Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 567: How a Public Land Master Consistently Outsmarts Mature Bucks with Andy May

Transcript

Ep. 567: How a Public Land Master Consistently Outsmarts Mature Bucks with Andy May · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
0:05
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host Mark Kenyon. Hey, everybody,
0:16
Speaker 1: welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest
0:19
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking with the one
0:21
Speaker 1: and only Andy May. Hey, guys, Mark here or a
0:40
Speaker 1: quick second jumping in. This is a Tony episode. But
0:44
Speaker 1: I gotta apologize to all of you because we made
0:48
Speaker 1: a mistake last week. Last week on the podcast, I
0:51
Speaker 1: mentioned that we had this sweet new kind of promotion
0:54
Speaker 1: over on the Meat Eater store where with every sale
0:58
Speaker 1: of the Tethered Elite Phantoms adult, We're gonna give a
1:01
Speaker 1: hundred dollar first like discount or gift card. Sorry, it
1:04
Speaker 1: was a sweet deal. I was very excited about it,
1:07
Speaker 1: but we had a little issue on the back end
1:10
Speaker 1: and that sale is not ready to launch yet. Now
1:14
Speaker 1: I have it on good authority that we will be
1:16
Speaker 1: able to offer that at some point soon ish. I
1:19
Speaker 1: don't want to make any promises, but here's the deal.
1:22
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I told you that was available. It is
1:24
Speaker 1: not available right now. Sorry for any of you guys
1:27
Speaker 1: that went there. Check it out as soon as I
1:29
Speaker 1: can confirm that this is a real thing. Again, I
1:31
Speaker 1: will let you know thank you for your understanding and
1:34
Speaker 1: for your patients, and now I will let you get
1:37
Speaker 1: back to Tony's podcast. Thanks. All right, folks, welcome to
1:42
Speaker 1: the Wire to Hunt podcast, which is brought to you
1:44
Speaker 1: by First Late you probably figured out this is not
1:47
Speaker 1: the voice of Mark Kenyon. Normally he's off doing something
1:51
Speaker 1: really odd, often with Spencer, who is not coincidentally really odd.
1:57
Speaker 1: But let's be honest. This week, Marks on an other vacation,
2:01
Speaker 1: fly fishing some beautiful stream in Idaho or somewhere out
2:04
Speaker 1: west so that he can post I don't know, seventy
2:06
Speaker 1: seven more pictures of big trout on his Instagram and
2:09
Speaker 1: make us all kind of secretly hate him just a
2:12
Speaker 1: little bit more. Not today, since Mark's off having fun
2:16
Speaker 1: slinging flies around, I'm kicking off a Rabbits with Antler's
2:20
Speaker 1: month where we dumb down bucks and give you the
2:24
Speaker 1: confidence to kill mature deer no matter where you hunt.
2:27
Speaker 1: And there's no one better to talk to about this
2:30
Speaker 1: than Michigander Andy May, who might just be the best
2:34
Speaker 1: damn white tail hunter in the country. Now. I've interviewed
2:36
Speaker 1: Andy quite a few times, but I think this was
2:38
Speaker 1: my favorite conversation with him, and he talks about several
2:42
Speaker 1: of the big bucks he's killed and what those deer
2:44
Speaker 1: taught him. But he also breaks down how little time
2:47
Speaker 1: he really has to hunt and what that means for
2:50
Speaker 1: his hunting strategies. You know, there's a lot of takeaways
2:53
Speaker 1: from this episode. You know. One is that being a
2:55
Speaker 1: strategy generalist is often better than being a specialist is
3:00
Speaker 1: as long as you're someone who's always willing to learn,
3:01
Speaker 1: that's gonna take you so far. Uh. The other takeaway
3:05
Speaker 1: from this that's super important, whether you hunt public land
3:07
Speaker 1: or private land, great white Tail State, not so great
3:10
Speaker 1: white Tail State, whatever, is learning how to think differently
3:14
Speaker 1: about being a deer hunter, think differently than your competition
3:17
Speaker 1: as opposed to just trying to outwork them. That's maybe
3:20
Speaker 1: the you know, kind of the undercurrent of this whole episode,
3:23
Speaker 1: and it's so good. I think you're really going to
3:24
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Andy May, Welcome back to the podcast. The
3:31
Speaker 1: people listening to this don't know, but we recorded a
3:34
Speaker 1: banger podcast yesterday and I screwed up the audio and
3:38
Speaker 1: so we're redoing it today and I'm I'm gonna blame
3:42
Speaker 1: Clay Newcome, but for that mistake because he made me
3:45
Speaker 1: do the Burgaries podcast and I switched my settings and
3:47
Speaker 1: I never do it. And so anyway, I thank you
3:51
Speaker 1: for coming back for round two today. It's always a
3:54
Speaker 1: pleasure to talk to you. Yeah, no problem, man, Hey,
3:59
Speaker 1: stuff happens. Yeah. Well, and I'm an idiot, so that yesterday,
4:04
Speaker 1: before we get into the dear thing, I want to
4:05
Speaker 1: explain my my day yesterday just quickly. So we did
4:08
Speaker 1: this podcast and as soon as as soon as we
4:12
Speaker 1: wrapped up, I went to upload the files for our
4:14
Speaker 1: for a editor and I saw that I had screwed
4:16
Speaker 1: that up and hadn't switched that one setting, and I
4:19
Speaker 1: hate that. I hate wasted your time. I just I
4:21
Speaker 1: felt so dumb and like, whatever, what are you gonna do?
4:24
Speaker 1: At least it at least it was a buddy, you know.
4:26
Speaker 1: It wasn't like somebody that I didn't really know. And
4:29
Speaker 1: I left after that. After figuring that out, I took
4:32
Speaker 1: my dogs out to the park to train them. And
4:34
Speaker 1: at the end of the training session, I always throw
4:36
Speaker 1: this frisbee just to wear them out. And I threw
4:39
Speaker 1: the frisbee and my little pup, she's a fifty pounder
4:42
Speaker 1: and She's a burner. I mean, she's so fast. And
4:44
Speaker 1: I did one of those throws on a soccer field
4:47
Speaker 1: and it's that frisbee is going, going, going, and I'm
4:49
Speaker 1: watching her and it was like watching a receiver, you know,
4:53
Speaker 1: looking at the ball, not paying attention to the corner
4:55
Speaker 1: coming in hot and she ran right into this post,
4:59
Speaker 1: like this corner post of a soccer goal, just you know,
5:03
Speaker 1: smoked it. I was like, holy sh it, now I'm
5:05
Speaker 1: going to the emergency vet. She got up, Randon got
5:07
Speaker 1: the frisbee, came back, didn't show. I mean, I was like,
5:10
Speaker 1: when I saw it happen, I was like, oh God.
5:12
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, well there's two. And then I
5:14
Speaker 1: picked up my little girls, came home and I had
5:17
Speaker 1: a I had a time reserve for them to swim
5:19
Speaker 1: at the y. So I was gonna go lift and
5:20
Speaker 1: they were gonna swim. And we're going to the y.
5:24
Speaker 1: And this is like a five minute drive, right. We
5:26
Speaker 1: get to this the one stoplight we have to stop at,
5:29
Speaker 1: and I see our old neighbor poll in front of us.
5:31
Speaker 1: I said, oh, you guys, there's Teagan's dad. And so
5:33
Speaker 1: like we're all looking straight ahead and as we watch
5:37
Speaker 1: him like drive the road ahead of us. This cop
5:40
Speaker 1: turns on his cherries and whips a UI and I
5:42
Speaker 1: was like, yes, I wonder if they're pulling him over.
5:45
Speaker 1: And so we go up there and there's a doll
5:49
Speaker 1: in the ditch of this guy's yard, back broken, scrambling,
5:53
Speaker 1: just got it hit. And so like we're going by
5:56
Speaker 1: slow because everybody's slowing down, and that cop walks up
5:58
Speaker 1: there and pulls out his serve pistol like twenty feet
6:02
Speaker 1: from my truck and shoots that dough. Both girls are
6:04
Speaker 1: just bawling. Oh my gosh. It was just I was like,
6:09
Speaker 1: I don't I didn't feel like I belonged on earth yesterday,
6:11
Speaker 1: So I think today is gonna be better. Uh, you're
6:14
Speaker 1: you're the first guest on this rabbits with Antler's Month
6:18
Speaker 1: where we're just like, you know, we did we did
6:20
Speaker 1: a science month a couple of months ago. And I
6:22
Speaker 1: just want to talk to you and some other just
6:24
Speaker 1: white tail killers and kinda again try to demystify white tails.
6:29
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, you know, how we kind
6:31
Speaker 1: of give them too much credit, and how you think
6:33
Speaker 1: about them and how you're thinking about them has evolved over.
6:36
Speaker 1: You know, you're hunting career and you know, public land,
6:39
Speaker 1: private land, all that stuff. But first, before we get
6:41
Speaker 1: into that, can you just tell the audience what it's
6:45
Speaker 1: like to be sort of a famous hunter who only
6:48
Speaker 1: hunts all the time. It doesn't have a real job.
6:53
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I wouldn't know what that's like. UM.
6:58
Speaker 1: I'm a you know, I think okay, I think I
7:01
Speaker 1: can relate well to um, the average hunter out there
7:05
Speaker 1: in regards to you know, I don't get paid for this.
7:08
Speaker 1: This isn't my living. UM, I just hunt. I just
7:12
Speaker 1: love to hunt, and that's all it is for me,
7:15
Speaker 1: and frankly kind of all I really care for it
7:18
Speaker 1: to be. UM, you know, limited time family man. UM.
7:22
Speaker 1: I work. I work a career in a school district,
7:28
Speaker 1: working with special education. I'm an occupational therapist. So that's
7:32
Speaker 1: my full time job. Um. You know, so I'm on
7:35
Speaker 1: a school schedule. And then I have a second job
7:39
Speaker 1: that I work kind of to make ends meet, and
7:41
Speaker 1: I do the same type of work, but I do
7:44
Speaker 1: it with UM adults with disabilities, So I kind of
7:48
Speaker 1: do that on the side, and that one is a
7:51
Speaker 1: little more flexible with my time. There's a certain caseload
7:54
Speaker 1: that I have to manage and I can kind of
7:56
Speaker 1: do it, you know, kind of piece it in, you know,
7:58
Speaker 1: when it fits with my schedule. So aside from that, um,
8:02
Speaker 1: you know, I have a daughter that is you know,
8:06
Speaker 1: very much involved with with sports and stuff, and most
8:09
Speaker 1: of the listeners have have heard this about me, but uh,
8:12
Speaker 1: you know, I that is like just my number one priority.
8:16
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time getting her places. She's
8:18
Speaker 1: in a lot of travel sports, school sports. So my
8:21
Speaker 1: fall is really booked up with a lot of that.
8:24
Speaker 1: But in between, you know, obviously, uh you know, we're
8:27
Speaker 1: we're hunters, and um we need to we need to
8:31
Speaker 1: also you know, fuel ourselves and and kind of go
8:34
Speaker 1: after that passion a little bit. So it's it's a balance.
8:36
Speaker 1: But UM, I think I I'm a good guy to
8:41
Speaker 1: relate to most probably most of our listeners out there
8:44
Speaker 1: that are working hard at their job, um, trying to
8:47
Speaker 1: be good husbands, trying to be good fathers, and still
8:51
Speaker 1: trying to find time to get their hunting in and
8:53
Speaker 1: be effective. Um, you know, you don't necessarily have to
8:58
Speaker 1: be uh you know, for National Hunter or do this
9:01
Speaker 1: full time to to have some levels of success. So
9:04
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty much the run down there. I think
9:07
Speaker 1: I think it's an important lesson there because I think
9:10
Speaker 1: it's very easy to see somebody like you and you know,
9:13
Speaker 1: like like if the listeners follow you on social media,
9:15
Speaker 1: they'll see your fall distilled down to you know, five
9:20
Speaker 1: kill photos of giant critters and you know, some time
9:23
Speaker 1: out in the field and just assume that's just what
9:27
Speaker 1: you're doing the whole time. But I know, you know,
9:29
Speaker 1: you and I talked quite a bit, and I know
9:32
Speaker 1: your time in the fall is super limited, and that's
9:36
Speaker 1: that's one of the things. You know, a lot of
9:37
Speaker 1: times when we talk, you're like, oh, I just I
9:39
Speaker 1: just did a quick scouting session here, or I'm running
9:41
Speaker 1: into here doing something. And I think the lesson is
9:45
Speaker 1: it's so valuable because you're you figured out, especially with
9:49
Speaker 1: your daughter's schedule, and you know, I'm going through that
9:52
Speaker 1: with my twin ten year olds. You know, it's freaking
9:54
Speaker 1: every activity gymnastics and basketball and softball and whatever, and
9:58
Speaker 1: you you realize, like, okay, that's priority number one. I
10:01
Speaker 1: don't care how much you love dear their priority number
10:03
Speaker 1: two or three or whatever. They're down the list, But
10:06
Speaker 1: you still make time to do those things, but you
10:09
Speaker 1: piece it out and you're like very targeted. And I
10:12
Speaker 1: know that that's part of what I want to talk
10:14
Speaker 1: to you today. I know you've talked to that, talked
10:16
Speaker 1: about that a whole bunch. But you are really efficient,
10:20
Speaker 1: Like you you might be the most efficient hunter out there.
10:23
Speaker 1: And it's because you're just managing a full life but
10:27
Speaker 1: still have that desire to get in some extra states
10:30
Speaker 1: and and get as much done you know, on on
10:34
Speaker 1: standard and your satellite whatever as you can. But it's like,
10:37
Speaker 1: you know, you're talking just ballparking for me. On average,
10:40
Speaker 1: Like how many days a year you actually hunting? Now? Yeah,
10:43
Speaker 1: it varies. Um this this past year I white tail hunted,
10:48
Speaker 1: um like actual like in a tree or are actively hunting?
10:52
Speaker 1: Eleven days? Um? You know I spent a few days
10:55
Speaker 1: out west. Um, I went out there, Um you know,
10:59
Speaker 1: dear hunting. I had four days and then I went
11:02
Speaker 1: on a really uh disaster of an elk hunt. Um.
11:07
Speaker 1: I was there five days and only got one day
11:09
Speaker 1: of hunting because our vehicle broke down and I spent
11:12
Speaker 1: four days trying to trying to get trying to get
11:15
Speaker 1: that fixed up so I could get back to the airport. So, um,
11:18
Speaker 1: you know, I had a few more days there, but
11:21
Speaker 1: but eleven is is very low for me. UM. I
11:24
Speaker 1: would say, you know, during that COVID year was probably
11:27
Speaker 1: the most I've hunted since before children, and I was
11:30
Speaker 1: I was probably around you know. So I say, I
11:34
Speaker 1: kind of fluctuate somewhere in that um to thirty day
11:39
Speaker 1: range of actual hunting. But UM, you know, some of
11:43
Speaker 1: that is my choice to UM, you know, I could
11:47
Speaker 1: hunt a little more than that. I couldn't hunt much
11:49
Speaker 1: more than that, but I could hunt more. But what
11:52
Speaker 1: I've kind of chosen to do are kind of evolved
11:55
Speaker 1: into doing is just spending way more time scouting than
12:00
Speaker 1: I do actually hunting, and um it has translated into
12:05
Speaker 1: more success with less time in the field of actually hunting. UM.
12:10
Speaker 1: So I guess like it has evolved more into, like, UM,
12:14
Speaker 1: a series or a schedule of information gathering and trying
12:18
Speaker 1: to look for specific things and then moving in when
12:21
Speaker 1: the time is right, when the situation was right, when
12:25
Speaker 1: the deer you know, is located in the conditions and
12:28
Speaker 1: everything line up. UM. So, my my hunts are much
12:31
Speaker 1: more targeted. So I scout year round. UM, I spend
12:35
Speaker 1: a big portion of it scouting, um, just when the
12:40
Speaker 1: season ends. Kinda I do a little bit when they're
12:42
Speaker 1: still snow, and then I kind of back off. I
12:44
Speaker 1: let that melt, and then I do quite a bit
12:46
Speaker 1: of postseason scouting, um, and then that kind of slows
12:51
Speaker 1: down for a while, and then I pick it up
12:53
Speaker 1: again right around now, kind of that mid to late
12:56
Speaker 1: summertime leading right up into the season. I kind of
12:59
Speaker 1: ramp it up right before the opener, and then once
13:02
Speaker 1: the season starts. To me, I don't really switch gears.
13:06
Speaker 1: I still am scouting. I'm constantly searching for a buck
13:10
Speaker 1: to chase. I'm constantly trying to get on hot sign
13:13
Speaker 1: um fine new areas, find new books to go after,
13:17
Speaker 1: and UM. I do more of that in season scouting
13:21
Speaker 1: during the season than actual hunting. But what that's done,
13:24
Speaker 1: it's made my actual hunts uh much like you said,
13:28
Speaker 1: much more targeted, much more um high percentage. And I've
13:32
Speaker 1: just I've just gotten better at managing that type of
13:36
Speaker 1: schedule of scratching and clawing for time to scout and
13:39
Speaker 1: get out there. Um. Often I'm going before work blasting, UM.
13:45
Speaker 1: I'm a lunch hour going and and make it a
13:48
Speaker 1: loop and looking for some you know, fresh sign in
13:50
Speaker 1: an area on a swamp edge, or I'm checking trail cameras,
13:53
Speaker 1: I'm rocking a food source edge and looking for big tracks,
13:56
Speaker 1: just anything to get me started down a path of
14:00
Speaker 1: another mature deer, because that's been the biggest challenge around
14:03
Speaker 1: home here where I hunt in kind of southern Michigan
14:05
Speaker 1: and northern Ohio is just finding a deer to target,
14:08
Speaker 1: one that one that I want to spend time doing.
14:11
Speaker 1: And then when I do find that information, then it's
14:13
Speaker 1: go time. Then it's time to put time in the
14:15
Speaker 1: tree or make that calculated move. But I don't really
14:19
Speaker 1: go and just hunt anymore. I spend time gathering information
14:23
Speaker 1: and then hunt at very specific times when I feel
14:26
Speaker 1: like I got the information I need. Yeah, Well, and
14:29
Speaker 1: your point there about you know, slipping out during lunch
14:31
Speaker 1: hour or you know, before work, after work whatever that's
14:36
Speaker 1: you know, and I know you work out a lot.
14:37
Speaker 1: We talked about this the last time, so we don't
14:39
Speaker 1: need to get into it. But I always feel, you know, people,
14:42
Speaker 1: it would be easy for a lot of people to
14:44
Speaker 1: say I don't have the time, Andy May has to
14:46
Speaker 1: do this. And when you look at that and go, well,
14:49
Speaker 1: do you have a half hour tomorrow or an hour
14:51
Speaker 1: tomorrow or do you have look at your week, do
14:54
Speaker 1: you have two or three hours this week? And it's
14:55
Speaker 1: the same thing with working out. You know, people be like, oh,
14:57
Speaker 1: I don't I don't have time to run. It's like,
14:59
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like you can get a pretty good
15:01
Speaker 1: run in and in the time it takes to watch
15:02
Speaker 1: the Simpsons rerun, right like, you know, I mean, it
15:06
Speaker 1: really isn't if you're piecing things out that way. It's
15:09
Speaker 1: really not like you need tons and tons of time
15:13
Speaker 1: at any given day or any given week. Now it's
15:15
Speaker 1: different when the season opens and you might take your
15:17
Speaker 1: vacation during the rut or whatever. But all this setup
15:20
Speaker 1: stuff you're talking about, it's a cumulative thing and it's
15:24
Speaker 1: not just you know, I think a lot of people
15:26
Speaker 1: would listen this and think it's a you know, that's
15:28
Speaker 1: a public land only strategy, and it's not. It's a
15:31
Speaker 1: it's wherever you hunt, you know. I mean, if you
15:33
Speaker 1: had like a bang in place where you're releasing and
15:35
Speaker 1: nobody was going in there, like, you could probably play
15:37
Speaker 1: the scouting game a little different and be a little
15:39
Speaker 1: less impact. But for most people listening to this and
15:43
Speaker 1: for you and I like, I know, you can't really
15:45
Speaker 1: get away with that, like you got to figure out
15:47
Speaker 1: what's going on, and it is a year round thing.
15:49
Speaker 1: But it's not just a lump sum commitment. It's just
15:52
Speaker 1: over time. Yeah. Um, you know, we we've talked about
15:57
Speaker 1: a little bit in the past about um, you know
16:02
Speaker 1: some people that that maybe do have a little more
16:04
Speaker 1: time or maybe they devote all of their time like
16:08
Speaker 1: during the season, um, and they do they have more
16:10
Speaker 1: of like a volume hunting approach where um, you know,
16:14
Speaker 1: they're going out and they're hunting pretty much every day
16:17
Speaker 1: that they have available, um, and sitting in a tree
16:21
Speaker 1: and hunting that way hoping um, you know, hoping the
16:26
Speaker 1: buck they're after or or a good deer will make
16:29
Speaker 1: a mistake and walk by them. And I'm sure, like
16:31
Speaker 1: you know, some of those guys, I don't want to
16:33
Speaker 1: you know, play them in one category. But some of
16:35
Speaker 1: those guys are really good at scouting and figuring things
16:37
Speaker 1: out too, but they adopt that more time in the
16:40
Speaker 1: stand approach will equal my one or two chances at
16:44
Speaker 1: a good deer throughout the season. And that's a way
16:46
Speaker 1: to do it. And that's the way I used to
16:48
Speaker 1: do it. Um before my daughter, That's absolutely the way
16:52
Speaker 1: I used to do it. Especially early on. Um, I
16:55
Speaker 1: would average you know sixty you know, sixty plus days
16:59
Speaker 1: you know, hunting out of a tree or on the ground,
17:02
Speaker 1: and um, you know I would manage you know, one, two, three,
17:06
Speaker 1: three nice books a year. Um. But it was mostly
17:10
Speaker 1: due to just pure stubbornness, persistence, and making a lot
17:17
Speaker 1: of mistakes and then just having that one thing go
17:19
Speaker 1: right at one time. And UM, I think once I
17:24
Speaker 1: had my my child, Um, you know, it really switched
17:30
Speaker 1: priorities for me as far as like where I wanted
17:33
Speaker 1: to devote the bulk of my time and where I
17:35
Speaker 1: wanted to be present. Um. But what I would it
17:39
Speaker 1: ended up doing. It just started dispersing my hunting time
17:43
Speaker 1: throughout the entire year. And what I kind of just
17:47
Speaker 1: evolved into like, Okay, you know, I'm not gonna be
17:50
Speaker 1: able to hunt sixty days a year and do this.
17:52
Speaker 1: So when I do hunt, I gotta make it count.
17:54
Speaker 1: I gotta be in the game more often instead of
17:57
Speaker 1: just going out there and hunting and observing and you know,
18:00
Speaker 1: and oh, you know, maybe observe something one out of
18:03
Speaker 1: fifteen days and then I move in and then I'm
18:05
Speaker 1: in the game. No, I got to gather information constantly,
18:09
Speaker 1: every little spare minute minute. I have to keep myself
18:13
Speaker 1: in the game to get on, you know, a good
18:15
Speaker 1: deer in my home ground. And UM, that's just kind
18:19
Speaker 1: of what it's evolved into and and kind of unintentionally,
18:22
Speaker 1: all right, it was intentional, but unintentionally it made me,
18:26
Speaker 1: like you said, much more efficient with my time. And
18:29
Speaker 1: I've I've enjoyed it more. You know. I'm my hunts
18:31
Speaker 1: that I do go on. When I decided to go
18:34
Speaker 1: in after a deer or into a location that I've
18:36
Speaker 1: been staying out of that I know is heating up.
18:39
Speaker 1: My optimism is high, my confidence is high. I'm much
18:43
Speaker 1: more attentive. I feel more stealthy, um, as opposed to
18:47
Speaker 1: like hunting sixty days or I might get a little sloppy,
18:50
Speaker 1: a little burnout. I don't have confidence of feeling guilty
18:53
Speaker 1: about being out there because I've been out there for
18:55
Speaker 1: weeks and weeks and weeks. You know, I don't have
18:58
Speaker 1: that as much because I'm really picking and choosing. Um
19:01
Speaker 1: when I go so like last year, UM, I'll give
19:06
Speaker 1: you a kind of a quick overview of the last
19:08
Speaker 1: two years. Last year, I felt incredibly dialed in and um,
19:13
Speaker 1: you know, I was my scouting. I was turning up
19:15
Speaker 1: things you know that were that were valuable, and my
19:19
Speaker 1: sits were very effective. Um. When I went in after
19:22
Speaker 1: a deer, you know it was it was, you know,
19:25
Speaker 1: a couple of sis, and I would you know, I
19:27
Speaker 1: would get him killed. Um. My out of states hunt went. Um,
19:31
Speaker 1: they went very smooth, and I was able to locate
19:33
Speaker 1: good deer quickly and get them killed. Um. I just
19:35
Speaker 1: felt like I was firing on all cylinders. I was
19:37
Speaker 1: feeling good and confident. Well, I don't always feel that way,
19:43
Speaker 1: you know. The year prior to that, I was having trouble,
19:46
Speaker 1: trouble turning up even a three year old buck here
19:48
Speaker 1: in Michigan. And I had the most cameras I've ever
19:50
Speaker 1: had out and I had a dozen or more cameras.
19:53
Speaker 1: I was covering four different counties. I was glass and
19:55
Speaker 1: using cameras, scouting on foot looking for sign I could
19:58
Speaker 1: not find a buck over a hunter fifteen inches. And my,
20:02
Speaker 1: you know, I was hunting more because I had the
20:05
Speaker 1: COVID time off, and I found myself just like starting
20:09
Speaker 1: to fall into that trap of like kind of relying
20:11
Speaker 1: on cameras more. I felt like I needed to cast
20:14
Speaker 1: my net wider. But I was really trying to do
20:17
Speaker 1: a combination of like you know, of of of scouting
20:21
Speaker 1: and finding that sign, glassing and the trail cameras, and
20:25
Speaker 1: you know, I just couldn't get anything going. But you know,
20:29
Speaker 1: it was just those It was just those few times
20:31
Speaker 1: throughout the season where boom, you know, something came together
20:35
Speaker 1: and I got it done. And those two those two
20:37
Speaker 1: seasons were vastly different. Um, but I killed the same
20:41
Speaker 1: amount of bucks. I killed four that year. I killed
20:42
Speaker 1: four last year. So I mean it was the same
20:45
Speaker 1: type of scenario. But UM, you know, it doesn't always,
20:49
Speaker 1: even for someone like me that's been at this a
20:53
Speaker 1: long time and it's been using this kind of style
20:56
Speaker 1: of you know scouting, you know, four or five times
20:59
Speaker 1: more than I actually on, UM, it still isn't always.
21:04
Speaker 1: It appears maybe some people think it appears like it's
21:07
Speaker 1: automatic and it's easy. It's not. It's not for me. UM,
21:10
Speaker 1: And I have years where I struggle, And UM, I
21:13
Speaker 1: mean that year, there was a couple of times throughout
21:16
Speaker 1: the year I was like thinking to myself like, how
21:19
Speaker 1: have I ever even killed a deer? Like? How have
21:21
Speaker 1: I even put an arrow in one of these animals ever?
21:24
Speaker 1: Because I feel like so dumb, like nothing is working.
21:27
Speaker 1: All my instincts aren't aren't paying off. Um, nothing that
21:31
Speaker 1: I think that I'm anticipating is happening. I can't find
21:34
Speaker 1: a good deer, Like what the hell? And then it
21:37
Speaker 1: just happens, you know, Boom, you find that info, Boom,
21:40
Speaker 1: it's hot sign. You get in there and you get
21:41
Speaker 1: it done. So you know, it varies year to year.
21:44
Speaker 1: It's certainly it's certainly not so smooth every year. But
21:48
Speaker 1: that's my strategy and that's my tactic, and that's kind
21:50
Speaker 1: of what it's evolved to over the years because I
21:54
Speaker 1: do prioritize family, um, and I will always I will
21:57
Speaker 1: always do that, but I make sure to get my
22:00
Speaker 1: little adventures in out of state. Those are important to me.
22:03
Speaker 1: I just make them quick and make them short. And
22:06
Speaker 1: you know, by doing that, that kind of changes my
22:08
Speaker 1: mentality on those out of state trips a little bit.
22:10
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm sure we'll get into that later. But
22:12
Speaker 1: that's about it. Man. That's kind of how I how
22:14
Speaker 1: I think about things. You know that's it's interesting that
22:18
Speaker 1: when you when you kind of highlight the way that
22:20
Speaker 1: you felt in the last two seasons, because that's something
22:24
Speaker 1: we don't really talk about very much, and I don't
22:26
Speaker 1: think you see it portrayed that often, like in the
22:29
Speaker 1: in outdoor media. But I had kind of you know,
22:33
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years I've had I've had
22:35
Speaker 1: years where like, man, it was like day one or
22:38
Speaker 1: two and I'm done, good dear big deer, and you know,
22:41
Speaker 1: you string together like four or five of them, and
22:43
Speaker 1: you're like, I just everywhere I go, it's like they're
22:47
Speaker 1: just they're coming down the trail. And then you like,
22:50
Speaker 1: I had a year last year. And this is probably
22:51
Speaker 1: because I was I spent most of my time taking
22:54
Speaker 1: the girls out and I had to save a couple
22:55
Speaker 1: of tags for filming for one week in November. So
22:58
Speaker 1: I was like it was an odd year for me anyway.
23:01
Speaker 1: But I just felt like that like you're talking about
23:03
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I don't feel like I'm in the rhythm,
23:05
Speaker 1: you know, like I killed some deer and I killed
23:07
Speaker 1: some big ones, and you know, like it ended up
23:09
Speaker 1: looking like a good season, it didn't feel like a
23:11
Speaker 1: good season. It felt like I was just off, and
23:14
Speaker 1: I think it was because you know, having to save
23:17
Speaker 1: my Minnesota, my Wisconsin tags. I wasn't in the woods
23:20
Speaker 1: just doing what you're talking about, like just kind of
23:22
Speaker 1: staying in the rhythm and seeing what's what's going on
23:24
Speaker 1: this week and next week and not you know, you know,
23:28
Speaker 1: kind of being like outside of it and then just
23:30
Speaker 1: dipping in for a big hunt. Was it didn't feel
23:32
Speaker 1: as good to me. I felt like I was just
23:35
Speaker 1: not in the freaking groove the way you need to be.
23:37
Speaker 1: And I think I think that happens to a lot
23:40
Speaker 1: of people, and you know, and I get it right,
23:42
Speaker 1: Like if you're if if you're a weekend warrior because
23:44
Speaker 1: of your job and your family and stuff, that five
23:46
Speaker 1: days in between when you're not hunting, that's tough because
23:50
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on, Like there's a lot changing
23:53
Speaker 1: in the woods and hard mass, soft mass, all that stuff,
23:55
Speaker 1: you know, like cold fronts, hot weather. All this stuff
23:59
Speaker 1: is is affecting the deer and you're like outside of it,
24:02
Speaker 1: and you can you can kind of speculate and go,
24:04
Speaker 1: maybe they're doing this or maybe they're doing that, But
24:06
Speaker 1: til you get in there and look around you just
24:09
Speaker 1: don't really know, and so you're always coming back like that.
24:12
Speaker 1: Was one of the things that really surprised me when
24:14
Speaker 1: I when we had kids is I went from hunting
24:18
Speaker 1: anytime I want, I mean thirty days in a row sometimes,
24:22
Speaker 1: like you know, no reason not to too, man, I've
24:26
Speaker 1: got these little girls five days a week and I'm
24:29
Speaker 1: I went from life luxury to weekend warrior. And it
24:33
Speaker 1: was like a culture shock to me because I was
24:35
Speaker 1: missing stuff all the time, and it took like a recalibration,
24:38
Speaker 1: like you're talking about where you're like, I just gotta
24:41
Speaker 1: I gotta be there as much as possible to mitigate
24:43
Speaker 1: this feeling because it's not good for you. Yeah yeah,
24:47
Speaker 1: and that and that you said it, you nailed it
24:49
Speaker 1: right there, is that you get out of the rhythm.
24:52
Speaker 1: And you know the same thing with me, Like you
24:55
Speaker 1: pull me out of that rhythm. You you pull me
24:57
Speaker 1: out of the woods where I'm you know, dipping in
25:00
Speaker 1: two different areas checking cameras, glass and getting in looking
25:04
Speaker 1: for sign reading the sign monitoring. You know how the
25:08
Speaker 1: deer are changing to different you know, food sources and whatnot.
25:12
Speaker 1: You take me out of that. You don't give me
25:14
Speaker 1: that then I'm not efficient. You know, Then then you're
25:18
Speaker 1: just guessing. But if you give me little windows of
25:21
Speaker 1: that where I can dip in, and that's what I've
25:23
Speaker 1: That's what I've done for myself. I I make sure
25:27
Speaker 1: I get those little windows in before work, you know,
25:30
Speaker 1: during work, on on a on a drive, you know,
25:33
Speaker 1: I at my lunch hour, right after work, um, or
25:36
Speaker 1: you know, on a on an actual hunt where I'm
25:38
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, you know, I gotta get something going.
25:40
Speaker 1: I need to make a loop through here and really
25:43
Speaker 1: figure out. I need to get things stirred up in here,
25:45
Speaker 1: get some information so I know what's going on. You
25:48
Speaker 1: get you start giving me pieces of that. That's when
25:51
Speaker 1: I'm a most dangerous. UM. That's when I can start
25:54
Speaker 1: to figure things out. In my percentage of my sets
25:57
Speaker 1: go way up. But yeah, for the weekend warrior guy,
26:00
Speaker 1: you know, and and maybe those are some of the
26:02
Speaker 1: guys that are like, man, how do you do it
26:03
Speaker 1: when you only have you know, two days to hunt? Well,
26:07
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't be nearly as effective if you
26:09
Speaker 1: only gave me two days to hunt and no time
26:11
Speaker 1: to scout. Um. You know, I I've I've done that more, um,
26:17
Speaker 1: out of state. But what another thing you guys, guys
26:20
Speaker 1: got to remember when I go out of state. UM,
26:23
Speaker 1: I feel this is my opinion. UM, I've hunted seventeen
26:27
Speaker 1: different states, so I feel like I can accurately and
26:30
Speaker 1: honestly answer this question for myself. But the most difficult state,
26:35
Speaker 1: the most difficult situation and scenario I've ever hunted in,
26:39
Speaker 1: is right where I live. UM. And it's the the
26:43
Speaker 1: lack of mature dear, so we have a severe lack
26:45
Speaker 1: of older age class dear. It's the number of people,
26:49
Speaker 1: and it's the segmented land that's very small, so you
26:52
Speaker 1: don't have room to maneuver. That's what I've hunted my
26:54
Speaker 1: whole life. I've killed, Um, besides my first two years
26:58
Speaker 1: of hunting, I've killed a mature year in Michigan every
27:00
Speaker 1: single year that I've haunted at least one. UM. So
27:03
Speaker 1: it's something I've took a lot of pride in. It's
27:05
Speaker 1: been my training ground. It's what I've experienced, it's what
27:09
Speaker 1: I know, it's what i've um the skills that I
27:12
Speaker 1: whatever skills I have obtained, have been a result of
27:16
Speaker 1: hunting in this sort of scenario. And I'm not saying
27:19
Speaker 1: it's the most difficult anywhere. It's just the most difficult.
27:21
Speaker 1: I've haunted, um, and I've haunted some other hard places
27:24
Speaker 1: as well and also get a ton of pressure, but
27:27
Speaker 1: nothing quite like this. So when I do travel out
27:30
Speaker 1: of state, for me one, usually I'm going to an
27:34
Speaker 1: area that is better hunting, less pressure, more box, better
27:39
Speaker 1: age structure. So I'm I'm transitioning from something that's very
27:43
Speaker 1: difficult for me to something that's still difficult, but not
27:46
Speaker 1: as difficult. So, UM, it might seem a little far
27:52
Speaker 1: fetched for some guys, but I I want to preface that,
27:56
Speaker 1: UM by saying, like you know, I've I've hunted in
27:58
Speaker 1: some pretty difficult stians and then I'm going to areas
28:01
Speaker 1: where things are a little it's a little better situation
28:04
Speaker 1: for me. And I've done that so often. I've been
28:08
Speaker 1: traveling and hunting for almost twenty five years now, and UM,
28:15
Speaker 1: you know I've I've never other than a couple of
28:18
Speaker 1: Western hunts, um, a high country meal deer hunt where
28:21
Speaker 1: I gave myself ten days in the back country, and
28:24
Speaker 1: then one elk hunt where I gave myself six days.
28:28
Speaker 1: Every hunt I've been on has been less than that
28:30
Speaker 1: and usually usually there four days or less. And it's
28:35
Speaker 1: it's usually because work is very unflexible. I work at
28:38
Speaker 1: a school. I don't get vacation time, so I get
28:41
Speaker 1: the weekends. Um. I do have a ton of accumulated
28:45
Speaker 1: sick time. But you know, you can't call in sick
28:47
Speaker 1: for five straight days because they started asking questions. But
28:50
Speaker 1: you know, you call in sick, you know, on a
28:52
Speaker 1: Friday and the Monday maybe once a year. You know,
28:55
Speaker 1: there's your four days. Um you know, so I kind
28:58
Speaker 1: of I'm real strategic when I might do that, or
29:01
Speaker 1: I get on you know, get onto deer. It's like, okay,
29:04
Speaker 1: I need to be out there tonight in the morning
29:06
Speaker 1: or whatever. Maybe I call in sick. I use it
29:08
Speaker 1: more for that. Um So. But anyway, when I what
29:12
Speaker 1: I've done is is I haven't been able to stretch
29:15
Speaker 1: those long out of state trips um to where you
29:18
Speaker 1: would really you know, be able to get there and
29:21
Speaker 1: kind of get settled and get a feel for everything.
29:24
Speaker 1: So it's tainted. It's changed my whole mental approach on
29:27
Speaker 1: how I tackle those. I immediately and very very aggressive.
29:31
Speaker 1: I immediately dive into, um the areas that look good
29:36
Speaker 1: to me and I have. I have no fear of
29:39
Speaker 1: of bumping deer. I want to get in, figure out
29:43
Speaker 1: what I need to figure out, find the sign if
29:45
Speaker 1: it's there, bump into deer. Um, that's not a negative
29:49
Speaker 1: thing to me, Like that's a positive thing because if
29:51
Speaker 1: I can do that, I know where some deer are. Um.
29:55
Speaker 1: You know, if it's a situation where I'm more of
29:57
Speaker 1: an open country situation, I'm gonna be you probably up
30:00
Speaker 1: on some sort of uh master vantage point and glassing
30:03
Speaker 1: and gathering information and try to do that as quickly
30:06
Speaker 1: as possible and then moving in for a very aggressive,
30:10
Speaker 1: you know, very aggressive hunts. So I'm I'm I'm much
30:12
Speaker 1: more aggressive because I'm on a time constraint and because
30:16
Speaker 1: I don't have the information, so I need to get
30:18
Speaker 1: the information as soon as possible, even if that means
30:22
Speaker 1: bumping some bucks and bumping into some deer. But by
30:25
Speaker 1: doing that, UM, I wasn't always great at it and efficient.
30:29
Speaker 1: I mean there's been some out of state hunts for
30:32
Speaker 1: sure where I went home empty handed, especially early on
30:35
Speaker 1: um you know, but I kind of like it's kind
30:39
Speaker 1: of like there's a a fire that's lit under your butt, right,
30:42
Speaker 1: That's like Okay, I need to I need to find
30:44
Speaker 1: something quickly. I need to get into some hot sign quickly.
30:47
Speaker 1: I need to bump into a good buck, get eyes
30:50
Speaker 1: on a good buck, glass of good buck um quickly
30:54
Speaker 1: so that I have a strike or two to go
30:57
Speaker 1: after him. And and when you've done that for twenty
31:02
Speaker 1: five years and you've you've failed at it, and you've
31:04
Speaker 1: tried things and you make mistakes, you just start to
31:06
Speaker 1: get good at it and you start to get real
31:08
Speaker 1: comfortable in that kind of low time frame, high pressure
31:14
Speaker 1: situation and UM, you know, it's just a lot of
31:18
Speaker 1: experience UM over time, a lot of instincts that have
31:21
Speaker 1: built up over time, and a lot of confidence that
31:25
Speaker 1: you can kind of go into these other states in
31:28
Speaker 1: the areas that you haven't been into and get on
31:30
Speaker 1: a good book. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm
31:33
Speaker 1: going and killing you know, st deer that are six
31:37
Speaker 1: years old everywhere I go. I mean, I'm not That's
31:39
Speaker 1: not the case. You know, those deer happened occasionally, But
31:43
Speaker 1: like this type of hunting and this type of style
31:46
Speaker 1: that I do isn't really suited for the um. You know,
31:53
Speaker 1: those those really unique high scoring deer, these oldest deer,
31:57
Speaker 1: because a lot of times the trick with those is
32:00
Speaker 1: just locating them, and that often takes time and building
32:03
Speaker 1: some history with a deer and really getting that deer
32:07
Speaker 1: at his tendencies and and all that dialed in. Most
32:11
Speaker 1: of the time, I'm looking for a good mature buck
32:14
Speaker 1: or a big rack book or you know, a good
32:16
Speaker 1: pope and young sized caliber buck or bigger in most
32:19
Speaker 1: cases and in some states, I'm more picky than others.
32:22
Speaker 1: But you know that this kind of strategy and style
32:26
Speaker 1: lends into more of that more of that kind of
32:28
Speaker 1: adventurous type hunting, throw into yourself into a new, unfamiliar
32:33
Speaker 1: situation and try to get it done quickly. So that's
32:37
Speaker 1: just kind of that's just kind of what I've done.
32:39
Speaker 1: And if I didn't do that, if I'm like, oh,
32:42
Speaker 1: you know, it's not worth me driving fifteen hours to
32:47
Speaker 1: Nebraska or you know, for nine hours to Tennessee, it's
32:51
Speaker 1: not worth it because I only have three days to hunt.
32:54
Speaker 1: If I if I thought like that, I would never go.
32:57
Speaker 1: So I always justified it myself. It's like, well, if
33:01
Speaker 1: I do three days this year and I do three
33:04
Speaker 1: days next year, that's there's my week. You know, and
33:07
Speaker 1: it what it morphed into is just like boom, you
33:10
Speaker 1: get there. You got limited time, Like, how are you
33:13
Speaker 1: gonna get it done? Man? You've gotta get in there.
33:15
Speaker 1: You gotta mix it up. You've gotta get that encounter.
33:18
Speaker 1: You've gotta get that sighting. And I've gotten to the
33:21
Speaker 1: point now where it's like if I can get if
33:23
Speaker 1: if I can find a buck to give me a
33:25
Speaker 1: little bit, then he's in trouble. You know. If I
33:28
Speaker 1: go there and I spend three days and I never
33:29
Speaker 1: get eyes on anything, you know, I come home empty handed.
33:32
Speaker 1: But if you give you a little bit, I get
33:33
Speaker 1: a sighting, I get a glimmer of time, I get
33:36
Speaker 1: a track, I get some hot sign. I find a
33:39
Speaker 1: group of does. And it's during the rut. It's in
33:40
Speaker 1: a good area. You know. I like my chances. And
33:43
Speaker 1: it's just a confidence thing that's built over the years.
33:46
Speaker 1: But it wasn't always there earlier you said, you know,
34:02
Speaker 1: if I bump a buck, that's great, Like I want
34:04
Speaker 1: to see him. I want I want to know he
34:06
Speaker 1: was there like that. That And what that reminds me
34:10
Speaker 1: of is, you know, we we talked this message all
34:12
Speaker 1: the time, and you hear this from a lot of
34:13
Speaker 1: people that you just say, have to outwork everybody all
34:16
Speaker 1: the time. You know, it's like a popular Western thing.
34:18
Speaker 1: It crept into the the public land white tail space.
34:22
Speaker 1: But when you're talking white tails, you know a lot
34:26
Speaker 1: of times you just need to outthink people. And you know,
34:29
Speaker 1: like when a lot of people you know why I
34:31
Speaker 1: say that is a lot of people would look at
34:32
Speaker 1: that go if I bumped a buck, I'd be pissed.
34:35
Speaker 1: Like if I'm walking through the woods and I look
34:37
Speaker 1: up and he gets out of his bed and takes off,
34:39
Speaker 1: that sucks because he's gone and he's never coming back.
34:42
Speaker 1: And when you do the kind of hunts that you're
34:43
Speaker 1: talking about, and and I've done a bunch of them too,
34:46
Speaker 1: you get like very comfortable with what people think are mistakes,
34:50
Speaker 1: right like, because you make them all the freaking time.
34:53
Speaker 1: You just you're going to and and by the nature
34:55
Speaker 1: of those hunts, you're more cavalier than the average hunter
34:58
Speaker 1: probably is because you're not saving anything, Like you're not
35:01
Speaker 1: you're not sitting there going well, I'm gonna be you know,
35:03
Speaker 1: I got seven days off on November seven through the
35:06
Speaker 1: fourteenth or whatever, So I mean I don't want to
35:07
Speaker 1: go into this betting area. You're like, I just want
35:10
Speaker 1: I want something to work off of now, and I
35:13
Speaker 1: will risk some stuff to find that because if I
35:15
Speaker 1: do find it, it's a huge benefit. And you're not
35:18
Speaker 1: looking at that, so you're thinking differently than probably a
35:22
Speaker 1: lot of people are about this stuff. Yeah, I mean,
35:26
Speaker 1: the utmost priority is just finding a book that I
35:30
Speaker 1: want to go after, and the only way to do
35:33
Speaker 1: that is to observe it, um, you know, from a
35:38
Speaker 1: vantage point or an observation or something to get eyes
35:41
Speaker 1: on him doing something, which would be my strategy more
35:44
Speaker 1: than like a an open country scenario. Um, if it's
35:51
Speaker 1: more of a cover type setting, I'm diving in and
35:55
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find three things. I'm trying to find
35:59
Speaker 1: hot sign, which is great. I can work with that.
36:02
Speaker 1: That's That's that's key. Um, I'm trying to get eyes
36:07
Speaker 1: on a book, you know. So I'm just kind of
36:11
Speaker 1: what I often do in those scenarios is I, you know,
36:13
Speaker 1: I'll have my my saddle and platform and everything with me,
36:16
Speaker 1: and I slipped through the cover and I still hunt
36:18
Speaker 1: with my bow. And what I'm doing is I'm hunting
36:22
Speaker 1: and I'm moving slow, and I'm moving with the wind,
36:24
Speaker 1: and I'm just moving with the woods, and I'm constantly scanning.
36:27
Speaker 1: I'm watching where I step, and I'm looking for sign,
36:30
Speaker 1: I'm looking for deer. I'm looking up ahead. Um. And
36:34
Speaker 1: sometimes I get eyes on a buck like that, or
36:39
Speaker 1: like you said, I bump a buck and because I'm
36:42
Speaker 1: moving slow and because I'm moving with the wind, you know,
36:45
Speaker 1: to me, that's not that's still a good thing, because
36:49
Speaker 1: now boom, I got one located. And that's the utmost
36:52
Speaker 1: priority is just getting one located. If I don't get
36:54
Speaker 1: one located, I go home empty handed. If I get
36:57
Speaker 1: one located, by any means, I'm in the game, know, Um.
37:01
Speaker 1: And then and then often you know, we we think
37:04
Speaker 1: that you know, and in some cases, in some situations, Yeah,
37:08
Speaker 1: some types of train you bump a deer and they
37:10
Speaker 1: can go a long ways. You think, like fat flat
37:12
Speaker 1: egg country where you know it's a half mile from
37:15
Speaker 1: one wood lot to the next. Yeah, they run a
37:17
Speaker 1: half mile to the next wood lot often, especially if
37:21
Speaker 1: the crops are down. But like in a hill country setting, Um,
37:24
Speaker 1: I've had bucks. You know, you bump them off one
37:26
Speaker 1: ridge and they go down and you know the ravine
37:28
Speaker 1: and they're up you know, they go and they get
37:30
Speaker 1: on the next ridge over and they start resuming, you know,
37:34
Speaker 1: their normal behavior. They feel comfortable up there and they're
37:36
Speaker 1: not that far like or you know in a in
37:39
Speaker 1: a like a western plane setting. You know, you bump
37:42
Speaker 1: a deer and I've literally you know, been able up
37:45
Speaker 1: high and you could see them, and they go into
37:47
Speaker 1: the next patch of cover. Um, So they don't always
37:51
Speaker 1: you know, are they going to a patch of cover
37:53
Speaker 1: that you can see and now you know where they're at,
37:55
Speaker 1: and now you're set up for you know that that
37:57
Speaker 1: next evening's hunt or the next morning or whatever. So
38:01
Speaker 1: it's not a negative to bump a deer. I mean, um,
38:04
Speaker 1: I don't really want to have a deer wind me. Um.
38:08
Speaker 1: But that's why you can when you're That's why I
38:10
Speaker 1: take that approach of like kind of still hunting and
38:12
Speaker 1: still scouting and slipping through the cover and I'm quiet
38:15
Speaker 1: and I'm playing the wind in my favor and kind
38:17
Speaker 1: of working my way into the wind or into a
38:19
Speaker 1: cross wind, just for that reason. Um. And then if
38:23
Speaker 1: it's a rut hunt, um. You know Kentucky, Iowa, Um,
38:29
Speaker 1: you know Ohio, you know where it gets a little
38:31
Speaker 1: more you know, a little more timbered. Yeah, Like if
38:34
Speaker 1: if I bump into a group of does you know,
38:37
Speaker 1: that might lead me to a good spot, that might
38:40
Speaker 1: lead me to a good buck. Because a lot of
38:42
Speaker 1: those cases, especially when you get into some like lower
38:46
Speaker 1: deer densities, Like that's my strategy, Like I need to
38:49
Speaker 1: find deer. I need to get on deer and usually
38:52
Speaker 1: because there's a decent number of bucks and a good
38:54
Speaker 1: age structure. If you can find those little pockets of dose, um,
38:59
Speaker 1: you know, that could get that could turn your hunt
39:00
Speaker 1: around in in an instant. Um. You know, I think
39:04
Speaker 1: about like, um, some of the areas I've hunted in
39:09
Speaker 1: like Kentucky in Ohio and even some of the spots
39:12
Speaker 1: that I've hunted like in Iowa, Indiana, you know, the
39:16
Speaker 1: deer densities were lower, but there was good age structure.
39:20
Speaker 1: And you know, I have many many times like studied
39:25
Speaker 1: um and cyber scouted like a topo map and an
39:28
Speaker 1: aerial map, and I find these good terrain funnels that
39:33
Speaker 1: just like just textbook you know, Like one of the
39:36
Speaker 1: things I look for is like a ridge system that
39:40
Speaker 1: has a lot of UH features to it. So I
39:42
Speaker 1: like ridge systems that have a lot of betting points,
39:45
Speaker 1: a lot of bowls, benches, saddles, just a lot that
39:48
Speaker 1: should hold a lot of deer. And then I look
39:51
Speaker 1: for another one that's around there, and then I like
39:54
Speaker 1: to see how they connect through maybe like a saddle
39:57
Speaker 1: or a bench system or a big bowl that wraps
39:59
Speaker 1: around and conne to the other one that has those
40:01
Speaker 1: same features. And you know, you look on that and
40:04
Speaker 1: you're like, man, if I could get there, that's the
40:06
Speaker 1: connection between all these ridge systems in the area, that's
40:09
Speaker 1: going to be the spot for the rut. And I've
40:12
Speaker 1: went to some of these spots in these lower deer
40:14
Speaker 1: density areas and it's like you sit there for two
40:16
Speaker 1: or three days and you don't see a single deer,
40:19
Speaker 1: And so it doesn't always pan out um, especially in
40:22
Speaker 1: those low deer density areas. So my approach then is
40:25
Speaker 1: as I get down and I do exactly what I
40:27
Speaker 1: was just talking about. But I'm just trying to find deer.
40:31
Speaker 1: And usually if it's the right time of year, it's
40:33
Speaker 1: in those first two weeks of November. You know, you
40:36
Speaker 1: start bumping into deer. The good bucks are there. You know,
40:39
Speaker 1: there's usually a good buck in the area with a
40:41
Speaker 1: dough and there's some satellite bucks around, and yeah, you
40:44
Speaker 1: might need to bump into a few pods of deer.
40:46
Speaker 1: But um that that tactic has led to success on
40:50
Speaker 1: a short term hunt, just moving around, slipping around. Ideally,
40:54
Speaker 1: you like to get eyes on them first, but if
40:57
Speaker 1: you bump into some deer, you kind of see where
40:59
Speaker 1: they go. You know, if there's a good buck with them,
41:01
Speaker 1: you're you're in the game there. So it's a lot
41:04
Speaker 1: of different strategy. It's a lot of different style and
41:07
Speaker 1: you and I talked about this yesterday a little bit.
41:09
Speaker 1: It's it's being versatile, um, you know, having a lot
41:14
Speaker 1: of different tactics and having the confidence to two different things. Um.
41:21
Speaker 1: I've never pigeon holed myself into like one tactic like
41:25
Speaker 1: I hunt, you know, I focus on like primary scrapes,
41:28
Speaker 1: you know during the rut, or I'm a bed hunter,
41:30
Speaker 1: or I like to hunt, you know, a funnel between
41:33
Speaker 1: two dough betting areas during the rut, and I live
41:35
Speaker 1: and die by that strategy. There's guys out there that
41:38
Speaker 1: do that and they're super um consistent and really um successful.
41:46
Speaker 1: But I've adopted more of an approach of I like
41:50
Speaker 1: to try to do many different tactics in many different
41:54
Speaker 1: types of rain during different times of the year. And
41:58
Speaker 1: I think what that's done for me is maybe I'm
42:02
Speaker 1: not like as masterful as some of these other guys
42:05
Speaker 1: at a specific tactic, but I've become good and confident
42:09
Speaker 1: at just about anything, um, you know, any situation that's
42:13
Speaker 1: thrown at me, and I'm not afraid to try some
42:16
Speaker 1: things that are out of the box. Um, try some
42:18
Speaker 1: things when the conditions seem not ideal for deer movement.
42:23
Speaker 1: Like every set of conditions to me, it just offers
42:26
Speaker 1: you some sort of different strategy. Um. So it's it's
42:29
Speaker 1: like a confidence thing there. And and being a versatile,
42:33
Speaker 1: well rounded hunter. That's always been something that I've strived
42:37
Speaker 1: for and I've wanted to try to become like that
42:42
Speaker 1: is my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is not being successful.
42:47
Speaker 1: My ultimate goal is just trying to become in a
42:50
Speaker 1: better hunter and learning new things from other guys and
42:53
Speaker 1: trying new things and just becoming a better woodsman and
42:58
Speaker 1: a better well rounded hunter. And then that has led
43:00
Speaker 1: to success over the years and a lot of different
43:03
Speaker 1: types of areas and terrain. I think, you know, the specialists,
43:08
Speaker 1: you know, the bed hunters, or you know somebody who
43:10
Speaker 1: might be really good at you know, spotting, stocking out
43:13
Speaker 1: in the sandhills in Nebraska or something like. They get
43:16
Speaker 1: a lot of love because it's cool. Like if you're
43:18
Speaker 1: from different regions and you hunt differently, that that looks cool.
43:22
Speaker 1: But the goal of being like a high level generalist
43:26
Speaker 1: with your strategies, I think is the best one for
43:28
Speaker 1: most people, because you know, like when you and this
43:33
Speaker 1: is gonna sound like a kind of a public land thing,
43:35
Speaker 1: but it's really across the board wherever you hunt, whatever
43:39
Speaker 1: type of land you hunt is you know how often
43:41
Speaker 1: it is if you go in and you find that
43:43
Speaker 1: banging sign so often, especially if you're on pressure deer,
43:47
Speaker 1: it's going to be a place that doesn't lend itself
43:49
Speaker 1: that well to just like I'm gonna get it right
43:51
Speaker 1: up in that tree and I'm twenty yards down w
43:53
Speaker 1: into all these scrapes and everything. It's perfect. Like you're
43:55
Speaker 1: always making concessions like now I gotta set up on
43:58
Speaker 1: the ground, or now I gotta know, saddle up and
44:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be six ft up in a tree, hide
44:02
Speaker 1: and behind it or something like that. To make it
44:05
Speaker 1: work because it seems like, especially if you find a
44:09
Speaker 1: like a concentration where there's some bucks really using it.
44:12
Speaker 1: It's so often like not that dreamy kind of turkey
44:15
Speaker 1: hunting woods that you'd expect where you could like like
44:17
Speaker 1: or another way to think about it. Probably a lot
44:19
Speaker 1: of people who listen to this podcast never even did this.
44:21
Speaker 1: But you know, like remember when climbing stands were really hot.
44:25
Speaker 1: Everybody was making them right. Everybody had a climbing stand,
44:28
Speaker 1: and you know, for some situations they were great, But
44:31
Speaker 1: if you threw one of those on your back and
44:33
Speaker 1: walked into the woods. I I did this all the time.
44:35
Speaker 1: I'd find a place I wanted to hunt, and I'm like,
44:37
Speaker 1: I don't have a tree, so now I'm like backing
44:40
Speaker 1: off of where I wanted to hunt, so I can
44:41
Speaker 1: hunt for a tree instead. And it's part of the
44:44
Speaker 1: reason why they just like, I mean, they're almost not
44:46
Speaker 1: even in the conversation anymore because we have such better options.
44:50
Speaker 1: But that was like a specialist thing when you need
44:53
Speaker 1: when you needed just a generalist way to hunt those areas.
44:56
Speaker 1: And I think I think a lot of people look
44:58
Speaker 1: at that on like a private land and spot if
45:00
Speaker 1: you have your place you've always hunted and go, well,
45:02
Speaker 1: I can go in August and hang stands and I
45:04
Speaker 1: don't need to do that. It's like, yeah, maybe maybe,
45:08
Speaker 1: but maybe you hand a you know, a place where
45:10
Speaker 1: a lot of other people are in there. Maybe you're
45:12
Speaker 1: not having the success you want. And if you opened
45:14
Speaker 1: up your aperture a little bit and said, you know, yeah,
45:16
Speaker 1: I'll preset some stands and some you know, entrance routes
45:19
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, but you keep that saddle handy,
45:22
Speaker 1: and you keep the ability to sit on the ground
45:24
Speaker 1: whether you're gilly up or however you do it. Now
45:26
Speaker 1: you're pretty freaking lethal because you're not going to run
45:29
Speaker 1: into a situation like a spot on a spot that
45:31
Speaker 1: you can't hunt probably and that's important, right Yeah, And
45:35
Speaker 1: that that makes me think about a buck. Um, I'll
45:39
Speaker 1: make it quick. It's a cool It's a cool story though,
45:41
Speaker 1: because it it took some creative thinking, and I think
45:45
Speaker 1: I think creative thinking is is is really good to
45:49
Speaker 1: have as a hunter. Um. You know, we we watch
45:53
Speaker 1: these TV shows where you know it's it's plant the
45:57
Speaker 1: food plot and you know, stay out and this is
45:59
Speaker 1: the strategy or you know, we listened to you know,
46:03
Speaker 1: podcasts with some of these really successful high level hunters,
46:06
Speaker 1: and they got a really dialed in strategy and I
46:08
Speaker 1: do that. I eat that stuff up and I love
46:10
Speaker 1: to learn from guys that are better at things than me.
46:13
Speaker 1: But sometimes getting creative and kind of forging your own
46:17
Speaker 1: way and and figuring things out to make you a
46:21
Speaker 1: more well rounded hunter. It just makes you more versatile,
46:24
Speaker 1: and it it allows you to go just about anywhere
46:29
Speaker 1: and be effective and any type of situation, any type
46:33
Speaker 1: of conditions, there's always something okay, you know what, this
46:36
Speaker 1: is an ideal for for for good movements. So but
46:39
Speaker 1: it's super windy, it's noisy, it's perfect time to still hunt,
46:43
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna still slip through this betting area, you know,
46:46
Speaker 1: with my bow and kind of move with the wind,
46:48
Speaker 1: you know. So every type of situation and condition kind
46:52
Speaker 1: of opens the door for for some way to kind
46:55
Speaker 1: of be effective. But this this this particular hunt I
46:58
Speaker 1: want to tell you about. Um, it's a really really
47:01
Speaker 1: cool area in Michigan gets a ton of pressure. But
47:04
Speaker 1: there's this this creek bottom that kind of winds through
47:08
Speaker 1: Egg Country and the creek itself is only about I
47:11
Speaker 1: don't know, ten fift ft wide, so it's not a
47:14
Speaker 1: real big creek. Um, But on each side of that
47:17
Speaker 1: creek is a bunch of like marsh grass and red
47:20
Speaker 1: ocere dogwood and um, there's some cotton woods and stuff
47:23
Speaker 1: kind of sprinkled in through there. But it's just really
47:26
Speaker 1: really good bedding cover all through that. And it's wide.
47:30
Speaker 1: You know, there are some parts where the marsh is
47:32
Speaker 1: very wide and then there's other parts where it kind
47:35
Speaker 1: of necks down. Well, I was hunting this part um
47:40
Speaker 1: where it necks down a little bit, so it kind
47:42
Speaker 1: of funnels movement down, but not really tight. Um. There
47:46
Speaker 1: just wasn't a good tree to get in like where
47:48
Speaker 1: you really needed to be where a lot of the
47:50
Speaker 1: deer kind of cruise through and stuff during the rut.
47:53
Speaker 1: And I'll preface to this, this area is is awesome.
47:56
Speaker 1: During the rut, like early season, there's very rare, you know,
48:01
Speaker 1: many mature deer in their good bucks. It's it's it's
48:04
Speaker 1: like a dough factory and a young buck factory and
48:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of deer in there. But from mid
48:09
Speaker 1: October you can start getting some two year olds, occasional
48:12
Speaker 1: three year olds and nose and around and by late
48:14
Speaker 1: October through you know, through those first two three weeks
48:18
Speaker 1: in November, it can be really good, um, just because
48:21
Speaker 1: there's so many doughs in there. But I found this
48:24
Speaker 1: this um cotton wood tree and it sets up on
48:29
Speaker 1: you know, right where that kind of next down. It's
48:31
Speaker 1: just perfect, or so I thought. So I hunted that
48:34
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I've learned enough about the area
48:37
Speaker 1: to stay out of there until kind of those you know,
48:40
Speaker 1: the pre rut starts kicking in and then slip in.
48:43
Speaker 1: Let the doughs be in there, let them do their thing.
48:45
Speaker 1: I'd hunted it a lot of years and just to
48:48
Speaker 1: no avail, like early season and kind of mid October,
48:50
Speaker 1: but it heated up, so I knew it's one of
48:53
Speaker 1: those spots. So you've got a time it right, and
48:55
Speaker 1: if you do that, you're gonna have a better chance.
48:58
Speaker 1: But I sat in this tree seven times and every time,
49:01
Speaker 1: you know, there's bucks crewising bucks that i'd be happy
49:04
Speaker 1: to shoot, and they're just out into the creek bottomore
49:08
Speaker 1: and um, you know, just out of reach for a bow,
49:10
Speaker 1: and there was nothing out there for me to get in.
49:12
Speaker 1: It's just a bunch of bushy trees and red brush
49:15
Speaker 1: and and a real tall marsh grass and the tree
49:19
Speaker 1: I was able to get in it was awesome for
49:21
Speaker 1: a gun, but I was trying to get him with
49:24
Speaker 1: a bow and it just wasn't in the spot. So
49:26
Speaker 1: I didn't tag one out there that year. So after um,
49:31
Speaker 1: after the season ended, I went out there and I
49:33
Speaker 1: scouted and I kind of walked out to where like
49:35
Speaker 1: all this traffic seemed to filter through, so that's like
49:37
Speaker 1: seventy yard area. I was like, I gottaus somehow hunt here.
49:41
Speaker 1: But I didn't like a ground set up because it
49:43
Speaker 1: was just so tall, the able to require a lot
49:46
Speaker 1: of like little lanes to cut, and you know, I
49:48
Speaker 1: just didn't want to go through all that trouble, and
49:51
Speaker 1: I just didn't think it would be super effective. Like
49:53
Speaker 1: I wanted to try to get elevated. So I started
49:55
Speaker 1: looking around and there was these these twelve ft bushy trees.
49:59
Speaker 1: I'm not sure kind they were, but you know, they're
50:01
Speaker 1: kind of like oval shaped bushy trees. And I'm looking
50:04
Speaker 1: and I'm like trying to think. I was like, god,
50:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's not big enough to get a stand
50:09
Speaker 1: in or even a saddle. I was like, but I
50:11
Speaker 1: was like, I think if I cut that out and
50:13
Speaker 1: get on some sort of like step ladder or something like,
50:15
Speaker 1: I could tuck right into one of those trees. So
50:18
Speaker 1: what I did was I took our um. I took
50:22
Speaker 1: our old Christmas tree. Instead of throwing it out, I
50:25
Speaker 1: drug it out there, and I cut out this bushy tree,
50:29
Speaker 1: you know, about ten ft up um and I stuffed
50:32
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree up there upside down so that kind of,
50:35
Speaker 1: you know, the needles kind of will stay a little longer.
50:37
Speaker 1: And I stuffed it into that tree to give it
50:39
Speaker 1: like a blob, like a profile that looks like something's
50:42
Speaker 1: up there. And I did that just to kind of
50:44
Speaker 1: create um in case the deer kind of caught on
50:47
Speaker 1: and like what is that up there, so that when
50:49
Speaker 1: they would get used to it. And then I cut
50:51
Speaker 1: a little like hole for that tree to be in.
50:53
Speaker 1: And then I cleared out a spot at the base
50:55
Speaker 1: of that tree, and I put one of those like
50:57
Speaker 1: aluminum step ladders that on a fold down there have
51:01
Speaker 1: like three steps with the black you know, the black steps,
51:05
Speaker 1: and I took that in there. So by me standing
51:07
Speaker 1: on that top ladder, I lined right up perfectly with
51:10
Speaker 1: that Christmas tree and I just like tucked right into
51:13
Speaker 1: that bush. Well, I ended up I left that out
51:16
Speaker 1: there all year and I ended up um hunting that
51:19
Speaker 1: during the rut the following year, and it was like
51:21
Speaker 1: my second or third sit and I arrowed a really
51:24
Speaker 1: nice Michigan nine point good mature, dear heavy, And uh,
51:29
Speaker 1: it was so cool, man, because it was just that
51:31
Speaker 1: creative thinking thinking that got me into the right place. Um.
51:35
Speaker 1: And if I was just kind of like standard had
51:38
Speaker 1: to be in a tree, you know, I would have
51:40
Speaker 1: I would have sat all season and did what I
51:43
Speaker 1: did the year before and watched everything out in front
51:45
Speaker 1: of me and probably just tried like rattling and calling
51:49
Speaker 1: and all this stuff that that is really ineffective here.
51:52
Speaker 1: So you know, just by being a little creative, having
51:54
Speaker 1: some creative thinking and trying that approach, you know, it
51:57
Speaker 1: got me a kill there. So I thought that was
52:00
Speaker 1: a cool story, kind of fit with what we were
52:01
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, it's it is cool, And it's such
52:05
Speaker 1: a good lesson because it's so easy to sort of
52:09
Speaker 1: get locked into like I'm a saddle guy and I
52:11
Speaker 1: have to do it, or I'm a this guy or whatever,
52:14
Speaker 1: and just you just think about like when I think about,
52:18
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know the last twenty bucks I
52:20
Speaker 1: shot on public land, probably like you know of them
52:24
Speaker 1: happened in a way where you're just like tucked into, uh,
52:28
Speaker 1: like the first two rows of a cornfield, or you're,
52:31
Speaker 1: you know, like the first the first big buck I
52:34
Speaker 1: ever killed on public land was a was a buck
52:37
Speaker 1: in North Dakota that was crossing, uh this is this
52:41
Speaker 1: one specific crossing on the river and he was going
52:43
Speaker 1: by a cottonwood tree and I was like, I'm just
52:45
Speaker 1: gonna go down to that cotton wodrow. I'm gonna get
52:47
Speaker 1: in There'm gonna shoo him at twenty yards is gonna
52:48
Speaker 1: be over. And I walked up to that cottonwood tree
52:51
Speaker 1: to to set up in it, and it was like
52:53
Speaker 1: eight times too big to fit my stands track, you know,
52:56
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I had that perspective of
52:58
Speaker 1: sitting up there glass and then I walked up to it.
53:00
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's no way, And I ended up just
53:02
Speaker 1: sitting behind the tree because I was like, this is
53:04
Speaker 1: where I gotta be. And I guess deer can't see
53:06
Speaker 1: through trees. And I killed that buck as he walked
53:09
Speaker 1: by and when when that stuff happens, you just think,
53:12
Speaker 1: like you know, you have this made up in your
53:14
Speaker 1: mind how this is gonna go, or you know, like
53:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go into this spot, or I'm gonna go
53:17
Speaker 1: on this public land hunt somewhere or this first hunt
53:19
Speaker 1: with my buddies and I'm gonna set up here or
53:21
Speaker 1: do this especially from a lot of your east scouting,
53:24
Speaker 1: and then you get in you go, this needs me
53:27
Speaker 1: to think about it differently now, like what what I
53:30
Speaker 1: thought about what this was gonna be is not it.
53:33
Speaker 1: So you can either kind of just like be stubborn
53:35
Speaker 1: and just like I'm going to figure out a way
53:36
Speaker 1: to be in a saddle and I'm gonna get as
53:38
Speaker 1: close as I can or whatever I want to do,
53:40
Speaker 1: or you're gonna do something like you're talking about, which
53:42
Speaker 1: is totally outside the box but puts you right where
53:45
Speaker 1: you need to and kind of like your example, they're
53:49
Speaker 1: killing that buck with that little step ladder. It's it's
53:52
Speaker 1: like a great example of like how we give dear
53:55
Speaker 1: too much credit. Like when you're when you're around them
53:58
Speaker 1: in that situation you're talking about on that creep at
54:00
Speaker 1: them and they're rutting and going crazy. They're they're not
54:03
Speaker 1: that smart, even in a state like Michigan with a
54:05
Speaker 1: ton of pressure, even you know, like if you've got
54:08
Speaker 1: the wind right and you can hide yourself a little bit,
54:10
Speaker 1: and they're they're used to whatever you're doing, Like you
54:13
Speaker 1: have so many advantages. And I think when you do
54:16
Speaker 1: something like that and it works, you go, wow, like
54:19
Speaker 1: maybe maybe you know, and I'm not saying undersell them,
54:22
Speaker 1: you know, give them the credit, but I think we
54:24
Speaker 1: give them so much credit sometimes that a lot of
54:26
Speaker 1: people would never try that or try risking something like that,
54:29
Speaker 1: and you know, like when you do it, sometimes it
54:32
Speaker 1: freaking works or and and even if you hadn't killed
54:34
Speaker 1: a buck there, you'd learned a bunch just from your encounters.
54:38
Speaker 1: That's so important. Yeah, Well, my buddy Jesse Coots says
54:43
Speaker 1: it best. It's like, you know, dear, even with cheer bucks,
54:46
Speaker 1: they're not smart. We are smart. They're not smart. They
54:50
Speaker 1: have really dialed in instincts to stay alive, um instincts
54:57
Speaker 1: to breed. And while I don't I do think, you know,
55:01
Speaker 1: maybe we give mature dear a little too much credit
55:04
Speaker 1: sometimes I do believe that you do have to think
55:07
Speaker 1: about them a little differently than you know, your dough,
55:11
Speaker 1: your your your yearling bucks. They do in a lot
55:16
Speaker 1: of cases behave differently. They move a little more cautiously,
55:20
Speaker 1: they live a little more back in the cover where
55:23
Speaker 1: they have more of a site advantage, a wind advantage, um,
55:28
Speaker 1: a hearing advantage. So you need to think about them
55:31
Speaker 1: a little differently. But um, you know, they're they're we
55:37
Speaker 1: do give them a little too much credit. Like if
55:39
Speaker 1: you can do that and you could learn about them
55:42
Speaker 1: and their in their behaviors and where they like to
55:44
Speaker 1: be and when they like to move and how they
55:46
Speaker 1: like to move, then it's not that difficult that a
55:50
Speaker 1: lot of times, the most difficult thing is just finding one,
55:53
Speaker 1: you know. Um uh, that's always the most challenging thing
55:57
Speaker 1: for me, is just finding a mature dear. It's not
56:01
Speaker 1: getting an arrow in the mature deary, it's I'm not
56:03
Speaker 1: saying it's easy, but yeah, some sometimes we make it
56:06
Speaker 1: out to be this huge feat um when you know,
56:11
Speaker 1: it is a difficult thing, and you definitely need to
56:12
Speaker 1: be a savvy hunter and you definitely need to think
56:14
Speaker 1: about things differently, But um, you know, they're they're still
56:19
Speaker 1: just an animal and they're still trying to survive, and
56:21
Speaker 1: they still have instincts and behaviors that are you know,
56:24
Speaker 1: they vary from dear to dear a little bit, but
56:26
Speaker 1: they're pretty standard. And once you start to learn those,
56:29
Speaker 1: and you learn how to approach those and how to uh,
56:34
Speaker 1: you know, take advantage of those, then the blueprint is
56:38
Speaker 1: fairly simple. But applying that, you know, implementing that can
56:44
Speaker 1: sometimes be difficult. UM. If guys aren't willing to you know,
56:48
Speaker 1: put in the time, put in the work, put in
56:50
Speaker 1: the patients, um, be willing to learn, be willing to
56:55
Speaker 1: try different things. Um. I I always stress hunters, you know,
57:02
Speaker 1: especially you know, when they're starting out to um, to
57:06
Speaker 1: favor more of an aggressive approach. And the reason I
57:11
Speaker 1: say that is because I think by pushing the limits
57:16
Speaker 1: and being aggressive, what it does is it puts you
57:18
Speaker 1: on a fast track through a lot of mistakes. And
57:24
Speaker 1: if you can do that, if you can, you know,
57:25
Speaker 1: make those aggressive moves and try to push in and
57:28
Speaker 1: you're you know, maybe I should push in a little more,
57:30
Speaker 1: Maybe I should hold back now, push in a little more,
57:33
Speaker 1: you know, and then set up or pushing a little
57:35
Speaker 1: more and occasionally bump that deer because by doing that,
57:39
Speaker 1: you're making these mistakes and your your instincts. If you
57:42
Speaker 1: think about it and you ask why and what can
57:45
Speaker 1: I do different? What was the mistake I made? Your
57:48
Speaker 1: instincts are starting to kick in and they start recalibrating.
57:52
Speaker 1: You know, over time, you know, you start to recall
57:55
Speaker 1: these hunts that went bad because I did this, This
57:57
Speaker 1: went well because I did that. Okay, I'm I'm in
58:00
Speaker 1: the same situation. I remember back five years when I
58:04
Speaker 1: did that, or that mature buck did this. You know,
58:06
Speaker 1: you start having these experiences because you're more aggressive. You're
58:10
Speaker 1: throwing yourself into the game. You're throwing yourself into the fire,
58:13
Speaker 1: and you've gotta learn quick and you have that approach
58:17
Speaker 1: and that mental uh that that mental game of like
58:21
Speaker 1: trying to learn and trying to analyze your mistakes and
58:23
Speaker 1: trying to eliminate them or improve on them. You start
58:27
Speaker 1: building those instincts and you start improving quicker. As appros
58:31
Speaker 1: to you know, being more of a cautious hunter that's
58:34
Speaker 1: afraid to bump anything. You know, I don't want to
58:36
Speaker 1: get to that too close to that because that's the
58:38
Speaker 1: sanctuary and I want him to feel safe. Well, if
58:41
Speaker 1: you're always on the outside, you're not getting as many
58:44
Speaker 1: of those encounters, you're not making as many of those mistakes,
58:48
Speaker 1: you're not learning as quickly. So by by having that
58:51
Speaker 1: more aggressive approach, two things happen. You learn more quicker,
58:55
Speaker 1: and you start to get better with that aggressive approach,
58:58
Speaker 1: and that aggressive appro when it's timed right, when the
59:02
Speaker 1: timing is right, when everything is is in your favor
59:05
Speaker 1: most of it, and it's time to go that aggressive
59:08
Speaker 1: the approach is what is what really kills those big bucks.
59:12
Speaker 1: So you know, I would, I would, you know, give
59:16
Speaker 1: someone that is in a little different situation. You know,
59:19
Speaker 1: maybe you have, you know, a three acre farm and
59:23
Speaker 1: you're managing it and you're you and your your son
59:25
Speaker 1: are the only one on there and you're creating a
59:28
Speaker 1: betting habitat and some food sources, and you want to
59:30
Speaker 1: stretch out the whole season of enjoyment. And you know,
59:35
Speaker 1: you've got the big book that's that's been on there
59:37
Speaker 1: for four or five years now, and he's mature, and
59:40
Speaker 1: that's the one you want to target. You know, I might,
59:43
Speaker 1: I might or I definitely would probably recommend more of
59:46
Speaker 1: an outside in approach where you can, you know, hunt
59:49
Speaker 1: the fringes and play the wind and and be a
59:51
Speaker 1: ghost and let that deer make a mistake. Because it's
59:55
Speaker 1: in a lower pressure setting, they're gonna move more. They're
59:58
Speaker 1: not getting that human and or actions, so they're gonna
1:00:01
Speaker 1: move more, they're gonna feel more comfortable. I would take
1:00:04
Speaker 1: more of an approach like that in that type of situation,
1:00:07
Speaker 1: but it's still good to have that aggressive mindset when
1:00:11
Speaker 1: it's when it's time to dive in. Um So, I
1:00:14
Speaker 1: think it kind of goes both ways in that scenario,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: but I do I do always recommend, you know, be
1:00:19
Speaker 1: more aggressive. Man, get in there and mix it up.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Stop being afraid that you're gonna bump this deer and
1:00:24
Speaker 1: never see him again. Like, get in there and get
1:00:26
Speaker 1: some encounters with them, because you're gonna get better at it.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: You're gonna start capitalizing more and you're gonna learn more,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: and that's gonna benefit you five years down the road.
1:00:36
Speaker 1: You're gonna be that much better. Ten years down the road,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: you're gonna be twice the hunter you were. You know,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: you're talking five years down the road of of doing that,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: being aggressive, learning trial and error, developing those instincts. All
1:00:49
Speaker 1: of a sudden dude, you're a killer out there. You know,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: you've got the woodsmanship, You've got the confidence, you've got
1:00:55
Speaker 1: the ability to go into any situation you feel like,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: you know, all right, I could do this, I could
1:01:00
Speaker 1: figure this out. I've I've experienced this dozens of times.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: I know where they like to bet, I know where
1:01:05
Speaker 1: they like to travel, I know the conditions that they
1:01:06
Speaker 1: like to move in. More I feel comfortable slipping in
1:01:09
Speaker 1: through here with the wind and with my bow, still
1:01:13
Speaker 1: hunting and maybe getting eyes on that book, or maybe
1:01:16
Speaker 1: coming across fresh sign are coming to that hot funnel
1:01:19
Speaker 1: where you know, you bumped into a couple of group
1:01:21
Speaker 1: of does and there's a good train funnel with some
1:01:24
Speaker 1: some beat down tracks and a couple of fresh rubs
1:01:27
Speaker 1: on it, and it's November five. It's like, you know,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're you're more comfortable in that
1:01:32
Speaker 1: situation because you've been doing it for years and years.
1:01:34
Speaker 1: It's a long term play, it's a long term development.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: And I think that's the the approach and what I've
1:01:41
Speaker 1: kind of evolved into um as a hunter. And it
1:01:45
Speaker 1: might be a little more difficult for me to be like,
1:01:48
Speaker 1: oh Andy, come to you know, Mark Jury's farm and
1:01:51
Speaker 1: kill you know Mr two twenty. Like, I don't know
1:01:54
Speaker 1: that I would be that great at that. You know, um,
1:01:57
Speaker 1: i'd probably see him or you know, I figure out
1:01:59
Speaker 1: where better then I want to go in and get
1:02:01
Speaker 1: them killed that day. You know. That's more of my approach, um,
1:02:05
Speaker 1: and it may not be the best approach always in
1:02:07
Speaker 1: that type of setting. So this is just what I do,
1:02:10
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a it's an accumulation of hunting
1:02:13
Speaker 1: a pressured area in Michigan where my chances are few
1:02:16
Speaker 1: and far between, and then and then traveling to these
1:02:19
Speaker 1: other states with limited time frame, and I gotta get
1:02:22
Speaker 1: it done in a short time frame. When you when
1:02:37
Speaker 1: you say, because people are gonna listen to this and
1:02:38
Speaker 1: they're gonna go I don't want to get aggressive because
1:02:40
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know what to do there. But
1:02:42
Speaker 1: what you're also saying there is to not do what
1:02:46
Speaker 1: other people are doing. And so like when you think about,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: I know you've seen this a ton. When I when
1:02:51
Speaker 1: I walk around, let's say I'm scouting public land down
1:02:53
Speaker 1: in Iowa, I can I can look on the aerial
1:02:56
Speaker 1: photos and I can just about call my shots where
1:02:59
Speaker 1: I'm going to see stands like you can look and
1:03:01
Speaker 1: just know where they're going to be. And that's because
1:03:05
Speaker 1: people are sitting up on logging roads and they're setting
1:03:08
Speaker 1: up on you know, the little fields or the food
1:03:11
Speaker 1: pots or whatever, and you just know. And so when
1:03:14
Speaker 1: you say, like take take an aggressive approach or do
1:03:17
Speaker 1: something differently, a lot of times it's just don't sit
1:03:21
Speaker 1: where most people would because you know, like back to
1:03:23
Speaker 1: when we're talking about giving Bucks too much credit, we
1:03:26
Speaker 1: make it so easy for them a lot of times.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: Or I would say, you know, maybe the hunters out
1:03:32
Speaker 1: there make it so easy for them to know what
1:03:34
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna do. You know, we're gonna we're gonna
1:03:36
Speaker 1: park in the same spots, we're gonna walk the same
1:03:38
Speaker 1: entrance routes. And if you're if you're not, you know,
1:03:42
Speaker 1: I mean, you could look at it differently than saying, say,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: be aggressive, you could just think differently, Like, just just
1:03:46
Speaker 1: think differently, because most people aren't going to be aggressive.
1:03:49
Speaker 1: Most people aren't gonna get off that logging road too far.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: They're not going to get off those field edges, and
1:03:53
Speaker 1: those deer know that. Like it's just it's so common
1:03:57
Speaker 1: and this is something that sounds like it's mostly like
1:04:00
Speaker 1: a public land, you know, strike quick type of thing.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: But when you think about like that that example you've
1:04:05
Speaker 1: got there of the father and son, they got three
1:04:08
Speaker 1: hundred acres and there, you know, we're really cautious. We
1:04:10
Speaker 1: don't go into the betting area. You don't go into
1:04:12
Speaker 1: the sanctuary. We sit the outside edges. We move in
1:04:14
Speaker 1: you know by Halloween or whatever. And it's like that,
1:04:18
Speaker 1: you know, great, that might work. That might work great
1:04:20
Speaker 1: for a lot of people in a lot of situations.
1:04:22
Speaker 1: You might also be in a state that's not that great.
1:04:24
Speaker 1: You might also just you know, have neighbors that are
1:04:27
Speaker 1: you know, there might be a lot of things going
1:04:29
Speaker 1: on where it would actually be more beneficial for you
1:04:31
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the pressure you put on specific sites and
1:04:35
Speaker 1: think about being aggressive and going in and doing something differently,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: because we always kind of like externalize this, right, We're like,
1:04:41
Speaker 1: oh that you know that idiot that's walking around, you
1:04:44
Speaker 1: know with the crossbow scaring everything away, he's ruining it
1:04:46
Speaker 1: for me. Well, yeah, he might have been out there
1:04:48
Speaker 1: one day and you've been out there nine and like
1:04:51
Speaker 1: were but we're you know, like we're biased towards other
1:04:54
Speaker 1: people's pressure and other people's mistakes. But we don't think
1:04:57
Speaker 1: about it that way with ourselves. And if you're going
1:05:00
Speaker 1: to the same three stands over and over all season
1:05:02
Speaker 1: long volume hunting like you talked about earlier, like you,
1:05:04
Speaker 1: you might really really be hurting your chances even though
1:05:07
Speaker 1: you think, like I'm putting in the hours this is
1:05:09
Speaker 1: going to happen, when all you might have to do
1:05:12
Speaker 1: is go back off two yards into the timber and
1:05:14
Speaker 1: kill one on a staging area, or find find something
1:05:17
Speaker 1: some soft edge in there, or something that's just different
1:05:20
Speaker 1: than what most people would hunt, and you catch that
1:05:22
Speaker 1: buck off guard, and that's that. That's one of the
1:05:26
Speaker 1: lessons there that I think is so important for everybody
1:05:29
Speaker 1: is just think a little bit differently about this stuff
1:05:32
Speaker 1: because we all have access to the same information. We
1:05:34
Speaker 1: all have kind of the same like desire to go
1:05:37
Speaker 1: sit where it's wide open and we can see a
1:05:38
Speaker 1: long ways. We all have a desire to kind of
1:05:40
Speaker 1: be lazy with it to some extent. And if you
1:05:43
Speaker 1: don't do that stuff, you're gonna think differently, You're gonna
1:05:46
Speaker 1: hunt differently, You're gonna kill more deer. Yeah, yeah, you know,
1:05:50
Speaker 1: and I that makes me think of like something you know,
1:05:54
Speaker 1: you and I have talked about in the past of
1:05:57
Speaker 1: you know, a pretty kind of a standard is you know,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: you put you put wind in your face. You you
1:06:01
Speaker 1: go to your spot, you want the wind in your face,
1:06:03
Speaker 1: blowing from where you expect dear to come to you.
1:06:05
Speaker 1: And that's the safest option. And that's a good option
1:06:09
Speaker 1: if you're kind of hunting kind of that outside in approach,
1:06:12
Speaker 1: keeping pressure low, trying to stay hidden. But oftentimes, um,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: especially with a mature buck and we're talking outside of
1:06:23
Speaker 1: the rut here before they start doing different things where
1:06:26
Speaker 1: their instincts flip more towards breeding and running as opposed
1:06:33
Speaker 1: to early season and late where their instincts are more
1:06:37
Speaker 1: you know, survival. Um. They they the chure bucks will
1:06:44
Speaker 1: move further when they have a wind advantage. So what
1:06:48
Speaker 1: I've what I've noticed over the years is that if
1:06:52
Speaker 1: if I can get in a situation where I can
1:06:54
Speaker 1: give that buck the wind or what he thinks is
1:06:58
Speaker 1: the wind what we call more of like an off wind, UM,
1:07:02
Speaker 1: that's that's the best case scenario for me to get
1:07:06
Speaker 1: a mature dear to move as far as possible from
1:07:10
Speaker 1: where he's betting, So it's kind of like a high risk,
1:07:13
Speaker 1: high reward type sit. But it seems like a majority
1:07:17
Speaker 1: of the time when I kill one kind of in
1:07:18
Speaker 1: that early season two mid October, it's got some sort
1:07:23
Speaker 1: of like cross wind or some sort of like quartering
1:07:26
Speaker 1: wind in the direction of where that deer is. And
1:07:29
Speaker 1: and what I've noticed is they just move further because
1:07:31
Speaker 1: they're able to clear what's out in front of them, um,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: you know, from from the safety of their betting area.
1:07:38
Speaker 1: So they feel comfortable moving in that direction. And that's
1:07:41
Speaker 1: not to say if you have the wind in your face,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: they won't move their direction. Now they will if that's
1:07:46
Speaker 1: the way they want to go, they'll still come, but
1:07:48
Speaker 1: they might wait till the last few minutes of daylight
1:07:51
Speaker 1: to do that. And you really, if if that's the
1:07:54
Speaker 1: game you're gonna play, you've got to get real tight
1:07:57
Speaker 1: into their bubble um, you know, gotta get real tight
1:08:01
Speaker 1: to their bedding area where you're risking a little more
1:08:04
Speaker 1: of getting seen of getting heard. Um. You know, a
1:08:08
Speaker 1: wind shift, a wind swirl. A lot of these mature
1:08:11
Speaker 1: bucks like the bed where the winds kind of swirls
1:08:13
Speaker 1: or where where thermals tend to dump down in the evening,
1:08:16
Speaker 1: so you start running a little more risk when you
1:08:18
Speaker 1: get in tight and I've done it. I've done it
1:08:20
Speaker 1: with the wind in my face, and you get in
1:08:22
Speaker 1: tight and you get them killed. But sometimes you can
1:08:25
Speaker 1: back off, getting a little bit safer location, and you're
1:08:28
Speaker 1: getting kind of that off wind that's kind of blowing
1:08:31
Speaker 1: off to the side of him, and he still thinks
1:08:33
Speaker 1: that he can move in that direction and clear it
1:08:35
Speaker 1: with his nose. That's a major advantage for you because
1:08:38
Speaker 1: now you can get back a little more safer approach
1:08:40
Speaker 1: and let that deer kind of come. But what you
1:08:43
Speaker 1: run the risk of is that you know that wind
1:08:46
Speaker 1: doesn't always blow that perfectly straight direction the whole time.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: It will blow a little to the left, a little
1:08:53
Speaker 1: to the right, so you you know, you might want
1:08:55
Speaker 1: to give yourself a little more leeway there than what
1:08:58
Speaker 1: you would think. It's out always just a perfect straight line,
1:09:01
Speaker 1: and if you don't, if that that sent cones out
1:09:04
Speaker 1: as it gets a little closer, and then it's always
1:09:06
Speaker 1: shifting a little left and right. But that's how I
1:09:08
Speaker 1: killed my buck last year, um my second buck on
1:09:12
Speaker 1: public land here in Michigan last year. As I gave
1:09:14
Speaker 1: him the wind, I had a feeling or where the
1:09:17
Speaker 1: sign was located where he was betting, and he was
1:09:19
Speaker 1: betting in the sticket, and I just didn't feel like
1:09:25
Speaker 1: my setting up where all this sign was outside of
1:09:27
Speaker 1: the bedding I found all these scrapes under these oak trees.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: I just didn't feel like that time of year that
1:09:33
Speaker 1: he was going to travel that far. There was some
1:09:35
Speaker 1: great trees in there. It was a little swirly in there.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: I didn't really like that set up. But the sign,
1:09:42
Speaker 1: if you know, I think like a um any other
1:09:45
Speaker 1: hunter would have seen that sign like this is the spot,
1:09:48
Speaker 1: and it was. But the wind was swirling and it
1:09:51
Speaker 1: was far enough away from the betting area. Was like,
1:09:53
Speaker 1: I just don't. I don't think he's gonna move this
1:09:55
Speaker 1: far on October sixte I just don't. So what I
1:09:58
Speaker 1: did was I at the wind in my favor. I
1:10:01
Speaker 1: circled around the thicket where I thought this year was
1:10:04
Speaker 1: betting and I got more up on the up wind side,
1:10:07
Speaker 1: and the wind was like blowing towards him, but it
1:10:10
Speaker 1: was blowing a little off to the left, and I
1:10:14
Speaker 1: got I was able to get sneak into that thicket
1:10:18
Speaker 1: and I got into it just enough um where I
1:10:21
Speaker 1: was like inside of his betting area, but he was
1:10:23
Speaker 1: probably you know, where he ended up getting up and
1:10:26
Speaker 1: moving out of was probably seventy five yards away. So
1:10:28
Speaker 1: it was a very cautious and quiet and stealthy approach
1:10:32
Speaker 1: like that last you know, fifty yards. And this is
1:10:35
Speaker 1: another cool story because I got set up in the
1:10:38
Speaker 1: saddle and like you said, you know, I don't. I
1:10:40
Speaker 1: didn't want to get up high. I didn't want him
1:10:42
Speaker 1: to see me. I want to make his least amount
1:10:44
Speaker 1: of noise as possible. I just want to get up
1:10:46
Speaker 1: above enough where I can shoot down into the tall
1:10:49
Speaker 1: weeds and stuff. And I got set up and at
1:10:52
Speaker 1: one point I was setting a stick and I just
1:10:55
Speaker 1: clicked a branch just like and I was like, oh god,
1:10:58
Speaker 1: you know, just just enough where like if there was
1:11:01
Speaker 1: a deer around, you know, within fifty yards, he probably
1:11:04
Speaker 1: would have heard it. So I get set up, I
1:11:07
Speaker 1: get my platform up, and I get settled, and all
1:11:09
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I see this mature dough approaching me,
1:11:12
Speaker 1: like dead silent, looking up in the trees right in
1:11:15
Speaker 1: my direction. But because I'm in the saddle, I'm on
1:11:18
Speaker 1: the back side of the tree, and I'm I'm hiding
1:11:20
Speaker 1: like this, and she comes fifteen yards from the base
1:11:23
Speaker 1: of the tree and she's doing this, looking right up
1:11:25
Speaker 1: at me, and she had heard that, and I was like,
1:11:27
Speaker 1: this dell was gonna blow the whole thing. I just
1:11:30
Speaker 1: remained motionless. She looks around for a few minutes, kind
1:11:34
Speaker 1: of noses around. She's smelling. My wind is going just
1:11:37
Speaker 1: to the left of her. And she turns around, flickers
1:11:41
Speaker 1: her tail, walks right back into bedding, and I'm like,
1:11:43
Speaker 1: dodged a bullet. But that's the game you're playing a
1:11:46
Speaker 1: lot of times when you're slipping slipping into these these
1:11:48
Speaker 1: these betting areas, Like that's how stealthy and quiet you've
1:11:51
Speaker 1: got to be. So later on, um, this the sign
1:11:57
Speaker 1: that this buck had been lefting was was very aggressive.
1:12:00
Speaker 1: There's like tons of scrapes open up in that little
1:12:02
Speaker 1: that little oak grove, you know, a lot for for
1:12:05
Speaker 1: that time of year. Some rubs were popping up. And
1:12:08
Speaker 1: I had a feeling I was, you know, dealing with
1:12:10
Speaker 1: a you know, an aggressive type deer is laying down
1:12:13
Speaker 1: a lot of sign and I'm in his betting area.
1:12:15
Speaker 1: Now I'm in his cover. He's got the win in
1:12:17
Speaker 1: his favor. But I do know, I do realize he
1:12:21
Speaker 1: doesn't really he's not really probably gonna come my direction.
1:12:24
Speaker 1: I'm on the up wind side, I'm not in the
1:12:27
Speaker 1: direction of where those oaks are, I'm not in the
1:12:28
Speaker 1: direction of where those scrapes are. I'm in the opposite direction.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: So I'm like, you know, I need to somehow try
1:12:34
Speaker 1: to draw him over here. So I'm not a huge caller,
1:12:38
Speaker 1: but I will call. I'm confident calling when I think
1:12:40
Speaker 1: the situation is right. And a lot of that is,
1:12:43
Speaker 1: you know, matching the attitude of the buck, and a
1:12:47
Speaker 1: lot of it is being more subtle rather than aggressive,
1:12:50
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is the location. And I
1:12:53
Speaker 1: felt like, I'm in this deer's betting area. I shouldn't
1:12:55
Speaker 1: be able to get into here where I am without
1:12:58
Speaker 1: him detecting me. But I did. And so what I
1:13:01
Speaker 1: did was imagine, the wind is blowing, you know, to
1:13:05
Speaker 1: the left of this deer, you know, towards him. So
1:13:08
Speaker 1: I turned to my right in a way, so the
1:13:12
Speaker 1: opposite direction of the wind, straight line, opposite direction, and
1:13:15
Speaker 1: I tried to cast my call. What I do is
1:13:18
Speaker 1: I do a little I did a little brew bre
1:13:21
Speaker 1: like a long drawn out draw um grunt. Nothing really aggressive,
1:13:26
Speaker 1: but just a long drawn out grunt. That's been like
1:13:29
Speaker 1: my most successful call im ature deer. And then I
1:13:33
Speaker 1: tried casting it directly away from the wind to make
1:13:37
Speaker 1: it sound like it was coming from further that way.
1:13:40
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard, you know, being an avid turkey hunter,
1:13:43
Speaker 1: Like you can have a turkey um, you know, on
1:13:47
Speaker 1: a ridge facing the other way, and it gobbles and
1:13:50
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's a mile away, and then I'll
1:13:51
Speaker 1: sudden it turns faces you and gobbles and you're like,
1:13:54
Speaker 1: holy shit, he's right there. So that's what I was
1:13:57
Speaker 1: trying to replicate. Or in the elk woods, you know,
1:14:00
Speaker 1: you gotta elk just below the bench and he you know,
1:14:05
Speaker 1: he bugles, and you would swear he's on the other mountain,
1:14:08
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden he comes up over
1:14:09
Speaker 1: that ridge and he bugles, and he's right in your face.
1:14:11
Speaker 1: You can cast that call, you know, by just changing directions.
1:14:15
Speaker 1: So what I do is tried casting it away from
1:14:17
Speaker 1: me and hopes that he would think that I'm not
1:14:19
Speaker 1: where I am, but where the call was coming from.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: And what this deer did was I just wanted to
1:14:25
Speaker 1: let him know there's an intruder in there and just
1:14:27
Speaker 1: hopefully draw him my direction, because I don't expect that
1:14:30
Speaker 1: he wants to come this way naturally, so I thought
1:14:32
Speaker 1: that was my only shot. So it starts to get
1:14:35
Speaker 1: a little darker, and all of a sudden, I hear
1:14:38
Speaker 1: rubbing in the bedding area and he's thrashing trees, and
1:14:41
Speaker 1: I was like, this deer' is fired up. Like I
1:14:43
Speaker 1: caught him on the right day, I mean, the right spot.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: He knows some someone's in here. And all of a sudden,
1:14:49
Speaker 1: I hear him kind of sloshing through the water a
1:14:51
Speaker 1: little bit. There's some little wet spots in there, and
1:14:54
Speaker 1: I hear him thrashing multiple trees. And then all of
1:14:57
Speaker 1: a sudden, I haven't heard many of them Michigan by
1:14:59
Speaker 1: here a snort wee's and I'm like, dude, he is coming,
1:15:03
Speaker 1: you know. And here he comes, and he's doing the
1:15:05
Speaker 1: moon shape, you know, circling down wind. And and what
1:15:10
Speaker 1: I did worked to a t. He wasn't circling down
1:15:13
Speaker 1: wind of me. He was circling down wind of where
1:15:15
Speaker 1: he thought that call came from. And by casting it up,
1:15:19
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he thinks it's thirty yards that way
1:15:21
Speaker 1: or fifty yards that way, but it was just enough
1:15:23
Speaker 1: for him to cut that corner and work right in
1:15:26
Speaker 1: front of me, as opposed to if I would have
1:15:28
Speaker 1: blew the grunt call at him, he pinpoints my location.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: Now he circles down wind of where I am instead
1:15:35
Speaker 1: of where he's where I'm trying to pretend I am,
1:15:38
Speaker 1: and I would have got busted. But in this case,
1:15:41
Speaker 1: he does that moon shape. He's circling down wind, but
1:15:43
Speaker 1: he's circling down window where that call came from. And
1:15:45
Speaker 1: he does a little moon curl right in front of me,
1:15:48
Speaker 1: and I shoot him at twenty eight yards. So I mean,
1:15:52
Speaker 1: just a really cool hunt. But a lot of things,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: a lot of things. They're creative thinking. Um, getting in
1:15:59
Speaker 1: tight to buck, feels comfortable moving in daylight, reading the
1:16:03
Speaker 1: fresh sign, realizing you're in a spot you know where
1:16:07
Speaker 1: that fresh signed is. The wind swirls, because what it
1:16:09
Speaker 1: was is that was a uh a big river bottom system.
1:16:13
Speaker 1: But it's it's wooded and there's like a opening, like
1:16:16
Speaker 1: a little oak grove in the woods, so you know
1:16:20
Speaker 1: it's it's all timber. And then there's like this, you know,
1:16:22
Speaker 1: fifty yard sixty yard opening. And you know, when the
1:16:26
Speaker 1: wind is blowing like from the north, what it does
1:16:29
Speaker 1: is it hits that opening and it circles down and
1:16:31
Speaker 1: sucks right back up to the north. That creates a
1:16:33
Speaker 1: big swirling effect in there. And I was throwing milk
1:16:35
Speaker 1: weed and I was like, oh man, I can't sit
1:16:36
Speaker 1: up in here. So then I just like creative thinking, Okay,
1:16:40
Speaker 1: I gotta get around and get in tight to where
1:16:43
Speaker 1: this buck is betting, get in his bubble, and give
1:16:46
Speaker 1: him the wind and call. I think the mentality is right,
1:16:50
Speaker 1: I think the timing is right. I'm gonna cast this
1:16:52
Speaker 1: call up there, and it just worked. And it doesn't
1:16:55
Speaker 1: always work like that, but that's a great hunt. That
1:16:58
Speaker 1: just kind of shows a lot of different factors of
1:17:01
Speaker 1: what I was thinking and how my brain was working
1:17:03
Speaker 1: through that specific scenario. That that's cool. I think the
1:17:06
Speaker 1: two things that everybody should take away from that are,
1:17:10
Speaker 1: you know, obviously it was the right situation to call,
1:17:13
Speaker 1: but the proximity and the comfort level there for that
1:17:17
Speaker 1: deer that's so important. I mean, you know that you
1:17:20
Speaker 1: you brought up turkeys and an elk deer, Turkeys and
1:17:23
Speaker 1: elk any any animal you can communicate with that way.
1:17:25
Speaker 1: Proximity is so important if they don't expect you to
1:17:28
Speaker 1: be you know, like if they hear you from a
1:17:31
Speaker 1: long ways away. You know, if you were three hundred
1:17:33
Speaker 1: yards away banging your antlers together to try to draw
1:17:35
Speaker 1: that buck in your he's not coming. Not gonna happen
1:17:38
Speaker 1: when you get that close to him and he hears that.
1:17:41
Speaker 1: That's a different thing. It's the same thing. You know.
1:17:43
Speaker 1: You get that gobbler that's out there strutting in the
1:17:45
Speaker 1: middle of the field, in his strutting zone at noon,
1:17:47
Speaker 1: and you're on the field edge a half a mile away.
1:17:49
Speaker 1: You can call your ass off and he's probably not coming.
1:17:52
Speaker 1: But you sneak around there below the ridge and you
1:17:54
Speaker 1: get up, you know, fifty seventy five yards away from him,
1:17:57
Speaker 1: scratch a little bit, do a little bit of yelping.
1:17:59
Speaker 1: It's nothing for him to commit. Now, it's it's a
1:18:02
Speaker 1: different thing. And then the other thing with that, dear,
1:18:04
Speaker 1: the other lesson is we we think about and you
1:18:07
Speaker 1: brought this up like we think about wind almost always entirely,
1:18:12
Speaker 1: like is it good or bad for us? Like are
1:18:15
Speaker 1: we gonna get busted or not? Is it in my
1:18:17
Speaker 1: face or not. But when you start thinking about how
1:18:19
Speaker 1: they use the wind, like they that's like X ray
1:18:23
Speaker 1: vision to them, man, Like it's it's the most important thing.
1:18:26
Speaker 1: And when you talk about getting that little edge where
1:18:28
Speaker 1: it's like, man, the winds almost not good for you almost,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: that's like super important because that means it's pretty damn
1:18:37
Speaker 1: good for them. And when it's good for them, you know,
1:18:39
Speaker 1: I mean, like, you know, I love bird dogs, and
1:18:41
Speaker 1: when I watch bird dogs like or we filmed them
1:18:44
Speaker 1: like in the cattails hunting in the in the late season,
1:18:47
Speaker 1: and you can see like they can't use their eyes
1:18:48
Speaker 1: at all, you know, and you watch how they use
1:18:51
Speaker 1: their nose. It's like a master class on like why,
1:18:56
Speaker 1: like how important that is to animals that have that
1:18:59
Speaker 1: develop up old factory sense. Like it's a different thing.
1:19:03
Speaker 1: And so when you start thinking about it that way
1:19:04
Speaker 1: instead of just being like I have to just get
1:19:06
Speaker 1: into a tree and have the wind blowing in my face,
1:19:08
Speaker 1: it's like great, Like that's their situations. That's perfect. You know.
1:19:12
Speaker 1: If you're on like a rut funnel and it should
1:19:13
Speaker 1: just be it's a it's a you know, terrain trap
1:19:16
Speaker 1: of some sort. Perfect. Great, you know and and their
1:19:19
Speaker 1: situations where that works. But there's just so many times,
1:19:22
Speaker 1: you know, you hunt the big woods and it's pretty flat,
1:19:24
Speaker 1: or you hunt a lot of places like where they're
1:19:27
Speaker 1: gonna use that freaking wind in such a way that
1:19:30
Speaker 1: like you you gotta be risky, like you gotta, you
1:19:33
Speaker 1: gotta go. I'm gonna set up here, and you know,
1:19:35
Speaker 1: if this switches fifteen degrees, I'm hosed. But if it
1:19:38
Speaker 1: stays like this, he's gonna feel pretty damn confident. And
1:19:42
Speaker 1: that puts you in the game in a way. On
1:19:44
Speaker 1: those bucks, that's just it's like hard to describe until
1:19:46
Speaker 1: you have that happen. And that's like that thing leaves
1:19:49
Speaker 1: a mark when you see that, because you just go, Okay,
1:19:51
Speaker 1: this is a whole new world of white tail behavior. Um,
1:19:54
Speaker 1: we're we're almost out of time here, buddy, So I
1:19:56
Speaker 1: have one last question for you to kind of sum
1:19:58
Speaker 1: up this. This rabbits with Antler's thing. What's the dumbest
1:20:01
Speaker 1: thing you've seen a mature buck do? Like, what's the
1:20:04
Speaker 1: one time, like think back, like what's the time where
1:20:07
Speaker 1: you were just like I cannot freaking believe that that
1:20:09
Speaker 1: deer did that? Yeah, it was it was probably right
1:20:14
Speaker 1: very close to when I started hunting. It was in Michigan,
1:20:17
Speaker 1: and you know, this is back when I was watching
1:20:19
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of like outdoor TV and
1:20:24
Speaker 1: you know, reading articles about some of these guys that
1:20:29
Speaker 1: were you know obviously hunting you know, unpressured deer, and
1:20:34
Speaker 1: you know I owned a set of those like big
1:20:38
Speaker 1: giant white synthetic antlers, and um, you know that's what
1:20:41
Speaker 1: I saw on TV and it worked down near every time.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's how I was hunting. And
1:20:48
Speaker 1: I was in Michigan and I was on a uh
1:20:52
Speaker 1: you know, on a permission piece, and I was set
1:20:54
Speaker 1: up right on a field edge because you know that's
1:20:56
Speaker 1: what you do. And behind me, where I was not
1:21:01
Speaker 1: even really facing, like I was facing like the beans,
1:21:04
Speaker 1: you know, and these lush beans that I'm expecting to
1:21:06
Speaker 1: see all these you know, big bucks come out and
1:21:08
Speaker 1: obviously that doesn't happen. But behind me was like this
1:21:11
Speaker 1: old set aside field, um, and I just happened to glance.
1:21:18
Speaker 1: It was great betting cover. I didn't know enough about
1:21:21
Speaker 1: this type of you know, terrain and this type of
1:21:24
Speaker 1: habitat to really know that like that's that is good
1:21:27
Speaker 1: for mature deer. But um, I looked behind me, and
1:21:30
Speaker 1: I see a nice mature eight point kind of walking parallel,
1:21:34
Speaker 1: you know, to me. And I had the wind. The
1:21:38
Speaker 1: wind was more like kind of blowing like down the
1:21:40
Speaker 1: tree line. So it wasn't like it wasn't necessarily my favor,
1:21:44
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily in his favor. But I just clapped
1:21:48
Speaker 1: those antlers together as loud as I could, just like
1:21:50
Speaker 1: you see like Gordon Winnington do it in Texas, you know,
1:21:53
Speaker 1: just staging the biggest giant buck fight that that's ever been.
1:21:58
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, like, you know what I think back,
1:22:02
Speaker 1: It's like I'm like he could probably see me, you know,
1:22:05
Speaker 1: like and uh, you know, I'm just like just bailing
1:22:09
Speaker 1: those things together. And sure enough, man, this deer turns.
1:22:12
Speaker 1: You just must have caught him, you know, just doing
1:22:14
Speaker 1: a dumb thing in the right mood or whatever. But
1:22:17
Speaker 1: here he comes, and he's coming when it totally not
1:22:20
Speaker 1: in his favor, doesn't circle downwind at all. It just
1:22:22
Speaker 1: comes a bee line right to my tree and I
1:22:25
Speaker 1: shoot right over him. So I don't want to say
1:22:28
Speaker 1: that that that stuff happens a lot. It doesn't happen
1:22:31
Speaker 1: a lot. But you know, they do do dumb things,
1:22:33
Speaker 1: and if you just kind of you you can get
1:22:36
Speaker 1: it done just simply by being out there sometimes. Um,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's probably the dumbest thing I've seen a
1:22:41
Speaker 1: mature buck do. After that experience, how many big bucks
1:22:44
Speaker 1: did you rattle that before you just threw those things away? Oh? Man,
1:22:47
Speaker 1: it ruined me for years because that totally uh made
1:22:53
Speaker 1: me think like that's all I needed to do. I mean,
1:22:55
Speaker 1: I was a rattling fool for a few years and
1:22:59
Speaker 1: you know, it's probably a dozen or sobucks to see
1:23:02
Speaker 1: him just to kind of turntail and run to think
1:23:04
Speaker 1: about to make me realize like, Okay, this isn't this
1:23:07
Speaker 1: isn't gonna work every time, you know. And then you start,
1:23:11
Speaker 1: you know, you start reading different things about hunting pressure deer,
1:23:13
Speaker 1: and it's like leaving the calls at home or calling
1:23:15
Speaker 1: a little more subtle, and you just, you know, trial
1:23:17
Speaker 1: and error, you know what works what doesn't, and you
1:23:20
Speaker 1: start to kind of fine tune that calling strategy because
1:23:23
Speaker 1: it certainly can be a strategy. But Tony, real quick man,
1:23:26
Speaker 1: before before we hop off, like I think this is
1:23:29
Speaker 1: worth mentioning, Um, you know, real quick and I'll make
1:23:33
Speaker 1: it fast. We could we talk about the importance of
1:23:35
Speaker 1: like of of shooting and being good with your weapon. UM.
1:23:40
Speaker 1: One thing that I do think that really helps me.
1:23:44
Speaker 1: It might set me apart from say, like the average guy. UM.
1:23:49
Speaker 1: And I know you, I know you feel the same
1:23:51
Speaker 1: way about this is being absolutely proficient with your weapon.
1:23:58
Speaker 1: And I think back about these shots. You know that
1:24:01
Speaker 1: I get on these hunts out of stay at home.
1:24:05
Speaker 1: Very rarely, very rarely am I getting the perfect broad
1:24:10
Speaker 1: yard broadside shot at at twenty yards with a deer
1:24:15
Speaker 1: standing there and I'm flat footed and everything the form
1:24:19
Speaker 1: is is is ideal. Very rarely does that happen. It
1:24:23
Speaker 1: happens every once in a while, But a lot of
1:24:27
Speaker 1: my shots are happening at an extreme fast pace. UM.
1:24:32
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sliding my arrow between you know, uh, two
1:24:37
Speaker 1: branches from two different trees, and there's there's an inch
1:24:40
Speaker 1: space to get through, or there's a little hole the
1:24:43
Speaker 1: size of a volleyball to get through, or I'm leaning
1:24:46
Speaker 1: way out in my saddle on the weak side, and
1:24:50
Speaker 1: you know, my form is horrendous, and you know the
1:24:53
Speaker 1: deer is about to walk out of the shooting lane. UM.
1:24:56
Speaker 1: Another one. You know, what happens often is is you know,
1:25:01
Speaker 1: I have something covering the vitals, say at twenty yards,
1:25:04
Speaker 1: and the deer standing at forty and you've got to
1:25:07
Speaker 1: know your your weapon and know that the trajector of
1:25:10
Speaker 1: the arrow is gonna is gonna cast right over that
1:25:12
Speaker 1: obstruction and land right in the vitals are out west,
1:25:17
Speaker 1: like all my my last shots have been, you know,
1:25:21
Speaker 1: sitting down on knees. My amalte that I shot last year,
1:25:25
Speaker 1: it was a sixty yard shot, which is you know,
1:25:27
Speaker 1: a poke, and I was in a crouch like half
1:25:31
Speaker 1: squat position because the way that hunt unfolded is this
1:25:35
Speaker 1: deer was approaching, and he was coming up on a
1:25:37
Speaker 1: ridge and then going down, and then coming up and
1:25:40
Speaker 1: then going down, and every time he was down, I
1:25:42
Speaker 1: was sprinting trying to get within bow range to cut
1:25:45
Speaker 1: him off. And every time he was up, I had
1:25:47
Speaker 1: to freeze because he could see my level and so
1:25:51
Speaker 1: I had to cover you know, you know, six eight
1:25:53
Speaker 1: hundred yards. And then I finally got my shot opportunity
1:25:57
Speaker 1: just as he was about to jump onto private land
1:25:59
Speaker 1: that I couldn't access, and I was screwed. I was
1:26:02
Speaker 1: I had a branch kind of head height. I had
1:26:05
Speaker 1: to squat down and get that pin settled and make
1:26:10
Speaker 1: that shot in an instant, or that animal gets away.
1:26:13
Speaker 1: Or my my first buck in Michigan last year was
1:26:16
Speaker 1: a weak side shot in the saddle, so completely twisted
1:26:18
Speaker 1: the way you don't really want to shoot. And it
1:26:22
Speaker 1: was a thirty five yard shot, just about to walk
1:26:25
Speaker 1: out of my shooting lane and hit him through both lungs.
1:26:28
Speaker 1: But my point is I practiced. This is how I practice.
1:26:32
Speaker 1: I practiced for muscle memory and testing and accuracy, like
1:26:38
Speaker 1: at the beginning, you know, and during the spring and
1:26:39
Speaker 1: the beginning of summer, and then I quickly switched to
1:26:42
Speaker 1: real life hunting shots, you know, on my knees, off balance,
1:26:47
Speaker 1: a foot up on a rock, um, real steep off
1:26:51
Speaker 1: the roof, real steep in the saddle, weak side, sliding
1:26:54
Speaker 1: it through, you know, right next to a tree where
1:26:57
Speaker 1: I gotta you know, trying to hit the heart and
1:26:59
Speaker 1: I got to go shoot within an inch of the tree.
1:27:02
Speaker 1: And what that does is that prepares me. It gives
1:27:04
Speaker 1: me confidence when those shots materialize in the woods, like
1:27:08
Speaker 1: I don't hesitate. Those are shots that I've made hundreds
1:27:11
Speaker 1: of times. And I made the analogy to you. It's like,
1:27:17
Speaker 1: it's like, you don't if you're if you're a runner
1:27:21
Speaker 1: and you're gonna run a twenty six mile race, Um,
1:27:25
Speaker 1: you don't train for that twenty six mile race by
1:27:28
Speaker 1: running five miles or ten miles and then expect to
1:27:32
Speaker 1: perform optimally on race day at six miles. No, you
1:27:38
Speaker 1: run twenty six miles or you run thirty and if
1:27:40
Speaker 1: you're trying to win, you're running, you know, thirty miles
1:27:43
Speaker 1: plus for time and and so when you run that
1:27:46
Speaker 1: twenty six mile, it's a breeze. And that's a big thing.
1:27:50
Speaker 1: I think. I pull off and I take a lot
1:27:54
Speaker 1: of shots that other people, um, either don't have confidence
1:27:58
Speaker 1: in or it would be extremely low odds because they
1:28:01
Speaker 1: haven't put themselves in that situation enough in practice. So
1:28:06
Speaker 1: I'm not telling people to go out and and wing shots,
1:28:09
Speaker 1: these these low percentage shots, but no practice these hard shots,
1:28:12
Speaker 1: because those are the ones I get. Those are the
1:28:15
Speaker 1: ones where I'm just slipping it through that that most
1:28:18
Speaker 1: people think would be a high risk shot. To me,
1:28:20
Speaker 1: it's not. If I can see the spot and I
1:28:22
Speaker 1: have my pen and I have my bow back, I
1:28:25
Speaker 1: can hit that spot. It doesn't matter what's around me.
1:28:27
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what's in front of me. If the
1:28:29
Speaker 1: trajectory is going to carry it over, it doesn't matter anything.
1:28:32
Speaker 1: It's still a point of aim and me executing the shot.
1:28:36
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what else is around there. But you
1:28:39
Speaker 1: have to put yourself in that situation and and and
1:28:42
Speaker 1: practice those shots so that when they do come, it's
1:28:45
Speaker 1: not your first rodeo. It's something you've done. It's smooth,
1:28:50
Speaker 1: it's it's it's seamless, there's no worry, there's no hesitation,
1:28:55
Speaker 1: there's no anticipation, it's just boom, there's my shot. Okay,
1:29:00
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen quick. I gotta execute quicker. Boom there
1:29:02
Speaker 1: it is, and it's automatic. And I think that sets
1:29:07
Speaker 1: uh my success apart from some because I know a
1:29:09
Speaker 1: lot of good hunters out there, tons like you know,
1:29:13
Speaker 1: some hunters that are are probably much better than I am.
1:29:16
Speaker 1: And every year they tell me about the buck they wounded,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: I hit the twig, I rushed the shot, and I
1:29:22
Speaker 1: hit him high. Um, you know all these things, and
1:29:26
Speaker 1: it really is just you're just coming on glued in
1:29:28
Speaker 1: the heat of that moment. So practice really, really hard shots,
1:29:32
Speaker 1: really challenging shots. Challenge your balance, challenge your form, challenge
1:29:37
Speaker 1: how fast you have to get it off, shoot it
1:29:39
Speaker 1: right next to that tree where if you miss and
1:29:41
Speaker 1: you don't you don't get it right, you're gonna blow
1:29:43
Speaker 1: your arrow up. Um. That's what prepares you for the
1:29:46
Speaker 1: real life, you know, out there on public land or
1:29:51
Speaker 1: pressured permission land, when you're trying to get a mature
1:29:54
Speaker 1: buck in thick cover where you can't trim a bunch
1:29:57
Speaker 1: and you don't have wide open food plasts to shooting.
1:30:00
Speaker 1: Those are the shots you're getting, and those are the
1:30:02
Speaker 1: shots you got to be prepared for, and you have
1:30:05
Speaker 1: to make it count every time. Yeah, I mean, that's
1:30:07
Speaker 1: that's one thing. Especially, you know, it's it's different if
1:30:10
Speaker 1: you can really set up stands and cut shooting lanes
1:30:12
Speaker 1: and you're you're sitting on field edges and food plots
1:30:14
Speaker 1: and like that's a you know, that's a somewhat of
1:30:18
Speaker 1: a different thing. But most of the hunting, you know,
1:30:22
Speaker 1: like when we when we talked yesterday about this, you know,
1:30:25
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, man, so many of the deer
1:30:28
Speaker 1: that I shoot are some some level of a thread.
1:30:31
Speaker 1: The needle shot, you know, it might not be you know,
1:30:34
Speaker 1: like you might not be shooting like through a golf
1:30:36
Speaker 1: ball size hole, right, but it's like a softball or
1:30:38
Speaker 1: something in the cover or you know, and and not
1:30:41
Speaker 1: crazy distances. There's normal white tail distances, but it's never
1:30:44
Speaker 1: like a wide open you know, you know, like nothing
1:30:48
Speaker 1: between you but in them but air an opportunity. There's
1:30:50
Speaker 1: always something to think about there. And if you don't
1:30:52
Speaker 1: practice those and you don't have the experience shooting deer,
1:30:56
Speaker 1: I mean, this is another thing. And like you know,
1:30:58
Speaker 1: I'm not advocating using deer. It's hard get practice. But
1:31:01
Speaker 1: a lot of people who aren't closers, who might be
1:31:03
Speaker 1: good hunters but aren't closers, they didn't go through the
1:31:06
Speaker 1: phase where they killed a ton of dose and little bucks,
1:31:08
Speaker 1: or they just don't you know, they don't have the
1:31:11
Speaker 1: Western animals under their belt or something. So it's like, man,
1:31:13
Speaker 1: you're getting one shot a year, or one or two
1:31:16
Speaker 1: opportunities a year at something and fift of time that's
1:31:19
Speaker 1: gonna go wrong somehow. You know, they're either you know,
1:31:22
Speaker 1: they're gonna bust you when you draw, or you're gonna
1:31:24
Speaker 1: make a bad shot or something, and you're just not
1:31:26
Speaker 1: You're not used to that execution at the moment. And man,
1:31:29
Speaker 1: when you get to that point where you're really confident
1:31:31
Speaker 1: through the practice you're talking about and you get the experience,
1:31:34
Speaker 1: like then when you watch them walk in, your stoked
1:31:36
Speaker 1: because you know you can do it and you're not
1:31:38
Speaker 1: scared that you're gonna screw it up. And that's a
1:31:41
Speaker 1: big difference because a lot of people and they won't
1:31:44
Speaker 1: admit this, but like I went through this when I
1:31:46
Speaker 1: when I went hunted with a recurve for a few years,
1:31:49
Speaker 1: Like the first year I shot so much. I was
1:31:53
Speaker 1: really confident. The second year I didn't, And I felt
1:31:56
Speaker 1: differently when I was out there, Like i'd see a
1:31:58
Speaker 1: deer coming down the trail, I'm like, I don't want
1:32:00
Speaker 1: them to come in because now I'm scared to take
1:32:02
Speaker 1: the shot because I'm not as confident. And man, you
1:32:04
Speaker 1: go through a season like that and it changes your
1:32:06
Speaker 1: perspective on what you want to, like, I don't you
1:32:08
Speaker 1: don't ever want to go into it that way again
1:32:11
Speaker 1: because you know how much it hurts you and you
1:32:13
Speaker 1: don't do well. And so that that's a great lesson.
1:32:16
Speaker 1: That's a great way to wrap this up. Andy, It's
1:32:18
Speaker 1: always a pleasure to chat with you. Man. I love
1:32:20
Speaker 1: I love talking to you. Um, thank you so much
1:32:22
Speaker 1: for coming on, buddy. Yeah, it's fun anytime. Man. I
1:32:25
Speaker 1: love talking to you too. And uh let's do it
1:32:28
Speaker 1: again down the road. Awesome, Thanks man, See you buddy.
1:32:32
Speaker 1: That is it for this week, folks. Be sure to
1:32:35
Speaker 1: tune in next week for more white tail goodness. This
1:32:37
Speaker 1: has been Wired to Hunt and I'm your guest host,
1:32:39
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so much for listening.
1:32:42
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for a little bit more white
1:32:44
Speaker 1: tail content, be sure to check out the meat eator
1:32:46
Speaker 1: dot com slash wired to see a pile of new
1:32:49
Speaker 1: articles each week by Mark myself and a whole slew
1:32:52
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1:32:54
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1:32:57
Speaker 1: we put up