Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1031: Back 40 - Why Your Deer Hunting Gets Worse the Harder You Try

Transcript

Ep. 1031: Back 40 - Why Your Deer Hunting Gets Worse the Harder You Try · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What is going on?
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: We're back with another episode of Back forty. I'm your
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: host Jake Hoefer. In this week, we're diving into this
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: whitetail dilemma of a serious tear hunter that sometimes people
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: fall into the traps where you do all these different things,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: you work really hard, but you're not necessarily seeing the
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: results that you're hoping to see.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And so is this a behavioral thing? Is this doing
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: too much?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Is this not realizing as the harder you work, your
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: goals also evolved. And we have a panel of experts
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to dive into this specific dilemma.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Or question at some point.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: And so we have the same panel from the last
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: episode of Back forty and we're going to be updating
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: panels based off of the changing season of a whitetail
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: calendar and so kicking things off, we have Terry Peer
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: with Chasing Giants. He's been hunting for a very long
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: time and just like anything, goals change, expectations change, and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: strategies change. In this episode, we also have Thomas Milsna
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: with the Untamed Ambition out of Wisconsin.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: We have Jared Van.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: He's out of mis with the Habitat podcast, and we
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: have Kyle a team radical out of Illinois. So I
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: hope you guys really enjoy this conversation this topic, and
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I think if it hasn't came across your mind yet,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: it might by the end of this episode of Subliminally
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Anything in life, it often feels like the harder you work,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the more return you might likely see. And sometimes white
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: tail hunting is very unfavorable. There's a lot of different
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: factors that go into you achieving whatever goal you set out,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: and sometimes you can do everything you want, do everything
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: you can, and the goal doesn't necessarily match up with reality.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: And we're diving into that episode here right now. The
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Back forty podcast is presented by Multrie. Let's kick it off.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and roll right into this episode with
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Terry Pierre. All right, Terry, I have another scenario dilemma
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: solve the white tail world problem here for everyone. So
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going to pose a scenario where you know, there's
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: a group of guys out there that are listening to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: hunting podcasts in April. They have a notebook next to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: their keyboard and mouse, and they're writing down projects and
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: ideas and how they're going to have the best year
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: ever and over the last maybe three or four years,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: they're reflecting and saying, Man, I'm the harder I work
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: at this, the less success I'm really having versus when
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I would go out and hang a couple of stands,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: hang a couple of cameras, and to show up when
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the time felt right. So what can you tell this
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: person or this demographic of man, I hear you a
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: loud and clear You're doing everything right, You're doing everything
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to the tee.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: But what is the potential missing link here?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And this is a ball of wax, can of worms,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Pandora's box, but I'm passing it to you.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a fascinating conversation because you don't know this.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: But I have two buddies that have gotten so frustrated
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: with land management that they've decided next year they are
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: not using trail cameras, they're not doing any habitat projects.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: They're going back to old school and just going out
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and hunting and whatever they like that comes out they
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: shoot because of the frustration that they've they've put into
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: bad experience. Just like you know, the harder they try,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: the worse the results get. And I feel my heart
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: breaks for people anytime they put that kind of money
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: and effort into something and it just doesn't pan out.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: So that you're right, there's a lot of different things there.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: But I also think that if somebody's really diving in,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: say I'm gonna work harder, I'm gonna up my game,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: there's probably another goal that's raising with that, so they
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: expect a return on that investment of time and money.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: So the harder I try, the results aren't there. What
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: are the results you're looking for and are they attainable? Man,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: people don't understand this, But when you hang around a
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: guy like Don Higgins and you know he shoots these
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: world class dear, you're even I'm allowed to hunt his property, right,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: But when you're hanging around people that have a different
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: situation than you, it's really hard not.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: To set your expectations to what they are.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: And it's like, Okay, I don't have the same property
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: that Don has, I don't have access to the things
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: that Non has. But why is my goal the same
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: as what Don has? It's not achievable. So that frustration level.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I can come here to Kentucky on a fifth My
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: wife's the fifth generation on a family farm that has
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: a least group of guys that shoot everything on the
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: northwest corner that blow their scent in to my sanctuary,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: and I expect the same results that Don does on that.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I can go in and put all this
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: work in there. But it might be a neighbor. It
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: might be that I'm hunting it too hard, it might
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: be that my plan's overcomplicated and too much intrusion. All
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: of those things play factors into it. But at the
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: end of the day, is my expectations that I'm trying.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: To get realistic.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: And I don't want to tell anybody to lower their
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: standards by any means, But it's the same time, if
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: you're wanting your goals have to be attainable. And I
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: feel like the hunting community with the amount of resources,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: with so many good folks out there right now, is
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: you have more resources than you've ever had to learn to.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: Study under people.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: But being able to duplicate that is extremely tough, especially
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: with you know, you're in real estate and there's some
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: properties you can walk on as an agent and say
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: this thing has a ceiling that's.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: Here, and then there's other ones that you have a.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Ceiling that's a whole lot higher than that, and you know,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I use the analogy of golf with a lot of
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: a lot.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Of times with hunting.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: You know, you can have two guys that are on
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: the same foursome and they get to the same tea
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: box with the same weather seconds apart. They can compare
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: their situation in their game, and in hunting there is
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: no compare, and you can give everyone's on different properties,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: everyone's different situations.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: Everyone These are wild animals walking around.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And my heart just breaks for people like my buddies
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: who have gone back and said we're done with all
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: of this. We're going back and enjoying it. Not because
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I don't align with it, it's just they've they've been
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: frustrated by the passion of white tail hunting so bad
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: that they're they're just stepping back away from it. So
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: my encouragement to everybody that's dealing with this, I try
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: so hard, but I'm not getting the results. Well, what
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: are your results and are they attainable? Start there, make
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: your goals realistic to your journey. Don't try to go
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: from you know, being able to shoot the bucks that
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: are in my garage that I'm still very proud of
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: early in my career. You know, one twenty to one
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: thirty inch deear. They're probably all three year olds, you know.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, let's just face it, it was that point
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: in time in my hunting career and trying to be
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: something you're not by chasing the A list unicorns that
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: are on YouTube right progress through your journey, make attainable
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: realistic goals every year and shoot for that and be
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: disciplined with that.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Don't settle. So what is your goal? Is it attainable?
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: The second thing that I would just really really focus
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: on is surround yourself with people. My business mentor used
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: to always say, you should never put your kid on
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: a travel baseball team where he's the best player or
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: the worst player in business you can ever be around.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: You know, you got to surround yourself with people that
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: you're you're trying to chase, and you got to pull
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: people with you. So when you're learning anything in life,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: whether it's land management or whatever, chase those people that
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: are a little bit ahead of you in their journey.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Maybe they have agronomy background, or maybe.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: They've killed really big bucks, or maybe they're you know,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: like a Bobby Worthington. You know, you know, just the
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: knowledge there the wins will Brothers man, I've just been
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: so blessed to be able to be with these guys
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: so much over the years, but then also have people
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: that you're bringing up behind you kind of be that
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: middle of the pack through your journey. And what's going
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: to happen is you're going to really learn as a
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: sponge from those people that'll learn teach you how to
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: set your goals, but not only how to achieve those goals,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: and guess what, you're also doing that for other folks.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: And the best way to be blessed is be a
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: blessing to someone else and you know, helping that next
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: generation or that person that wants to learn. One of
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: the things that comes to mind is we published a
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: video on Chasing Giants TV of a young man who
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: just got into bow hunting, was i think in his
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: second or third season and shot a two hundred inch
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: buck on public out of a tree saddle on film
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: with a compound bow, and it's like, you.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: Talk about the ultimate that doesn't.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Happen right, Well, yeah right, it's crazy, right.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: So he knew what he had accomplished, but at the
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: the story of him going through this just world class.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Once in a lifetime bug is the people that helped
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: him getting there. You know, he surrounded people with himself.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: But then he referenced bringing his kids along and getting
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: them into hunting. So, man's it's such a frustrating and
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: rewarding sport.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: At the same time.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: You know, don't make yourself Just be realistic, you know, learn,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: be gracious, be humble, don't try to be somebody or not.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Don't try to get something out of a property that
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: can't be done. You can't shoot a two hundred inch
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: buck if there's not a two hundred inch buck there.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of people.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: In this world that could shoot two hundred inch bucks
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: if they were on the property they were hunting. But
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: you know, we're trying to do something that's so difficult,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: and man, it's just it's a tough, tough sport, flood
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: of emotions because we spend so much time, passion, energy,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: money into chase seeing it that when it doesn't work out.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: What's the reason? Is it the neighbor, is it the weather?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: There's a million things. By a car, did it?
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: You know, Like, I mean, look, look how many people
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: in Ohio's target buck was killed by EHD last year
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: and just heart wrenching and how long does it take
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: to recover from that?
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: What's my plan? B?
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: And it's just it's man, But when the things hit
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: you got to remember you're setting out in God's creation,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: watching this.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Scenery unfold every morning.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: And you think, man, as complicated as God's creation is, right,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: how all these micro organisms work to intertwine in an ecosystem,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: that something like a white tail could be thrive from
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: South Texas to Canada and all of these things working
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: together for the greater good of nature.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: And then God made salvation as simple as what it was.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Man, I'll go sit in the tree stand and think
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: about that every single day. And I know this isn't
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: a religious podcast, but man, what an awesome story book
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: that unfolds with you at every sit Try to focus
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: on that God's creation is so powerful and his love
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: for us is so simple through salvation that this thing
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: unfolds from you every day. Don't let the ups and
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: downs of did I tag something this year after spending
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: all this money on this lease or buying this new tractor. Man,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: enjoy the ride because when it all pays off, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: it will, it will pay off, maybe not every year
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: like Don Higgins, but it will. It will pay off
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: at some point, and you're going to enjoy the ride.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: But set those expectations to where you can truly achieve
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: them in a you know, don't try to jump from
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: seventh grade to varsity.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: You know baseball, right, you.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Gotta you gotta go through eighth grade, freshman JV. Work
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: your way up where it's attainable, and learn. Don't don't
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: pretend like you know everything. You know, be vulnerable, even
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: if you're even if you're a content creator. All these
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: guys that want to be content creators out there, that
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: vulnerability is what draws the views.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: People don't realize that, you know.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: You go and look at a lot of the real
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: big YouTube channels that are not in the hunting industry.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: The ones that are growing so so well.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Right now are the people that are trying new stuff
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: and showing the failure and learning from it and adapting
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: from it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: You know, those are the things that are getting a.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Lot of views, not the people who are claiming they
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: know everything, because none of us are that way, right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I think I think society is kind of seeing through
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: the you know, the jaded, uh kind of hypocritical side
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: of the hunting industry.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: That way, the vulnerability is really where the engagement comes from.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Right now, one thing that I've always thought about is
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: for white to hunting specifically, it's probably the least transactional
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: game specie.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Like there's guys out there their life goals to shoot
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: two hundred in each year, and you know, they have
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: everything else that they've accomplished, they checked off every box,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: but they're still after the mysterious two hundred inch white tail,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: and it's like, no matter how much effort, time, money,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: all these different things, it's not as simple as that's
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: what I want, and that's what I'm going to get
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: a free ranging while two hundred this year because they're
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: so rare and so crazy, and that is my opinion.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I've recognized that over the years.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look at my season last year, right
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: had I had a goal to shoot above a one
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: eighty with a bow and guess what? I found one
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: of them And it was on a permission property that
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do a single thing for and had pictures
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of him in August, had pictures of him in early October.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: He did, he wasn't there in September. It's really weird.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: But guess what. I got a picture of him on
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: October twenty third.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I hunted from October twenty fourth to Thanksgiving every single day,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: saw all kinds of deer, had a great time.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Never saw that deer on his spoof one time, never
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: got a picture.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know if he's still love don't know, but
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I'm willing to I'm willing to go all in on
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: that at this point, with where I'm at, some people
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: don't need to be going that serious at this They
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: need to learn how to hunt.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: They need to learn woodsmanship.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know what this year's goal is going to be,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: but I got to make sure I'm not trying to
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: be Don Higgins. I'm not trying to be Lee, I'm
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: not trying to be Bobby Worthy. I'm trying to be
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: me with the cards that I have access to to
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: play the game. And I did pick up a new
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: property down in the southern tip of Illinois that has
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: great potential, but don't know what's there yet.
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: First time.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: I've only been on the farm twice, So you know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I'm going to have to set this year's goal to
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: raise my bar with to com pish what I want.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: But it's attainable. It actually has something that's achievable with it.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: And if that means eating the tag sandwich one more year,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: I guess that's okay.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: I'm gotten pretty used to.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: That on and off.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, we all have right, Yes, I think it's
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: it's just it's just got to be attainable, buddy. We
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: try to be something that we're not. We try to.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: It's a delicate balance of trying to learn from those
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: folks that I've been able to mentor underneath of, but
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: not try to be them because the reason they've got
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: there is they're probably thirty years ahead of you and
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: their farms already developed in a.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Way that yours isn't.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So you know, you got to learn from those folks,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: but don't try to be those folks.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I love it well, Terry.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: If people want to hunt you down and say I
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: agree or man, I don't know, I need to.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I want to. You know, I'm stubborn and I want.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I want the cream of the crop, even though I'm
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: probably not kaream of the crop.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Where can I reach out to tell you that?
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, the best way to follow our content is
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: on Chasing Giants. We have a podcast weekly podcast and
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: a YouTube channel. We got a lot of fingers out
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: in different resources all the way from religious podcasts like
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Chasing Assurance that I do with my dad.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: But everything is kind of underneath of Chasing Giants YouTube channel.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: So if you go out and find that, you're gonna
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: find our hunting podcast, habitat videos, hunting videos. I think
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: we already have nine hunt videos I believe that are
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: in post production that will start in May of this year.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: I might even see a Turkey Hunt on there every once.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: In a while when we got our buddies Joe Miles
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: or Al Foster and Joe Johnson in town.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: But yeah, head out to Chasing Giants and you can
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: kind of disperse out for what content you want from there.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you so much, Terry, Thanks for having me
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: all right. There you have it.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I think Terry does a really good job of laying
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: out this complex topic in a simple way, and it's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: more of a reflection of what that looks like. Now
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: let's get into this commonversation with Thomas Milsne and what
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: his take is on this topic. Here we go, all right, Thomas,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: welcome back to back forty. This is a phenomenon that
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: is likely a lot of people can relate to the
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: harder I try. It feels like the worst idea hunting
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: is getting so I can lump that into hunting harder,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: doing more habitat projects, just the whole gampit. I'm putting
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: more and more effort, but I feel like I'm getting
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: less and less reward for what I'm doing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: What do you say to me.
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: Well, there's there's two perspectives there. The hunting pressure is
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: a big one, right, So if we address that one
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: first in season season the season, you you know, you
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: get a glimpse of an opportunity there and you go hard, right,
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: So it's not a lack of effort like you're saying,
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: or a lack of ambition.
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: But it might be a lack of strategy.
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: So you know, the tell tale or a cliche situation
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: where you have good experience in that one spy of
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: your property last year, so you go, you know, last November,
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: so you go barreling into their early October opener of
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: the season. Right, pressure limits Potential pressure is always the
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: bottom hole in the bucket. So if you're putting too
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: much pressure on the property from an access standpoint, whether
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: you're hunting, or you're on habitat side of things.
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: If you're out there.
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: A lot throughout the year, every weekend, you're out there
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: trying to do something, you're increasing the amount of human
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: activity and pressure on the property, which oftentimes will push
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: a mature buck off the property, or at the very
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: least make it so he doesn't move a whole lot
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: during the daytime because he's trying to avoid that conflict.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Right, So that'd be one.
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: Side of it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: The other thing, which is probably the more likely scenario,
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: if you're doing habitat improvements, right, you've got your food
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: plot program dialed in at least as far as you're aware,
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: things are going well. You're doing habitat improvements for the
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: most part. You know, things you're hearing on podcasts, things
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: you're catching off of YouTube, things you're catching off of
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: outdoor celebrities saying, you know, I'm sitting behind this buck
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: because of this X y Z thing that I did
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: or product that I bought.
• 19:08
  Speaker 8: Right, I would almost I.
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: Don't want to guarantee, but my speculation would be in
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: most of those situations, if you take a step back
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: and objectively look at how your property has changed and how.
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: Your herd dynamics have changed. Having more deer on.
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: Your property is not necessarily a good thing, and what
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: happens more often than not, especially if you focus on
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: quote unquote low hanging fruits like food plots, and you
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: focus on that level of habitat which food plots are
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: half of the habitat equation. Right, food plus cover equals habitat.
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: If you increase the amount of food without increasing the
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: amount of cover, you will increase the amount of doze
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: on your property. And when you do that, you increase
• 19:49
  Speaker 6: the amount of social pressure on your property, and you
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: will push bucks away time and time and time again.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: The other mistake that I've seen people make, and I've
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: made it myself, is the location of that food plot.
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: Right, You've got a spot.
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: Maybe you did some scouting last fall, you were following
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: those bread crumbs moving in on that buck got really close,
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: didn't happened, And in your mind you're like, well, there's
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: a nice.
• 20:21
  Speaker 7: Little clearing here in the woods.
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: I'm going to turn that into a food plot, create
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: more consistent pull in that spot. When you do that,
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: you reshuffle the deck with betting structure on your property.
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: If that buck was betted on.
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: That point on that ridgeline and you drop that food
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: plot in there. Now, you just turn that buck betting
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: area into a dough betting area, because they always want
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: to bed close to that consistent food source, and that
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: might have pushed that buck off the property or set
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: them up in a position where he's betting where he
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: doesn't want to address that food plot or just doesn't
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: want to show up there during daylight hours. So that's
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: something I think is really really important. Habitat balance is
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: so incredibly important and has not talked about often enough.
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: When your food outweighs your food and cover or true habitat,
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: you will pull in and hold more antlerless deer, or
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: younger deer on your property. The property I was just
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: on the other day, the whole day, every scenario we
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: came across walking on that property, he said the same
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: thing or started the conversation the same way. This spot
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: used to be really good. These deeri used to do this.
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: They used to do that, They used to do this,
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: they used to do that. Okay, next spot, this spot
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: used to be really good. The deer used to do this.
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: They used to do that. Right, And things are changing
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: all the time, but oftentimes we don't observe those changes
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: because it's this frog in the pot of boiling water, right,
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: slow change, We don't really notice them.
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: And then he said, you know, I.
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: Just don't understand why we get mature bucks. We're not
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: wholly mature bucks. And to me, I was, you know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: and obviously my situation is different. That's why I do
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: what I do, right. But ultimately he's, like I said
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: to him, I'm like, it's very obvious.
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: It's very apparent.
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: The only food on your property is cultivated food sources,
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: the food plots. So your balance is off holding so
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: many dos in these areas where the bucks were at
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: this point where if you look at you know, I
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: can look at the timber component there and speculate, you know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: based on stumps, based on the current, the stage of
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: succession with the stand speculate that the property was logged
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: probably thirty or forty years ago, and since that time,
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: you know, it peaks and then it slowly goes downhill.
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: So I say, you'll think back to twenty years ago
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: when this property was at its prime.
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: What did it look like? Oh yeah, it was a
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: lot thicker.
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: Okay, that kind of solves or answers that question, right,
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: But it's thick now in some areas.
• 22:33
  Speaker 7: With invasives, but there's no food value there.
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: So having really good habitat that's balanced to where your
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: cultivated food sources are a small percentage, and really drawing
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: deer into huntable locations creates a better hunting system versus
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: having cover and having food, which just promotes higher herd numbers,
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: but not necessarily quality within that herd. You know, it's
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: not really truly increasing the carrying capacity of the property.
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: It's just holding deer in there certain times of the year.
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: So I see that a lot guys putting a lot
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: of time into food plots and maybe small habitat projects, you.
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: Know, manipulating movement here.
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: There a couple betting area cuts something like that, but
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: nothing that's really truly moving the needle as far as
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: like improving the native forage production, which provides an element
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: to cover and an element of food at the same time.
• 23:20
  Speaker 6: And then you have deer like the does and fonts
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: and young bucks that are a lot more tolerant of pressures.
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: They don't need as much cover. They bed in areas
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: in groups, so they have strength in numbers, not isolation.
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: They will flock to a property like that, and ultimately
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: you'll push the bucks off the property, and then it's
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: just you know, it's kind of a red herring in
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: a lot of situations because you think that you're doing
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: better and then you'll even see glimpses of bucks moving
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: through the property.
• 23:44
  Speaker 7: But it's just not super consistent.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: So for someone that has done some projects, it sounds like,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: if you're in this category, you may need to address
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: the overall health of the habitat and it may be thick,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: but how do we make it thick with benefit?
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: What I'm hearing correct? Yeah, cover with food always be thinking.
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: Cover with food topography is the greatest form of cover.
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: No food value. Thick stand of seaters pretty dang good cover.
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: You know, depending on the climactic conditions, it might be good,
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: might be bad any given day.
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: But no food value.
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: Thick stand of invasives, honeysuckle, buckthorn, pure switch grass. Right,
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: those things provide good cover, no food value, and they
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: can throw your habitat out of balance very very quickly,
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: and that can go against you. It can just you know,
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: it can shrink down the amount of movement on any
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: given day. It can change the dynamic of that herd
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: structure so dramatically that ultimately it increases the amount of
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: pressure on those bucks because when we're not there the herd,
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: the does are putting pressure on those bucks a ton
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: of it.
• 24:49
  Speaker 9: You know.
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: That's why they typically avoid it until it's rough timeframe.
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: But if you watch those doughs on any food plot
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: most year, they're pushing the young bucks around, They're pushing
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: the old bucks around, stuff like that. So it's really
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: really important to maintain a balanced habitat structure and focus
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: on food plots as an attraction base pinch to draw
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: de your into certain areas.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: How does someone address if they're like, man, my habitat's good.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I've done these different things, but you know, I used
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to have two five year olds that I you know,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: like all relative to what part of the country and
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: what your goals are, but just the general hunting of
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: sidings of bucks that get me excited is going down.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: What are potential shortcomings of that well?
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: As far as how to address that. You know, again,
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: every situation is can be different, So how do you
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: analyze that? I think that's the bigger question, right, how
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: do you assess the situation to figure out the next
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: steps forward. I would do an honest assessment of your
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: herd numbers, you know, trail camera surveys, the thermal drone
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: things can be great, you know, depending on the time
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: of the year it has. A thermal herd analysis in January, February,
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: March does not mean a whole lot to you in
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: October November timeframe, so keep that in mind.
• 25:59
  Speaker 8: But getting a a.
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: Semi accurate assessment of what your herd numbers truly are,
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: and a lot of it can be done with visual
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: sightings and trail cameras, Like what is your buck to
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: dough ratio? If your buck to door ratio is way
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: out of whack where you've got three or four dos
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: to every buck, that's a problem in and of itself, right.
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: The other thing would be, you know, how good is
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: your habitat actually, because there's a lot of I guess
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: it's all on a scale of relativity, So how good
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: is your habitat compared to your neighbor's habitat? And then
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: what is the pressure on that We talked about that before,
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: where pressure is all relative too, So you can have
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: really good habitat, but you're still putting a lot of
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: pressure on, right, and your neighbor might have poor habitat,
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: so to speak, but there's no pressure there, So that
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: buck is he's spending his time, his daylight hours on
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: the neighbor's property. And then that buck's showing up on
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: your property to take advantage of the food and mating opportunities.
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: But more often than not it's either inconsistent or it's
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: after dark. So I think the big thing is, you know,
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: address it from a relative scale, look around and see
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: what else is out there, and then you know, analyze
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: that objectively as far as like how much pressure are
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: we putting on the property? Can we get to and
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: from food sources? Can we get to and from food?
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: You know, pinch points where we're hunting in general without
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: bumping deer from betting, without bumping deer from food, because
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: at that point, you're your success rate is going to
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: just slowly diminish throughout the whole season. Right, And then
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: those bucks, there's a there's a concept in ecology.
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: Referred to as landscape of fear.
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: So through time, those bucks will just start to understand like, oh,
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: as I get older and more wiser, and the same
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: with the dose, they'll start to understand it too, but
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: ultimately they learn on the landscape where the perceived threats are.
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: We see this a lot, right, like how many does
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: step out in that food plot and look at that
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: ladder stand in the corner now, because they know that
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: there's a potential threat there, right, And the bucks they
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: just don't tolerate it the same way. So once they
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: perceive a consistent threat, they show up there in the
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: dark when there's added cover. Darkness is a form of cover, right,
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: or they just don't show up there very consistently at all.
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: And when they reach a certain age and this is
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: pretty consist and I see.
• 28:00
  Speaker 7: This a lot.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: Is you know, we're getting deer up to four years
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: of age, and we pass them up and then we
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: never see him as a five year old. Where do
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: they go? Well, there's a lot of things that kill deer.
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: But there's also a lot of reasons why five year
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: old bucks mature bucks in general don't feel the same
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: level of security or see the same level of attraction
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: on a property anymore because of the types of pressure
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: and the type of food sources available to them.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: As you can see, it's say ever sliding scale and
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: strategy is constantly shifting and really enjoyed Thomas's perspective on
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: this topic. Let's go ahead and roll into the next expert,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Jared Vanhas Here we go, all right, Next up we have.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Jared, and I'm gonna run a scenario by you.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Every year, I feel like I try harder, I try harder,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: I plant more food plots, I hang more trees, stands,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I do all these different things in the off season,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: and unfortunately it feels like instead of things getting better,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: things like things are getting worse. What am I doing
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: wrong for everyone out there? That feels like, Man, I
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: just I try so hard, I do all these different things,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: but I feel feel like I'm having less opportunity.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: What could that be?
• 29:04
  Speaker 10: Yeah, there's a few things there.
• 29:06
  Speaker 11: I think if you started a podcast, you have less
• 29:08
  Speaker 11: time in the woods and you're dealing, feel less pressured.
• 29:11
  Speaker 11: But all joking aside, I think you know cutting down.
• 29:15
  Speaker 10: On the pressure.
• 29:16
  Speaker 11: Pressure is so big here in Michigan, and I hunt
• 29:20
  Speaker 11: all over the place. But if you can, if you
• 29:22
  Speaker 11: can control your pressure like we do and try to
• 29:25
  Speaker 11: do here in Michigan, that's only going to help you
• 29:27
  Speaker 11: in whatever state you're in. I think people are over
• 29:31
  Speaker 11: hunting their stands. I think they're hunting too close to
• 29:33
  Speaker 11: the plots. I think the blind locations are probably not perfect.
• 29:36
  Speaker 11: Maybe that's where it was when you bought the farm
• 29:38
  Speaker 11: or got the farm. You got to kind of separate
• 29:42
  Speaker 11: your hunting area from seeing the deer. I could deer
• 29:46
  Speaker 11: viewing area. And I think that when you try hard,
• 29:49
  Speaker 11: you get aggressive, you get I like to think I
• 29:52
  Speaker 11: get desperate and then I make mistakes.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, what about the off season implements? Right, so
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: everyone says you gotta do this to you, you got
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: to do this, But oh but you also can't go
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: into your farm and do these things. You've got to
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: keep pressure low. Where is the balance in your mind
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: of I got to do all these things, but I
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: also am supposed to stay out. So how how do
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: you prioritize projects and pressure And how much does that
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: really matter?
• 30:15
  Speaker 11: I think it matters a ton, But I think it's
• 30:18
  Speaker 11: a timing thing. I think the pressure obviously is during
• 30:23
  Speaker 11: season or a month or two before season.
• 30:25
  Speaker 10: Earlier you can lay off the better.
• 30:27
  Speaker 11: I'm usually doing seventeen different things at once, Like I
• 30:31
  Speaker 11: held the Habitat Day this year at my farm in August,
• 30:35
  Speaker 11: you know, right before season started walking everywhere, getting humans
• 30:38
  Speaker 11: sent everywhere.
• 30:40
  Speaker 10: The bucks were there in season, it was, it was fine.
• 30:43
  Speaker 10: But my point is it's.
• 30:45
  Speaker 11: More important to get the projects done, to get the
• 30:48
  Speaker 11: security cover in there, to get that blind hidden and
• 30:51
  Speaker 11: in the right spot, your access dialed in than it
• 30:55
  Speaker 11: is to stay out all year. For instance, I think
• 30:59
  Speaker 11: that if you stay out all year, but your farm
• 31:02
  Speaker 11: is a wide open woods and you have a food
• 31:04
  Speaker 11: plot out there in the middle kind of be like
• 31:06
  Speaker 11: an open field almost in my eyes, and open woods,
• 31:10
  Speaker 11: you're not gonna be able to fix that by hunting,
• 31:12
  Speaker 11: hunting more or less really as much as the projects
• 31:16
  Speaker 11: you could be doing the other nine months of the year.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: I think that's a great a great point of What
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: about for the people that just like to go out
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and tinker? Can they still go out and tinker?
• 31:28
  Speaker 10: I think you can. I think you can with the
• 31:30
  Speaker 10: right timing.
• 31:32
  Speaker 11: Or I would find other spots to go tinker, you know,
• 31:35
  Speaker 11: find a small permission farm, find some public land and
• 31:39
  Speaker 11: tinker there. I'm just the bucks we're trying to here
• 31:44
  Speaker 11: in Michigan. You know, a three year old, four year
• 31:46
  Speaker 11: old or older are I have made it through a
• 31:48
  Speaker 11: couple of seasons. You know, there's ten acre parcels everywhere
• 31:51
  Speaker 11: with two or three guys on it.
• 31:52
  Speaker 10: It's tough.
• 31:53
  Speaker 11: So I think that if you want a tinker, you
• 31:56
  Speaker 11: don't want to do it where you want to hunt,
• 31:59
  Speaker 11: or if you do, you again, I would just put
• 32:01
  Speaker 11: it July August, cut it off September one as a minimum,
• 32:06
  Speaker 11: and then be very strategic about your hunting versus I'll
• 32:12
  Speaker 11: go out every day and eventually I'm gonna get one.
• 32:14
  Speaker 11: You know, I've flipped that switch and learn from Mark
• 32:16
  Speaker 11: a long time ago, right like less is more, and
• 32:19
  Speaker 11: it truly is. There can be a spot where you
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: go too little and you don't capitalize on the opportunities.
• 32:25
  Speaker 11: I've done that as well, but I think that more
• 32:29
  Speaker 11: is never better in terms of pressure on your spot.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: You had mentioned blind placement and also hiding your blind.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about placement, and then I really
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: want you to drive home hiding your blind. What are
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: some different ways and what does that look like? Because
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: there's people that brush in blinds, like I'm thinking of
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: ground blind where they're really really really brushed in. Obviously,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: an elevated blind a little bit more challenging. How placement
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: first and then let's dive into how to disguise it.
• 32:58
  Speaker 10: Yeah, no, good question.
• 33:00
  Speaker 11: And Jake, I think all out of all the farms
• 33:02
  Speaker 11: I've been on and helped people with consultant on, the
• 33:06
  Speaker 11: biggest thing I see is either wide open timber or
• 33:10
  Speaker 11: blinds on the edge of a food plot. Like in
• 33:12
  Speaker 11: the food plot, it is easier to put them there.
• 33:15
  Speaker 11: You have a tractor, you're driving it in. You can't
• 33:19
  Speaker 11: get in the woods with your attractor.
• 33:20
  Speaker 10: I get it.
• 33:21
  Speaker 11: But when you climb down to that ladder and there's
• 33:24
  Speaker 11: a deer in the food plot, you're you know, you
• 33:25
  Speaker 11: kind of screwed. So what I mean by location, I
• 33:29
  Speaker 11: don't have any blinds that are literally on a plot.
• 33:33
  Speaker 11: I did put one close to one last year due
• 33:35
  Speaker 11: to lack of time, and I got burned for it.
• 33:37
  Speaker 11: You know that dope first dope crest of the hill
• 33:40
  Speaker 11: and looked right over there like silly. So what I
• 33:44
  Speaker 11: try to do is I'll try to put them in
• 33:46
  Speaker 11: between food plots. So I think the whole key is
• 33:48
  Speaker 11: to have a plan with your property, not just multiple
• 33:52
  Speaker 11: food plots multiple blinds. Right, you have to have a
• 33:54
  Speaker 11: whole system understand where the deer coming from and going
• 33:56
  Speaker 11: to obviously, but what is your property lack the neighbors
• 34:01
  Speaker 11: I'll have, and what can you have that they don't.
• 34:04
  Speaker 11: Once you have that figured out, then you get your
• 34:05
  Speaker 11: plots and your blinds in place. I like to hunt
• 34:08
  Speaker 11: transitions with the blinds. I like to set them up
• 34:12
  Speaker 11: in the woods where I can get to with my
• 34:15
  Speaker 11: access very carefully. And one key thing is I don't
• 34:18
  Speaker 11: plant any of my access trails. I'll plant all my
• 34:21
  Speaker 11: other trails through the woods that connect the food plots
• 34:24
  Speaker 11: I use. I'm a tractor in summertime, or my ATV
• 34:26
  Speaker 11: or whatever, but anything that I walk on personally, I
• 34:29
  Speaker 11: don't plant. So imagine where you park your truck. You
• 34:32
  Speaker 11: have maybe a plot in the back corner. You have
• 34:34
  Speaker 11: to get around the edge of it and then up
• 34:36
  Speaker 11: into your blind. I'm not going into my plot one time.
• 34:40
  Speaker 11: Nothing from my plot should be able to see me
• 34:43
  Speaker 11: as I'm either getting there or climbing to my blind
• 34:45
  Speaker 11: So I like to back those those blinds off quite
• 34:48
  Speaker 11: a bit. I like to get in between maybe some
• 34:50
  Speaker 11: hingecut batting area or a betting area that I made.
• 34:53
  Speaker 10: And the plot and then hiding it getting to the
• 34:56
  Speaker 10: fun part. My perfect example or a best way you
• 35:00
  Speaker 10: can see this. I helped under friend's farm many years ago.
• 35:03
  Speaker 10: He had a ton of like twenty foot norways all
• 35:07
  Speaker 10: lining his food plot. What we did is we came
• 35:10
  Speaker 10: in from the back. I don't have those norways, unfortunately,
• 35:12
  Speaker 10: I would do the same thing. Came in from the back.
• 35:15
  Speaker 11: We shoved that blind into those norways as as far
• 35:18
  Speaker 11: as we could towards that plot. He's still about twenty
• 35:21
  Speaker 11: twenty five yards off, and we went up and we
• 35:23
  Speaker 11: cut windows through the norways where you could see. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 11: so if you're a deer and you're coming out back
• 35:30
  Speaker 11: to your example of the blind that's fully brushed in,
• 35:33
  Speaker 11: all you're seeing is a little hole. That's what I'm
• 35:36
  Speaker 11: talking about. And yeah, it might seem a little extreme,
• 35:39
  Speaker 11: and not everybody with their situation has to do that.
• 35:42
  Speaker 11: But if you have the time and you have the
• 35:45
  Speaker 11: opportunity to do that, you're not going to hurt yourself
• 35:47
  Speaker 11: by hiding it to where people can't even see.
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: It.
• 35:50
  Speaker 11: Sounds a little aggressive, but that's the idea to get
• 35:53
  Speaker 11: into your brain before you go in there, Like, can
• 35:54
  Speaker 11: I walk out and just look up at that blind?
• 35:57
  Speaker 11: If you can, I think it's way too obvious.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: What about for someone that doesn't have maybe conifers in
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the area, maybe you could plant. Maybe you could plant
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: some If this is a location that you think is
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: gonna be great for a long time, maybe transplant some
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: What about planning an annual screen in front of it,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: or maybe cutting I don't know, some sort of I'm
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: gonna get in trouble cutting some sort of oak tree
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: that's gonna hold his leavest for a couple of years
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: and stack it in front of it. Like, what are
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: some ideas to help for someone that's like, yeah, now
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: that you say that, Jared, every time I get down,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I hear from and I see Lestier every time I go.
• 36:33
  Speaker 10: Yeah, you've been paying attention in the habitat world, Jake,
• 36:36
  Speaker 10: good job. I think.
• 36:38
  Speaker 11: I think what I have to do, since I don't
• 36:39
  Speaker 11: have those, is what I'll drop trees on fell trees
• 36:42
  Speaker 11: in front of the blind, build a brush pile, or
• 36:46
  Speaker 11: if you're clearing a blind in the woods, like I'm
• 36:47
  Speaker 11: going to do, I push all that into a wall
• 36:50
  Speaker 11: and then the blind will be just peaking over that wall.
• 36:53
  Speaker 11: Things I've planted, you could plant miscanthus lo people go
• 36:58
  Speaker 11: back and forth on that. But I've planted some in
• 36:59
  Speaker 11: front of the eyeblinds and that actually grows up really
• 37:02
  Speaker 11: nice in front of the blinds. You could do switch grass.
• 37:05
  Speaker 11: The idea is, whether you're planting trees, cutting down trees,
• 37:09
  Speaker 11: building piles, you're hiding your access to that blind. You're
• 37:13
  Speaker 11: hiding yourself climbing into that blind, and you're trying to
• 37:16
  Speaker 11: hide the blind as much as you can. So, yeah,
• 37:19
  Speaker 11: all the things you mentioned, even hingecutting. I've hinge cut
• 37:22
  Speaker 11: a bunch of maples in front of a blind. They
• 37:24
  Speaker 11: stay alive, they start to grow up. You have to
• 37:26
  Speaker 11: trim every now and then. But I mean anything you
• 37:29
  Speaker 11: can do to really put some cover between you and
• 37:33
  Speaker 11: that location you're hunting. That could be a scrape, it
• 37:36
  Speaker 11: could be a food put, it could be a fields
• 37:38
  Speaker 11: wherever you want to go. I just think it's super important.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that is a great piece of advice.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: As some other things to add into that, like like
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: a locust tree or a heade tree, you kind of
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: branch is going to come back with vigor and it's
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: just going to keep getting thicker, you know, the more
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you do that. And so I think just getting creative
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: and do you think typically the reason why people feel
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: like they do more, They do more, but they have
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: less success. Is it typically the main in the mirror
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: or is it like, what are some other common common
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: thing themes there.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I could go on and on on my opinions, but
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I want yours.
• 38:13
  Speaker 11: No, I think, and it's the men in the mirror. Sure,
• 38:16
  Speaker 11: it could be your neighbors. You could have some some
• 38:18
  Speaker 11: fun neighbors sarcastically. You could have a bad location, access
• 38:23
  Speaker 11: could be bad getting in there where your win's wrung.
• 38:25
  Speaker 11: You could have shot the first couple of deer that
• 38:28
  Speaker 11: come into that stand that year, and then you're spending
• 38:31
  Speaker 11: that night, you know, dragging them out, trailing them all
• 38:34
  Speaker 11: over and getting your son all over the place before
• 38:36
  Speaker 11: it even gets good. I think any of those, I mean,
• 38:41
  Speaker 11: you just got to really think, do I want what
• 38:44
  Speaker 11: do I want to shoot here?
• 38:45
  Speaker 10: What's my target? What's my goal?
• 38:47
  Speaker 11: And am I doing the right things that are getting
• 38:50
  Speaker 11: me closer or am I doing the things that are
• 38:52
  Speaker 11: separating me further from that goal? So I think you're
• 38:55
  Speaker 11: right there. I think sent I think hunting less. You
• 38:59
  Speaker 11: know the pressure, and we always talk about that. I
• 39:02
  Speaker 11: have two maybe three hunting spots on forty acres and
• 39:07
  Speaker 11: I think I hunted there last year just to get
• 39:10
  Speaker 11: my kids out with me, even maybe five or six
• 39:13
  Speaker 11: times the year. So that's the type of pressure I'm
• 39:17
  Speaker 11: talking about, and that sucks when you put the money
• 39:19
  Speaker 11: in time into a place. I mean, if you start
• 39:22
  Speaker 11: going more than that, the bucks start to disappear.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Now some of the when people call consultant, it's not
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: because hey, man, I've been on a heat for the
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: last five years. I've killed every target buck and things
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: are great, but I want to pay you to come
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: pat me on the back for a day. When you
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: go or when you're someone calls you because they have
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: a problem to fix what typically is the lowest hole
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: in the bucket, or maybe like or maybe what is
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the elfant in the room, the awkward conversation that you
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: often find yourself, you know, walking into when you show up.
• 40:06
  Speaker 11: I have had some of those guys who call me
• 40:08
  Speaker 11: and just want the pad on the back or more.
• 40:10
  Speaker 11: I shouldn't say like that. It's more of an affirmation
• 40:12
  Speaker 11: of what they're doing is correct. Sure, And I'm always like,
• 40:15
  Speaker 11: you're doing a great job.
• 40:16
  Speaker 10: Keep it up. You're gonna make me look great. I
• 40:17
  Speaker 10: appreciate it right.
• 40:18
  Speaker 11: Just But but what the biggest hole in the buck
• 40:22
  Speaker 11: or the elephant in the room is that I've been
• 40:25
  Speaker 11: on in Michigan, Ohio, Louisiana where all the places I've been,
• 40:30
  Speaker 11: I think timber harvest needs to be completed on I'll
• 40:38
  Speaker 11: say ninety eight percent of what I've been on TSI
• 40:42
  Speaker 11: timber harvest sunlight to the forest floor. That's number one.
• 40:46
  Speaker 11: Number two I think is blind location, stand location. And
• 40:50
  Speaker 11: I don't know if they're telling me the truth about
• 40:51
  Speaker 11: how often they hunted either, So maybe a pair of
• 40:54
  Speaker 11: those two together is two and three. And then I
• 40:57
  Speaker 11: think lack of quality food. You know, I might have
• 41:02
  Speaker 11: some grain, some ridgrain I threw out there, maybe some
• 41:05
  Speaker 11: clover that's on year six and it's doing okay. Like
• 41:08
  Speaker 11: make this, you know, the buffalo wild wings wherever you
• 41:13
  Speaker 11: like to eat, Like make that the spot where your
• 41:15
  Speaker 11: neighbors don't have better.
• 41:16
  Speaker 10: Food than you.
• 41:17
  Speaker 11: So basically those are maybe two or three things, but
• 41:20
  Speaker 11: I think it's a whole system. And then you really
• 41:24
  Speaker 11: have to have it work as a system and not
• 41:27
  Speaker 11: so much of a hunting spot, because if you aren't
• 41:30
  Speaker 11: going to be there in daylight, what's the point of
• 41:33
  Speaker 11: all this, right.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: It would make for a long, very frustrating season.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, have you been to a farm where it's been
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: too thick because everyone says, oh, things need to be thicker,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: you need to have you know, all these different things.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And then have you been on a wonder like, holy cow,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: we need to dial this back a little bit so
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: they actually want to be here instead of just a
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: hornet's nest of whatever is growing.
• 41:56
  Speaker 11: Yeah, and but there's not been a lot of them.
• 41:59
  Speaker 11: The one that I would on that I'm that's coming
• 42:01
  Speaker 11: to my mind as in northern Michigan.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 42:03
  Speaker 10: And the reason it was too thick is because it
• 42:05
  Speaker 10: was clear cut.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 42:07
  Speaker 11: The guy the guy picked it up after it was
• 42:08
  Speaker 11: clear cut, probably got a good price on it. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 11: all the aspen and young maple were just you know,
• 42:15
  Speaker 11: making the walls the deer. We're getting through there still,
• 42:19
  Speaker 11: But I think if you were able to go in
• 42:22
  Speaker 11: there and carve pathways through where you want them to go,
• 42:24
  Speaker 11: they're going to take the path at least resistance.
• 42:26
  Speaker 10: So, yes, I have been on those.
• 42:29
  Speaker 11: Even even down south you have the oh my goodness,
• 42:33
  Speaker 11: I'm black out on the name of that, that real
• 42:35
  Speaker 11: viny stuff. That all these guys, thank you, cause it's
• 42:38
  Speaker 11: very high in proaching. But man, does that make a
• 42:40
  Speaker 11: wall that you cannot get through? So in those in
• 42:43
  Speaker 11: those cases, we recommend going through there and at least
• 42:46
  Speaker 11: making some some paths and navigable areas for these tier
• 42:51
  Speaker 11: But I mean that's I've.
• 42:53
  Speaker 10: Not seen that very often. It's only a couple, Okay, all.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Right, anything else come to mind?
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: For someone that wants to have the best season ever
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: and they've been licking their wounds here since season closed.
• 43:05
  Speaker 11: Yeah, just just reflect back on maybe what you've done
• 43:07
  Speaker 11: in the past, write that down and see do some research,
• 43:13
  Speaker 11: do some habitat work, figure out what you could do
• 43:15
  Speaker 11: to make your hunting better. Because this stuff works, Man,
• 43:17
  Speaker 11: this habitat stuff, it works. And I'm not the only
• 43:21
  Speaker 11: ones saying that. Look on YouTube, you know it's all
• 43:23
  Speaker 11: over the place. But if you can start to maybe
• 43:26
  Speaker 11: dial back your pressure, increase your your property value for
• 43:31
  Speaker 11: for der habitat, make them want to be there, make
• 43:34
  Speaker 11: them want to be there more often. Don't have them
• 43:36
  Speaker 11: there after dark through the morning and think you're you know,
• 43:40
  Speaker 11: your midnight truck and my pictures are are are great,
• 43:44
  Speaker 11: they're cool, But at the end of the day, if
• 43:45
  Speaker 11: it's not in daylight, I'm not even showing up. So
• 43:48
  Speaker 11: like I would, I would just focus on thinking up
• 43:50
  Speaker 11: that place, getting high quality food in, and controlling your
• 43:53
  Speaker 11: pressure and your wind.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: One of my key takeaways here is sometimes we work
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: harder so we work further from our goals based off
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: of our own actions, which I understand if everyone has
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: different levels of enjoyment to deer hunting and everything else.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: But this is for the folks that are just constantly
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: trying to continue to evolve and grow. And I feel
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: like that's really just the human condition of wanting to
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: improve on something that you work really hard towards. And
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: so let's go and roll into this specific dilemma, this question,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: this pondering piece with Kyle, with team radically, Kyle, you've
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: had a lot of success over the years, consistent success too.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like oftentimes people go in peaks and valleys
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: in their deer hunting journey where it feels like they
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: can't do anything wrong and there's time for it feels
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: like they can do everything wrong. So this is for
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: someone that feels like, man, I'm trying all these different things.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to the podcast. I'm doing everything by the book.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: I'm trying really hard, doing the offseason prep, hanging the cameras,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: hanging the stands, doing the food plots. But it feels
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: like the harder I work, the less success I have
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: outlier or what am I potentially doing wrong?
• 45:03
  Speaker 8: Oh that's loaded. Uh yeah, there's there's a lot of
• 45:06
  Speaker 8: things that you could be doing wrong.
• 45:07
  Speaker 9: And I think the biggest one I contribute to is
• 45:09
  Speaker 9: adapting to the situation. So many times we have success
• 45:14
  Speaker 9: out of one tree stand, one spot, and we just
• 45:17
  Speaker 9: we just rely on that, you know, we go back
• 45:20
  Speaker 9: to that, I know I needed this wind direction and
• 45:22
  Speaker 9: it's gonna work, and I'm gonna get him right here,
• 45:24
  Speaker 9: you know, and we get complacent and we just think, man,
• 45:28
  Speaker 9: it worked two years ago or for the last three years,
• 45:30
  Speaker 9: it all worked this year, And that doesn't That's not
• 45:33
  Speaker 9: always the case, you know, I'll rewind. Just a couple
• 45:35
  Speaker 9: of years ago. I was kind of in the same
• 45:38
  Speaker 9: same slump. My target Buck was coming into the where
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: I was hunting after hours of shooting light and he
• 45:45
  Speaker 9: was hitting the scrape that I had there in this
• 45:48
  Speaker 9: pinch down area right where I killed, you know, and
• 45:51
  Speaker 9: it's historically been a fantastic spot, but I could not
• 45:55
  Speaker 9: get that buck to come through there in daylight. I
• 45:57
  Speaker 9: knew which direction this year was coming from. I knew
• 46:00
  Speaker 9: I needed to change it up, do something different, and
• 46:02
  Speaker 9: I did something I've never done in my life. I
• 46:06
  Speaker 9: had a buddy actually come with me, and it's quite
• 46:10
  Speaker 9: it was too far of a walk to walk it.
• 46:12
  Speaker 9: So what I ended up doing is I put my
• 46:15
  Speaker 9: e bike on the back of my side by side.
• 46:17
  Speaker 9: My buddy drove me to the tree that I wanted
• 46:20
  Speaker 9: to be in. I took my e bike off of
• 46:23
  Speaker 9: my side by side, laid it at the base of
• 46:26
  Speaker 9: the tree, hung the set while the side by side
• 46:28
  Speaker 9: was running the entire time he left, And two hours
• 46:32
  Speaker 9: later I killed my target buck right there at eight yards.
• 46:35
  Speaker 8: And what happened is to several things. One that I've
• 46:38
  Speaker 8: noticed is, you.
• 46:39
  Speaker 9: Know, they become they're not scared of like a side
• 46:42
  Speaker 9: by side or a motor motorized vehicle.
• 46:44
  Speaker 8: They might run a little bit, but they're not going
• 46:46
  Speaker 8: to be super spooked.
• 46:47
  Speaker 9: Whereas if I just walked in or just e biked
• 46:50
  Speaker 9: only in with the stand on my back, they absolutely
• 46:53
  Speaker 9: would have took off, you know, most likely and so
• 46:56
  Speaker 9: that's been adapting to the situation, right, adapting to what
• 47:00
  Speaker 9: I was seeing on my intel on the trail cameras,
• 47:02
  Speaker 9: knowing that he's coming further from the east. But that
• 47:05
  Speaker 9: means I'm thinking he's in daylight somewhere over there to
• 47:08
  Speaker 9: the east, because it's just after daylight when he's getting
• 47:10
  Speaker 9: to where I want him. And so a situation like
• 47:13
  Speaker 9: that was was huge. And you know, maybe it's a
• 47:16
  Speaker 9: food plot and you've had great success. I've got another scenario.
• 47:20
  Speaker 9: We've killed five or six mature bucks out of this
• 47:22
  Speaker 9: one tree over the last ten years, one hundred and
• 47:25
  Speaker 9: sixty inch average on these five bucks.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: But the deer has caught up. Okay, maybe I don't
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: want to run that spot. I see if I hunt
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: that spot sometimes.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's fantastic.
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: But now it's burnt up. It's burnt up.
• 47:40
  Speaker 9: I mean I burnt it out straight up. The deer
• 47:43
  Speaker 9: actually take a whole different route whenever they come. Instead
• 47:46
  Speaker 9: of coming out into this nice little kill plot, they
• 47:49
  Speaker 9: actually go around it and cut through, got through the
• 47:51
  Speaker 9: actual timber to come into the to the actual destination plot.
• 47:55
  Speaker 8: So I burnt it out. I mean, over time shooting
• 47:57
  Speaker 8: those bucks.
• 47:58
  Speaker 9: It educated all the other deer that were with them,
• 48:00
  Speaker 9: in my opinion, and you know, they just pass it
• 48:03
  Speaker 9: on from generation to generation now, So adapting to the situation,
• 48:07
  Speaker 9: like just because it's worked once or twice doesn't mean
• 48:09
  Speaker 9: it's going to work again. Always always be mentally sharp
• 48:13
  Speaker 9: and yeah, being willing to adapt to the situation. And
• 48:16
  Speaker 9: you're gonna watch social media. You're gonna see everybody and
• 48:19
  Speaker 9: their brother It looks like shooting a mature buck and
• 48:22
  Speaker 9: killing these world class white tails.
• 48:24
  Speaker 8: But you I know how it feels. Trust me, I
• 48:26
  Speaker 8: get it.
• 48:27
  Speaker 9: But you got to stay mentally sharp and be willing
• 48:30
  Speaker 9: to adapt and try something different, and even if it's
• 48:34
  Speaker 9: out of your comfort zone, just you got to try,
• 48:37
  Speaker 9: you know, to never give up. And I'm a firm
• 48:41
  Speaker 9: believer in results or excuses. Can't have both.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I think that's a great way to put that.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes, you know, the root of this question,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: as I framed it, was sometimes doing things harder or
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: doing the same thing that has been you know, marginal success.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: But I'm just going to do more of what has
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: kind of worked in the past and do that more
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: and more and more. And you're saying maybe completely rethink
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the strategy or to your point, the tree that was
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: magical is no longer magical, and that likely could be
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the case for a lot of different Everyone has the
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: favorite spot, but it might not be It shouldn't be
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: your favorite anymore. And I think, would you say their
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: job for this summer, for scouting everything else is to
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: look at things objectively or outside the box, or maybe
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: rethink the strategy and really tune into the fundamentals.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: But maybe try some French strategy.
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean think outside the box.
• 49:33
  Speaker 9: Just you know it might someone who months told me,
• 49:36
  Speaker 9: I know it's so simple, but they're like, you can't
• 49:38
  Speaker 9: learn a thing with your mouth open, and I'm like,
• 49:42
  Speaker 9: that's valid. You know, always be listening because, like you
• 49:46
  Speaker 9: not on your podcast here, you might just get a
• 49:48
  Speaker 9: little tidbit that will, you know, change the way that
• 49:52
  Speaker 9: you hunt forever or for that next season, one of
• 49:55
  Speaker 9: the two, maybe both, whatever, but don't be don't be
• 50:00
  Speaker 9: afraid to change it up. You know, if it's not working,
• 50:02
  Speaker 9: they're busting you on your access or exit or you know.
• 50:06
  Speaker 9: Another big one I didn't mention Jake is I had
• 50:08
  Speaker 9: this spot that was it's literally one of the best
• 50:11
  Speaker 9: spots I have. It's it's that transition area. It's where
• 50:14
  Speaker 9: I killed that buck I called Uno. I chased for
• 50:16
  Speaker 9: six years, and one of the problems I was having
• 50:18
  Speaker 9: was getting in of a morning. You know, I would
• 50:22
  Speaker 9: walk in quiet. It's not a very far walk. They
• 50:25
  Speaker 9: shouldn't be there, I wouldn't think, But it's a transition area.
• 50:27
  Speaker 9: And so what was happening is a deer we're coming
• 50:30
  Speaker 9: from their betting to the food. But at the same time,
• 50:34
  Speaker 9: there was deer in the food going to their bedding,
• 50:36
  Speaker 9: you know, right, so that transition area. So right at daylight,
• 50:40
  Speaker 9: you know, before daylight, there's deer that's inside of that
• 50:43
  Speaker 9: transition area. And so what I did was, you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 9: because it worked all the years past, it worked, but
• 50:50
  Speaker 9: now it wasn't working, and I was getting mad, and
• 50:53
  Speaker 9: so what I decided to do is I started going
• 50:56
  Speaker 9: in right at gray light. You know, it was actually daylight.
• 51:00
  Speaker 9: It was well into shooting hours, legal shooting hours. I
• 51:03
  Speaker 9: don't know if I was seven am, whatever it is,
• 51:06
  Speaker 9: But right at gray light, I'd sneak in and I
• 51:08
  Speaker 9: would bust a single deer because what had happened is
• 51:10
  Speaker 9: the deer that came from the betting that was going
• 51:12
  Speaker 9: to the food is already in the food.
• 51:14
  Speaker 8: The deer that were in the food that was going
• 51:15
  Speaker 8: to betting, they're already in their bed.
• 51:17
  Speaker 9: And then you know, as soon as I got set up, boom,
• 51:20
  Speaker 9: there was deer standing out of their beds coming through
• 51:22
  Speaker 9: to get to the food vice versa from the food
• 51:24
  Speaker 9: going to the bed or you know, searching for a
• 51:26
  Speaker 9: dough whatever it may be. That was a huge game
• 51:30
  Speaker 9: changer for me. So little tidbits like that, just changing
• 51:34
  Speaker 9: it up, be willing to adapt to the situation. Yeah,
• 51:37
  Speaker 9: and if something's not working, change it, change it, don't
• 51:40
  Speaker 9: There's there's no other, no other, nothing else to talk
• 51:44
  Speaker 9: about there in my opinion.
• 51:45
  Speaker 8: Like you need to change, you need to be willing
• 51:47
  Speaker 8: to change.
• 51:48
  Speaker 9: And yeah, you can work your tail off putting in
• 51:52
  Speaker 9: food plots, tree stand maintenance, whatever it may be. But
• 51:56
  Speaker 9: it goes back to getting complacent, like I've got that
• 51:58
  Speaker 9: standing there, I'm just gonna le it there and eventually
• 52:01
  Speaker 9: I'll get my shot. Right, No, I mean you only
• 52:04
  Speaker 9: got you only got you know, however, many days of
• 52:06
  Speaker 9: November and then you've only got so many days to hunt, period, right,
• 52:10
  Speaker 9: whether it's other commitments, whatever it may be so you
• 52:14
  Speaker 9: need to be aggressive, patient but aggressive at the same time,
• 52:17
  Speaker 9: if that makes sense.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the easiest things to say and
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: one of the hardest things to do when you get
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: caught up in the season, for sure.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: And that's uh like all the and.
• 52:25
  Speaker 9: Especially with social media, it's really easy, Yeah, to think
• 52:29
  Speaker 9: that you are you are the worst, you are the
• 52:32
  Speaker 9: world's worst hunter. Literally everyone you know has shot a
• 52:35
  Speaker 9: big mature buck. But you I get it, I know
• 52:38
  Speaker 9: how it feels. But trust yourself, trust the process, but
• 52:43
  Speaker 9: be willing to adapt to the situation.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Something that has always been a theme of uh
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: like a lot of the greats and and uh and
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: I mean that sincerely is you know like and they
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: all say some variation of this sentence. I learned at
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: one point, the less I hunted, the more success I had.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: And I feel like that is such a hard thing
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: to fully Like, we can hear that, we can think that,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: you know, like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna hunt less. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: to your point, there's fomo, there's guilt when you don't
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: hunt when you have time, like to your point, you
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: only have so many days. And even it's a it's
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know October seventeenth, and it's sixty five degrees
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: and you really have a rewn reason to go, and
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: you feel guilty if you don't go right, And a
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: lot of people will say, well, you should go. You
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: can't kill him from the couch. But I think you
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: have to realize what your goals are. And I think
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: it's somewhat fool should not listen to the people that
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: have been doing it for forty years and they've they
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: figured that out because they were that guy.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Where do you fall on that?
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, no, one hundred percent. Hunting less is more,
• 53:37
  Speaker 8: There's no question.
• 53:38
  Speaker 9: I mean now I can hunt literally almost every day
• 53:41
  Speaker 9: if I wanted to, I do knock and a lot
• 53:45
  Speaker 9: of different factors there right the time of the season, season,
• 53:48
  Speaker 9: the wind direction, whatever it may be.
• 53:51
  Speaker 8: But I do hunt a lot.
• 53:53
  Speaker 9: With that said, I don't go in and hunt my
• 53:56
  Speaker 9: best stands just all the time. You know, I don't
• 53:58
  Speaker 9: just burn them out late season's a different animal.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: I'm not.
• 54:03
  Speaker 9: I hunted that same stand literally or stand or blind
• 54:06
  Speaker 9: those two spots literally every single time, thirteen times in
• 54:09
  Speaker 9: a row, whatever it was.
• 54:11
  Speaker 8: But I was very smart about it.
• 54:14
  Speaker 9: But with that said, yes, I'll do a lot of
• 54:17
  Speaker 9: observation sets where I'm sitting off the X, I'm not
• 54:20
  Speaker 9: on the X, and I'm just I'm observing. I'm seeing
• 54:24
  Speaker 9: what the deer are doing. You know, what kind of
• 54:27
  Speaker 9: demeanor they have, what kind of attitude are they? You know,
• 54:30
  Speaker 9: are they in the chase and phase or are they
• 54:32
  Speaker 9: just still feeding.
• 54:32
  Speaker 8: On the acorns.
• 54:34
  Speaker 9: A lot of that will will be very beneficial to you,
• 54:37
  Speaker 9: because it's not gonna be the same everywhere.
• 54:39
  Speaker 8: You know, just three minutes down the road it might
• 54:41
  Speaker 8: look like it's full on rut.
• 54:42
  Speaker 9: And here I've got a year and a half olds,
• 54:45
  Speaker 9: you know, and two year olds that are literally just
• 54:47
  Speaker 9: chewing on acorns with five do's passed by and could
• 54:50
  Speaker 9: care less. So it is important to be out there
• 54:53
  Speaker 9: or at least let your trail cameras do the work
• 54:55
  Speaker 9: for you in some of those scenarios. But also don't rely.
• 54:59
  Speaker 9: I think too many people rely on trail cameras way
• 55:03
  Speaker 9: too much. And that's a whole other topic. But and
• 55:07
  Speaker 9: that's easy to do. Get caught up in, right, is
• 55:09
  Speaker 9: just only pay attention to your trail cameras. But yeah,
• 55:14
  Speaker 9: you're one hundredercent right. Hunting Less is more, for sure,
• 55:18
  Speaker 9: especially in your really good spots. You need to keep
• 55:20
  Speaker 9: those for the prime dates the wind that you know
• 55:23
  Speaker 9: is going to be ideal. But I also think on
• 55:26
  Speaker 9: the same sense too, is too many people want the
• 55:29
  Speaker 9: perfect wind jake. You know, they want that you know,
• 55:32
  Speaker 9: the deer is going to be on the north side
• 55:34
  Speaker 9: of them, and then they got a north wind and
• 55:36
  Speaker 9: it's just they're going to be completely upwind of them.
• 55:39
  Speaker 9: And I think that is a huge mistake that most
• 55:42
  Speaker 9: or a lot of hunters make.
• 55:44
  Speaker 8: They want the perfect wind.
• 55:46
  Speaker 9: I always like to give them a little bit of
• 55:48
  Speaker 9: the wind, but don't give them all of it, obviously,
• 55:51
  Speaker 9: but that that cross wind, you know, And that's why
• 55:55
  Speaker 9: I really like edges. And that doesn't mean just edges
• 55:57
  Speaker 9: of food plots, but it could be a bluff, it
• 55:59
  Speaker 9: could be a creep. I think it could be lots
• 56:01
  Speaker 9: of different things of different terrain to utilize. But that's
• 56:06
  Speaker 9: why I like those edges from my wind directions. Yeah,
• 56:10
  Speaker 9: but yeah, that's that's huge, is the wind. I mean,
• 56:13
  Speaker 9: they want that perfect wind. And I can't recall hardly
• 56:18
  Speaker 9: any bucks that have ever killed that have been straight upwind.
• 56:23
  Speaker 9: They're always you know, they're not there, but they're halfway
• 56:26
  Speaker 9: close to you know, that crosswind.
• 56:29
  Speaker 8: So that's just something taken consideration too.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: I guess as far as.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Throughout the summer months, what's one action that someone can
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: take to ensure they're going to have a better season
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: than last one?
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: One specific thing. There's a bunch of things that they
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: could do, but one thing that sticks out to you.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 56:48
  Speaker 8: So I'll give you two quick here, yep.
• 56:51
  Speaker 9: But what one is a lot of times I would
• 56:54
  Speaker 9: say seventy to eighty percent of the bucks that I
• 56:56
  Speaker 9: see in summer velvet eight of them at some point
• 57:01
  Speaker 9: they're going to be there in late season as well.
• 57:04
  Speaker 9: So that's something to keep in the back of your
• 57:06
  Speaker 9: mind right down, whatever you need to do.
• 57:09
  Speaker 8: But also during the.
• 57:10
  Speaker 9: Summer months, I'm specifically looking for specific bucks, my target bucks,
• 57:16
  Speaker 9: and and that's that's really it. And trying to get
• 57:19
  Speaker 9: the list of which bucks I want to hunt, where
• 57:21
  Speaker 9: I need to hunt, whether that's okay, well this buck
• 57:24
  Speaker 9: is way over here and I've not got anything of
• 57:27
  Speaker 9: camera on him.
• 57:28
  Speaker 8: He is a giant. I want to hunt him.
• 57:29
  Speaker 9: Then I might be going knock on doors trying to
• 57:31
  Speaker 9: figure out where he's going to be at during the fall.
• 57:34
  Speaker 9: So that's really how I use the summer months as
• 57:38
  Speaker 9: far as for velvet for scouting. But those are the
• 57:41
  Speaker 9: two big things that are takeaways for me for the
• 57:44
  Speaker 9: velvet scouting.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I love it all right out. Where can people find you?
• 57:49
  Speaker 9: Yeah, you can check us out on YouTube, Team Radical,
• 57:52
  Speaker 9: check us out on Instagram, Team Underscore Radical, and facebooking
• 57:56
  Speaker 9: funds Team Radical Outdoors. We've got lots of videos, a
• 57:59
  Speaker 9: lot it's good content and we'd love to have you
• 58:02
  Speaker 9: guys follow along with us.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: All right, there, you guys have it.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this mini series with this group
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: of experts on the Back forty podcast. We're going to
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: have a new panel coming up here on the next
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: episode of Back forty. Hopefully this discussion this episode had
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: some thought provoking thoughts for yourself and how you're planning
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: up this upcoming season from a strategy standpoint, from a
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: goal perspective, from all the different things that go into
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: a white tail season. And I really thought this topic
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: for me most reflective was are your goals reality and
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: are your actions working you towards your goals or further away?
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: And you're the stained busy and there's nothing wrong with that,
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: but I think these are the thought provoking questions that
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: we all should have at times.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. We'll see you
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: next time, Say yea