 1: what has been the number one thing that you could
1:42:24
Speaker 1: take away as a learning experience over the last let's
1:42:27
Speaker 1: say five years as a bow hunter? Um? You know,
1:42:33
Speaker 1: I've been bowing for forty five years, and I was
1:42:37
Speaker 1: for too long. I was just kind of too serious
1:42:41
Speaker 1: about it. I mean that sounds crazy probably at this point,
1:42:44
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm fifty eight years old now and
1:42:47
Speaker 1: and my grandsons are starting to get into bow hunting
1:42:50
Speaker 1: before too long here, and I'm I'm just kind of
1:42:53
Speaker 1: stopping and smelling the roses more. And maybe that's not
1:42:56
Speaker 1: what people want to hear, because they want to hear
1:42:59
Speaker 1: that I'm just I'm out there, you know, killing a
1:43:02
Speaker 1: huge buck every week or in November or something. But
1:43:05
Speaker 1: for me, I'm I'm just Um, I'm at a point
1:43:09
Speaker 1: where I just enjoy every day that I'm in the
1:43:12
Speaker 1: woods more than I ever had before, and I kind
1:43:15
Speaker 1: of relax. I used to put so much pressure on mean,
1:43:17
Speaker 1: he's I'm a writer. I'm writing columns and these magazines
1:43:20
Speaker 1: about how to kill these books and stuff like that,
1:43:22
Speaker 1: and I just put so much pressure on myself. I
1:43:25
Speaker 1: just had to perform, you know, And finally I just went,
1:43:27
Speaker 1: you know what, I know this stuff, I keep writing it,
1:43:30
Speaker 1: and uh, this is gonna relax a little bit and
1:43:32
Speaker 1: and have a little more fun with it. That's kind
1:43:34
Speaker 1: of where I'm at. And uh, you know, it's brought
1:43:38
Speaker 1: some of the fun back into Bow Honey gets my job,
1:43:40
Speaker 1: but it's still made a little more fun than it
1:43:43
Speaker 1: was for a while. Yeah, that's a great point, and
1:43:47
Speaker 1: it's something that I feel like, you know, Dan and
1:43:50
Speaker 1: I talk about that a good amount too. But it's
1:43:53
Speaker 1: something that I always need to be reminded of, Like
1:43:55
Speaker 1: every year, especially this time of year, just as we're
1:43:58
Speaker 1: getting ramped up. I need to remind myself of that too,
1:44:00
Speaker 1: because I go through the same thing putting pressure on myself.
1:44:03
Speaker 1: And I think any of us who are who take
1:44:07
Speaker 1: deer hunting, especially if you're hunting mature bucks, you know,
1:44:09
Speaker 1: if we take that really seriously, if you're passionate about it,
1:44:11
Speaker 1: if you love it, if it's what you think about
1:44:13
Speaker 1: all year long, Like naturally, it is going to become
1:44:17
Speaker 1: a pressure on you because you want to see whatever
1:44:20
Speaker 1: it is you've been putting us work into. You want
1:44:22
Speaker 1: to see that come to fruition. So it makes sense
1:44:25
Speaker 1: that we'll put pressure on ourselves and we'll stress about it.
1:44:27
Speaker 1: But if it gets to the point where it's, you know,
1:44:30
Speaker 1: making it not enjoyable, then why the heck are you
1:44:32
Speaker 1: doing in the first place. So and and you know,
1:44:36
Speaker 1: if you get to the point where you feel like
1:44:37
Speaker 1: you have to kill a bigger Bucks than the last one,
1:44:40
Speaker 1: eventually you you, you know, you drive yourself into the
1:44:43
Speaker 1: ground because you can't. You can't keep killing a bigger
1:44:46
Speaker 1: Bucks than the last one. So um, you know, you
1:44:50
Speaker 1: have to kind of get to the point where for me,
1:44:53
Speaker 1: because I have a fan base and I have people
1:44:55
Speaker 1: that follow my writing and my YouTube channel and all that,
1:44:59
Speaker 1: I just I feel like I just have to shoot
1:45:01
Speaker 1: a buck that most of the people that see it
1:45:03
Speaker 1: would go, yeah, I'd shoot that, And that's kind of
1:45:07
Speaker 1: where I'm at, And I don't have to kill a
1:45:10
Speaker 1: one sixty or one seventy. I love it when it happens,
1:45:13
Speaker 1: but most of the time I'm just happy to get
1:45:16
Speaker 1: a buck and have some venicon and and uh put
1:45:19
Speaker 1: the rack and a pile in the corner of the
1:45:21
Speaker 1: garage because I don't I don't mount very many of
1:45:24
Speaker 1: too much. I'd rather use the money to go on
1:45:26
Speaker 1: another hunt. So there you go. It's all about being practical,
1:45:29
Speaker 1: right right. So is there anything Bernie, that we haven't
1:45:34
Speaker 1: touched on yet that you find to be one of
1:45:37
Speaker 1: those glaring gaps in most hunters knowledge base, or a
1:45:41
Speaker 1: weakness or a mistake that you just hear about or
1:45:44
Speaker 1: see being made so often? Is there anything we haven't
1:45:46
Speaker 1: touched on like that that you want to make sure
1:45:48
Speaker 1: we do. So the one thing I would bring up,
1:45:52
Speaker 1: I think is that there just aren't any secrets. Um.
1:45:56
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's looking for a shortcut or a secret
1:45:58
Speaker 1: or something that's going eliminate their scent. You know, there
1:46:02
Speaker 1: there's value in reducing your scent. I I go through
1:46:05
Speaker 1: scent control scent reduction UM. And that's just one of
1:46:09
Speaker 1: the symptoms. I guess. I would say of people that
1:46:12
Speaker 1: there's so many people that want to go out and
1:46:14
Speaker 1: shoot a big buck, and they just think that there's
1:46:16
Speaker 1: some kind of if I can just figure out a shortcut. Um,
1:46:20
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to do the work. You just
1:46:22
Speaker 1: have to put the time in, bust your hump and
1:46:26
Speaker 1: do the work. And you know you might get lucky
1:46:28
Speaker 1: and shoot a buck once in a while, but if
1:46:29
Speaker 1: you're going to consistently shoot him with your buck, you've
1:46:32
Speaker 1: got to put your time in and and get out
1:46:34
Speaker 1: there so that don't don't look for shortcuts. That's my advice. UM,
1:46:40
Speaker 1: you know, commit to commit to the process. I think
1:46:44
Speaker 1: that's just about as good of a piece of advice
1:46:46
Speaker 1: to end done as we could ever ask for. So, so, Bernie,
1:46:49
Speaker 1: I know you've got a lot of stuff that you're
1:46:50
Speaker 1: putting out there into the world, um for people to
1:46:53
Speaker 1: to check out and learn from. Where can people find
1:46:57
Speaker 1: all your stuff? Two things? Actually three? Because I have
1:47:03
Speaker 1: all I have a YouTube channel. It's got three and
1:47:05
Speaker 1: a half million views now so it's doing all right.
1:47:07
Speaker 1: And you can see the video of this buckeye shot
1:47:09
Speaker 1: in Manitoba. I just put that up um, and it's
1:47:14
Speaker 1: bow Hunting Road. So if you go to YouTube and
1:47:16
Speaker 1: do a suits for bow Hunting Road. You can buy
1:47:18
Speaker 1: my book at Burnie Outdoors dot com. That's the Freelance
1:47:21
Speaker 1: bow Hunter Book and it's you know, it's it's about
1:47:24
Speaker 1: the traveling hunter that goes to other states and hunts
1:47:26
Speaker 1: public land. And then the other one is this email
1:47:30
Speaker 1: blast that I've been putting out called Bucks, Bulls and Bears.
1:47:34
Speaker 1: And I've had a lot of fun with this, and
1:47:35
Speaker 1: I've got thirty eight thousand people subscribing to this. Can
1:47:38
Speaker 1: you believe that it's just going barkers on me? And
1:47:41
Speaker 1: it's called Bucks and Balls and Bears. I sent it
1:47:42
Speaker 1: out every Tuesday. It's just got a lot of cool stuff.
1:47:45
Speaker 1: It's got some articles, got some cool videos, some fun
1:47:47
Speaker 1: stuff and a little humor in there too. And that
1:47:50
Speaker 1: just goes out every Tuesday. So if you go to Bucks,
1:47:52
Speaker 1: Bulls Bears dot com and just sign up for that email,
1:47:55
Speaker 1: it's free. If you get sick of me, you can
1:47:56
Speaker 1: just unsubscribe. But like I said, that goes out once
1:47:59
Speaker 1: a week, and and it's there's a lot of public
1:48:02
Speaker 1: land stuff in there and uh hunting information and then
1:48:05
Speaker 1: some cool videos. It's it's a lot of fun and
1:48:07
Speaker 1: that's kind of taken on a life of its own.
1:48:09
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised that it's already up up the
1:48:11
Speaker 1: thirty eight thousand drivers that's that's a lot of folks
1:48:15
Speaker 1: taking look at an email. I feel like i'd have
1:48:17
Speaker 1: I feel a lot of pressure if I was sending
1:48:19
Speaker 1: an I get nervous on sending one person an email
1:48:21
Speaker 1: and make sure I got my words right. That's cool though,
1:48:26
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Well, I'll make sure to include links in
1:48:29
Speaker 1: the blog post for this podcast links to everything you
1:48:32
Speaker 1: just mentioned, um, so people can go check it out.
1:48:35
Speaker 1: So thank you, Bernie. I really appreciate you taking the
1:48:37
Speaker 1: time to chat with us about all this all right,
1:48:39
Speaker 1: appreciate the opportunity. Thank you of course, good luck this
1:48:42
Speaker 1: season and that will do it for us today. So
1:48:47
Speaker 1: big thank you to sit a gear YETI Cooler's, Matthew's Archery,
1:48:51
Speaker 1: Maven Optics, the White Tail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge,
1:48:56
Speaker 1: and hunt Ram Maps. Big big things to these partners
1:48:59
Speaker 1: of our who helped keep the lights on, who keep
1:49:01
Speaker 1: the podcast coming out, who keep the website up and going.
1:49:06
Speaker 1: We couldn't do it without them. So if you're looking
1:49:08
Speaker 1: for some new gear, check those guys out. They make
1:49:11
Speaker 1: some of the best stuff in the business. Moving on,
1:49:15
Speaker 1: of course, thanks to all of you for listening. I
1:49:19
Speaker 1: appreciate it and If you're hitting the woods in the
1:49:20
Speaker 1: coming days, good luck out there, be safe, have fun,
1:49:25
Speaker 1: and stay wired to hunt.