Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 386: Rut Hunting Public and Pressured Land with Aaron Warbritton and Greg Clements

Transcript

Ep. 386: Rut Hunting Public and Pressured Land with Aaron Warbritton and Greg Clements · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and eighty six, and today the show, I'm joined by
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron Warburton's and Greg Clements from the Hunting Public to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: talk about hunting the white tail rut on public land
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: or heavily pressured properties. All right, welcome to the Wired
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today we're
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: talking to rut. All right, it's that time of year
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and we've got a great line up for it with
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Greg Clemens and Aaron Warburton from the Hunting Public. Hopefully
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you guys are watching their stuff. It's great. Uh. They
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: have been able to kill a lot of great deer
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: public land all across the country, and they're doing it
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in some really interesting and in aggressive ways. So today
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: we dive into all of those different strategies they're using
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the things they've learned, um, basically every different thing you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: could possibly want to know about chasing deer in places
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: where other people are chasing them too. That's what we're
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: gonna learn about so highly recommend this. Now that said,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: we kind of have a two part episode here because
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: we also have an introduction conversation with myself and the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: nine Fingered Wonder Dan Johnson. We had to catch up
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: on our hunts. So if you are a longtime listener
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and you care about what I'm doing in the woods
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: or what Dan's doing in the woods, tune into that one.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And that's something like the first forty or forty five minutes, um.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And if you want to hear about how my personal
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: run hunts have been going, I've been hunting I think
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: fifteen or as of now, fifteen of the last seventeen days,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I believe. So you'll hear about my public land hunt
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, and you're gonna hear about the first seven
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: eight nine days or so of my hunt for Tran
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: my number one buck in Michigan. Um, it's been an
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: up and down roller coaster ride. Uh So, if you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: want to hear about that, including a little something that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I borrowed from the Hunting Public play playbook, you should
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: tune into that part. But if you don't care about
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that and you just want to get to Aaron and Greg,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: fast forward about forty five minutes, we'll get into that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: conversation and then there'll be another, jeez, I don't know,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: hour and forty five minutes of straight strategy talk. So
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: we got a real banger of an episode. I should
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: stop talking to so you get get into it. But
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I will tell you here in the beginning. I hope
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: you're having a blast out there in the woods. I
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: hope you are putting everything we've been talking to into action,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: executing on these ideas and chasing that dream that November is.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Make sure you're enjoying it. I know that I sometimes
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: get hung up on the success quote unquote and whether
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: or not I'm achieving my goal, and it takes away
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the fun on occasion, and I've been guilty of this.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I'm falling prey to it a little bit this year.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Try not to do that. Try to learn from my
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: mistakes and getting two worked up and stressed about these things,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and and just enjoy each day for what it is,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: because that's why we're hunting, right. If you can't be
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: out there enjoying it, enjoying the the nature around you
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and the process and the chase itself, then what the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: heck are you doing? Phil The freezer, yeah, kill some bucks, yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: but enjoy everything that gets you there in the first place.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So that's it for me today. Good luck, and here
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is my conversation with Dan, and then after that Aaron
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and Greg enjoy and now I've got the one and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: only Dan Johnson with us. Uh. I'm glad we're finally
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: going to do this. I've wanted to have you on
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks and our schedules are just
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a mess lately, but we got a lot we have
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to catch up on because we've been both of us
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: have been pretty busy over the last couple of weeks
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: with hunts, and uh, we gotta cover those projects. Projects projects.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So I think I told you. I know
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I told you this when I was in Michigan, but
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think we ever, you know, just discussed it
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on air. But so we had like this home remodeling
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: project that was supposed to get done this summer. Well
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: it kept getting pushed back and push back and push back,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and it's still not finished. But we're at a stopping
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: point so I can disappear for two weeks type of deal,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So on Saturday, I literally
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: finished painting and putting hardware on these cabinets and doing
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: some other stuff to to where I can go hunt now,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: thank goodness, just in the nick of time. Just in
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the nick of time, that's a fact. Well, I'm glad
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to hear that you. You've managed to get out hunting
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: quite a bit this year, though, it seems like between
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: your trips and then what I've seen on Instagram. So uh,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I remember the days not that long ago, a few
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: years ago, where we be doing podcasts like this, and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you'd be like, I don't think I'll get to go
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: to hunt at all in October. I would I throw
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a connection. So I'm glad that's not the case anymore, right, Well,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I mean when it comes to Iowa, it's almost like
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I need to plan, you know, how I plan the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: trip to Michigan, Where I plan the trip to South Dakota.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I need to just plan solid blocks of time away
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: like I am doing for this rut. To even just
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: get into the timber close by, just say okay, three days,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: it's almost easier for me to disappear. And even if
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I just threw a tent in my backyard to come
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: then it is to come home every night I know
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: exactly what you mean. I was just thinking, like, man,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: like it's I of course I love getting home to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: see the family and everything, but it does make it
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: hard in a different kind of way. Sometimes you just
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: kind of if you can, just like you said, just
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: kind of disappear for a while and focus on that thing,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and they can focus on their thing and then come
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: back and be there. But when you're like not there
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: thirty percent there, it's almost worse. Sometimes it seems like, yeah, yeah,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, I'm just gonna preface our conversation
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: today by saying that I might say things that don't
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: make any sense. I might have run on sentences, I
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: might completely forget what we're talking about because I'm just drained. Man,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I am drained. Um. So I'll explain more about that momentarily.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But already I can't even find the worst Alrightish, could
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you do that for me? Um? I've hunted thirteen in
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the last fifteen days. I just figured out and uh,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in a lot of mornings and all days and all
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So I'm kind of hitting the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: wall today. Today I hit a wall, um. But but
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: first we gotta rewind, because we haven't got to talk
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: about your Michigan hunt on this podcast yet, and I'll
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I'll send everyone to your show to the Nine Finger
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Chronicles for the full scoop. We covered it in detail.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: We talked a lot about your thoughts and what you
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: thought about Michigan and my thoughts on Michigan versus Iowa
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and everything like that. And that was a pretty it
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: was a good conversation. But can you give us, like
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the as as we say here the cliff notes version
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of how the hunt go and and kind of now
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: two weeks later, what your thoughts are on it? Um
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: for the folks that haven't heard that conversation yet, absolutely,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: malamer No, I didn't. Did I see a slammer? Nope?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Did I see one Spike Buck? Yep? Did he come
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in after dark after shooting light? Yep? And uh, that's
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: pretty much how Michigan went for me. Yeah, so you
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: saw a few deer. Big takeaways on the experience, Well,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I tell you what, man Um, I know now and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: this is just my my view of it from where
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I sat. Um. I know now why Michigan holds so
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: many deer and why there's a good population of deer
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: in Michigan because the terrain and the vegetation that I
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: was hunting was extremely thick and nasty, and to be
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: honest with you, fun, Um, I love doing that tiptoe
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: creeping type of running gun hunting into places that I've
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: never been before. And uh, it's it's almost like Michigan
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: is once one or two steps away from just like
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: holding some monsters between the egg in between the thick
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: cover that they have. Man, it it was fun. Yeah,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Like like we talked about the other day, we we've
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: definitely got the habitat and there's little pockets where some
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: big boys can can get the age they need to
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to get to that point. But but you know there's
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: other areas where there's lots and lots of hunters and
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: not a lot of mature box and etcetera, etcetera. You
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: also talked about the dear behavior and how different you
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: felt that was. Um, tell me about that. Tell We
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: got to expand on that a little bit because they
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: are a little different. Yeah. So it's funny you brought
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: this up now because I just had a day where
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I saw like thirteen does was it? Uh, Friday night?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Was it? It was either Friday night? Yeah, it might
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: have been Friday night, and uh I went out hung
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a tree stand and uh I passed like a one
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: forty ish three year old. I felt he was three
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: good looking deer. And uh he was chased, you know,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: there was he was chasing does and he was grunting,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and he was snortweason and he was and all the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: other there's all these doughs, and these doughs were just
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: so relaxed, right, like nothing is going to hurt me today.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: When compared to Michigan, the does weren't even in the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: field yet. They were in the thick cover and they
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: had anxiety and it was just crazy. I mean, just
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the the way they carried themselves. It's extreme, extremely different.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: The deer in Michigan were It was almost like they
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: were on point there the entire time I saw him.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't like they would really any really just
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: casually walk anywhere. It was almost like they would trot
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to a spot, stopped, look around, get nervous, put their
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: head down, forced themselves to eat something, trot somewhere else,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: you know, just like just completely different. Man perpetual paranoia, Yes, exactly. Yeah,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: It's so funny that I I sometimes just take that
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: for granted as like how dear normally behave. So when
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: you said that, it was like, oh, yeah, it's not
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: suss to be like this all the time. But since
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you were here, I've noticed it even more so. On
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: my Michigan hunts, I've just had so many times where
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: these deer, these doughs, just just out of no where,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: they're looking up, looking up all around. I'm never hunting
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: these trees before, and somehow they're looking up. Gosh, why
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: can't I be somewhere else like a hole or they
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: don't do that? So many times I thought that it's
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: a man, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this. The
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you know. One thing that that I thought was gonna
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: happen a lot more was I was going to get
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: blown at in uh in Michigan, just whether it was
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: entry routes or walking in because I bumped. I bumped
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: some deer heading to some of my tree stands in
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the mornings, and no, none of them blew. And in
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Iowa they would sit there and they'd blow at you.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And they'll blow at you and blow at you. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I wonder if some of that has to do with
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: if you blow, you're giving away your position and you're
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: gonna die. So they like certain deer don't do that anymore, right, Yeah,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I I know you're saying.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: At the same time, though, I've certainly had deer in
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Michigan that will do the thing where they'll sit and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: blow forever like that happened to me a couple of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: days ago. And just was that a couple of days ago? Yeah,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a couple of days ago, and this morning a little
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: bit too. Um So, yeah, it's it's hard to get
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: away from that for sure. Um So, you had a
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: good time. You didn't get a deer. You got to see,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you got to see how the other side of the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: railroad tracks lives. Um you got a buck actually, oh yeah,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: you forgot to mention you did get a You did
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: get a buck with your cor panel on the truck.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: You totaled it too, didn't you. I saw that it
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't totaled in the fact that, uh, it did a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: ship ton of damage. It totaled it because the damage
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: was worth more than my actual vehicle, So saying more
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: about the vehicle than the damn right, exactly. So I
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: took the cash payout and I still drive the same truck.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It just has some deer damage to the one side
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of it. There you go. Okay, we'll gave you a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: little bit of a battle. Scarter. Remember the hunt by absolutely,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I'll always remember Michigan. Huh. Okay. So you had your
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Michigan public land hunt. Uh. Soon after you left, I
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: took off for Ohio kind of impromptu. I had a
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: few days where I didn't want to hunt my Michigan
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: spots yet, so I thought, you know what, I'm just
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: gonna buy an Ohio tag and try some brand new stuff.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Zero scouting, zero planning. Literally the night before I'm like,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it, so I will make this quick.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I got a tag and I did some eat scouting
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of some spots up in the northern half of the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: state that we're closer to where I live in Michigan,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and I thought, there's not as much public land appear
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: as the south, and it's much smaller pieces. But maybe
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: because of that, it's overlooked. Maybe everybody wants to go
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: down south, where all the public land is and where
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: all the big giant bucks are, but these northern spots
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: might be okay, and maybe there's are not people hitting
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: them because of that, And that was my idea of
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: my theory. And I had four days to go in
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: there and try to find something, and I was gonna
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: just scout, scout scout until I found a pocket where
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: there was lots of fresh sign and no hunters. And
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: basically it was four days of scouting without finding that
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: until until the very last day. Um. But but the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: weird thing about the public land down there that I
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: found that I haven't experienced other places that they have
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: mode They've got like their their conservation officers, God bless them,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: super nice guys, but they love to mow. So they've
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: got brush cut trails to every corner. Every part of
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: every public parcelor I went to, every single one of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: them had trails everywhere, like roads everywhere. So there was
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: no nowhere that was hard to get to. Everything you
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: could easily walk to. So every time I tried to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: get to some tough to get to place, there was
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: always some way to get there easily walking, you know,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: without needing to go through thick, nasty stuff. And because
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of that, there was hunters signed everywhere. So UM hit
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a bunch of spots, like five different places, maybe more.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: UM did a lot of hiking, did a lot of looking.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: On my last day, I found a good spot that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to have people going into it and found
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a bunch of sign um, but then found a gut pile,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: so someone had been in there and had killed something.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So that was basically my Ohio hunt. I'll try to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: get down to some other parts of the state later
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: this year. But like you said, with your trip, it
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: was good just to be somewhere new and hanging hunting, exploring,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: no expectations, just you know, just learning and figuring stuff
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: out as you go. So that was cool. Um. But
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: no filled tags um. So that brings us to the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: rut then. So I but I hunted from like the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen through the tard or yea there and then came
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: right back and then had my chunk of time I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: could hunt here my local spots in Michigan. Um, I
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: had like a two week window that I can hunt
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: in Michigan for those main target bucks I have before
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and after the Back forty, I gotta go to the the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Back forty for like thirteen days, um, so I have
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to get my other stuff done before that. So that's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: what I've been doing since the twenty four of October. Um,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: but you beul these these pieces that you've been bouncing
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: around on uh are they public? Are they private? Are
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: up in Michigan? Are they like places you hunted before?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Why aren't you focused on Tran? I am Okay, I've
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: got a number of different small pieces in his neck
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: of the woods that I've access Okay, I got um
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that that's what I've been focusing on this period of time. Um,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I have some new access that I haven't had in
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the past. Um. But yeah, So that's what I've been doing,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and I can give you the real Do you want
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to cover your hunts you've been doing in Iowa? How many?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: How many hunts have you had in Iowa this past
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks? Oh? Man, like one too, three, one, two, three, four?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I think five and two weeks? Five five sits since
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I've been back in Iowa from Michigan. Okay, So other
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: than the one where you passed that big one fort,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: are there any of note anything worth sharing? Well? So
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that was the first morning hunt that so I got
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: out in evening. I went back to the same stand
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: two or three days later for another evening hunt. Then
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: the following morning I went out again, and that's when
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I had my I encounter with that first he was
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I guarantee it was four year old, one forty big
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: body on him. Uh ten pointer, you know. Just it's
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: real early kind of when that happened. So that was
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: like or something like that. And just wasn't interested at
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that point at that so it weren't interested. Yeah, I wasn't.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I wasn't interested at that buck because I haven't even
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: made it down to my main farm yet. I still
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: got a you know, a ton of trail cameras to check.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: But uh so I passed him at twenty five yards.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: He came. Uh My stand was right on the edge
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: of a betting area. So let's let's let's just say
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the betting area was on top of this ridge and
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: this kind of this flat area. I was off to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the side where the wind was blowing through it, and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: he kind of walked not right down the center of it,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: but the one third of it closer to me. And
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I had a real good pocket in there. He's broadside
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: twenty five yards let him go. Saw another little like
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a two by two or a three by three, like
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a six pointer, real small um, you know, he came
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in he came in as well. That morning, I tore
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: down hung out the house for a while, and then
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: on Friday, it would have been the thirty UH, I
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: went back out and UH running gun hunt. I was
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: going into this farm and I'm talking scrape city, baby,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: like scrapes almost under I don't know if you ever
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: walked into a property where there's scrapes under every tree
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that hangs over a field. And I'm not that's not
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: an exaggeration. Literally there was a scrape under every tree
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and um so, but I get in there to where
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go. First, I checked some trail camera
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: had on that particular farm. My number one and number
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: two were both on that trail camera, but they were
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: there at the middle of the night, right, So whatever
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I decided, I wanted to hunt in that area. But
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: my wind was doing something real funky kind of blowing
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: into the timber where I thought these two were gonna go.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So I bumped out of that worked my way further
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: down the field, and UH followed basically followed the sign
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: into this little area of the cornfield where this pot
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it turns into a pocket. It's almost like if you
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: took a uh a rectangle and then added a half circle,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a small half circle to some you know, one of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the longer sides. That is where I hung up, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: my wind was blowing right down into this gully into
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the main valley, um and kind of out into the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: bigger part of a different field. And uh, it was
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: kind of a risk that I needed to take or
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it was not hunt that area that farm at all.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to hunt, and I'm glad I did
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: because instantly before I was even done setting up, man,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I had some does and that that three by three
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: again out in the field, and he started pushing some
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: dose around. Some more dough started flooding into this field.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And then I look over, you know, to the east,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and there's, uh, there's a bucket I've never seen before.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I'd say a one thirty five class eight pointer. He
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: was either he was either an eight or a nine
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and he had a split G two And to be
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: honest with you, I think I have a shed right
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: over there on my table from the previous year. Yeah. So, um,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I passed him at twenty five yards. He was dogging
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: does all all in front of me, putting on the show,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you know, snort weason and and all that stuff. So um,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: he did that, and then I got out of there,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: couldn't hunt that next morning, couldn't hunt that next evening.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: And so I'm actually going back to that stand tomorrow,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: which will be the third November three. But last night
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I got in my car, which would have been November one,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't hunt, and I had my boy with me,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and we'd go around and drive around the section, and
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I saw my number one crossing the road into the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: neighboring property. Uh, that butts up against the field that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I saw the action in the night before. So you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: it's I know, it's a couple of days, you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: away from when I'll actually get in there. But there's
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a good sign that tomorrow morning, I don't know, I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: might be able to you know, if if nothing's in
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the field, I might be able to crack the antlers
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and pull something out of the timber. Nice. So it's
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: tomorrow the beginning of full blown YEP. So tomorrow morning
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting around the house just just basically to tear
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: down the tree stand and see if I can't make
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a miracle happen on on this other farm, then it's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: time to head down south get to the main farm.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: First thing I'm doing, it's checking trail cameras. I'm pulling
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: all my cards, checking all the data. Uh, and then
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: making and then really starting to get crazy. I mean
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's a full bore at that point. And do
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you have the full two weeks this year? I have
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the hunt hard until like there's there's been no date
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: or time frame set. So it's until you get that call.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It's until I get the call. Yeah, it's until my
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: mother in law decides she wants to go home. But
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I just really hope I get it done early this year.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I hope I connect with you know, some of the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: deer that are around. I don't even know what's around,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to be honest with you, because I haven't checked cards
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: since September. Man, So is the game plan this year? Uh?
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Any different than what we talked about this summer, or
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: any different from the big things you've done on this
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: property in past years. I mean usually you're checking cameras
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: pretty often, using those to kind of inform you where
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to focus. And then I know you had the whole
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Gnarlie Charlie plan from last year. Uh, where do you
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: stand on all that now? Yeah? So Narlie. Charlie has
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: never showed this entire year thus far. I think the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: last time I had a picture of him was in January.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: He's a no show in basically this summer. Nothing. Um
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I had a decent buck just a one time deal
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: show up. Um, I shouldn't say decent he was. He's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: definitely a shooter show up on cell cam. Was it
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: two nights ago last night or two nights ago or
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: something like that? And uh, but he's in that cell
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: cam's in a weird awkward spot that I would only
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: hunt when the when the corn was in that field.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But but I'm getting nothing except that one straight but
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: probably cutting through the property to get to a different
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: piece anyway, No Narlie Charlie. So that just straight up
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: means that it is. It's really anything that makes my
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: heart jump at this point. Um, I do have a
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: couple of deer that uh. When I checked my cards
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in September, I got a couple deer that are that there.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I passed a beautiful three year old last year. He's
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: back as a probably close to one seventy four year old. Uh.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I would love to have an encounter with him at
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: some point. Who knows, and uh, other than that, let
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the cards tell me when I check them or any deer.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: That kind of gets me excited to be honest with you. Ah, man,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you've got some bucks. Dude, you've got some bucks. But
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I will say this, I am going to fill the freezer.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I bought an extra dough tag this year. So if
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people don't like to shoot
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: does during November. But I think, Man, with my my
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: freezer and the way I like to eat venison being empty,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna lay down some meat too. Yeah,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: if you got the empty freezer problem, you gotta do that.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So what's the game plan as far as that though? Like,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: are you going to shoot? Like? What dough are you
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: going to shoot? Are you honestly going to shoot a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: random dough in the middle of a hunt while you're hunting?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna wait until you You know how this works? Right?
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: This is how it works. I say I'm gonna do something,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna fill my freezer. But then, oh, I can't
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: shoot that because it knows if she's hot, what's behind her?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Why is she looking behind her? What's going on? Yeah?
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So I might just shoot a couple of button bucks.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: To be honest with you, Well, you do whatever you
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: gotta do. I know, so shoot or maybe your real
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: young dough who probably isn't gonna breed this year. Who knows,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: who knows it's all gonna be? You know, I say
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: all these things, but every year I shoot from the hip.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And that's the only thing that I can say. I
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: know I'm going to do is shoot from the hip.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: You know what that sounds about, right, Dan? If there's
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: anything consistent about you, it's that you're going to shoot
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: from the hip. No playing. I love it. I love it. Um,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I'm jackman, I'm freaking jack The warm weather though it's
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: gonna kind of throw throw me for a loop. But yeah,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that is a bummer coming up here. Huh Yeah. But
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: they're still gonna breed, man, So you still got a hunt? Well,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Ever, since two thousand fifteen, I
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: think it was I last time I drew my Iowa teg.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I hunted in Iowa and a warm spell came through.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I was hunting for a few days, was on some deer,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and then I saw like two days of like hot weather,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: like seventies or something. I thought it's gonna be lousy.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go back to Michigan for a couple
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of days and get some browning points and do some stuff.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Then I'll come back when the weather cools down again. Well,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: those two days when I was gone, three of my
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: friends all killed big bucks in Iowa on the hot days,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: And that was just like the reminder that it's the rut.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Anything's possible. Who cares about the weather, don't miss it. Yeah.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, biggest buck, I've the biggest eight point deer
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I've ever had an encounter with. Came through on the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: hottest day on November four, like a handful of years ago.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: There's a giant, mature, big, gorgeous eight pointer. Uh and uh.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: That was one of those encounters where it's like, hey man,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: it's you're not you're not supposed to be moving right now, right,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: it's seventy five degrees outside. Why are you moving? You're
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: not supposed to because I read that somewhere right. So
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: don't let anybody who doesn't hunt your property tell you
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: how to hunt. Just go hunt. Yeah, man, there's there's
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: nothing more important than those uh, those hormones, the cestosterone, estrogen,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: those deer. They don't care if it's hot, cold, whatever.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: They want to breed. So and there's one more big
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: thing that's going down on was it? Let's see Thursday?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: What's up? I turned forty? Whoa forty fucking forty mark whoa? Yeah,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I need to bring oxygen into
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the stage with me. Got a life shurance policy? You
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: take a walker in there with you. Holy smokes, we're
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: nectually have wheelchair accessible tree stands for your next year.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be that guy. You know. I shouldn't even
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: make it a joke, but you know those tree stands
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that have the automatic lift up into the air. Yeah,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that's that's you pretty soon. Man. Well happy birthday. Yeah,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that's that's crazy. Time's flown. You don't look a day over.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Don't say it. Don't say it because
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I'll come back at you with the Rookie of the Year.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I know I named a Buck rookie of the year.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: By the way, yeah this year kind of there's a
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: buck that's just a stud. I think it's a two
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: year old. Um. And when I say stud, a stud
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: for Michigan is a two year old. And I'm like, man,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he's like, he's the he's the best New Year I've
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: seen around here. And I was like, I'll call Rookie
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: of the year. Is a dashing baby face. Um he's
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: he's ten point I don't know, I mean maybe one
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: twenty or somewhere like that something Maybe I was, I
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: don't know. Um from sugar, that's a day and good
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: two year old. Um. So if he can make it
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: through the Orange the Orange Army, he'll be a stud
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: in a couple of years. So well, you're in a
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: place that consistently gets deer, you know, a handful of
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: deer to an older age classman. Yep, every year one
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: or two of them make it through. So hopefully that stays.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it stays that way. I do have a question
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, okay, So you were bouncing around on
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: some property recently and I was following you on an
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Instagram you're one of your Instagram stories, And did you
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: honestly set up ten yards or fifteen or twenty yards
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: away from another hunter without knowing it? Okay, so I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: gotta hear this. I totally forgot about that one. Um. Okay,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: so you're just about to start your rutcation and I'm
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: almost done with mine, um, because like I mentioned, I've
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: got to start hunting on the back forty on November seven,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So all of my hunts for Tran in the rut
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: had to precede that. UM. So from the and on
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I've been hunting and uh basically and this is this
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: will lead me to the story just asked about. Basically,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: my game plan was for the early part of that period,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I was going to circle around the outside edges of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: his core areas and betting areas they spend the most
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: time in historically, and um, based on what the wind
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: would let me do, get in between food and his betting,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and then just kind of rotate around these core spots.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: And with some new access I got recently, I'm able
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to hunt a little more of these areas than I
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: used to. So I was pretty excited about that. UM.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: But you know, basically, the first handful days saw a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: lot of activities, saw young bucks, but didn't see Tran.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I caught a little brief glimpse at him one night,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: made a move in there after him the next day,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: didn't see him. Um. But eventually I got this wind
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: to hunt um right in between a just cut cornfield
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: and his like best betting air, the spot that I
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: just knew he was in there, but I hadn't been
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: able to hunt there because of wind. So finally got
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the wind I needed, UM like four days in or
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: five days into this period of time where I've been
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: rotating around and seeing plenty but not seeing him yet,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And so I was really excited to get to this
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: spot because I knew like that was the number one
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: food source right now. Because what what I should bring
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: up is that my the main farm that I hunt
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the most in this area UM got discd under. All
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the crowd fields got disked under this year. So for
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the first time like a decade, there's there's zero food
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: on the main farm. So what's usually you know, I
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: don't know, sixty acres of beans or corn is now dirt.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: So that really changes how dear use this entire area.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: So it's it's really thrown me for a loop. As
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: far as deer patterns, everything is different. So everything from
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: all my previous years is different now. So because of this,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: this one cut corn field that I could hunt close
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to was the was the major drawing now since there
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: was nothing else in this zone, I could finally hunt it,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and it was cold and rainy, so I slipped in,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: sneaking my way in. It's raining, and there's just sign everywhere,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the most fresh scrapes I've seen anywhere around this property,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the biggest rubs I've seen anywhere in the property this year.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this is it. This is where he's been
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: coming into. No one's been hunting up here, this is
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I was excited. I thought I'm gonna kill him. So
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I slipped in there. It really took my time thinking
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: about finding the right tree where I could hunt and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you know, have my wind just safe enough, but also
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: be in a position where i'd be like get a
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: shot still being close to the edge of the cover. Uh.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Fast forward at an hour into the sit and the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: wind starts shifting a little bit, and the wind dies
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: down and then starts kind of you know that feeling
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: where it's you throw your milk weed or something and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: like don't don't go any more of that direction. Then
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: five minutes later you're throw the milk wid again, like
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: oh no, please, no, please know And then a little
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: bit later it's it's like right, it's it's gonna go
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: right to the edge of that bedding. And I'm sitting
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: there bouncing back and forth my mind. I'm thinking, man,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: this is the spot of spots. But if I'm blowing
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: my wind into the bedding year, what's the point of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: being the spot of spots. So I sat there for
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: a couple of minutes, like going back and forth, back
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and forth, and finally decided, you know what, I had
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to pull a plug. I'm not gonna blow this thing
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: out so early when I know it's a great set
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: up and there's no one else in here messing things up.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't think. And then just as I'm thinking I'm
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: gonna do it, I'm gonna pull down and get out
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: of here before I do too much damage, I hear
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: cople and about jump onto my socks. And I knew
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that sound right away. It was a crossbow. And I'm
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: thinking that was like right next to me. Someone just
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: shot a crossbow right next to me. And I spin
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: around and I look and and I'm hunting about forty
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: fifty yards off of that cut corn field inside the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: timber towards that betting yards talking about. But that cornfield
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is another neighbor's property, and there was a guy hunting
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that property right on the edge, and he basically shot
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a deer that was right on the edge there, forty
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: yards from me. And I had no idea he was
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: in there, because it had been pouring rain, and so
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: he must have slipped in from the other side in
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the rain, and I had been set up looking the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: opposite way the whole time. I never heard him. He
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: climbed up in his ladder stand he never knew I
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: was there, and uh, and that was that. So the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: wind had shifted, he shot a deer. Deer go running
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: all over the place. And then I'm sitting there and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: realizing with this guy, and and just I know the guy.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: He he doesn't worry about wind or send control or
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: anything like that. Um, so I'm thinking, Okay, he's certainly
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: not going anywhere. He's gonna sit here blow into here
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the whole night. So rather than me walk out of
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: here and create more damage and blow my wind in
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, I guess this is a sunk cost. So
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I waited it out. And it was a bad night,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: dear blowing a few other deer. I almost filmed him
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: shoot another deer, but I see this still walking out
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: to the field, like, oh no, you're in trouble. Be careful,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: be careful, and uh, you know, she got smart and
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: turned around. But but that was it was a it
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: was kind of That's kind of just been the story
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: of this year. I'm having a year. I'm having a
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: year Dan where it just seems like if it can
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: go wrong, it is going wrong. I mean that whole
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Idaho public land trip people have her heard me lament
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: about that had a lot of stuff go wrong on
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: that hunt. My Ohio public land hunt was just like
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: people people, tree stands, tree stands, walking around trying to
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: find somewhere and now here. You that happened when I
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: thought I was in the spot of spots, and then
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: um I pulled out of there, and so all right,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna keep grinding at it. And then we
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: had three other notable things that have happened since that.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Damn uh. So I kept circling around these core areas,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: hitting what I can with a wind and kind of
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: progressively tightening and tightening, getting a little bit further in,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit further in. So if you can envision
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a couple of these core betting areas and like a
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: target around them, and each time I'm rotating around the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: target based on wind, but then also getting a little
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: bit deeper into the core, a little bit deeper into
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: the core. And every day I've been doing that, except
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: adjusting off of sightings or different things like that. So
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the three most exciting things that have happened started on
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the October. I got set up, moved in really tight
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: to one of the betting areas that I think he uses,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and got set up in the place I've never hunted before,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: right on the edge. And I'm not set up for
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know an hour. When I catch something way
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: off across the way, I can kind of see through
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: this open timber to another brushy spot. And in this
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: other brushy spot, I see Tran and I see him
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: with a dough and he's like on like locked on
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the dough, you know that look when they're not chasing,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: they're not like he's with that dough. She kind of
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: takes a few steps, he steps up behind her like
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: he's locked on a dough, and they're walking away towards
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: the crop field, the opposite direction from Matt. So in
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: this moment, I rose, Okay, there's there's an hour and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a half a daylight left. They're going the other direction,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and I know where that dough goes going. There's no
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: food behind me. The only place she's gonna go is
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: out in that direction. So I think to myself, there's
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: a decent bit of wind right now, I'm gonna go
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: get that buck. I'm not gonna sit here and dick around.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get that damn dear. I'm sick of dicking around.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sick of hunting this deer for three years. Now.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I want to kill this thing. I'm gonna make something happen.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: So I've never done this before, but I got out
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: of my tree stand and stalk these deer down on foot,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: and I followed them out to this area, and then
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I kind of I knew where they're going, and so
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I was able to try to cut them off. But
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: just before I was able to kind of get to
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the point where I thought I could cut them off,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: the wind died down and I couldn't see them anymore.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: But I knew there were somewhere up near the edge
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: of this crop field, and I was, if you, if
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we're imagined direct there north of me somewhere, and I
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: figured about two d yards hundred fifty yards north of me, somewhere,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and then we've got crop fields. To my west. There's
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: a crop field, then there's one of these dirt fields,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: and then there's one of my little food plots that
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I have on one of these properties. And I think
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, there's no way I can get any
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: closer now, because the wind completely died down. We're down
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: to the last half hour or something of daylight, and
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's still I'm in really crunchy grass and I
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: can't move much. So at this point I realized, probably
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: my best bet is I'm not going to beat into
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: the crop field. But I have seen on some of
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: these other hunts I've done earlier in the week, many
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: of the deer. This surprised me. Many of the doughs
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: that I saw go out to one of this corn field.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: They would feed in the corn field for a while
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and then they would drop south walk across the dirt
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: field all the way to my little green food plot.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: And every night this is happening, a good number of
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: doughs will leave the corn, go across the dirt and
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: come down to my food plot. So I thought, maybe
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: she'll do the same thing. Maybe she'll come out to
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the corn. He'll follower to the corn, and then after
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: fiddling around for fifteen minutes, she'll walk down the edge
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: and come to the food plot. If she does that,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I could intercept that. I could slip down towards the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: edge of the dirt field and the food plot, and
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: there's a spot there's a creek that runs through there,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: and almost every time anything comes by, they crossed in
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: this one section. So I was able to creep a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: little bit further that direction so that I could be
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: within shooting range of that creek crossing, which would I
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: don't know it was. I was like fifty yards inside
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: off of the food plot into the cover where this
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: crossing is, and and I got set up, and lo
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: and behold, not soon after getting set up, here pops
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: out a doe over the hill into the dirt field
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: and tran right behind her, and they start coming my way.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And now it's like ten minutes left a daylight, and
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I'm in position. I'm thinking, Man, if she comes here
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to the corner just like they do, I'm gonna get
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: a shot. And so I'm I'm all getting into position,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and I really can't move anymore, and they're getting closer
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and closer, and that's five minutes left and they're at
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: like ninety yards. Now there's like three minutes left and
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: there's seventy yards and they came all the way in,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: but instead of coming to my corner, they they stayed
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: out in the dirt field and crossed into the food plot,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: maybe sixty seventy yards out away for me and and
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: after shooting light anyways, UM, so really intense, exciting hunt,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: but didn't come together. But it's awesome to see him
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and awesome that I kind of kind of worked sort of, um,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: at least partially. Um, but did you make that move
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: for a reason. That doesn't sound like something that you
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: would normally do. Yeah, I would not normally do that,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: except right when I when there's a buck locked on
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: a doll like that. From my experience, there's there's nothing
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: that's going to pull him away. I've tried over the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: years trying to grunt at these deer. I've tried to
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: do things like that, and that's not going to pull
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: away like that buck is on that dough. And it
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't like he was chasing the dough. They weren't chasing.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: She was like with him. So it wasn't like they're
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: going to run all over the place. It was like
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: she was walking a few steps, he was right behind her.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: They stand there for a few minutes. She'd walk a
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: few steps, He'd stand there for a few minutes. So
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I knew. I've seen this happen so many times. I've
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: seen this happen in past years, Like when I was
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: hunting that buck, Frank, this is what happened. He had
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: a buck, he had a doll lockdown, and I knew
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: they stayed in the same area for three days. They
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: would just he would just follow around like a zombie.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: And so in this case, I knew that trans the
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: zombie buck was gonna walk to this corn. I knew
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that's where that dough was gonna go, because that's where
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: all these deer go to right now. Um, And there
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: was no way that I was going to get a shot.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: And he's the only deer I want to kill. So
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I could either sit four yards away while the only
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: deer I want to kill is go in the other direction.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I could sit there for three hours and twiddle my films,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: or I could go do something about it. And that's
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: kind of where I'm at. Um, there's No, there were
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a couple other Bucks on camera earlier in the year
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: that I'd like that I would shoot if they gave
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: me opportunity, But nothing's been showing up at all. So
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: there's there's tran or bust and I only have a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: handful of days to try to get him killed before
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I got to take off, And um, I don't know.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just getting to the point now where uh, I
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not gonna sit around and wait anymore.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I'm trying. I gotta try and make something happen. You
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: have to, Yeah, I mean that's it kind of sucks
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: to be honest with you that you got this target buck.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a a class buck for Michigan, and
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: you have other quote unquote priorities that are gonna pull
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: you away from this in Yeah, And I'm not complaining
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: about the upcoming hunting the back for It's gonna be awesome.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be fun. I'm excited about it. But as
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: far as trying to kill like my target buck, it
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: definitely h throws a throws a wrench into it. So
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the whole spotting stock thing happens doesn't quite come together.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: But I know that he's on that doll, and they're
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: gonna be here again tomorrow, at least from my experience
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: when I've seen a buck lock down a doll in
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: this area, he's just gonna hang close. So the next
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: day I slipped into the same general area, got in
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: there to where I thought the wind would be. Okay,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: did a big circle around. This is very similar to
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: how I was hunting Frank three years ago. Like he
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: had he was in there, locked around with the dough.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I would circle around trying to get in front of him,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: expecting him to come back into one of these betting areas.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: And I did that on this hunt, and they basically
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: did what I thought, but instead of coming in where
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I was, they came in several hundred yards ahead of me,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: or farther to the north of me. So I saw
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: him with the dough again, and they slip into some
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: bedding cover to my north and then disappear. And then
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: about ten am I catch a glimpse of him again
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: into a little further in the cover. So now they're
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: up in this corn field area. That's where they came
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: in from something. And okay, they're on the northern section.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I'm betting she's gonna come back out into that corn.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: So I pulled out midday, did a big circle up
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to the northern section of these properties, got up in there,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: got set up and had a whole plan in place
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: where I thought, Man, they're gonna do one or two things.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: They're in this betting pocket. I saw him about ten am. Um.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: I was set up. If they came the north route
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to get to the fields, which they've done the night before. Uh,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: but I also had like a raised um like berm
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: that was running a little ways away from me, about
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: fifty sixty yards away from me, And if they came
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: out on the other side of that, which is the
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: other thing I thought was possible. I decided, you know what,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: if they come out there and if they're just mosey
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: mosey in like they have been, Um, I'm gonna get
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: out of the tree and do the same damn thing.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get down there. And it was windy, I'll
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: sneak up to the edge of the burm and get
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: a shot when they come down at the point. I
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: had this whole plan in place, and they didn't show
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: up that night. So that was day two of interest.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Now fast forward two days later. I hunt the next
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: day and don't have any encounters with him. Um. I
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: decided that I had a specific wind direction that would
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: allow me to hunt what I call the belly of
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the beast. This is a spot that I have not
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: been able to hunt in the past, but now I can.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: It's kind of the primo, one of the primo betting spots.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: And there's a tree in the middle of this sect
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: shin that I've always looked at, and I've seen more
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: deer passed by this tree, more bucks passed by this
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: tree than any other. But it just seems impossible to hunt.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I just don't know how you hunt it without deer
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: winding you. But I thought, okay, I'm down only four
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: days left before I have to go, and it's our
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: last cold day before this warm spill hits. And with
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: this wind I have today, this is today as we speak.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: This happened today. Um. With this wind direction I have,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: it will blow right along a creek. If I sit
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: in this tree, right on the edge of the creek,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I could blow my wind if it. If it goes
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: the way it's supposed to be forecasting, it'll blow almost
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: right down the creek and that's probably my best option.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: That deer could still win me, but it's it's the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: least of all the dangers. So today I woke up
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: at three thirty. I got in there two and a
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: half hours before daylight. I hung a set up in
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: this tree, got all set up. I'm in the middle
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of it. I'm shooting my shop basically was the plant like,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I'm this was it. I'm swinging for the fence. This
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: is my home run. Sit going into the middle of it,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: and it's it's either gonna kill him or I'm gonna
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: blow everything out of it. And daylight starting to crack,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and I hear and Tran is walking right to the
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: bottom of my tree to dam and he comes in
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: at ten yards ten minutes before shooting light and he
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: walks ten yards, perfect shot and then comes all the
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: way down to the down wind side and bust me
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: and blows. Yeah, if you had come ten minutes later,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I would have smoked him at ten yards and it's
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: just too early to shoot. Yeah, I can't shoot, so yeah,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I mean it was devastating. It worked perfect. I done
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: everything right, my bucks there and I can't shoot him
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: and then he goes was down when blows out, bounds off,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: blows once and then kind of jobs off to the direction.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: But here's where it gets crazy. I'm bummed out, but
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, well, there it is. He's not coming back
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: through here again. And then it now it's daylight, daylight,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: and I look up and I see him again. He's
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: now a couple hundred yards away with a dough. Over
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the next hour and a half, all chaos broke loose
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: around me. There was a hot dough and he was
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: chasing that dough all around, fighting off other bucks, and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: multiple times looked like he was gonna come back within range.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: A dough came squirting towards me, and he was coming
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: on a bee line right to me with that dough
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: was coming right to me with tran right behind her.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I was clipped on, ready to draw back. He was
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: at seventy coming in towards sixty. And then she squirted
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: away and went the other way. And they happened several times,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: and then finally they disappeared. So you had two encounters
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: with him in the same day. But that that dough
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: led him away. That did a doe come through the
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: first time, or was it him by himself? He was
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: by himself the first thing, first thing in the morning,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: he was by himself, cruising, and then then he was
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: chasing Does after that, and and so that was the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: second time I saw him. So he's chasing Does, chasing Does.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna happen again, But then doesn't
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: They disappear on the timber. Now like two hours later,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: I catched sight of him again on the complete opposite
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: side of me, cruising through this other section timber. It's like, Okay,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: I'm back in the game. Maybe this could happen again.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: He's cruising, then disappeared, and then nothing. And then around
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: eleven o'clock, I see another deer crossing the creek, and
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the creek is where my winds blowing, and I see antlers,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: and I spin looked down there and at a hundred
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: ninety yards, he's right in the creek staring at me,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: right in my wind for the second time that day.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: And he stood there for at least a minute, just
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: staring a hole in me. And I can't tell you
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: how big his neck is, Dan, his neck is like
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: an oak trunk. I mean, it was monstrous. I just
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: I just looked at him and we just stared at
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: each other for a minute, and I'm thinking two things
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: like he's monstrous and he has me pegged so bad,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: and and he just stared, stared and stared and stared
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: and then finally jogged off. That was it. That was
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: my day. Dang. Yeah, like close, man, that's that's but
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: that's bow hunting in a nutshell. Yeah, yeah it is.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you get him, sometimes you don't. Man, that's the truth,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: is the truth. I'm yeah, today was yeah, I don't know. Um,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I've hit a wall a little bit as far as exhaustion,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and then just kind of disheartened with this whole thing.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Like I I swung for the fences and I did
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: my thing and and just did not come together. And
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: now I kind of feel I don't know what to
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: do now. Um, I kind of blew that spot, and
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: so I guess I'm just gonna keep on keep it
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: on for these last couple of days. But I'm a
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: little bit, uh, a little bit at a loss. I
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, well you know just as well as
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I do. It takes one hot dough. Yeah, yes, that's true, dude,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: one hot dough. It's all all you need. And dude,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I've been there before. I've killed a deer with ship
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: my dear last year, hot dough right in front of
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: me but came in shot. Yeah, I feel like that's
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: kind of what I have to do now, is just
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: trying to be in the zone, be in the area
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: of interest and and hope for the right dough to
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: come through because I've I've kind of tried my tricks,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: and I've tried to circle around in different spots and
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: try to predict where he's going to be. And he's
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: always over here and I'm there, and I'm there, and
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: he's here. Don't take them here and I go over there.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna keep on trying and uh try
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to stay positive and try to stay focused and give
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: her hell. Dan, I'm just gonna give her hell, So
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: go get him. That's that's I don't. Don't give up, Mark,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I won't. I won't. I'm telling you though. Uh, the
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: three third day and wake up call tomorrow is gonna
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: come a way too soon. Yeah. How long are you
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: getting in the how early are you getting in the stand? Uh? Well,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: I gotta trying to very quietly slip in there, which
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: takes a long time, and then hang a set in
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: the dark. Oh, hanging the set in the dark. Yeah,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: that's probably the worst. Yeah, you'd be proud of me
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: that I've been a running gun machine this year. I've
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: been I've sat a regular tree stand like two three
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: times the last thirteen days or something like that. So yeah, man,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: I've been up and down, up and down, up and down.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: So good luck, brother, Thanks man. That's uh, that's my
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: RUT story so far. Um. I can't wait to hear
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: your stories coming up. I'm sure we'll have some good
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: hunts coming here soon. And man, I wish you good
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: luck and and your one. Yeah, I'm a I'm opposite
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: of you, man, I am energized, I'm ready to go.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm like, I'm fired up. There's no not one
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: ounce of exhaustion in me at this point. And uh,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: like I tell you every year, man, I get more
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: sleep when I go to my RUT vacation than I
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: do at home anyway. So well, enjoy your sleep, enjoy
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: your rest and relaxation. I know you're working though, I
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: know the grind is gonna happen for you too, So yeah, man, Uh,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: what we have the rest of the show is is
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: some good info. Greg Clements and Aaron Warburton from the
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Hunting Public. So that's the end of our recap. Let's
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: get into uh some great no how from these guys.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Hopefully between these stories and the information they're gonna share,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: all of you listening can have so exciting rout hunts
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: coming soon. All right, I'm excited to have on the
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: line with us here, Aaron Warburton and Greg Clements from
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the Hunting Public. Guys, thank you for taking the time
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: to do this right now. Absolutely thanks for having us. Yeah, Mark,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: pleasure to be here. I gotta believe and I know
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: from following stuff on YouTube and everywhere that you're crazy
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: busy right now. Where are you guys right now? I
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: know you're in different places, but where are you and
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: where are you heading in the coming days? Greg? Currently,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting here in Iowa and uh, just working on editing.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Yesterday morning she shout a nice buck. So we're all
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: tagged out here in Iowa, our crew, everybody that had
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: a resident arch tree tag is tagged out. So it's
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: kind of a strange situation to be in. Normally this
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: time of the uber grinding it out in the stand,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: you know, going hunting all day long. But yeah, we're
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: we're just an editing mode now. That's pretty nice. Yeah,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a good problem to have, I guess
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: it just kind of feel lost, not feeling like you
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: need to get out to the woods and and go hunt.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: But I get some editing done and then we'll be
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: off to a different state, so soon enough. What about
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: you here. I'm in Missouri at the moment, and I've
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: been filming ted off and on all week, but it's
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: just been crappy weather. It's been just NonStop rain, uh
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: for like three and a half four days now, so uh,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and I've just been going back and forth kind of
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: filming him and then going home for you know, an
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: evening or so to dry everything off. And then I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: was on my way back down there this morning to
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: film him. But yeah, you just quit raining where he's
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: hunting that so he's had to do the woods this afternoon.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: It ain't raining where I'm at though. It's still raining here,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: so we're trying to we're trying to kill one in
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Missouri right now before we head to Tennessee next week.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely been pretty wet. Yeah, that's throwing a
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: wrenching things. Greg are you are you? Are you able
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: to share the story? Do he has it to hold
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: onto it for the video to hear what happened yesterday? No,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Um the video should come out
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: next week sometime, so UM, I would say it's fairly timely. Actually,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: it's one of you know, this last week of October
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: has been really cool here in the Midwest. Um, there's
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: been you know, scraping activities ramped up, there's all kinds
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of sign in the woods. And as soon as I
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: got back from Pennsylvania and we did the public Land
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Challenge there kind of my goal coming into this last
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: week of of the season before we moved on to
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: a different state was trying to try to kill a
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: buck over a decoy here in Iowa. And that's one
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: of my probably my favorite deer hunting tactic, honestly, because
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: that's what I did mostly growing up in uh in
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: eastern Nebraska. Hunted a lot of open country, you know,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: properties just with small patches of cover and are largely
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: cropper pasture or something like that. So decoys were a
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: huge advantage in that kind of open country. And uh,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: you know, between my dad and my brother and I,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: my cousin. All the all our crew that hunted around there,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: you know one of us are more of us probably killed,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a buck over a decoy every year. They're
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: you know, bow hunting, growing up bow hunting back in Nebraska.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: So that's you know, since I moved to Iowa, I
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: really hadn't hunted a whole lot with the decoy, and
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: that's something that I just that was kind of my
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: goal for this this season was to get that done
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: and had a perfect opportunity yesterday morning. What's the what's
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the set up? What? Specifically? I guess number one, how
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: were you set up as far as where your stand was?
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: And then number two, I'm really curious on the decoy
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: placement and wind and all that. Yeah, so the the
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: setup was it actually planned. B The first spot that
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: we went to, uh, it was in a spot that
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Aaron and I hunted last year, had to encountered with
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a big nine pointer, and you know, I wanted to
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: go back in there and and try to try to
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: make that work. But the cover the vegetation had growing
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: up last year was short grown grass and this year
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: was you know, indian grass and blue stem. It was
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: just tall, so that that visual advantage wasn't there. It
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: was just too thick. So I Ethan and I got
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: back to the truck and I started pondering, you know,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: thinking about other spots that would work. And the spot
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: came to mind that was, it's kind of a a
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: long ridge that's old cattle pasture. It's overgrown, there's uh,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: it's you know a lot of cedars and and thick betting,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: thick draws on both sides of the ridge and uh.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: And my thought was would be a good spot with
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: high visibility because there's you know, this ridge kind of
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: bends around where there's visibility and a couple of different directions.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: So I got the visual advantage. And then also with
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: it being a relatively calm morning, I figured I had
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: the rattling antlers. I figured we could call down into
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: this uh, into these thick draws and into that thick
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: seat or bedding and hopefully pull something up out of there.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: So we got set up. It was probably right at sunrise.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: It was you know, we got in there a little
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: bit late because the first spot didn't pan out, but
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: got in there and as we were walking in we
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: had about a three three hundred yard walk in from
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the road it was you know, actually easy access. And
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: I guess another thought I had is because it was
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: dead calm that morning, I wanted to get in somewhere
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: that that I could get in quietly and just not
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: blow everything out, So that that worked out well. And
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: as we were walking in, we started seeing a bunch
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: of fresh rubs, you know that were you know, the
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: peelings were on top of the leaves, the bark was
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: still green or the you know, the the excuse me,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: the rub itself was still green. Her I think Dan
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: dan in Fault called it bleeding. You know, they were
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: just that fresh. So anyways, a bunch of fresh rubs,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: a bunch of fresh scrapes, and uh so we were encouraged,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: you know, going back in there that you know, there
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: was a buck that was actively in that area. So
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: I got set up and took a few minutes to
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: get set up, and I was thinking about the best
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: way to position the decoy so that it could be seen, um,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: you know, as far as possible, kind of in both
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: directions where there was visibility down this long ridge and
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: then where the ridge bent around. So we were kind
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: of sent up in the corner there and the wind
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: was blowing our scent back into some thick cover behind us.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: So my thought was that, you know, a lot of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: times with calling, a buck is gonna try to circle
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: in down wind and sometimes bust you. But he would
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: have had to have gone into that really thick cover
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: to get down wind of us. So it just seemed
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: like it was making a lot of sense right there.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: And uh did the first calling sequence at eight o'clock.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: It was just dead calm at that point in the morning.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Nothing came to that, and we really weren't seeing a
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: lot of deer movement, and the morning was relatively slow,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and then the wind started to pick up a little bit.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: About eight thirty nine o'clock had a two year old
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: buck come in in the morning, just had a better
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: feel to it with that, with that breeze blowing, and
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: about nine fifteen did a second calling sequence and set
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: the antlers down and had to had to go pro
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: rolling behind us. I was able to see exactly how
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: long it it took from the time we stopped calling
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: to the time the buck responded. It was a minute
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: and fifteen seconds later. All of a sudden, a big
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: ten pointer popped his head up over the ridge and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: his forty yards away looking at the decoy. Wow. So
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: I told you yeah, I told Ethan, big buck right here,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: you know, don't move, and he was, you know, he
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: was looking at the decoy, but his line was also
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: you know, looking in our direction. So we tried to
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: slowly get in position and get ready. Ethan was kind
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: of behind me. He had to get out around me
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: to be able to film the deer, and he bristled
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: up and started working left to the point where I
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: thought maybe he was going to try to circle down
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: wind and it was gonna be tougher for me to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: shoot to the left. My best shooting opportunity was to
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: the right. So the buck is about thirty five yards
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: um kind of been some thick cover, and you know,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I was afraid it was just gonna fall apart, that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: he was gonna hook around to the left and just
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to get a shot opportunity. And then all
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, he broke back to the right and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: started looping around the backside of the decoy and came
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: into it, bristled up, and then again I guess one
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: of the one of the downfalls using a decoy sometimes
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: if they don't come in just right, and if they
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: you know, if they go in and bulldoze that knock
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: it over a lot of times, you know your opportunity
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: will will fall apart there. But but yeah, he did right,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: kind of bristled up next to it and gave me
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: a broadside shot at toe three yards and h sent
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: one through him and he bounded thirty yards and fell over.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, so it was. It was an exciting hunt.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: It was. It was nice when you know a plan
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: comes together, you kind of draw it up in your
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: mind and it it works out that way. And he
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: came out of one of those thick draws that I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: was referring to earlier, and that would you know, I
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: always assume, and you talk to some people, Um, I
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: guess what I'm trying to stay here, is that being
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: someone who hunts, you know, somewhere like Michigan heavily pressure deer, YadA, YadA, YadA.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I'm so paranoid about ever trying something like a decoy
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: because I feel like, oh, there's no way that could
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: work where there's so many hunters and so much stuff
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: going on. But I know you guys are doing it
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: on public land with with quite a bit of success
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: over the years. Is that something that you've seen. I
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: know it has worked for you in Iowa. Has that
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: worked for you in other states where there's um more pressure?
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Have you tried it on any these other different states
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: you've been to and found it to be able to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: work to? Uh? Yeah, I'm trying to think of where
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: else that we've used it other than my home state. Writers,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: I did use it on public land. They're successfully um,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: you know, private land that was you know, the shared
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: you know, shared permission with other people. I wouldn't call
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: anything how the public land was fairly heavily pressured, I guess,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: I would say. And him in Missouri too, um, and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: had success down there on heavily on on what I
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: would call more heavily pressured lands. And I don't know,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: it's just a spec it's just speculation because I don't
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: think we have much experience with decoys past those areas.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: But I think, uh, I think worrying too much about
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure can be uh sort of overthinking it sometimes
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: because we used to do the same thing. But all
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: these areas that we go when a deer gets in that,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: I guess what what I'm trying to say, is they
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: get in that mindset when they are when they're rutting,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: when they're acting aggressive, testosterone is up, you can get
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: away with a heck of a lot more. I mean,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Zach last year in New York killed a very very
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: mature buck in the middle of the rut with a
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: dough um on extremely heavily pressured lands, and he pretty
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: much just walked up to the thing and shot it.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Literally just walked into the field and eventually the deer
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: ran and walked right by him, you know. And I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: think in that situation a decoy would have worked, and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: I would I would assume he would agree, would have worked,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: you know, just as well in that situation as it
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: would in Iowa or anywhere else for that matter. Um,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: whenever you start talking about the rut and and bucks,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: especially mature bucks, because like that's their purpose this time
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: of year, you know, is they get super territorial and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: it's it's time to start thinking about breeding. Does regardless
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: of where you're at, Um, that can work extremely well. Yeah,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: you know, in certain situations obviously, all right, because that's
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: all it trying. It's down to deer hunting, so situational
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: everywhere you go. But you know, something I feel like
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: you guys have done a really good job of is
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: testing assumptions improving them wrong. If you were to look
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: at what you guys have have done over the last
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: few years and trying so many things that other folks
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: might assume would be taboo on public land, or not
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: possible on public land, or or crazy or too aggressive,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and by just trying these things and and finding out that, oh, yeah,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: it actually can work, it's really changing the game for
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. Is there anything else like that
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: during the rut that you guys have found where you know,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: ten years ago you would have thought, oh, there's no
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: way you could get away with that, but now today
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: you're you're realizing, well, that's not the case, and it's
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: changed things for it. Does anything else come to mind
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: like that? I would say being super aggressive in the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: rut um and that's not just sit. I guess we
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: could get We could get pretty far down the rabbit
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: hole here, So stop me, Mark and if I if
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: I get going too long for it. But I think
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: there's kind of two different tactics that work extremely well
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: in the rut One is sitting long hours in a
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: specific spot you know, a funnel or transition whatever, and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: basically waiting for a buck to walk by. Uh. That
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: has proven over time to be extremely effective. If you
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: have the time and you can spend it as many
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: full days in the woods as possible, you can kill
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: bucks doing that. Um. But what we've done more of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: in the last probably six seven years is we've actually
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: started to move to find the action in the run,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: literally walking or driving until we either see or spook
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: run into whatever. Uh. The action. What I mean by
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the action is a hot dough, a group of bucks
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: in a in a certain location, because that's what I
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: believe is going on a lot of the time. Most
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: of the bucks are in one specific location for most
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: of the run. Or well, sorry, I should back up,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: most of the bucks on a given day are in
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: a spot on a on a property wherever that dough
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: is at that is coming into heat. Most of the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: bucks in that area are going to be right there.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: And obviously we we know that all that can get
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: flipped upside down and can change in a matter of
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: seconds if they push you out of there or whatever.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: But I feel like that's something that has worked tremendously
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: well for us. Is just is being especially on limited
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: time UM. And I should preface by saying that if
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of time in the run,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: if you don't have the luxury of sitting in a
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: funnel area all day long, for day after day after
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: day after day, I would recommend trying to literally walk
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: around until you run into the deer um, even if
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: that means spook in the deer, because if if a
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: doze in heat and there's multiple bucks in that area,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: more times than not we don't see them react the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: same way at a pressure as we would other times
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: the year because their main focus is you know, obviously
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: breeding during that time. And I feel like if if
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: you just have a weekend for example, or maybe you
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: just have a couple of days vacation and you're not
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: in that action, maybe you're sitting in a pile of sign,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in an excellent funnel area, but if the
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: hot dough is on the other side of the property
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: for that two or three days, you're probably gonna you know,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: watch a lot of squirrels and leaves blown. But if
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: you get down and you actually go and find the deer,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: you can have success a lot faster in the run.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. How do you
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: know when you found it? Though? I mean it realized.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: There's a few obvious things, but I gotta believe there's
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit of it too. It probably has taking
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: some experience to figure out the nuance of oh, this
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: is it, I need to stop right now, versus Okay,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: I just bumped a deer, but you know, maybe I
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: should keep going. How do you know when you're in
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: the spot right, Okay, we're here, it's time. Um, a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: variety of different things. It's all situational. But I'll give
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: you a couple of examples. UM. One is scrapes. And
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: I know you've heard it over and over again. Don't
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: pay attention to scrapes during the rut. But a lot
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: of times scrapes are position in locations where numerous trails intersect,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: or even on the edges of betting areas, or in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: transitions in between betting areas. So if and I'll just
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: bring up a specific example, because that's the best way
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: I can explain this. We were headed in on November nine,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, into a big block of woods,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: and we covered probably three quarters of a mile down
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: this ridge, there's lots of rubs in their decent amount
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: of sign but nothing like super super fresh. We dove
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: off of the point of the ridge, got on a
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: long secondary rage that fall fall off into a creek
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: bottom this pretty thick and as we got down there,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: we started noticing like, here's a really really fresh grape
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: that was just worked. And then boom, here's another really
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: really fresh grape that was just where I mean I'm
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: talking in the last twenty four hours. So we popped
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: up in a tree set up over it, and as
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: we were hanging the stand, a mature buck pushed the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: dough by us at ten yards and we weren't ever
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: able to kill it because we had the camera in
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the boat at the bottom of the tree and whatever.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: But what ensued after that was about I think there
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: was four or five different bucks in that on that
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: ridge and in that immediate area, all vying for that dough,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: and a lot of those satellite bucks, you know, the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: younger bucks that didn't have the dough. They were rubbing, scraping, sparring,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: doing all sorts of aggressive behavior in and around where
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: that buck had the dough. And I think that's where
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of that was that fresh scraping activity had
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: come from. But that's the sign that we set up
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: on in that particular instance to get on that that scenario,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: we've also just went been gone in through the woods
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: and literally just ran into a dough in a buck
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: and jumped up and literally had the buck that was
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: with the dough at like separate them. The buck that
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: was with the dough come back through there within fifteen
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: minutes looking for her blowing. I mean, he was alert,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: he knew we were in there, but he lost her
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: when we bumped into him, and he was bound and
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: determined to find her again. And the next day in
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: that same spot, just a little bit deeper, it was
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: just total chaos because you know, we bumped them and
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: she went probably to three yards, stopped, settled down and
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: didn't leave the area completely. And that's not always the case.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it can it can change, like I said,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: very very quickly. But if you're if you're just moving
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: around with your eyes up and you're looking or that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: out in front of you, um and then reacting to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: it as you as you run into deer like that,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: like heading in deeper after him, I think you're gonna
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: get onto more action especially in a short time frame. Yeah, Greg,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: would you would you add anything to that or bramping
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: anything different? I'd say Aaron hit it pretty well, I would.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: It seems like there's certain areas where we tend to
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: find bucks with the hot dough, and it seems to
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: revolve around some kind of physical barrier water. A lot
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: of times, if you have water in near area, whether
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: it be a lake or a river, um, you know,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes you see him pushed up against a county road
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: or something like that. It just seems like like Aaron's
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: referring to driving around or walking around until you find
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: the action. A lot of times it's just simply driving
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: around and checking out this public land and then you
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: just see the action from the road. You know. Last year,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I think in one particular day, Aaron and I drove
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: around in the morning. It was a dead calm morning,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: found a buck that had a multiple box that had
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: a hot dough pushed up against the county road and
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: we try to sneak in on them and UH. And
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: then later that afternoon we set up in a spot
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: and UH had a big nine point or that had
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: a dope pushed up against you know, a small pond
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: or a small lake, so it just seems to be there.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: There was some commonality. And in those areas where uh,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: you know, buck bull try to push a hot dough
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: to to get away from all the other bucks. And
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: you know, if you can find that kind of scenario,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: find that situation and and like Aaron said, a lot
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: of times the buck just they have their guard down,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: They're more focused on the dough and it's a great
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: time to you know, to sneak in and and get
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: a shot or call to him, decoy to them. You know,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Zack had an incredible serious months along the river bottom
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: last year where there was bucks that had dough is
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: pushed up against the river. So yeah, I guess that's
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: what I would add to it, to look for those
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: kinds of spots. How do you hold on star? One second?
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: I got dog issue going on in the other room,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: the joys of coard in this at home. Um, okay,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: hopefully I'll get dealt with here on a second. Okay,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: that's good. Okay, So what I'm trying to say here,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: it's so you mentioned Aaron that sometimes you're gonna do
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: what we just talked about. We're gonna search out these
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: hot spots search out this activity. But then there is
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: this other type of run hunting that you described that
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of people know, which is find that really
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: good area and and hunker down and waited out. Um,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: do you ever still do that now? Or is it
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: is it always now? Just seek out the hot stuff, move, move, move,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: or is there a time when you know that, Hey,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: you know what, this is such a good funnel. Uh,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: we need to put two days here straight and just
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: see what happens. Is that something that it still happens
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: for you? Yes, It all depends on the scenario. Say,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: for example, we only have a weekend to hunt a
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: property and we don't have a lot of sort of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: backup plans in the area. Maybe it's a fairly small
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: property public or private, and we only have a weekend
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: to hunt it. Um, and there's there's one really good
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: spot in the middle of that thing that can cover
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: any crossing action, you might just be best off to
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: sit there. But if if the scenario is opposite, where
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: you have lots of other options, and say a big
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: piece five thousand acres or something, the public land where
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: you've got multiple betting areas, probably multiple mature bucks living
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: in and around that area. Um, it may serve you
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: best to get out and move and just keep up
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: with the deer. So it kind of it all. It
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: all just depends on your your situations. I mean, if
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: I was hunting my my family farm in Missouri, for example,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: it's a hundred acres and that's the only place I
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: was hunting for the whole weekend, I would probably be
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: more conservative and try to get in there and sit
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: the best funnels that I knew about all day and
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: expect to to see a buck at some point in
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: that time frame because you just don't have a lot
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: of room to work with. But if if it's the
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: opposite of that, then where you can really get out
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: and cover some ground, like Greg said, either from the
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: truck or our boots on the ground, then then being
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: aggressive and moving around to find them maybe a good option.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying one or the other is is necessarily better,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: but I do I do think that there are certain
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: situations where one or the other may may be more effective. Um,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: I guess it. When you're talking about specifics, one or
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: the other could be more effective. When you're talking about
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: general advice, either one can work. That makes sense. That
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: makes sense, So let's let's break down some of the
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: general types of places you guys will look at as
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: a potential rut spot, because I know a lot is
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: going to depend on what we discussed, the sign and
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: actually seeing deer when you're out there scouting and stuff.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: But there are some general types of areas that people
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: like to think about during the rut and maybe those
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: are starting points for you. Of course, people talk about
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: funnels pinch points all the time, UM on public land
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: and the kind of stuff you guys are doing. If
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: you are gonna go check out one of these spots
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: or set up on one of these spots, what are
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: the types of funnels or pinch points that you've found
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: you know are the most effective or or worth given
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: that extra time. Is there anything are that you've come
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: to really like? UM? I know you guys have talked
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: about different thermal hubs and things like that, where ridges
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: come down. UM, anything stand out there that's worth covering
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: on regardless of the rain, I would say any any
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: sort of thick transitional area between betting areas would grab
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: our attention. UM. In the in the case of the
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: thermal hub, if you're hunting in hill country and a
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of ridges dumped down like uh, you know, spokes
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: on a bicycle wheel into a hub that's going where
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: that hub is is going to connect a bunch of
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: those ridges where does are likely betting. So therefore you're
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: gonna get a lot of that crossing travel from one
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: bedding ridge to the next bedding ridge in the hub.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: That's why we like setting up in the hub. Um,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: if you're but there's lots of other scenarios, terrain types
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: and whatnot. You know, if you're in if you're in
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: a swamp or something, for example, and you have to
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: two marshes with deer bedding in it, and then maybe
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: a thin strip of timber that's connecting the two of
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: those that's back there. It's remote, it's away from people.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: I would concentrate on that. I don't. I would say
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: that as a as general advice would go. We we're
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: looking more for either an overlooked funnel between betting areas
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: or remote funnel between betting areas more so than a
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: funnel between like betting and feeding. So so the remote
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: aspect is pretty easy to figure out. You know, you
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: can you can find something that's the hardest to get
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: to or the furthest from a parking, a lot er
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: from a road. But what about the overlooked stuff? What's like,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: how do you pinpoint or how are you when you're
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: looking at a map or you're scouting out there on
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: the ground and you're trying to figure this stuff out
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: and you're thinking, ma'am, would this spot be worth hitting
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: up even though it seems kind of stupid? How do
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: you think through that? What are some examples of spots
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: like that that that you would deem overlooked but still worthwhile? Uh? Yeah,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: it's it comes down to looking at the whole picture
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, not just the public area that
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: you have to hunt, or the or the particular private
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: area that you have to hunt. Like take on x
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: or Google Earth or whatever mapping software that you have,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: and just turn off all the layers as far as
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: like the boundaries go and just look at the overall
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: scope of the area, like where are you you're going
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: to bed within a square mile? Let's say, just use
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: that as an example, and then you'll start to be
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: able to connect the dots between these properties, and all
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you're gonna end up with a lot
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: of these overlooked funnels that are right next to the
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: stupid road. Um where dear crossing you know, I mean,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example in Michigan. We were there
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: hunting early October last year, but we found a heck
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: of a good crossing between betting areas. One betting area
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: was across the road on private land where we could
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: not hunt. One betting area was a thick, nasty tangle
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: in an old overgrown apple orchard on the public land.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: But it was right next to the road, I mean
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: sixty yards from it, and people were literally driving by
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: that apple orchard to park about a half mile in
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: in that public area and then go on back, and
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: nobody was hunting that little apple orchard. Well, you could
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: see rubs coming out of the thing right on the road,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: and we cut big tracks coming out of it on
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: the of on the gravel that we're heading from the
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: private land betting area to the old overgrown apple orchard
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: betting area on the public land. So in that situation,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: in the rut, we'd set up right and I mean
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: real close to the road as close as legally possible
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: that to intercept that line and travel between those two.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Obviously we can't hunt privately inside. But because there's two
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: betting areas right there, there's some sort of a funnel
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: in between the two and it's really easy to see
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: if you're if you don't have your blinders on, if
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: you're looking at the whole picture within the area. And
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: that's just one example of overlook spot right next to
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: the road anyway. Yeah. I love the idea though, of
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: of zooming out and turning off the layers and just
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: looking at the big picture. I have to remind myself
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: to do that every once in a while, and it
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: it does make a huge difference. That is a really
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: really good idea. Um, Greg, would you add anything on
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: the the overlooked aspects of things how to find those spots.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: I was just going to refer to. Uh. Aaron mentioned
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: the thermal hub and he he'd actually killed a buck
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: just a hundred yards off the road a couple of
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: years ago, and I think that's another good example of
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: looking at the big picture. Um, Aaron, maybe you can
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: elaborate on that. I mean, it's just it was basically
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: a big wood scenario with that road running right through
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: the center of it. But you killed that buck literally
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: after he crossed the road. Yeah, it was. It was
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: in a thermal hub about a hundred yards off the road, um,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: and there was four ridges on the public land side
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: that all dumped into that hub. There was two ridges
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: across the road on the private land side that dumped
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: in right there. So that's what that's where the movement
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: was coming from. It could come from any one of
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: those six ridges, two of them on private, four of
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: them on public, but the hub just happened to be
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: on the public side, and it was right there, right
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: on top of on of the road where you could
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: easily scout it. I mean we we literally just jumped
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: out of the truck and walked like forty yards and
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: you can check and see if the scrapes are opened
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: up in that hub to know if box you're using
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: it or not in late October, and then you know
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: that that's probably going to be a travel corridor in
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: in the rut, you know, as it progresses on. Yeah,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I just think that's a good example of how people
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: made you just feel like us too close to the road.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: But if you look at a big picture and say
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: eliminate that road, you know from your mind and thinking
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: that you know, just do you aren't gonna be right there.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a perfect topographical situation, like you
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: described that hub and all that, all those ridges coming together. Yeah,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and there's some traffic on the road. I mean there's
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: people driving up and down it occasionally. But you know,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: we sat in that stand and stared at that road
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: for three hours that morning. We had one truck drive
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: in and drive out, and within a minute we killed
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: a buck. We literally sat there for three hours, genc anything,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: and then I looked up and here comes a buck
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: walking across the road from the private it is, to
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the hub on the public side and walked rounderneath us,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: and there was another buck right behind him. You know,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: thirty seconds later that if we would have been paying
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: attention to tape, could have shot. But we were stoked
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: after we killed this thing. So um yeah, I mean
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: those things are crossing it so quick, Like we saw
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: that one truck in there in three hours time. Those
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: deer are not concerned with that at all. They're not
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: They're not thinking about that. You know, if it was
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: different and there was constant traffic in there, it might
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: it might change it a little bit, but I don't
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: think so. They don't perceive that road is a threat. Um.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: You know, unless people were parking right there and going
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: in and hunting them right there actively, then that would
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: be different. But the parking lot is three hundred yards
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: on past that, you know, and they avoid that area
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: for sure, But that's because that's where people are parked
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: and where they're that human sin is concentrated. You know,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: there's no human scent on that gravel road, just where
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: people are driving over it. So of those thermal hubs, um,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: So just to recap for people that aren't familiar that
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: this is the spot where multiple ridges dumped down into
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a bottom where they all converge
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: and then you have all these different trails coming and
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: meeting in this crossing point in the middle. Um. Those
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: are places that notoriously have a lot of sign a
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: lot of activity, but also notoriously hard to hunt because
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: when you're a bottom like that, you can have swirling winds,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: wonky stuff going on with that. How do you handle
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: the wind in that kind of situation and how do
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: you handle and shoes like a set up in there
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: that minimizes the risk. Well, once again, it's all situational,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: and what I found in in that particular hub this
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: was This would have been the second time I'd ever
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: hunted it. The first time I hunted it, I hunted
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: it with a ten twelve mile p hour wind and
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: it was out of the northwest. I mean, it really
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: didn't matter because you're at the bottom of a bowl.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: But with that wind speed up a little bit, we
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: were getting bad swirling uh um, you know, and deer
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: we're picking us off until right at last light on
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: that day that we hunted, when the wind laid down
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: and our scent was just kind of hanging in the
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: air because you're down low at that point, you know.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, once a day winds drop off and you're
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: in a low spot, you're really gonna get, you know,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: extremely low wind speeds down next to no wind, and
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: it at dusk. We had a buck come by that
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: night that didn't smell us. So the next year, going
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: into it, we went in there of a morning with
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: dead calm, high pressure conditions, so you know, one of
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: those frosty mornings like we're gonna have in the Midwest
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: tomorrow morning where it's gonna drop down in the high twenties.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be two wind frost for sure. Those types
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: of mornings don't get picked off and almost you know,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: the majority of the scenarios until the day winds pick up.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: Like you can just you can get away with so
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: much because your scent is not traveling very far. It's
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: just hanging right there, either at stand height or it's
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: just opting to the base of the tree. And that
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: that was the case in the thermal hub in this
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: particular instance. Now come come nine ten o'clock in the morning,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: when the day winds pick up, completely different scenario. You know,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: it depends on where you're set up in the hub.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: If you catch some sun on one of those ridges,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: you could get some thermal pool going up the side,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: which which could help, you know, have a more predicted
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: wind flow. But more often than not, in those low
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: spots like that, when the day winds pick up, it's
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: over with because it's it just starts swirling too much. So,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: all things being equal, I know that, I know it's
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: everything situation specific, especially with this kind of thing. But
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: if if you had to average it out and you're
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: looking at all the different places like this that you've
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: hunted in the past, would you say more often you
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: would air on hunting right in the bottom where the
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: most where the most activities all convergently right in the
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: bottom there, and hoping for a situation like you just
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: described where it's calm and high pressure and you can
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: get away with it. Or do you air on something
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit higher up that maybe is a
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: little bit safer from more wind directions, but you're not
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: able to get as many shots. Is one of the
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: other more common for you. I would say, potentially do
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: both in the same day, on down low early until
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: you're compromised with the wind speed, and then move up
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: to a more conservative location, but you get more predictable wind.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to you. Um, what about you, Greg? Any
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: thoughts on hubs like this? M M, not necessarily. I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: think Aaron hammered at home, Um, going back to that
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: spot that that he'd killed his buck out of it.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: It's kind of funny. I I went back in that
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: spot and in twenty nineteen, uh, to give it a try,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: similar kind of conditions, and uh, apparently some people had
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: caught onto it because there was boot tracks in there
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: and people have been hanging sent wicks and the scrapes
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: right there, so's t see. Yeah, I mean that happens
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: sometimes but yeah, when you see that, just time to
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: move on and find somewhere else. Let's talk about that,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: which is dealing with hunting pressure during the rut, because
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: there's there's obviously an impact from pressure at all times
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: of the year. But how do you guys see it
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: different during the rut? Do you worry about it less
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: or do you worry about it just the same as
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: if it was October one? October? Um, what are your
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: thoughts there, Greg? Uh, we just we don't tend to
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: worry about it. In fact, sometimes it works to our advantage.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it keeps us moving onto other spots and finding
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: new and better locations or areas where there's dear Um,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I'd say that we're pretty fortunate in Iowa. The hunting
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: pressure is very low throughout the majority of the season
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: other than you know, about November one through the twelve
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: something like that first couple of weeks and then of
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: course during the gun seasons. But during the first couple
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: of weeks and umber, a lot of times we're gonna
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: go hunt to different state. You know, well, I think
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: like we're going to Tennessee or most of the guys
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: are going to Tennessee here soon, So Um, yeah. I
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: just in Iowa, where we spend most of our time hunting,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: there's just not a ton of hunting pressure. And again,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: if there is, you know, we're just we're moving on
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: and finding a different spot. In fact, that's how I
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: have some found some of the you know, the better
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: spots that and had some really good encounters that way.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: Is the areas that I was going to go hunt,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: there was people in them, and I just kept on
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: moving and and scouted areas where they're you know, look
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: for access points where there just wasn't vehicles, and and
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: that that happened back in and ended up having one
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: of the best ruts that I've ever had as far
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: as encountering bucks, just because I was forced to move
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: on and find a new spot because the hunting pressure.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: What about you and what do you think about that?
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: I would say in some instances, hunting pressure in an
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: increase volume of it can actually help you get into
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: more dear um because it forces deer in the pockets
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: at that point. And we noticed this especially in the rut,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: because that's when the highest volume of hunter hunter show up.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody takes their vacation the first week in November, UM,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say everybody. A lot of people do. And
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: if you are dry, if you sacrifice a couple of
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: hunts during that time, say it's a Saturday or a
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: Sunday and you got four or five days a hunt,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I might just sacrifice a whole day of honey just
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: to drive around and count the cars at different lots
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: and walk around and look where different guys that you
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: know where they're hunting at, and just start crossing off
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: these big vast areas that are getting pressured. And there
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: may be a couple of back corners of thick spots
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: on that area of betting areas that were aware of
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: that aren't touched. And usually if you go to those
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: and there's nobody hunting them, they're just a complete circus
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: in there with deer. We've had some just insane rut hunts.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: I'm talking you know, seeing fifteen to twenty bucks in
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: one day in one betting area. This is in Iowa, UM,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: where some of this is happening, but we've seen the
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: exact same scenario play out in other states as well.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: It's it just as it gets to be there, you
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: have to spend more time scouting hunting pressure in some
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: of those other states where you have higher volumes of
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure. But by scouting for the pressure and then
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: kind of finding that diamond, then the rough out there
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: that's not getting hit, you're gonna you're really gonna find
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: the deer then, because you may. Yet, you may find
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: yourself in a situation, say it's November six or seventh
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: or something. You may find yourself in a situation where
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: there's multiple estrus does that have been pushed into one
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: betting area. There will be bucks crawling over top of
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: each other in that thing. If if you can find it,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: but you have to be moving around to find it.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: Talk to me about I was just gonna say, it
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: seems like they keep coming back to being mobo and
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: being uh, you know, being flexible, and it seems like
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: just I don't know how many times like just moving
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: on and uh and being more mobile, whether it be
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: on foot or being a vehicle, has has paid off force.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: So and yeah, and that's again comes back to, yeah,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure, whether it be hunting pressure or um. Yeah,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: like Aaron said, it's just a lot of times if
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, burn a day or two just
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: scouting hunters essentially and then eventually finding those pockets a deer.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: Can you can you elaborate on Let's let's lay like
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: a hypothetical scenario. Let's say maybe I traveled out of state.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt somewhere. I've got a seven day rut
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: vacation UM down in southern Ohio or Iowa or somewhere
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: where there's a good amount of public land that I
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: can get after. But there's gonna be other guys out
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: there because it is earli ish November UM. And I've
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: picked out a couple of spots on the map ahead
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: of time that looked good, you know, these thermal hubspots
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: you can easily pick out on a map, or some
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: great pinch point or something that looks terrific. But you
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: get in there and there's other tree stands or you
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: saw boot tracks walking in and you realize, oh, I
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: have to do this, I have to move on. As
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: you just describe, Greg, can you like walk me through
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: in detail what you're doing over the next four hours
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: or eight hours after you've realized, okay, we need to
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: find stuff because what we thought was the stuff is not,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: or there's other guys in there. I know, I know,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: you're gonna scout. But what I'm curious is, like, specifically,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: how are you doing this? Are you are you walking
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: ten yards and stopping on glassing, and then walking ten
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: yards and stopping and glassing, or are you covering ground
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: until the next good looking spot in your map quickly? Um?
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: You know which specific things matter more? Scrapes versus rubs,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: versus tracks versus tree stands, um, Like, give me the
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: stupid level of detail on what you're November seven, rut
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: scouting would look like after having a pressure impact making
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: you move. And I don't know if either one of
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: you wants to start, whoever's got up a strong idea.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, Greg, you want me to go or you
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: want to go? Go ahead? All right? I would say
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: it's pretty quick. We're moving fast. If we go into
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: an area and the and it's just not there, it's
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: not right. Too much pressure. We are either looking at
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: playing B and playing bir play and C in the
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: immediate area where we can walk to and check real quick.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: And when we're going, we're hauling the mail like we're
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: not jogging through the woods, but we're walking fast and
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: loud and whatever we're trying to get to the next
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: betting area to see if there's pressure. But what it
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: comes down to for me is efficiency more than anything.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: And that's going to come back to the situational deal.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: If if we go into a spot and there's pressure
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: in the next betting area on that pieces a mile
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: back further in, we might completely abandon that because it's
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: gonna take us all day to go back in there
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: and check that thing and then come back out. Um.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that we're gonna do one or the other.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: This is just a hypothetical. If we can get in
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: the truck and we can go and cover four or
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: five spots in the amount of time that we can
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: cover one on foot, we're gonna get in the truck
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna drive down the road to
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: the next public area, hop out, run out there and
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: check it as quickly as possible. And what we're doing
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: when we go in there to check is is we're
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: looking for everything that you just mentioned, Mark, We're going
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: in there. We're looking for tree stands, looking for fresh
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: limbs being cut, boot tracks, trucks parked on the road, um,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: any sort of hunter sign. On top of that, we're
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: also looking for fresh deer sign We're looking for fresh rubs,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: We're looking for fresh scrapes, even in the middle of
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: the rut, fresh tracks in any kind of wet soil
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: that we can notice. Um even even doing some glassing
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: in the early morning or the evening at from high points.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: But I would say through the course of the day.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: It it all comes down to efficiency, Like how many
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: of these potential betting areas where there are deer especially
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: does living can we get to in a given day.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: And there's there's there's really no messing around when when
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: we're going and scouting those we're not we're not still
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: hunting really in that scenario. We are just beat feeting
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: to those spots, and you know, we might approach those
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: with caution in the last couple of hundred yards, but
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: before that we're just we're hauling and and a lot
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: of times along the way we'll run into you know,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: mature buck lockdown with the dough or something right next
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: to the road, and that may change the plans completely,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: but efficiency really matters during that time. I feel like,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: what would you add, Greg, I think, you know, if
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: you can key in on a spot where there's high visibility.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: If you're really struggling, uh to find somewhere to get
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: away from hunters, If you can find somewhere that you
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: can just glass into, um, you can cover a lot
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: of ground just visually. UM. You know, set up, you know,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: do an observation, sit and and then and move in
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: beyond that or move on if you don't see anything. UM,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm going back to. Actually would have been
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: about November five, November six, something like that. I had
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: a situation where, you know, the spot that I wanted
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: to go to, there was vehicles there, and then moved
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: on to another area, UM where there was an access
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: point where there's a parking lot that you know, you
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: wouldn't really realize that it was a parking lot. It
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: was kind of you had to go past somebody's house.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: It wasn't real obvious. So that was the first thing
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, well, maybe maybe people don't realize you
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: can go park back in here. And there was a
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of uh, there was a good mix of cover.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: It was bought land, you know, crp patches of cotton
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: wood regeneration and then it rolled up into hardwood timber.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: So there was a good mix of habitat, So it
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: started to work my way into that. UM found rubs
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: and scrapes right by the parking lot. There wasn't any
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: you know, visible boot tracks, so I didn't have to
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: go very far. I basically went to the first patch
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: of bedding cover and found rubs and scrapes close to that.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: So I set up there for the evening, and you know,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of deer coming out of that
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: that bedding cover. I think I saw like fifteen or
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: sixteen deer that night something like that. It was a
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: really good sit. Didn't see any mature bucks. But from
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: there I just kept working that area basically just stage
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: hunting my way in and worked in and around that
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: area really throughout the rest of November. The rest throughout
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: the rest of the middle part of November. Never killed
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: a buck. Um I don't, I can't. It was like
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: six or seven close calls that I had. It was
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: just kind of crazy. One of those one of those
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: seasons where you know, you just it was a great
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: season as far as having encounters, but just didn't arrow
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: a deer. But anyways, it was yeah, I guess that
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: was one of the things I was looking at. It
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: was you know, an overlooked parking area, and then an
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: area that had fairly high visibility and uh and just
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: you know, found the deer signed right away and just
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: kept working working through it and never saw another hunter
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: in there over the course of the of the run.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: I think that's something we ought to cover real quick,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: Greg in detail, is you didn't go very far in
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: And that's something that we that happens to us. I
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: would say often, not all the time, but we're we're
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: constantly talking about remote areas trying to get away from people.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: But in many situations it pans out just like what
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: Greg said. You might find a very small area that
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: is overlooked. You pull in there, there's no vehicles, don't
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: walk by fresh sign on your way in there, especially
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: if you if there's a really good betting area, like
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: a hundred yards from that thing, because if nobody has
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: been in there within the last day or two, there's
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: a high likelihood, especially if you're in high pressure area,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: that they've pushed deer into that bedding area. It doesn't
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: matter if it's a mile back or a hundred yards.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: And that's a mistake that we used to make a
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: lot was we would we were always stuck because it's
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: publicly and hunting. We were always stuck in that mindset
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: where it's like we've gotta go back, we've got to
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: get as far as possible. But we've noticed that, you know,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: just trusting the sign more in the last couple of years,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: Like we said, fresh scrapes. And when we're talking about
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: fresh sign, I mean it's signed that was laid down
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: in the last day, the last day and a half,
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: and we are looking for that stuff every single day
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: of the season, including in the rut. You know, it's
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: it's rained here in Missouri this week, for example, but
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: Ted and I have been scouting throughout the week, not
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: just for random scrapes, but for scrapes that have been
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: worked in the rain or since the latest rain, and
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: we haven't found very many of them. But it's like,
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: you know, if you wake up in the morning it's
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: been a downpour all night, you go out there and
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: you start checking scrapes and you find one that was
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: worked and you can visibly see like drieder that was
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: turned up in the scrape. You know it was worked
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: since that rain. So you're right on top of them
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: at that point. I mean, you're you're just right on them.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: And that's another thing with tracks too. It's it's like
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: the sharper the track is when you find it kind
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: of depends on the you know, the soil that you're
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: that you're finding in the grass or whatever. But if
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: you really look in detail at the track itself, you
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: can figure out if it was really fresh or if
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: it's old. Same thing with like deer poop a lot
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: of times. And like Greg was mentioning with the rubs earlier,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: with the bark land on top of freshly fallen leaves,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't really care during the rut if
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: there's a rub there that was made in late September
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: early October. But if there's a rub there that shining bleeding,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: like Greg said, like what Dan Impult refers, that's something
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: you're gonna pay really close attention to. I mean literally,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: we've taken three steps a lot of times past that
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: type of sign and bumped a giant buck because they're
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: they're right on top of that fresh sign. And it's
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: not that's not always the case, but fresh sign doesn't
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: lie like that. I mean, we we've we've got into
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: big bucks in areas where there's very very little fresh
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: sign um or it was extremely difficult to see. But
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: when you do find it, it doesn't lie there. They're
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: right there and they've they are usually not too far. Now,
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: what about a situation where you know, like like you
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: guys are in most situations, at least in Iowa, is
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: that you're you're looking for a mature buck, not just
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: any buck. So when you're you're hitting this first hot
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: sign and it's fresh, but it's not obvious big bucks
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: on you're not seeing an obvious big buck track. You're
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: not seeing a thigh sized rub. But there's a bunch
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: of fresh scrapes, fresh rubs, but but you don't know
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: what it is. Is that still gonna stop you or
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: do you need some kind of confirmation that, yeah, big
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: buck's been here here, because it's sometimes there's a difference
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: between you know, where young buck is gonna cruise versus
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: a big one. Yeah, And that's a great, great point um.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: The other day, for example, we were scouting. We found
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: a fresh scrape amongst a pile of fresh rubs. But
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: they were little bitty spindley rubs. They weren't worked real aggressively,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: and the fresh scrape was just pawed like one time,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: and it would you could tell it hadn't been worked aggressively.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: And this I would say, this is just general advice.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know that this is the case in every situation,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: so bear with me on it here. But um, for
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: the most part, when a mature buck goes in there
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: and works just scrape, especially this time of year, they
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: are gonna work it pretty aggressively, you know. But with
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: that said, I've seen a lot of them walk up
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: to just the branch and work the laking branch and
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: move on. However, aggressive rubbing, aggressive scraping, big tracks, that
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: tends to lend itself to a bigger animal some kind,
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it could be it depends on
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: your area that you're hunting to. You know, it could
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: be a three year old buck in Missouri or in
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: Michigan or something like that where that's you know, one
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: of the older bucks in the area that's that's leaving
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: that sign. But we've certainly seen that in Missouri this week,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: we're hunting a low density area all timber um basically
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: just acorn fat deer, and we ran into that the
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: other day where there was there were several scrapes but
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: they were not aggressive. It was the same spot you
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: and Ted hunted uh in September greg where there's like
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: six seven scrapes. There's lots of rubs, but there was
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: there was very little aggressive fresh signing within that area
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: and all we saw was was little year and a
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: half old bucks and no does so the type of sign,
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: like you mentioned mark does matter if if that's what
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: you're after is a mature buck. Um, yeah, I would
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: go ahead. Sorry, I was just gonna say, yeah, I mean,
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: going back to that sign I found yesterday morning, going in,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: it was like pretty aggressive rubbing. There were saplings that
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: were broken over. I mean just the bark was shredded. Uh.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: There was five or six fresh scrapes, well worked scrapes there.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, then we called that buck up out
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: of that draw basically where all that sign was laid down.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: So that that to me was a good indication that
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: there was some kind of older age class buck in
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: that area with an aggressive, you know it seemingly aggressive demeanor.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, sure enough that rattling sequence brought him
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: up out of the drawal and he came right to
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: the decoy. So that was that was one of those
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: situations where you know, it all all came together nicely
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: and we assumed there was a good one in that area.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: But I guess for us, you know, we're not really
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: worried about shooting a you know, five year old buck
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. You know, a nice three or four year
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: old buck. Um good for us. I mean we're not
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: We're just not super picky. But it's nice when you
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: get those get those older bucks, especially the like want.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: Once you start talking about getting up in in five
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: year old and older bucks, those are anomalies in in
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: whatever environment you hunt in, including Iowa, unless you're on
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: some big, big private manage tracked. I mean, you almost
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: have to hunt those deer specifically you know where you're
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: well I shouldn't say that you have to, but a
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: five year old buck is gonna leave similar signed to
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: a to you know it charged up three year old buck. Yeah.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: A lot of times you might have a hundred fifty
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: inch wide three year old buck that's just tearing up
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: the woods, you know, but in a lot of areas
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: that's gonna get people pretty fired up, including me, regardless
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: of regardless of where it is. So um, yeah, I
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: think what you just said there makes a lot of sense, Greg,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: because that buck that we killed a couple of weeks
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: ago that was in a that was in a similar scenario,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: even though it's in mid October, and this was an
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: area that had very little deer sign in it, but
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: the little bit of deer sign that was there was
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: big sign. Like we found just two rubs and no
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: scrapes leading into this bedding area, but both the rubs
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: were super fresh and they were huge and aggressive rubs.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: And then we went in there the next day and
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: uh killed the mature buck and that was the only
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: deer that we saw in there. So you know, if
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: that's what you're after, is a mature buck for your area,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: you might not run into a lot of that type
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: of sign. But I mean several times where we're hunting
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: low density areas, we might just find one or two
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: sets of big fresh tracks coming in and out of
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: a bedding area, especially if you find them going in
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: and coming out and got on a mature in him
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: on a mature buck in that same area. You talked
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: about betting areas a handful of times here when you're
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: talking about the specific kind of scouting you would do.
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: You mentioned you're gonna carry the mail until you get
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: to that next betting area, and then you'll slow down
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: and focus on that, and then you want to hit
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: the next betting area. UM. And I know that focusing
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: on betting is something you guys do religiously in a
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: lot of cases. And you've talked in the past a
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: lot about buck betting areas and zeroing in on those
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: during certain parts of the year. UM. Do you care
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: about quote unquote buck betting at all during the rut
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: or is it shifted to dough betting areas at this
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: point or or if not, what's the mix? I would
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: say any sort of betting area, UM, is important during
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: during the rod because even the spots with just does
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: and little bucks in it all of October, all that
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: could change in in the matter of a few hours
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: in the rud. I mean, uh, hot dog gets in there,
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: Sure buck is going to be in there and honor
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: in you know, fairly quickly. And if you can somehow
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: manage to stay with that hot dough through her breeding cycle,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: you're going to see all the whole gamut, you know,
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: as far as the hierarchy of bucks in that area.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: We've seen that over and over again. It's like, man,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: when when you were when you founder, doesn't matter if
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: it's forty yards from the car, they're all gonna be
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: there sooner or later, or they're gonna push her out
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: of there into the next spot, and they're all gonna
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: be there and that spot until they drop her and
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: then they're gonna go to cruising. But uh, that's one
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: thing I'll say about. You know, big mature bucks, especially
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: dominant bucks in an area, they just in a higher
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: deer ncy area, they don't see a cruise as much
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: like the younger bucks will because they you know, they
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: can't go in there and and push the big guy
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: off the dough. But those big mature bucks, they there's
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: so many deer in some of those areas. If you
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: think about Michigan or Pennsylvania where we just came from,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: there are so many doughs in those areas, and mature
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: buck doesn't need to cruise until the end of the rut.
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, for the most part, they don't. They're they're
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: gonna bounce from you know, the first dough that's in
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: heat to the next dough that's in heat, and they're
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: gonna kick whatever small buck off of her that they
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: have to when she comes in, and if she's not
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: quite in yet, they're gonna hang back and stay with
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: her in that general area. I mean, they might not
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: be right on top of her, but they're gonna be
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: in that general area until she does come in, and
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: then they'll come in here and kick those little bucks off.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: So so let's let's paint a hypothetical scenare like that.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: Let's say you can see into a betting area. Maybe
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: it's like just tall, thick brushy grass and bushes and
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, and for whatever reason, you were hunting
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: kind of outside of it, and you could see into it,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: and you see a mature buck bumping a doll round.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: But he's it's not just one, but he's he's getting
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: these checking does checking a family group, and it's getting there.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: But maybe it's not quite to the stage where he's
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: locked on dogginger for five yards um, but to your point,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: you know, he's it's getting close. You're in that situation,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: do you move in as tight as you can on
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: a downward edge where you can safely, you know, sit
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: and wait around for a while and just say okay,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: you know, over the next day or two, one of
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: these does has gotta pop He's in here, this is
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: a spot of interest. He's going to pass theeger eventually,
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: or are you gonna zero in on exactly the tree
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: you saw him go running by that's right in the middle,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: and try to dive in there to kill him the
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: next morning exactly you know which you saw. I mean,
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: how much do you chase specific observations versus zones? Mm hmm.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: That probably depends on the situation, but I would I
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: would air more on the side of what Greg was
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: talking about while ago when it comes to stage honey,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: m if I if I was in an area and
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: that kind of goes back, that's kind of like how
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: that hunt played out last year, Gregg with that decoy
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: buck on that little piece of walk in m We
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: observed a bunch of doughs in there and amature buck
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: in that scenario, and we basically just chipped away at
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: that area for about three days until we got a shot.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: If you're bowl hunting, there's a lot of luck involved.
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially in the rut, Like you gotta get
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: those suckers within twenty five yards somehow or another. In
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: their movements can be somewhat unpredictable. But if you do
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: see that scenario that you're talking about, Mark, I would
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: say move in tighter on the next sit when permitting,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: maybe not on the exact spot, um, but somewhere in
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: and around that thing, because that buck isn't gonna move
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: off very far, especially if there's a dough that you
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: think is getting ready to come in, or there's a
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: big group of dose in there. In general, like just
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: Dan with those does and being in that area is
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: gonna put you in the game. So I would say
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: stay right in there with him. I mean, I'd be
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: aggressive enough to getting tired enough to that vetting area
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: to shoot into the edge of it where you could
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: kill a buck if he was cruising down on the
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: downland side or whatever. Um. I wouldn't sit back and
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: just continue continuously observed that. Once I saw that movement,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: I would dive in there, but then I would stay
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: hunt around it, you know, in different in different spots,
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: until you know eventually they moved out of there or
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: shot a buck. We would you say, Greg, yeah, I
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: totally agree. And then also you know with that picture
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: that you just painted, kind of going back to the decoys,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: you know, if possible you know, just using a decoy
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: in that kind of scenario, you know, if if it
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: makes sense. And Aaron's example of the decoy buck he
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: killed last year, he was basically stage hunting that that
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: property in but was using a decoy the entire time,
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: and that eventually, you know, was how he killed. The
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: buck rattled, you know, we saw the buck rattled and
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: then what several minutes later the buck comes up over
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: the horizon is right in your face. Yeah, And that
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: morning we saw like how many different bucks in there
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: on those doughs. I don't even know it was. There
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: was there was a pile of him. I mean, there
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: was a there was a big group, a family group
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: of dose that was living in this tiny, tiny bedding
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: area and this very very small, overlooked piece of walking
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: hunting land, and for whatever reason, it was just off
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: to the side. I mean, there's several larger pieces of
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: public ground that are nearby. There are several thousand acres
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: in size, and this one pieces like a couple hundred
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: acres and it's mostly just grass with a few little
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: draws in there. But there's a there's a couple of
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: family groups of dos living in those draws and when
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: one or more of those does is in heat or
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: close to going in heat, that's when all the bucks
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: in the area show up right there. And that's what
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: we had in that scenario. We we got to that
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: point by hunting the bigger public pieces and then running
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: in the hunting pressure as we were talking about earlier,
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: and eventually got sick of running in the hunter so
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: we bounced around until we found that UM. But yeah,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: once we found it, it was just a stage deal.
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: It took three days before we got our shot UM,
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: but it was just bouncing in there, moving in a
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: little bit at a time. I mean, I'm gonna say
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: on that three acres there was three general betting draws
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: in it. We're do you We're spending their time during
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: the day, So we hunted. We hunted observation the first night,
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: gathered data on all those draws from from watching does
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: and bucks coming out of them. Second day we hunted
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: draw number one. Second evening we hunted draw number two.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: Third morning we hunted draw number three, killed a black.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: Can you can you illustrate what you were thinking about
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: and looking at when you chose the specific re on
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: let's say you're day two or day three hunt as
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: you so you you hung out in the edge and observed,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: but then in day two or three you're making a
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: specific move to hit one of these draws. And and
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: I think something that a lot of people struggle with
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: is they know the general kind of spot that should
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: be looking for, but it's it's kind of next level
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: to be able to get to the point where you
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: know how to pick the spot within the spot. Um
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: can you describe if you recall um or make it
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: up hypothetical or whatever, But the kinds of stuff that
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: you would be specifically looking at, thinking about as you're
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: picking the exact spot to hunt, the tree, the location
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: that's going to make this work. I think that kind
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: of illustration would help it kind of sink home for people. Well,
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: when scouting or observing, you're watching these deer come out
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: of these things, like that first evening when we observe
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: dear coming out of those draws and sort of moving
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: across that area. We're watching where those trails are, which
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: side of the draw they're coming out of, you know,
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: and or crossing into, and then making a game plan
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: to set up on that trail the next morning. But
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: in the dark when we crept in there that morning.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: We found a fresh scrape on the tip of the
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: draw as we were moving up there, so we didn't
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: even get to the trail where we saw the deer
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: come out the evening before. We just set up over
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: top of that scrape at the first available tree. In fact,
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: there was actually an old tree stand in the tree
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: um where somebody had hunted in the past, but they
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: hadn't hunted it recently, so uh, in this particular instance,
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: it was just observing movement and then going in and
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: sitting on that depending on the wind, you know, I
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: obviously don't want to set up on that trail with
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: my wind blowing straight into it. I want to set
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: up somewhere across from it where the wind is blown
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: away from that predicted movement that we had that we
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: had saw the night before. And there's I guess there's
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: probably no real there were. There was just a few
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: available trees in that draw to get into, and since
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: that was only our second hunt into the area, I
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: still wanted to be in a tree if I could,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: so that I could observe while I was hunting that
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: that specific movement. Does that make sense, like I'm hunting
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: the I'm hunting that twenty yard trail coming out of
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: that draw that we watched her come out of the
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: evening before. But I'm also getting in one of the
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: few trees in there where I can observe across that
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: most of that property. So you're you're in position to kill,
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: but you're also gathering data from observing at that time too,
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: At this time of year started start to cut off aaron.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: But at this time of year, when you're in the
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: rut and you're you're doing something like what you just described,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to pick the tree, and you've got
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: a tree that's in the perfect spot for the things
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: you just described, you can observe, but you're also within
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: range of the trail you want to be hunting, and
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: the winds really good there. You've got that tree, but
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: it's lousy for cover. It's a bean pole. Would you
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: pick that one? Or would you pick the tree that's
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: subpar location? Maybe you have to sacrifice on one of
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: those three factors that just described site or shooting range
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: or wind. But it's a big, old, gnarly, multi branched
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: oak that you would be invisible and you can get
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: away with murder um which would you choose or what
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: would you be thinking about when trying to make that decision. Uh,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: it kind of depends on the specific conditions that day,
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: you know, if it's But for the most part, we
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: want to be able to shoot that trail. Um, because
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: if you're sixty yards away in the perfect tree and
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: a buck walks down that trail, your SLLL unless you
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: have a decoy or something like what Greg's talking about,
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: which is what we did burning into play on this
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: particular hunt. Uh. Some as I said, and as you're
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: alluding to, there wasn't a lot of good trees in there,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: so in order for us to place the deer in
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: front of our stand, we had to use calling in
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: a decoy. But in other types of scenarios, maybe you're
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: not hunting an open scenario and it's thicker, or you're
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: you're in big woods or something like that where deer
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: can't see a decoy from a distance, I would I
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: would err on the side of hunting right over the trail,
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: even if the trees a bean pole. I mean, maybe
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: a ground setup is better there where you can get
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: more covered. Um. The main thing is you don't you
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: either want to be able to place that deer in
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: front of you with the use of a decoy you're
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: calling or whatever, or you gotta set up where the
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: deer is crossing through within bow range, because if you
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: don't do either one of those things and a deer
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: walks down that trail, you're not gonna be able to
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: get a shot at him. And I feel like your
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: your first time in that spot is going to be
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: the time when you when you get your chance. Yeah,
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: and would you agree that you probably can get away
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: with a little bit more are in the rut to
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: as far as it's you know that buck hopefully has
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: other things on his mind other than picking you out
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: of a tree. He might be cruising through fast or
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: nose to the ground, that kind of thing too. I
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: would say it depends on this scenario though. If you're
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: hunting the edge of a betting area with a lot
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: of deer in it and a lot of doughs, specifically
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: like say you're hunting Michigan or p A where you've
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: got lots of doughs and they are used to looking
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: up in trees and hunters, um, you're gonna have to
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: be real careful with that. But if you're in a
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: scenario like where I'm talking about UM, in this particular example,
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: there's not high deer density overall, UM, And in that scenario,
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: you're likely gonna see, you know, a couple of deer
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: on your set, and one of them might be a
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: buck that you want to shoot. So I'm willing to
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: sacrifice that cover in order to get the shot. But
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: if I'm inna If I'm in a scenario, say it's
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: an evening hunt in a bunch of deer leaving a
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: betting area and they're heading to a food source, a
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of doughs specifically, maybe it's the big getting or
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: the end of the rut, and it's like like that
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: scenario you're talking about earlier where they haven't popped yet.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: They are, they're close, but they're not quite in heat yet. Well,
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: big boy is gonna lay back behind them and come
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: out after they've all went through the danger zone outside
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: betting area, you know how they do so, and that's it.
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: In that situation, you've got a prioritized cover. Otherwise a
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: mature does is going to walk through there and bust you,
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: and that's gonna be the end of your night. UM.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it all goes back to the situation, but
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: if possible, I'm trying to get hidden where I can
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: shoot that trail. Yeah, I'm I'm living the second scenario
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: you described right now, and that I'm I'm chasing the
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: buck and there's ten million dolls around here and anytime
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: you want to get into the good stuff where I
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: know this buck is spending time where I've had a
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: couple of observations, it's just nearly impossible to it away
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: with not having a dough go down whin do you
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: eventually because they're just criss crossing. So it's this constant
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: battle between wanting to get to where you need to
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: be to shoot the buck while also figuring out how
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: to do that without other deer figuring you out. And
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: that's a tight that's a tight rope back. That's that's
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: it's very tough and honestly, like, I'm not in your situation,
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: so I couldn't even begin to tell you what to do.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: But I mean a wet, windy day of any kind
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: where you can slide in the back door there is
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: your is your friend, and those types of scenarios what
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: we've found. Anyway, it's like, man, when when it's wet
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: and windy. Those deer you can just get away with murder,
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: meaning walk right by him in the dark. As long
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: as the wind is in your favor, you can. You
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: can walk by a lot of deer without spooking them.
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: But I mean, if it's gonna be like it is
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: tomorrow morning, where it's frosty and crunchy and dead calm,
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: extremely difficult, not the day. Yeah, I've been I've been
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: dying for a nice, crisp, consistent wind. The last couple
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: of days. I've been hunting a spot where that description
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: I just gave you, where there's all these doughs and
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: this this buckum after I'm having these nights where as
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: it often does, where the winds will die down towards
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: the end of evening. But it's been extreme. It's gone
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: from a nice, good wind to zero at the end.
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: And then I've had I've been in a situation where
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting the high pressure thermal's lifting up or anything.
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: It's just pooling around the bottom and little swirls and stuff.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: And you know, even when I went in thinking that
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: wind was gonna be great, when you've got ten fifteen
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: does coming from different directions and if one gets squirrel
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: in every single damn one of these deer looks in
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: every tree they walk past, and then you just know
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: the jig is up again. Um It's it's interesting, that's
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: for sure. But but Greg, before we move on, I
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: want to make sure to get your thoughts on um
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: on we were just talking about there with Aaron, as
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: far as some of the detail stuff you would look
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: at when trying to pick the spot within the spot
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: um or picking the right tree, anything else that you
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: do or think about that we didn't cover there yet.
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: Not really I would, I guess I would mention that
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: I think you can get away with more, especially like
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: in small trees, if you're hunting out of a tree saddle,
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: um or even even hunting off the ground like we've
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: just gotten away with was set ups that I think
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of people just you know, I wouldn't think
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: it's possible. I just wouldn't think to do it. And
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: tree saddles are amazing, especially with one person. With two
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: people gets a little bit tough. But man, if you
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: got a trunk that you know, just you know, barely
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: big enough to hide behind, or even if you can,
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: you know, if it's not if you can rotate your
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: right way around the tree. Is you know, deer coming
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: in to hide your profile. Um, yeah, I think that's
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: a great way to to get in in close to
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: those situations. Or just hunting off the ground. Um, you know,
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: if it's legal where where you're at, the build up,
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a ground blind, get some front cover,
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: get some back cover. You know, we've I don't know
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: how many times we've been in the situations where you know,
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: we've ended up shooting a deer because we had to
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: get to a certain spot and we just had to
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: make it work. And a lot of times it's resorted
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: to hunting off the ground or or you know, I'm
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: just making do with with what you have, and especially
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: with like with the saddles are an advantage if you
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: can hide behind the trunk of a small tree. Yeah,
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: all right, what about this scenario because I hunt out
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: of a saddle to love him, as these guys describe,
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: it gives you a lot of benefits. But one of
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: the things I've wondered, so imagine you're in a situation
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: where you can't use the trunk to hide you, so
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: the deer going to be exposed to you to some degree. Um,
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: And I know this can depend on how many branches
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: and everything and the cover in the tree. But what
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: something I've wondered is when you've got that big, old,
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: mature dell that's gonna walk by you, and you know,
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: all right, this is the moment of truth. You know
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: it's coming up. She's gonna come by close, and you
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: need to do you know where you're trying to become invisible? Um?
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: Do you do you try to stand as tight to
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: the tree trunk as possible and try blending with a
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: trunk or do you lean back and try to have
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: that kind of angle position like a true branch coming up? Um?
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? Oh? Yeah, back what
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: you mean? That's that's a good question. I guess I
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: find myself just trying to hide, hide tight to the
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: trunk of the tree. That's usually what I do. But
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: I wonder if maybe something yeah, just just just be
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: the branch. What do you think? Yeah? Another thing that
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: the ground uh helps with the ground set up in
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: that scenario is you you can move a lot quicker
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: and easier. So say, say you're not hunting over a
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: food plotter directly over a food source, but you're hunting.
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: That transition coming out of bedding from betting to food
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: and you have mature does come by an hour and
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: a half before dark. If you can lay back sixty
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: seventy yards away from that trail, you know, while those
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: doughs are coming by, wait for the doughs to move by,
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: and then make you know, a quiet but quick effort
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: to get up there within twenty yards of that trail
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: to shoot the deer that's gonna come last. After that.
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you can have luck doing that as well. You
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: know what. That's where the ground will give you the
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: advantage over being in a tree, because once you're up there,
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: you know that is that is one good thing I
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: will say about the saddles is I mean, we just
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: did that a couple, you know, last week or whatever.
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: We observed from the tree. Um saw the buck moving
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: fifty yards away and then got down out of the
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: tree and then moved to get in position to kill
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: him within ten minutes or whatever. So it's it's definitely doable, um.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: And it just depends on the situation that you're in.
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: If you're hunting a food pot or something like that, though,
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, uh, or an area where deer congregating the
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: last light. Then you obviously can't get away with that.
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: But just thought, I guess, yeah, I think overcoming those
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: mental blocks that you can't get down and go after
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: a deer. I mean, you go back. It's one the eighteen,
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: and that's what Jake and Ted did. Ted shot the
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: buck of a lifetime by seeing bucks cruising on the trail.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: They were sixty seven yards away. However, far got down
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: in You know when the last half hour of the
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: of the hunt made a quick grown blind and this
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: buck comes by on the same trail and he you
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: shoot him at twenty yards. Same thing the other day.
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of people would think, oh, I
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: can't get down the buck is there's fifty yards just
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: over the ridge. I can't get down. But you know
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: he ends up killing a great buck by being smart
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: and aggressive at the same time. Yeah, man, that was
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: a great buck. Aaron. I gotta ask THEO did you
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: check his ears and eyes? Are you sure you didn't
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: have like some serious damage to some of those senses.
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe. I believe that could not hear me.
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: I was grinding as loud as I could, And I
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: mean some people were saying that they thought that he
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: heard it and picked up his head a few times. Um,
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: and he just didn't care, which might have been the case. Um,
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, his senses were working fairly
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: well because we spooked the crap out of me the
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: day before that. But he definitely he did have like
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: a cataract or something in his right eye. His right
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: eye looked funky, and his left eye looked fine, um,
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: but his right eye did look funky. And in the footage,
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: it looks like I'm just in the wide open woods
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: where I shoot him. But but we were actually up
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: in this big dead fall with a bunch of back cover,
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: you know, in shadows and stuff. So that's I think
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: that is another reason why he couldn't see us, you know,
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: and just standing there. Obviously you're worse worth sitting in
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: that big deadfall pointing out towards the deer. But we
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: probably should have thrown back to the dead fall where
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: you could see where we were actually hit. Um. It
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: was just a huge, you know, horizontal trunk that was
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: coming over there. It was it was perfect little set
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: up for on the ground. Yeah, and that worked out perfect,
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. That's what I like about hunting out
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: of the tree and the ground. I mean, any it's
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: just hunting, um uh, regardless of how you do it,
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: whether you dig a freaking hole in the ground, or
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: you're hunting out of them out of an elevated box,
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: blind or whatever. I mean, it doesn't matter. The main thing, though,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: is is being able to get close enough to deer
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: to shoot him with a bow. If you're not close enough,
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: then you're not gonna get a chance. And the tree
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: helps tremendously in that hunt, particularly because once we got
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: to the ground, we couldn't even see in the betting
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: area where he was at, so you know, we were
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: able to observe in there. Like we've been talking about
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: throughout this uh podcast, is like when you can get
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: up high and you can observe a great distance and
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: observe movement of what the deer doing right now, you
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: can gain a ton of information and then get down
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: and go get them. So here's another scenario, and it's
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be pretty pretty similar to some of the
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: things you guys described, but I just want to see
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: if this unique situation a cused any other ideas. UM.
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about Uh, if we saw
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: a buck that was kind of bumping some doughs around,
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: but they weren't quite ready yet, And what you guys do.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: What about the situation that a lot of guys might
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: see on the seventh of November or fifteen November, which
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: is they see a buck locked on a dough and
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: he sees, you know, push that dough into a little
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: pocket of cover and they're in there, and it's ten
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. Um, can you walk me through
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: what you're thinking about in that situation? I know they're right,
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: is it windy, is it rainy? Could you make a
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: move or do you sneak in later? I mean, I
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: know there's a lot of situations specific stuff, but but Aaron,
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: maybe walk me through a few of your thoughts when
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: you see that and and what options might you consider
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: on the table for what to do next. We've been
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: in that scenario before. Haven we dragged for about four
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: one day? Yeah? Um, I would I would say, as
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: long as you don't scoop the dough, you can get
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: away with just about anything. Um that that mature buck,
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: which he's in heat, he is not gonna leave her.
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: I mean you can, like I said, Zach practically walked
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: up to one and shot at New York. I mean
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: literally just on a walking path and the thing, you know,
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: was just half dumb. That's just the way they act
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: when they're with with the dough. But like Greg alluded
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: to earlier, they all push them up in those spots
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: that are just funky and weird. And that's why people struggle,
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: I think with the lockdown, and I've struggled with it
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: for many, many years, is because we're hunting the same
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: old spots, you know, a funnel or whatever, back where
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: we've seen deer through October and early November, expecting to
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: see the big guy when he's got that dough sequestered
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: off somewhere in a tiny little thick pocket of brush
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: or a fence row or a waterway or like up
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: against a river or railroad tracks whatever. Um, he's got
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: her pushed out there away from the other deer because
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: they're trying to breed and he's trying to fend off
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: those other bucks. So in that scenario, I think it's
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: best to just inch in there and get get the
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: win right, and get right in there as close as
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: you possibly can without spooking the dough and if you
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: can use decoys and in calling, that can work extremely
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: well too. But you've got to get within their bubble.
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: It's like you have to You've got to get within
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: you know, a hundred yards of that thing to challenge
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 1: him enough to come over there and run you off
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: unless you lose this track of the dough, which has
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: happened to us in the past before, and they've come,
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: you know, stiff legged, walking all the way across the
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: field to you. So it kind of depends on the scenario.
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: But the main thing is just to stay with them
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: as long as you can, and you and look for
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: your opportunity to get in there. Say, for instance, you're
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: watching him and watching him and watching them for two
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: hundred yards and they both lay down in the day
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: winds pick up. Well, there's your there's your chance. Now
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: maybe you can start to crawl in there and get tighter.
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: The main thing is, though, don't spook the dough. You
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: spook her, then you're gonna start all over it again.
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: And they may only run three d yards and then
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: go right back to what they were doing. But you
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: can get away with him staring a hole right through you.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: But once she figures you out, Um, he's gonna go
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: with her. Now. A lot of times these bucks will
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: hook up with the dough and you know, spend a
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: couple of days with her and and be on her
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: side at all times. How long will you sit on
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: a spot like that? So let's say you see this,
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: you major move, but it didn't pan out, and the
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: dough lad the buck a different direction and you weren't
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: able to get on them. Would you be set up
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: right in there the same thing next morning, or set
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: up on the movement you saw them take out of there?
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: How would you think about the next the next two
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: or thirty or six hours. I think Jake and Ted
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: had a good example of that last year. They spooked
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: a buck in a dough that or a buck had
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: a dope pined up against the lake and they were
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: going in by. They spooked the deer and you know,
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: they lost sight of the deer, but they, you know,
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: Jake and Ted got to the point where they had
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: spooked him and basically came up with a plan. They figured,
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: what's the next you know, best block of cover where
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: these deer are going to be? And they looped around
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: and then they may have made a couple of different setups,
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: but they worked their way in towards where they figured
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: the deer would be, and uh, just we're doing calling
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: sequences and kept, you know, getting closer and closer, and
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: like Aaron referred to, getting into that bubble. Now they
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: granted they couldn't see the deer, but they were calling
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: into these pockets where they assumed the deer were, and
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: eventually they just the buck left the doll and came
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: up out of there after they had done a calling
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: sequence and came into ten yards and Ted unfortunately, um
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: got a little buck fever or target panic or whatever
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: it was. He shot in front of the deer. But
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: I mean it was it was just an awesome hunt
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: where maybe a lot of people think I spooked the deer,
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: you know, it's over, Maybe I can just come back
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: in here and setting here tomorrow. But those guys went
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: in the direction of those deer, kept after him, kept
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: calling and just working their way in and eventually Ted was,
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: you know, had a had a hunt of a lifetime
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: with this giant eight point at ten yards. It's just
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: well that's what you and I did a couple of
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: years ago to Greg and in that that seedar thicket
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: I mean we just we saw that buck. He saw us.
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: The buck did from forty yards away, but we crouched
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: down immediately, and we're like, the only reason why he
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: could be standing there and not spooked is he's got
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: to have a dough, you know, because why else would
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: a mature buck be standing there dumb looking at you
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: in in what's almost the wide open, you know, I
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: mean a chess high grass. But we're just walking up
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: the access path, you know, a couple hundred yards in
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: the car, and just look up in this thing is
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: just staring right at us. So we looped around, got
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: to win in our favor, and then crept into that
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: little cedar thicket that he was in. And that's exactly
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: what we did. Greg. We've crept in there, called snort,
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: we'se can branches everything, and then we moved up a
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: hunter yards did it again, I think like the third
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: time we did it. We heard that buck snort. We's
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: back at us, and and then what commenced was a
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: four and a half hour just game a cat and
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: mouse in there with him. As he's pushing this dough around.
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: Greg was at full drawing the thing like four different
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: times and just couldn't get a shot through that thick brush.
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: Um decoy would have been game change or even just
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: like a change, just something visual. Absolutely, so go ahead,
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: go ahead. I was just gonna say, those hunts are
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: so fun, like like Aaron to A lot of people
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: struggle with lockdown, and we did for a long time too,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: but it just seems like the past few years, you know,
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: as we've adopted a little bit more aggressive hunting strategy,
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: that all of a sudden we're having a lot of
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: fun with these these kinds of scenarios where you're working
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: in on a buck and you know, trying to decoy
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: men call him in and just get in his bubble
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: and and get him mad enough to come out and
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: come to you. It's it's a lot of fun. But
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: back to what you kind of initially we're talking about
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: their mark, Like if you if you were to go
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: at leave from an evening hunt where you saw that,
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: where you saw a mature buck with the dough, I
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: would say, depending on the scenario that the next morning,
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: I tried to get in there where where you could
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: observe at first light, somewhere where you could see down
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: in there to where they were at and if you
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: can't do that, then I'd probably go about it just
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: like the way that we're talking right now. Just creep
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: in there, maybe sit for twenty minutes, watch you know
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: what you can see, call a little bit, keep the
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: wind in your favor until you find them, um and
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: and just continually move with them until you're in there,
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: right there, in there kitchen with them. But your assumption
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: would be that your assumption would be that they'd be
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: back in there the next day. Right you're assuming that
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: that Doe lives somewhere around there and she's coming back,
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 1: and that Buck's going to be there too, And that's
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: what I want to assume there gonna be that that
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: would be my first guest until proven wrong anyway, like
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: and in which case sometimes you do go in after
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: that set or after that scenario and you move around
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: and you don't find him and she's literally taking him,
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: you know, a half mile or a mile away somewhere
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: that you don't know about, because a lot of things
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: can happen tonight, you know, after you leave the woods. Um.
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: But going with you know, your latest intel is is
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: usually your best idea at that point. Now, all this
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: stuff that you've been talking about the aggressive you know,
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: making a move on the ground, pushing in tight, sneaking in,
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: calling in all that kind of stuff. You're talking about
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: doing this on big chunks of public land where you've
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: got options and you can move around, and if it
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't work out in spot A, you could always go
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: to spot B and whatever? Would you? And you you
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: sort of caveat of this earlier er and when we
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: were talking about something on these lines, But it's a
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: more general level for someone listening to this, and they
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: don't hunt a bunch of public land, but they hunt
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: like heavily pressured small property kind of stuff like your
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: hundred acre family farm Missouri, something like that. Would you
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: cross all this stuff off the list if you only
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: have that hunted acres a private and there's a bunch
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: of other hunters around you, or or is there a
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: time to still get aggressive like this even though you
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: just have your eighty or your hundred to work with?
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: What how do you balance that? I would say, uh,
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: some sort of a hybrid of both. If if you
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: can go in there, and this all really comes down
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: to time. It depends on how much time you have
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: to hunt the area that you're in and to fulfill
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: the goals that you have for your attack. If you
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: go into two a small property and you've got a
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: hell of a funnel area in the middle of that
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: thing that you know you can sit and wait a
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: buck out and eventually get a shot at one. Moving
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: from betting area to betting area, then, as we said
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: in the beginning, that's a that's a tried and true,
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: proven st rategy that works, um and we're not discounting
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: that by any means. But if you try that and
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: it's not working, then you can flip a switch and
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: start moving around and looking, even if it's on a
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: small property. I mean, I think back to my hunts
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: on that small farm when I was a kid, and
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: we killed a lot of bucks doing that in the rut,
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: just sitting and just you know, just eating lunch in
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: the stand, waiting there all day for days and days
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: and days on and not even seeing a deer and
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, here comes to mature buck
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: and you shoot it. But at the same time, I
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: can also remember a hunt I think it's the last
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: year I killed with a rifle down there during Missouri's
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: rifle season. I had sat two days in a row
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: all day, and then I watched a buck um cruised
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: by out of range for my old thirty thirty um,
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: and I had to get down move around. Even though
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't have much room to work with on our property.
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: I went clear to our you know, on our northeast
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: fence line, and was at the very corner of our
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: property in the direction that that buck went, and I
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: actually heard him fighting with another buck right over the ridge,
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: and I crept over the ridge and shot him while
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: he was fighting with that buck um, in which case,
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: if I would have just sat there in my stand
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: after he moved off, I don't know if I would
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: have got another chance at him. So it kind of
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: just depends on on the specific scenario, even down to
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: the to the day that you're hunting. But I think
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: the main thing is that you're gonna hear us harp
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: on constantly. It's just kind of as a group is
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: the the ability to adapt to those and to not
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: be afraid to try something different should something not be working.
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: If you have a lot of time to hunt and
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: you trust that funnel, though that can be extremely deadly.
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: If you can just sit there, if you have the
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: patients to do that, you can certainly kill him doing
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: that as well. You know, maybe you don't. Maybe in
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: that scenario you don't get down and go after the
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: buck that I killed, and you just sit there, But
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: maybe you're kill him three days later coming right back
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: through the same funnel. It's it's hard to say, um,
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: but it's like I, like I said in the beginning
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: of this particular thought, it all comes down to time.
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: If you don't have the time to really put in
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: the city in those funnels, then you've got to adapt
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: and change something, you know, if it's not been effective
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, what do you think, Greg? Uh? You
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: know one thought I had is is again kind of
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: going back to mental hurdles and and really conservative hunting.
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: Is that is this fear of spooking deer. Yeah, And
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many times that you know, in
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: situations where we did spook deer and we're able to
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: get back on them. I get just because you you
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: bump a deer doesn't mean it's all over. I think
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: I've actually spooked dear worse that came by me in
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: I I like blind called to out of a tide
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: through stand location and then the mature bucks circled down
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: when caught my wind and then knew I was there
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: in the area and left, Like I feel, I feel
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: like I've done more damage to that deer right then
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: than walking up on him in the woods most scenario,
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: most of the time, Yeah, because you're catching him by surprise,
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: you know, and even if he does figure out what
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: the heck you are, it's like, what the heck there's
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: a human walking through my woods. I'm not used to
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: seeing that, you know. But if if they smell you
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: and they get a good whiff of you, especially a
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: mature buck, that's when you're in trouble. Otherwise all bets
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: are off. I mean, they may come right back to
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: the same exact spot where they were at if you
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: don't spook them real hard. Yeah. It's just it's been
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: fun to see how many times over these past few
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: years that aggressive aggressiveness has paid off, you know. I
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I kind of come from the you know, hunting,
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: the small farm growing up, heavily pressured and public land
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: as well, and I was always been a you know,
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: pretty conservative hunter. And part of that is just personality
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: driven as well. You know. I feel like I can
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: sit in a stand for a long time and just
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: wait it out. But you know, now we've got all
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: these all these guys different personalities and hunting styles. It's
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to see how you know, it's it can
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: pay to be aggressive and overcoming some of those mental
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: hurdles of just being so afraid, you know, the spooka deer,
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: or just to get out of your comfort zone. I
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: think when you start to start to do some of
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: these things that we've talked about in this podcast, um,
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: you can first have a lot of fun doing it,
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: learned a lot and also, uh, you know a lot
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: of times it's it pays off in field tags or
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: at least close encounters. Yeah, so let's let's wrap it
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: up because there's a lot more we can talk about.
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: But I know you guys have got to edit. You
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: guys have gotta get going, gotta leave Walmart parking lots
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: and and head back to uh the old hunting grounds.
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to keep it too much longer,
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: but I want to ask one final question because you
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: kind of alluded to mental hurdles Greg and and in
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: this case, you were talking about, you know, just getting
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: over these things we assume you shouldn't do, but actually
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: you guys are doing it, Um. I feel like in
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: addition to that, there's a lot of other mental stuff
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: going on during the rut. Like for a lot of people,
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: this is when we put the most expectations on ourselves.
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: We've put our vacation time towards this, all of our
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: hopes and dreams are here. For a lot of people,
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: it means you're spending day after day grinding it out.
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that can be tough in
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: certain ways, even though it's that time of year we
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: enjoy and look forward to the most. What would be
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: for each of you one thing that you think matters
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: the most to having success at this time of year
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the mental side of it, the
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: mental toughness or or stamina or something that you need
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: during the rut? Um, Greg, is there anything that comes
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: to mind that we can leave folks with as far
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: as as far as that, I think mental preparedness. Like
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: you said, you get tired as you grind it out
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: during the rut. I mean, it's just inevitable. You know,
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: day after day you're gonna be tired. But I tried
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: to every time I get into a setup, try to
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: play out the scenario that that I may happen. Can
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: I shoot behind me? Can I shoot to my left?
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: Can I shoot to my right? What are my shooting lanes?
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: What's the distance? And uh, you know, I'm thinking back
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: to last year a buck I shot. Um. I was
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: self filming at the time, so I was having to
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: make sure, you know, where can I film? Can I
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: film kind of behind me if a deer comes behind
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: to the left, And that's what ended up happening. And
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: I had practiced that with the camera withdrawing back, and
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what the buck did. And I was able
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: to pull off that shot with confidence because I had
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: thought about it ahead of time. So you just trying
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: to keep you know, mentally prepared and uh, you know,
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: even though he may be tired and just want to
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: sit back and relax, just trying to think through all
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: the scenarios because during the run, as we all know,
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: it can happen in a flash. And if you're not ready,
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: if you haven't you know, maybe you don't have the range,
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: or maybe you're just unsure if if you can shoot
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: in a certain direction. It's just I found so many
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: times that it helps to be mentally prepared and think
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: about all these scenarios at least as much as possible.
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: What do you think, er, I would just pagyback on
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: what what he just said, um In, I really want
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: to hammer home rest, uh, because that's a that's a
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: huge thing, especially when it comes to being mentally sharp.
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're on a week's vacation rut hunting
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: all day long, and you're on public ground and you're
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: grinding like you're you're burning a lot of calories throughout
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: the day out there freezing your butt off and trying
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: to get on these things, and what typically happens is
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: by the end, towards the end of your week is
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: your best hunting because that's when you have of you know,
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 1: had time to figure out what the heck is even
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: going on, and that's when you need to be the
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: most sharp mentally. And consequently, the opposite happens because you've
• 2:32:43
  Speaker 1: been pushing so hard all week that you're mentally drained,
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: you're physically drained, you haven't been you haven't had good sleep,
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: you know, you're eating freaking your tenth meal. It's a
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: Casey's gas aping, you know, And what ends up happening
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: is you do get your opportunity later in that week,
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: and you screw it up because you're not thinking through
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: all those fine details that Greg just mentioned. So I
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: would I would look at it more so it's like,
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: try to go into it with some sort of an
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: efficient plan to scout scout scout, find the deer, and
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: prioritize your rest. You know, figure out where the heck
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: you're camping at ahead of time so that you can
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: camp as close to possible, as close as possible to
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: your hunting locations. UM, set up camp in your truck
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: if you need, to make sure that you have comfortable
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 1: gear to camp in. If that's the case, make sure
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: that you have food prepared that you know is legit.
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: Not not eating this guard. I mean I've done it.
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 1: I've I've made so many pieces of cases pizza it's
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: not even funny. But I mean you gotta think, if
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: you think all that stuff through ahead of time, you're
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 1: gonna have way more energy going into it, UM, because
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: the smallest little mistake, like if you set up on
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: the ground and you don't in for that shooting lane
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: at twenty yards and there's grass or a twig or
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: something in the way you're talking about, you know the
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: difference between success and failure, and in one small little
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 1: detail that was overlooked. Now and I'm not trying to
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: put pressure on any of your listeners do these things.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: Just think of it the opposite way. Think of it like, Okay,
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: I'm here for a week. We got a prioritize rest inefficiency,
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: and then when we get in kill mode in those situations,
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 1: we gotta go through the checklist like what Greg just mentioned,
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: and you'd be better check that way. I feel like
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry gonna cut you off. No, You're good. I
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: was just gonna say, yeah, check your equipment, make sure
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: your bows on, have a targeting camp or shoot it.
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: I've been in a scenario where I hunted a you know,
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: hunted a buck all season when I was younger, and
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: finally got my shot in November seven and didn't realize
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 1: my rested moved and I shot a footing underneath them.
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: That's that's no fun. Worst case the area right there.
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, ah man, Well, this is this has
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: been really good stuff, guys. I I really appreciate it.
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: And for people that want to follow what you're doing
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: this year, um and all the content can can one
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: of you give us a lowdown on where people can
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: tap into all your content, how they can file along
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: what they can see and expect. Go ahead, Aaron, oh
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: the Hunting Public, go and check it out on YouTube.
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: We've got all kinds of new episodes there right now,
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know how many episodes are we
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: into the deer tour right now, Greg upwards of thirty
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: oh up herds of thirty Okay, I think getting close.
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: And we've got a pile of really cool stuff this
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: next week and uh then this we're heading to Tennessee
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: to uh hunt during the first part of the rut,
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: singers out in Ohio. Um, got all kinds of gun
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: season deer campac and also coming up uh towards the
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: middle and the end of November, and then we're gonna
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: go south in December. We're gonna hunt down in Georgia
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: for the first time, so that should be really excited too.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, just check us out on YouTube, at the
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: Hunting Public Instagram, at the Hunting Public Facebook, and we've
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: also got episodes streaming on Amazon Prime. Awesome. But you
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: guys are killing it. Everything you're putting out there is
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: really really good. So if for some reason, you're listening
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: to this podcast right now, and you live under a
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: rock and you haven't checked out the hunting public. Let
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: this be the thing that changes that for you. Go
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: watch it, go check out their stuff, and uh Aaron, Greg,
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: thank you and good luck these coming days. Thanks, Thanks, Mark,
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: you as well appreciate it all right, and that's a wrap.
• 2:36:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one.
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: It was long one, so props to all of you
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: that made it through. But hopefully you'll learned some good
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: stuff and you can put that into action on your hunts.
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: So good luck, have a great time, be safe, and
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay Wired to Hunt. M M.