Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 243: A Deer Hunter’s Guide To Wind and Thermals with Ryan Furrer
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
- 0:06Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
- 0:11Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
- 0:16Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number two
- 0:18Speaker 1: hundred and forty three in Today in the show, I'm
- 0:21Speaker 1: joined by Ryan four of the CUDU May to take
- 0:24Speaker 1: a very advanced look at how wind, thermals and air
- 0:28Speaker 1: currents impact deer and deer hunting. Before we get to
- 0:48Speaker 1: the show, they want to give a quick thank you
- 0:50Speaker 1: to our friends at Lacrosse Boots for their support of
- 0:53Speaker 1: this podcast episode. I've been wearing the Alpha Burley Pros
- 0:57Speaker 1: this year with eight grams of fins lay into alation.
- 1:00Speaker 1: Been very comfortable so far, and I put them to
- 1:02Speaker 1: the test this past week as we are down to
- 1:05Speaker 1: temperatures into thirties. That's the coldest I have wornament so
- 1:08Speaker 1: far this year and it wasn't an issue at all.
- 1:12Speaker 1: They were super comfortable, kept me warm, kept me in
- 1:15Speaker 1: the tree, happily hunting, and that's all you can ask
- 1:18Speaker 1: for from a boot. On top of that, they're also waterproof.
- 1:21Speaker 1: They're about a cent freezer you can get when it
- 1:23Speaker 1: comes to a boot. They're comfortable to hike in pretty
- 1:25Speaker 1: long distances. Surprisingly, even though it's a rubber boot, these
- 1:28Speaker 1: boots fit your foot quite nicely. I've walked long distances
- 1:32Speaker 1: and it hasn't been an issue. So if you're in
- 1:34Speaker 1: the market for new boots, head on over to Lacrosse
- 1:36Speaker 1: Footwear dot com to learn more. All right, welcome to
- 1:40Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx.
- 1:44Speaker 1: And today in the show, we're going deep into the
- 1:47Speaker 1: weeds on a single topic, and that topic is wind
- 1:50Speaker 1: and thermals and air currents and all these things and
- 1:54Speaker 1: how they impact how dear smell and how you and
- 1:57Speaker 1: I should be hunting. And joining us to have this
- 1:59Speaker 1: discussion is an avid deer hunter and the Equality Deer
- 2:02Speaker 1: Management Association's Senior Regional Director and field Supervisor, Ryan Furrer.
- 2:08Speaker 1: And Ryan is a guy who is hunting mature deer
- 2:10Speaker 1: all across the country and he studied this craft under
- 2:13Speaker 1: some of the very best hunters out there. And one
- 2:16Speaker 1: of the keys that Ryan is so successful is because
- 2:19Speaker 1: he's gone above and beyond the average hunter's understanding of
- 2:24Speaker 1: this topic of wind, thermal's how dear smell. Ryan is
- 2:29Speaker 1: an absolute wind and thermal junkie, So it just seemed
- 2:32Speaker 1: to me that he would be the perfect guy to
- 2:33Speaker 1: help us get into the nitty gritty of this topic,
- 2:36Speaker 1: which which is really of of the utmost importance for
- 2:39Speaker 1: deer hunters. That there might not be a single thing
- 2:41Speaker 1: more important for deer hunters than understanding wind and how
- 2:44Speaker 1: these deer smell, because the nose is most of us know.
- 2:47Speaker 1: The white tail's nose is this number one defense mechanism,
- 2:50Speaker 1: and if we want to get close to these deer,
- 2:53Speaker 1: especially mature buck, we have to find some way to
- 2:56Speaker 1: avoid their nose, or fool their nose, or take advantage
- 2:59Speaker 1: of some kind of weak is that they have, because
- 3:00Speaker 1: there's not very many weaknesses. So Ryan is going to
- 3:03Speaker 1: give us a level of in depth knowledge on this
- 3:06Speaker 1: topic that I don't think we've ever gotten to before
- 3:08Speaker 1: on the podcast. I'm very excited about that. With this
- 3:12Speaker 1: being the case, so I do want to point out
- 3:14Speaker 1: that if you are a brand new hunter, if you're
- 3:16Speaker 1: just getting into it, or if maybe you haven't started
- 3:18Speaker 1: hunting yet, you're intrigued, there's this it's likely. I guess
- 3:21Speaker 1: I was gonna say there's a chance, but it's probably
- 3:23Speaker 1: just playing likely. That some of these concepts and details
- 3:26Speaker 1: are going to get a little bit confusing for you.
- 3:28Speaker 1: This is definitely an advanced kind of course that we're
- 3:31Speaker 1: taking here today. So I'd recommend that if you fall
- 3:34Speaker 1: into that camp, make sure that you go back and
- 3:36Speaker 1: listen to some of the past podcasts, especially the Deer
- 3:40Speaker 1: Hunter that's what is it Beginner's Guide to Deer Hunting podcast?
- 3:43Speaker 1: I think that was episode two six. That's going to
- 3:46Speaker 1: give you a brief introduction to understanding the wind and
- 3:48Speaker 1: how that impacts deer hunting. Understand that first and just
- 3:51Speaker 1: kind of try to wrap your head around that, trying
- 3:53Speaker 1: to implement that before you get into this level of detail.
- 3:57Speaker 1: Uh and even after that, if you come and you
- 3:59Speaker 1: start listening to this one, don't get discouraged if this
- 4:01Speaker 1: does seem a little daunting, you know, learn a deer
- 4:04Speaker 1: hunt is a channel. There's a lot to it. And
- 4:06Speaker 1: and that's why I do want to say one more
- 4:09Speaker 1: thing to you new hunters out there. At a minimum,
- 4:12Speaker 1: during this episode, fast forward listen to the last fifteen
- 4:15Speaker 1: minutes of this one, because at that point in this
- 4:18Speaker 1: show we actually pivot in topics and we end up
- 4:21Speaker 1: talking about some of the programs that the Quality Deer
- 4:24Speaker 1: Management Association is putting together to help mentor and bring
- 4:27Speaker 1: new hunters into the full So there's a few different programs,
- 4:30Speaker 1: a couple different ideas and suggestions about how you can
- 4:33Speaker 1: get connected with folks who can help you learn how
- 4:35Speaker 1: to hunt. I definitely want to make sure you guys
- 4:38Speaker 1: hear about that. Now, for the rest of you that
- 4:40Speaker 1: are into this kind of heavy detail, advanced wind kind
- 4:43Speaker 1: of conversation, get ready for some very interesting stuff. And uh,
- 4:50Speaker 1: we do have a very exciting bonus guest joining us
- 4:53Speaker 1: today too. I'm not gonna say who it is yet,
- 4:55Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of make you guys wait
- 4:57Speaker 1: and find this one out, but I will give you
- 4:59Speaker 1: a clue. His name rhymes with burder Uh. So there's
- 5:02Speaker 1: that to look forward to as well. Now that said,
- 5:05Speaker 1: before we dive into this one, we do need to
- 5:08Speaker 1: thank one of our partners who helped make this podcast possible,
- 5:11Speaker 1: and that is Onyx. Onyx is the maker of the
- 5:14Speaker 1: on X Hunt app and just a couple of days ago,
- 5:17Speaker 1: our bonus guest for today's episode, burder Well. We were
- 5:20Speaker 1: up at our Northern Michigan deer camp and on our
- 5:24Speaker 1: second evening of that hunt, we decided to go and
- 5:26Speaker 1: chase some hopefully chase some deer on some public land
- 5:30Speaker 1: that we've never been on before. At the truck before
- 5:33Speaker 1: we headed out to hunt, each of us pulled up
- 5:34Speaker 1: our Onyx app and we marked our truck occasions so
- 5:37Speaker 1: we knew where we had to come back to after dark.
- 5:39Speaker 1: And then we each downloaded an off grid version of
- 5:41Speaker 1: the map just in case we lost service, we would
- 5:43Speaker 1: still be able to see the map, we'd still be
- 5:45Speaker 1: able to see our location, and then we headed our
- 5:47Speaker 1: separate ways. As I started walking, I turned on the
- 5:50Speaker 1: tracker feature that the app has, which records your exact
- 5:54Speaker 1: path as you walk along somewhere, which would allow me
- 5:57Speaker 1: after dark to follow that same path all way back
- 6:00Speaker 1: to the vehicle. Then, as I was sneaking into the timber,
- 6:03Speaker 1: I had the Onyx app up, looking at it the
- 6:05Speaker 1: whole time to see the arrow map on the phone
- 6:08Speaker 1: and comparing that to what I was actually seeing in
- 6:10Speaker 1: front of me, and I worked my way towards a
- 6:12Speaker 1: certain terrain feature I saw on the map that I
- 6:14Speaker 1: thought might be promising. Now I bring all this up.
- 6:17Speaker 1: I mentioned all this because I think It's a great
- 6:19Speaker 1: example of how handy and how often the Onyx hunt
- 6:22Speaker 1: app can be used during a hunt like this. So
- 6:25Speaker 1: if you'd like to check it out for yourself, head
- 6:27Speaker 1: on over to your mobile app store of choice and
- 6:30Speaker 1: search for Onyx. That's O n X. If you do
- 6:32Speaker 1: end it purchasing in the maps, you can use promo
- 6:34Speaker 1: code wired. That's W I R E D for off.
- 6:40Speaker 1: All Right, I am here now with Ryan Furr and
- 6:44Speaker 1: Josh further Hilliard on the line. Uh, this is gonna
- 6:48Speaker 1: be this is gonna be a good time. And and Josh,
- 6:50Speaker 1: you've you've been on a ton We don't need to
- 6:51Speaker 1: introduce you too much. But Ryan, first time appearance in
- 6:54Speaker 1: the show. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me.
- 6:58Speaker 1: And and it's kind of interest. And this is gonna
- 7:00Speaker 1: be an interesting dynamic because Kurt me if I'm wrong.
- 7:03Speaker 1: But technically, uh, Ryan, you're you're Josh's boss, right, So
- 7:07Speaker 1: if I tell you all the dirty secrets that Josh has,
- 7:09Speaker 1: is that going to get him in trouble? Yeah? No, yeah,
- 7:14Speaker 1: technically I am his boss, but no, it's definitely not
- 7:17Speaker 1: going to get him in trouble. I'll be on my
- 7:21Speaker 1: best behavior, Ryan, Yeah, yeah, definitely just getting what do
- 7:27Speaker 1: you what do you think about the fact that that
- 7:29Speaker 1: Josh has been has become iconic in the hunting world
- 7:32Speaker 1: with a single name. When people here Further they know
- 7:36Speaker 1: who this man is. Is that is that impressively? Yeah,
- 7:40Speaker 1: that's that's awesome. You know, like one of the first
- 7:42Speaker 1: times I heard that man, you gotta run with that
- 7:45Speaker 1: further it is and he's like, no, no, no, it's
- 7:49Speaker 1: oh my god, I can't believe it's taken off. And
- 7:51Speaker 1: you know, I think I've spent him a few text
- 7:53Speaker 1: messages where I started out or end it was further.
- 7:56Speaker 1: And then I even got a couple of people at
- 7:58Speaker 1: the office, which actually my boss would be Josh's boss's
- 8:02Speaker 1: boss sent I saw an email one time that he
- 8:04Speaker 1: finished with hashtag further. So it's definitely picked up some
- 8:08Speaker 1: speed there. It's just pretty cool. That is funny. I
- 8:11Speaker 1: never would have thought back in high school. I get
- 8:13Speaker 1: emails from people like addressing to further like not Josh,
- 8:17Speaker 1: it's like, hey, Further, like I want to start a
- 8:19Speaker 1: branch or what you know, what's going on at this event,
- 8:22Speaker 1: And it's like, oh my gosh, just ridiculous. We need
- 8:26Speaker 1: a t shirt. Yeah, yeah, we really do. Um, so,
- 8:30Speaker 1: so I guess I'll take of those profits. I might
- 8:33Speaker 1: have to negotiate that down a little bit, Josh, but
- 8:36Speaker 1: I'll give you a good handshake and a slap on
- 8:38Speaker 1: the back, how about that? Um? But Ryan, could you
- 8:43Speaker 1: give us a little bit of an introduction that kind
- 8:45Speaker 1: of cliff notes that I usually like to try to
- 8:47Speaker 1: get here as far as, um, what you're doing since
- 8:50Speaker 1: you you're your further's boss, but what does that mean?
- 8:52Speaker 1: And um? And how did you kind of get to
- 8:54Speaker 1: this point? Look, I'd like to hear a little bit
- 8:55Speaker 1: about your personal journey too real quick yes or um? Yeah?
- 9:01Speaker 1: So what am I doing as far as with kid have?
- 9:04Speaker 1: I'm basically I oversee the regional director. So Johnson is
- 9:07Speaker 1: a regional director for probably a germ management association. And
- 9:10Speaker 1: there's uh the eight others asigned from himself, and you know,
- 9:15Speaker 1: they basically you know, are the grassroots there in touch
- 9:18Speaker 1: with the volunteers uh out there and kt M a
- 9:21Speaker 1: land doing their stuff, and Josh is kind of the
- 9:24Speaker 1: liaison between them and the home office making sure that
- 9:27Speaker 1: the eyes are dotted in the teaser across, so to speak,
- 9:29Speaker 1: whether it be grassroots fundraising, educational events, you know, habitat
- 9:34Speaker 1: management type stuff. You know, all facets really, man and
- 9:37Speaker 1: regional director is a pretty interesting job because you know,
- 9:40Speaker 1: you wear so many different hats at any given any
- 9:43Speaker 1: different times of the year, obviously, but umb, so I
- 9:46Speaker 1: oversee those guys, um, you know, make sure that furthers
- 9:49Speaker 1: out there doing what he needs to be doing and
- 9:51Speaker 1: uh and such. So that's, in a nutshell, that's what
- 9:55Speaker 1: I do, among other things at the home office responsibilities
- 9:58Speaker 1: as well. So so so I understand you have an interesting
- 10:02Speaker 1: kind of history as a hunter though too. Um. I've
- 10:05Speaker 1: heard rumors that you've spent a lot of time with
- 10:06Speaker 1: the Wenzels maybe back in the day, and you've kind
- 10:08Speaker 1: of been all over the country hunting and shooting term
- 10:11Speaker 1: and archery and stuff. Can you fill in the gas
- 10:14Speaker 1: on that? Yeah, um, I guess you know. It's I'm
- 10:21Speaker 1: really fortunate to work, you know, for the Quality of
- 10:24Speaker 1: Deer Management Association. I say that because everything I've ever
- 10:28Speaker 1: done in my life, one way, shape or form, is
- 10:31Speaker 1: revolved around a white tail deer, even from an early age.
- 10:33Speaker 1: So I started shooting archery at about eight years old, um,
- 10:38Speaker 1: only because I was just extremely fascinated with bow hunting.
- 10:41Speaker 1: I wanted to be a bow hunter really bad. And um,
- 10:44Speaker 1: interestingly enough, my parents weren't really hunters. Um My dad hunted.
- 10:49Speaker 1: He was the type you know, he may hunt the
- 10:51Speaker 1: first day of Pennsylvania gun season, you know, with the
- 10:53Speaker 1: other one million hunters, um type of deal, but you know,
- 10:57Speaker 1: never bow hunted or anything like that, and or whatever reason,
- 11:00Speaker 1: I don't know why I was. I had a friend
- 11:02Speaker 1: in you know, like uh, grade school that his dad
- 11:05Speaker 1: owned a small archery shop and it was within walking
- 11:07Speaker 1: distance to my house. It was just a little, you know,
- 11:10Speaker 1: like twenty five by thirty building type of deal, like
- 11:12Speaker 1: a garage, and I was just fascinated by everything in there,
- 11:16Speaker 1: you know, the art, you know, the bows, airs, the broadhead,
- 11:19Speaker 1: even the smell of I can still remember the smell.
- 11:22Speaker 1: Um and it it literally, you know, it took my
- 11:26Speaker 1: life over trying to be a deer hunter a bow hunter. Uh.
- 11:29Speaker 1: And then on my own, so um, I started shooting
- 11:32Speaker 1: a bow only to be a bow hunter. And then
- 11:34Speaker 1: that kind of led into a couple of local tournaments
- 11:37Speaker 1: you know, here and there, and then you know, I
- 11:39Speaker 1: started traveling on weekends as it used to the bigger
- 11:42Speaker 1: national three D tournaments this have been back and like, uh, um,
- 11:50Speaker 1: you know, so I shot all facets of archery through
- 11:53Speaker 1: the early nineties. I actually shot and end up doing
- 11:57Speaker 1: pretty well at one time I think ranked third in
- 11:59Speaker 1: the world. But as a as a youth archer three
- 12:01Speaker 1: D archer. Uh, back then it was just the I
- 12:04Speaker 1: v O of the a SA had probably just gotten started,
- 12:06Speaker 1: so it was the impio more so back then. UM,
- 12:09Speaker 1: I think my senior year in high school made me
- 12:11Speaker 1: like the summer between my junior senior year, I decided
- 12:14Speaker 1: that when I shot my first pro tournament. UM. So
- 12:18Speaker 1: I shot my first pro tourament in Bedford, Indiana the
- 12:21Speaker 1: I b O, which was pretty cool. I shot my
- 12:23Speaker 1: first pro tourament with Randy Almer. You know, he's a
- 12:26Speaker 1: kind of a legendary bow hunter, so I was placed
- 12:28Speaker 1: in a group with him. Um it's you know, really neat,
- 12:31Speaker 1: but you know, and then it just kind of grew
- 12:33Speaker 1: from there. I did a longer student and a lot
- 12:35Speaker 1: of hunting. Um. Somewhere around that same time, that nineteen
- 12:40Speaker 1: time frame, I can't remember when, but I met Uh.
- 12:44Speaker 1: I was uh, you know, kind of working in the industry,
- 12:47Speaker 1: you know, going to shows and such with the archery industry.
- 12:50Speaker 1: Uh in the summer. When I say working, it wasn't
- 12:52Speaker 1: like it was a real high paying job. It was
- 12:54Speaker 1: just basically they needed somebody stand at the booth. So
- 12:56Speaker 1: I went and did that, and they paid me like
- 12:59Speaker 1: five blocks or something, bought me sandwiches. But uh I
- 13:03Speaker 1: met uh I met uh uh fellow that was working
- 13:07Speaker 1: for I believe it was Dart at the time, Dart
- 13:09Speaker 1: Interactive Target Systems, the screens, the other darker ikes. I
- 13:13Speaker 1: can't remember twenty plus years ago, but anyway, he was
- 13:17Speaker 1: doing the same type of thing as I was. And
- 13:18Speaker 1: I noticed his name. His last name was Winzel, and
- 13:22Speaker 1: I was a huge Winzel fan from you know, in
- 13:25Speaker 1: in high school when you put like your favorite movie
- 13:28Speaker 1: and your senior you know, your your book type of deal.
- 13:32Speaker 1: Mine was bo Hunting October White Gills. I remember, like
- 13:34Speaker 1: I went to pretty big high school. Remember, everybody like,
- 13:37Speaker 1: what's that? You know? And that was my favorite movie
- 13:39Speaker 1: at the time. And anyway, this kid has his name,
- 13:42Speaker 1: tax said Brat Wentzel, and I was like, you know,
- 13:45Speaker 1: you know, working in the industry, I kind of, you know,
- 13:47Speaker 1: going to know him the best and the relationship barrier
- 13:49Speaker 1: games like yeah, buried my dad, Like, oh my god, kid,
- 13:52Speaker 1: mean then you know him and I ended up becoming
- 13:55Speaker 1: and still are, you know, best of friends. And through
- 13:58Speaker 1: that you know him, I got you know, Matt Burry
- 14:01Speaker 1: and Jean and uh, hunting with them and you know,
- 14:04Speaker 1: hunting out with them and you know whatever, just about
- 14:07Speaker 1: everything with them. And that's probably when I really started, Um,
- 14:12Speaker 1: I guess hunting my my craft as far as if
- 14:16Speaker 1: somebody would call it in another industry, I guess learning
- 14:19Speaker 1: the skills of a white tail deer hunter. Before that,
- 14:22Speaker 1: I like I've said it before, it's a couple of
- 14:25Speaker 1: my buddies. And I was like a wolf. It was
- 14:27Speaker 1: the law of large numbers. I just I thought like
- 14:29Speaker 1: if the harder you hunted, the better the outcome would be.
- 14:32Speaker 1: And I just basically just hunted every minute I could,
- 14:36Speaker 1: you know. And I don't really know if there was
- 14:38Speaker 1: any calculations or you know, methodical thinking behind anything I
- 14:43Speaker 1: did back into the early days. It was just pure
- 14:45Speaker 1: desire to be out there. And uh sometimes I even
- 14:49Speaker 1: still hunt some of the same ground. And I remember,
- 14:52Speaker 1: you know where I may have had a spot where
- 14:54Speaker 1: I hunted in the ship my head thinking what was
- 14:55Speaker 1: I thinking? And and other times I walked past spots
- 14:58Speaker 1: that I didn't hunt with thinking, you know, man, what
- 15:00Speaker 1: was I thinking? I remember this being all tour up
- 15:02Speaker 1: with sign and I've walked through it to get somewhere else. Um,
- 15:05Speaker 1: so yeah, I really I really started paying attention to
- 15:09Speaker 1: the details, probably when I was around you know, nineteen,
- 15:12Speaker 1: I guess, Um, so I'll be forty two this year,
- 15:14Speaker 1: so I guess a little over twenty years. Um, really
- 15:18Speaker 1: start paying attention to details, and probably more so than
- 15:21Speaker 1: anything because of the Winzels and and even to take
- 15:24Speaker 1: a step further, probably Barry uh really you know, hung
- 15:27Speaker 1: out with him a good bit and learned a ton
- 15:29Speaker 1: for very one. So he's I used to say, like
- 15:31Speaker 1: the uh literally you know, like the Tiger Woods, you know,
- 15:35Speaker 1: to golf and Michael Jordan's to basketball. He just he
- 15:38Speaker 1: just had a knack that was really, I say, had
- 15:41Speaker 1: just I just talked to him yesterday. He's seventy four
- 15:43Speaker 1: and stilled on it. But um, he has a knack
- 15:46Speaker 1: for figuring things out or seeing things in the woods
- 15:48Speaker 1: that you know other people may overlook, or just thinking
- 15:51Speaker 1: a little different. Really can't even I can't even describe,
- 15:54Speaker 1: you know, and that's anybody you know, in any craft
- 15:57Speaker 1: with a gift, they just they just have that that
- 15:59Speaker 1: little bit of an edge. And he definitely didn't and
- 16:03Speaker 1: definitely does a decent job explaining it as well. Mhm. Yeah, Well,
- 16:09Speaker 1: so when it came to that that influential experience you
- 16:13Speaker 1: had with Bear there and you're growing up and now
- 16:16Speaker 1: you're in your twenties and you're starting, like you said,
- 16:19Speaker 1: hone your craft. Was there any kind of ah ha
- 16:22Speaker 1: moment that maybe he pointed out to you, or maybe
- 16:25Speaker 1: you kind of figured out yourself as you started implementing
- 16:28Speaker 1: some of his ideas when you were actually out there
- 16:30Speaker 1: in the field that you're sitting at home and thinking
- 16:31Speaker 1: about things like, I'm almost curious for people like when
- 16:34Speaker 1: their light switched moment where they went from you know,
- 16:37Speaker 1: struggling to to kill deer consistently to kill mature deer consistently,
- 16:41Speaker 1: and then they flip the switch and they get this
- 16:42Speaker 1: moment and they said, oh, if I start doing this
- 16:46Speaker 1: big thing, or if I start thinking about this big
- 16:48Speaker 1: thing and then everything kind of starts moving in a
- 16:50Speaker 1: different direction. Do you have a moment like that, think
- 16:54Speaker 1: of Yeah, definitely. Um, it's it's funny, but I can
- 16:58Speaker 1: almost specifically put my finger on it. It was, you know,
- 17:02Speaker 1: it was when I started to understand when and and
- 17:06Speaker 1: how a deer used its nose, right, um, and then
- 17:10Speaker 1: to take it a step further, when you I went
- 17:12Speaker 1: into detail and breaking down how well it deer smells,
- 17:16Speaker 1: you know, and and just in Layman's term, to try
- 17:18Speaker 1: to be rather quick. You know, we have somewhere between
- 17:20Speaker 1: five and six million old factory censors in our noses.
- 17:23Speaker 1: A German shepherd has somewhere around two and a thirty
- 17:25Speaker 1: eight million, and a wait till deer has somewhere around
- 17:28Speaker 1: three thirty millions, so um, over three million anyway, But
- 17:33Speaker 1: you know the point is, you know we know how
- 17:36Speaker 1: well German shepherd smell. I mean, some German shepherds can
- 17:39Speaker 1: detect cancer in humans faster than or quicker than in
- 17:45Speaker 1: the world's most recent you know m R I machines
- 17:47Speaker 1: and and you know cadaver dogs alerting to dead bodies
- 17:52Speaker 1: through two hundred foot of revel in the World Trade
- 17:54Speaker 1: Center disaster and that type of deal. So when you
- 17:57Speaker 1: when you put it in a perspective that a deer
- 17:58Speaker 1: actually can smell better than them. Um, it makes it's
- 18:03Speaker 1: it's an eye opening, you know moment for you like, man,
- 18:06Speaker 1: I really need my scent to be going somewhere other
- 18:10Speaker 1: than that deer's nose or you mean you're especially for
- 18:12Speaker 1: a bow hunter. Um, you know when you're when you're talking,
- 18:16Speaker 1: you know, back in for me inside that thirty yard line.
- 18:18Speaker 1: You know, you definitely have to pay attention to those
- 18:22Speaker 1: those minor details that puts that in your favor. So
- 18:25Speaker 1: it was, it was as soon as I started understanding
- 18:29Speaker 1: the wind and direction, maybe not so much thermals at
- 18:32Speaker 1: that point, but the air current because there's a difference
- 18:35Speaker 1: between wind direction and air currents and how well it
- 18:38Speaker 1: deer smells. And to do what I can to keep
- 18:41Speaker 1: you know, an animal from smelling me is when you
- 18:43Speaker 1: know my it probably went like I remember struggling just
- 18:47Speaker 1: to to see a mature buck. You know, like even
- 18:50Speaker 1: if I saw it off in the distance, I felt
- 18:52Speaker 1: like I was succeeding, like, oh man, there's one wow, cool,
- 18:55Speaker 1: you know, there's a hundred yards away. But whatever I
- 18:57Speaker 1: finally saw, you know, and then then a mature buck
- 19:01Speaker 1: was you know, a three year old. You know, if
- 19:04Speaker 1: I saw a three year old. Back then, I was ecstatic, right,
- 19:07Speaker 1: and then you can slowly and I started picking up
- 19:10Speaker 1: on the little things, and you know, the next thing,
- 19:12Speaker 1: you're seeing them quite you know, pre raggling, and you know,
- 19:15Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, you get that first one,
- 19:17Speaker 1: it walks by ten yards and it's completely you know,
- 19:19Speaker 1: you're you You've went undetected. It just it just flips,
- 19:24Speaker 1: you know, and then you just start so many of
- 19:27Speaker 1: them all home. I must start coming to you. And
- 19:28Speaker 1: he usually come to me in the middle of the night.
- 19:30Speaker 1: It's weird. I've I have woken up at you know,
- 19:33Speaker 1: three am with a man. It's just like something that's
- 19:36Speaker 1: clicked in my mind of of an area that I'm
- 19:38Speaker 1: hunting on a ridgeline, you know, all this different stuff
- 19:41Speaker 1: I had taken in, you know, maybe just from the
- 19:44Speaker 1: last four or five trips walking around or whatever, and
- 19:46Speaker 1: then something would just click and I know, I know
- 19:49Speaker 1: now exactly where that stand needs to be and why
- 19:52Speaker 1: and when you know on what wind and what's going on.
- 19:54Speaker 1: And I've had a lot of those three o'clock in
- 19:57Speaker 1: the morning. You couldn't have you couldn't have tied me
- 20:00Speaker 1: up better because this topic that you just mentioned wind
- 20:03Speaker 1: and thermals and air currents and and all that. That's
- 20:06Speaker 1: what I'm really really interested in picking your brain about,
- 20:09Speaker 1: because I know you've done a lot of thinking on
- 20:10Speaker 1: this and a lot of work around this. Um. So
- 20:14Speaker 1: to start things off, can you elaborate You mentioned a
- 20:17Speaker 1: second ago that wind kind of wind direction is different
- 20:20Speaker 1: than thermals, is different than air currents. Can you help
- 20:22Speaker 1: us understand how those are different? And and I guess
- 20:25Speaker 1: in the context of hunting, sure, Um, So you know,
- 20:31Speaker 1: wind direction is basically whenever you you know, wake up
- 20:34Speaker 1: and you check your favorite uh whether app or whatever
- 20:37Speaker 1: you may be looking at it. You know, the winds
- 20:38Speaker 1: out of the southwest this morning at seven miles an hour,
- 20:41Speaker 1: so that's what you know. The direction the wind is
- 20:44Speaker 1: coming from. So it's coming from the southwest and heading
- 20:46Speaker 1: off to the northeast. Um, you know, that's your wind direction. UM.
- 20:51Speaker 1: Air current especially, and it changes whenever topography changes. So
- 20:56Speaker 1: you know, I've done a lot of hunting in the Midwest.
- 20:58Speaker 1: As you have, UM, you know, gets flatter, so air
- 21:01Speaker 1: current it becomes more steady in the Midwest because of
- 21:04Speaker 1: flatter topography. But uh, you know, and the mountainous regions
- 21:09Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania, like where I grew up. I grew up
- 21:11Speaker 1: hunting the big ridges, you know, steep ridges and deep valleys. Um,
- 21:15Speaker 1: the air current you have to kind of think of
- 21:16Speaker 1: the wind, you know, or the direction of the wind
- 21:19Speaker 1: like water. Um. You know, then it hits those ridges
- 21:22Speaker 1: and it creates eddies. And I've seen it do it
- 21:24Speaker 1: with rocks. I've seen it clumps the trees. So you
- 21:27Speaker 1: have the wind direction coming out of the southwest, and
- 21:31Speaker 1: then the air current is what happens after. You know,
- 21:35Speaker 1: you get that steady wind out of the southwest porcing
- 21:38Speaker 1: against a ridge line and just creating you know, basically
- 21:41Speaker 1: perpetual motion as it will. We're an eddy, you know,
- 21:44Speaker 1: like in a stream, the waters that are editing in
- 21:46Speaker 1: the current behind a rock or front of the rock
- 21:48Speaker 1: or along or whatever it may be. And the stiffer
- 21:50Speaker 1: the wind gets onto that direction obviously, you know, the
- 21:53Speaker 1: more quote unquote perpetual motion that it creates. So uh,
- 21:58Speaker 1: that's the current. Uh. And then also there's a drift
- 22:01Speaker 1: to that. You know, when it picks up when you
- 22:02Speaker 1: get higher speed like today, it's uh, it's all over
- 22:06Speaker 1: you know, it's gusting like twenty five. So then you'll
- 22:09Speaker 1: have this gust and then there's gusts will stop and
- 22:12Speaker 1: you're having that columnist in between. But because of that
- 22:15Speaker 1: that twenty five in our power, before of that gust,
- 22:18Speaker 1: there's there's a drift effect. There's even there's still a
- 22:21Speaker 1: current there um. And you can test that with milk
- 22:23Speaker 1: weed um, you know, throwing it up. You know, right
- 22:26Speaker 1: when a gust takes off, and watch what it does
- 22:29Speaker 1: not being blown by you. And when whenever you feel
- 22:31Speaker 1: that that wind basically shut off, you know, that gus
- 22:34Speaker 1: shot off in between those you know, you may have
- 22:36Speaker 1: two gusts, you know how like that calumn in the
- 22:38Speaker 1: middle type of deal. But you'll still see that milk
- 22:40Speaker 1: weak um. You know, it's doing crazy things because of
- 22:44Speaker 1: of that drift effect or you know that perpetual motion
- 22:46Speaker 1: if you will, there's still forced behind it um. And
- 22:49Speaker 1: then you know it'll kind of dissipate. And then of
- 22:52Speaker 1: a morning and I was watching this this morning, matter
- 22:54Speaker 1: of facts, as the thermals, as the sun got more
- 22:57Speaker 1: over hind, the thermals were heating up. Um. You know,
- 23:00Speaker 1: like to say, like seven thirty eight this morning, my
- 23:03Speaker 1: thermals were still falling close to my tree stand. So
- 23:06Speaker 1: I had a pretty stiff wind um so my milk weed,
- 23:10Speaker 1: so speak was going you know, a certain direction. The
- 23:13Speaker 1: wind would die down, but the milk weed continue to
- 23:16Speaker 1: float in that direction. But when it died out with
- 23:18Speaker 1: no power behind it was interesting because the sun hadn't
- 23:21Speaker 1: heating up the forest floor right where I was at.
- 23:23Speaker 1: It wasn't it wasn't overhead enough. My thermals were still
- 23:27Speaker 1: kind of falling. It was still colder down there, so
- 23:29Speaker 1: it was literally suck that milk weed straight down to
- 23:32Speaker 1: the ground. It was and I was kind of playing
- 23:35Speaker 1: with the time and it just right to to do
- 23:37Speaker 1: it in that that I don't know what to call it.
- 23:39Speaker 1: That that lag of wind, you know, in between gust
- 23:42Speaker 1: and whenever that that that milk we would run out
- 23:46Speaker 1: of drift when run out of power behind it, the
- 23:49Speaker 1: thermals would would pull it directly to the forest floor.
- 23:52Speaker 1: Which is interesting to know what was going on, but
- 23:55Speaker 1: it also was very learning to me. This isn't good.
- 23:57Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm trying to you know, did
- 24:00Speaker 1: a deer than twenty five yards of me? You know, Mortson,
- 24:03Speaker 1: My scent just dropped right you know where they're going
- 24:05Speaker 1: to be standard types of deals. So um, when you
- 24:08Speaker 1: start paying attention to that stuff and you know, it's uh,
- 24:12Speaker 1: it's it's very helpful. Uh. Back in my early days,
- 24:15Speaker 1: I used to build fires and and study fire and
- 24:18Speaker 1: smoke um just too. And I would basically would create
- 24:23Speaker 1: like a a smoke map and overlay over top of
- 24:26Speaker 1: my maps just because I hunted such steep train that
- 24:30Speaker 1: you know, just because it would say the wind out
- 24:32Speaker 1: of the west. It don't necessarily wouldn't hunt like it
- 24:35Speaker 1: was out of the west. It may hunt like it
- 24:36Speaker 1: was out of the southeast and north. It's just because
- 24:39Speaker 1: of the edding, edding, editing, edding effect. Um. So yeah,
- 24:45Speaker 1: I would build fires on my platforms in like coffee cans,
- 24:49Speaker 1: you know, in the off season, some you know, sometimes
- 24:52Speaker 1: two or three times a day morning, noon, and evening
- 24:55Speaker 1: on the same wind direction, and then do the same
- 24:57Speaker 1: thing on a different wind direction. And you'd be amazed
- 25:00Speaker 1: of what you would learn how smoke, you know, how
- 25:03Speaker 1: the air currents you know, float around your tree stand
- 25:07Speaker 1: um on different wind wind direction days and different times
- 25:11Speaker 1: of day as well. And then also how like I say,
- 25:14Speaker 1: clumps of trees or rocks or a hillside could cause
- 25:17Speaker 1: the adding the effect. So you know, wind out of
- 25:19Speaker 1: the north, you know that your smoke's going to the
- 25:22Speaker 1: south of you. Then all of a sudden, you know,
- 25:23Speaker 1: catch a ravine or catch a big clump of trees
- 25:25Speaker 1: and start adding and you know, spin right around you
- 25:28Speaker 1: and end up fifty yards to the north of you again,
- 25:31Speaker 1: you know, and and do that all over again. Um.
- 25:35Speaker 1: Interesting stuff for sure. Yeah, that's it's one of those
- 25:38Speaker 1: things that I've heard, you know, like kneeling. Craig Doherty
- 25:41Speaker 1: have talked about doing that kind of thing a lot,
- 25:43Speaker 1: developing that wind map, and it it makes so much sense,
- 25:46Speaker 1: but it does seem like a tremendous amount of work
- 25:48Speaker 1: to go out there and map all that. But I
- 25:51Speaker 1: guess once you have that information, once you know what
- 25:54Speaker 1: it does, and maybe maybe you pick your handful of
- 25:57Speaker 1: top spots and then you you know, make assumptions based Okay,
- 26:01Speaker 1: we get most of our wins during hunting season, maybe
- 26:03Speaker 1: northwest and west, so I'll go map those things out
- 26:06Speaker 1: if that's at least a good starting point. Um, it
- 26:09Speaker 1: seems like a great way to do it. You also,
- 26:10Speaker 1: I think I've heard you say, um, you can use
- 26:13Speaker 1: those little like fireworks, smoke bombs and stuff to achieve
- 26:15Speaker 1: the same thing. Is that right? Yeah? Yeah, I would
- 26:19Speaker 1: buy those things out at any time I saw them
- 26:21Speaker 1: on cell. They used to make different songs. The little
- 26:24Speaker 1: ones don't I don't think they they do. You know,
- 26:26Speaker 1: there's little they're like little cherry bombs or whatever. They
- 26:28Speaker 1: don't put off enough smoke. But they used to make
- 26:31Speaker 1: bigger ones. Um. And then you know when I traveled,
- 26:34Speaker 1: you know, through different states and they have those fireworks
- 26:36Speaker 1: stands always stopped, and then they make them all sorts
- 26:38Speaker 1: of different colors, but the bigger the better because they
- 26:40Speaker 1: last longer. And like I said, if that doesn't work,
- 26:43Speaker 1: I would, Uh. I've used those gun oil packs. Um,
- 26:47Speaker 1: I've used con se caned. I mean, I've burned just
- 26:49Speaker 1: about everything you can burn on the platform. But you're
- 26:52Speaker 1: right as far as it's very time consuming. But the
- 26:56Speaker 1: idea is I think I think the learning lesson from
- 26:58Speaker 1: that is because I don't do it any more. I
- 27:00Speaker 1: mean I've done in a little bit just to test
- 27:02Speaker 1: some hypothesis type of deal. But the idea is to
- 27:06Speaker 1: get an understanding for it and then like you say,
- 27:08Speaker 1: pick those those certain spots or those certain situations where
- 27:12Speaker 1: you know that you're not going to run in because
- 27:14Speaker 1: you can eliminate those areas. Um. That's what I think
- 27:17Speaker 1: I've probably taken from that the most was there's just
- 27:21Speaker 1: some spots I don't hunt anymore, no matter how great
- 27:23Speaker 1: the sign looks. Um. And again, you know, it depends
- 27:26Speaker 1: on what age class of the year. Hunting too, I
- 27:28Speaker 1: think has a big you know, there's a big difference
- 27:30Speaker 1: between a two year old and a four year old
- 27:31Speaker 1: and even a five year old or six year old.
- 27:33Speaker 1: So you know, there's a lot of components that go
- 27:36Speaker 1: into that. I wouldn't expect everybody to run out and
- 27:38Speaker 1: you go, oh, I have to do it this way.
- 27:40Speaker 1: You know, how often, you know, how much of the
- 27:42Speaker 1: season do you have the devote to hunting, like if
- 27:44Speaker 1: if if your seasons you know, six six and a
- 27:47Speaker 1: half weeks, like in Pennsylvania, and you've only have a
- 27:50Speaker 1: couple of weekends here and there in a couple of
- 27:52Speaker 1: vacation days. Well, you know, you know, don't not hunt
- 27:55Speaker 1: because the wind direction isn't suitable for your spot, you know,
- 28:00Speaker 1: find another spot, or you know what, go and enjoy
- 28:02Speaker 1: the day anyway. Type of deal. Um. So There's a
- 28:05Speaker 1: lot of factors in there that go into you know,
- 28:07Speaker 1: how often you can hunt the property you're hunting in.
- 28:10Speaker 1: And I think probably one of the most important things
- 28:12Speaker 1: is the age classes deer trying to hunt as well.
- 28:15Speaker 1: If you're really trying to target on the specific book
- 28:17Speaker 1: that you know is four or five, you know, plus,
- 28:19Speaker 1: then you should probably pay attention to those details and
- 28:22Speaker 1: put the put the odds in your favor as much
- 28:24Speaker 1: as you can. Yeah. So I want to make sure
- 28:27Speaker 1: and and further make sure I don't forget to do this.
- 28:29Speaker 1: I want to make sure that we come back and
- 28:31Speaker 1: talk about some of these stands that you end up
- 28:34Speaker 1: writing off is saying, or stands or areas that you
- 28:36Speaker 1: just find out you can't hunt because of something to
- 28:39Speaker 1: do with the wind. Um. But I want to I
- 28:41Speaker 1: want to rewind a little bit to just kind of
- 28:43Speaker 1: set the stage a little bit better for people that
- 28:45Speaker 1: maybe you're new to some of these concepts. Um. So
- 28:48Speaker 1: you talked about how you're paying attention excuse me, you're
- 28:50Speaker 1: paying attention to to wind and thermals and currents. But
- 28:56Speaker 1: I want to understand this in the context of an example,
- 28:59Speaker 1: so I can see, like how you think about these things.
- 29:01Speaker 1: So maybe because you use today's hunt because you were
- 29:03Speaker 1: out hunting this morning, as you just alluded to, could
- 29:05Speaker 1: you tell us what you were thinking about leading into
- 29:09Speaker 1: that hunt? So maybe this morning when you were planning
- 29:11Speaker 1: where to go or why you were going to hunt
- 29:13Speaker 1: or anything like that, can you explain to us how
- 29:14Speaker 1: you thought about those three things when their most current,
- 29:18Speaker 1: and what aspects of that you were thinking about to
- 29:20Speaker 1: choose where to go, when to go, how to hunt today,
- 29:22Speaker 1: and and and then maybe walk us through the hunt
- 29:24Speaker 1: and how things ended up impacting things. Yeah. Um, actually
- 29:29Speaker 1: today it was my first set of the season, and
- 29:33Speaker 1: I'd just been you know, busy with work and everything.
- 29:36Speaker 1: We were extremely hot, I think once you know, last
- 29:39Speaker 1: week we were pushing ninety degrees a couple of days
- 29:41Speaker 1: beginning of last week, like last weekend, in the last week, um,
- 29:45Speaker 1: excuse me, the week before last, not just the other day. UM.
- 29:49Speaker 1: And I think Thursday a front came in and literally,
- 29:52Speaker 1: like within about thirty six hours we have like a
- 29:55Speaker 1: thirty five temperature difference. Um. And as you know, you
- 29:59Speaker 1: know it just when you have that big change, when
- 30:03Speaker 1: you go from one constant a big change, and you know,
- 30:06Speaker 1: starting to another constant that really gets deer on their feet,
- 30:09Speaker 1: especially in October, in the middle of October. So I
- 30:12Speaker 1: was really looking forward to trying to, you know, just
- 30:14Speaker 1: find a time to get out here this week. And
- 30:17Speaker 1: I was watching the weather, and you know, I knew
- 30:20Speaker 1: this morning was gonna be my only morning. And I
- 30:23Speaker 1: went and pull my cards on Sunday, and um, one
- 30:26Speaker 1: of my my biggest buck on the farm I'm hunting.
- 30:30Speaker 1: He was just just everywhere. He had been prancing around
- 30:33Speaker 1: all week, last weekend, the day like that when obviously
- 30:36Speaker 1: when that when that big temperature change kicked in, I
- 30:39Speaker 1: had most of my cameras on scrapes and he was
- 30:42Speaker 1: at about all of them. Um. And I know him
- 30:46Speaker 1: well for the last two years. He's a five year old,
- 30:49Speaker 1: and I purposely stayed away from him today because the
- 30:54Speaker 1: wind was gonna, like I said, the you know, steady
- 30:57Speaker 1: of around fifteen and gusting up to around twenties five.
- 31:00Speaker 1: And it has some topography to at the farm that
- 31:02Speaker 1: I hunt and the stands where I know he was frequenting,
- 31:06Speaker 1: you know, the areas his core area and I say
- 31:08Speaker 1: home core area. Um was in an area that the
- 31:12Speaker 1: winds will swirl on you when they get to being
- 31:14Speaker 1: pushed around that much, that that high of wind, and
- 31:18Speaker 1: I didn't want to go in there and risk um
- 31:20Speaker 1: having him out doing his thing and winding me. So
- 31:24Speaker 1: I literally went to a stand and from one end
- 31:27Speaker 1: of the farm the others, probably as far as you
- 31:29Speaker 1: can get it might be a mile eas Uh, it's
- 31:31Speaker 1: a pretty big place, but it's probably you know, between
- 31:34Speaker 1: a quarter and a half mile from the center of
- 31:36Speaker 1: his core area. It's basically just the fringes, but it's
- 31:39Speaker 1: a really good spot. I call it the inside corner
- 31:42Speaker 1: sometimes the corner pocket. It's an oak flat on the
- 31:45Speaker 1: on the corner of a planted some Egyptian wheat and
- 31:48Speaker 1: some other native grasses in there, about a five acre field,
- 31:52Speaker 1: and it's just gotta laying around it, and it's the
- 31:54Speaker 1: perfect little pinch of this oak flat kind of comes
- 31:57Speaker 1: to this inside bend on a steep ridge. And I
- 32:00Speaker 1: went there thinking, you know, I'm gonna stay on on
- 32:02Speaker 1: that tude area, just just be great to get out
- 32:05Speaker 1: and have a sit and you know, kind of get
- 32:07Speaker 1: the season started. It was a really nice cool morning,
- 32:09Speaker 1: forty two degrees, but the wind was high um and also,
- 32:13Speaker 1: you know, I was hoping to get a dough um
- 32:16Speaker 1: then Philideltag type of deal. But the only, the first
- 32:22Speaker 1: and only during I saw this morning at eight oh two, uh,
- 32:25Speaker 1: coming up this ridge work in this scrape line was
- 32:28Speaker 1: that buck, you know, like, oh no, and intant me
- 32:31Speaker 1: as soon as I saw, and I start didn't get
- 32:33Speaker 1: worried because he was very nonchalant he was. I watched
- 32:37Speaker 1: him work four or five scrapes, you know, maybe in
- 32:40Speaker 1: a matter of sixty yards, and I mean he was
- 32:42Speaker 1: really getting into kicking out the scrapes, making rugs, working
- 32:46Speaker 1: overheading branch branches, and you know, he was just coming
- 32:50Speaker 1: right up to shoot. And literally the funnel he was
- 32:53Speaker 1: in really narrows down like thirteen yards from me. And
- 32:56Speaker 1: there when I got into the stand, there was a
- 32:59Speaker 1: fresh scrape about I don't know, less than six seven
- 33:02Speaker 1: yards from the base of my tree. So and he
- 33:05Speaker 1: was on that direct course and he was coming, you know,
- 33:07Speaker 1: he was gonna work these scrapes. And I just as
- 33:10Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, I had just before that was, you know,
- 33:13Speaker 1: doing the milkweed thing and watching the milkweed, and my
- 33:15Speaker 1: thermals pulled that milkweed straight to the to the ground,
- 33:18Speaker 1: you know, inside the ten yard line on my tree,
- 33:21Speaker 1: and it's just it was like my you know, worst casecenar.
- 33:24Speaker 1: I was excited to see it. He hadn't right at me,
- 33:27Speaker 1: but I knew that it was only anotter of time
- 33:29Speaker 1: until until he uh turned inside out there and you know,
- 33:34Speaker 1: he kept working his way up and and he got
- 33:36Speaker 1: to a scrape that was about it was actually twenty
- 33:40Speaker 1: four and a half yards arranged it later, but he
- 33:42Speaker 1: was severely quartered to was almost coming right at me. Um,
- 33:45Speaker 1: And what happens on this how this funnel ways, it
- 33:48Speaker 1: kind of bends around, and I'm like right on the bend.
- 33:50Speaker 1: So when he leaves that scrape, he's actually going to
- 33:53Speaker 1: go in behind my tree like ten eleven yards, and
- 33:57Speaker 1: he's gonna be like quartering away, you know, twelve thirty
- 34:00Speaker 1: manials to get to this other scrape. So it was
- 34:02Speaker 1: gonna work kind of perfectly. But because of of my thermals,
- 34:05Speaker 1: the wind was it wasn't going towards him, it was
- 34:08Speaker 1: paralleling him. But those thermals being pulled down to the
- 34:11Speaker 1: ground and and those big gusts, they were just creating
- 34:14Speaker 1: havoc um And and you know, I just knew that
- 34:17Speaker 1: and you know, I don't I knew better, you know,
- 34:20Speaker 1: I guess, you know, like I said before, you know,
- 34:22Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't have been hunting on that trying to
- 34:25Speaker 1: kill a buck, but I was staying away from him,
- 34:28Speaker 1: wanted to shoot a dough and also just wanted to
- 34:30Speaker 1: be out there and join it. You know, I'm kind
- 34:32Speaker 1: of holding my bow and I'm just like, well, maybe
- 34:34Speaker 1: this wouldn't work. At this point, I'm starting to like,
- 34:36Speaker 1: you know, like, man, this might just actually work if
- 34:39Speaker 1: if this wind just keeps down long enough, and you know,
- 34:42Speaker 1: maybe he's not going to pay attention to to all
- 34:44Speaker 1: the details and he's just the one his thing and
- 34:46Speaker 1: you know whatever. But uh, yeah, he took a couple
- 34:49Speaker 1: of steps out of that's crazy patting my way, and
- 34:51Speaker 1: it was like he hit a wall and and I
- 34:52Speaker 1: mean I literally, you know, his posture immediately changed. Um,
- 34:58Speaker 1: he didn't blow out of there like I body whatever.
- 35:00Speaker 1: He kind of you know, he moved his head around
- 35:02Speaker 1: a little bit too, and I could see him moving
- 35:04Speaker 1: his nose and he must know the wad in one instance,
- 35:09Speaker 1: because I mean and he turned and took two big
- 35:12Speaker 1: hops and put some distance between me and him, and
- 35:14Speaker 1: he stopped again, and at that point he was you know,
- 35:17Speaker 1: maybe there were some brushing and he just literally just
- 35:22Speaker 1: kind of change direction and just walk straight down over
- 35:24Speaker 1: him and you know, got out of there. But you
- 35:27Speaker 1: know that that was the scenario this morning. I kind
- 35:30Speaker 1: of knew that going into there with those high winds.
- 35:33Speaker 1: And again that's the difference between you know, the Midwest
- 35:36Speaker 1: and a lot of times, a lot of those deer
- 35:38Speaker 1: in the Midwest, that high state, when they like that,
- 35:40Speaker 1: that that sense of comfort, you know, knowing that they're
- 35:43Speaker 1: always their nose is always keeping them safe. But when
- 35:46Speaker 1: you when you add topography to it and you get
- 35:48Speaker 1: those gusts and that wind starts to swirl because of
- 35:51Speaker 1: you know, like where I was, there was a steep
- 35:53Speaker 1: ridge basically to the south of me, so I just
- 35:56Speaker 1: had swirling winds. Um. You know, it could work against you.
- 36:00Speaker 1: And a lot of times I think that that's that
- 36:03Speaker 1: sixth sense. I'm sure you've all or we've all heard,
- 36:05Speaker 1: you know, when you're talking group of hunters and somebody
- 36:09Speaker 1: will say, you know that those those deer, especially those
- 36:11Speaker 1: older ones, they just have that sixth sense. Um. I
- 36:14Speaker 1: don't know. The more I do this, I like to
- 36:16Speaker 1: think that that sixth sense is just those deer really
- 36:20Speaker 1: really knowing, you know, how to use the terrain and
- 36:25Speaker 1: the wind in their favor all the time, and then
- 36:28Speaker 1: the hun completely understanding what's going on around in that
- 36:31Speaker 1: sixth sense, like you know, if your thermals are on
- 36:33Speaker 1: a rise, are on a fall the morning of an
- 36:35Speaker 1: evening and editing air occurrens and stuff, you know, why
- 36:39Speaker 1: you're sent actually went to that deer's nose. Um. I
- 36:42Speaker 1: think that that that's that sixth sense that we see. Yeah, so,
- 36:46Speaker 1: so I want to kind of unpackage a bunch of
- 36:48Speaker 1: things that you talked about there. Let's talk about topography first. Um,
- 36:52Speaker 1: can you explain or give us some examples of how
- 36:55Speaker 1: different kinds of topography will mess with the wind? You know?
- 36:59Speaker 1: The one that stands to me always, um is like
- 37:01Speaker 1: if you're down in the bottom, Like, if you're down low,
- 37:04Speaker 1: there's that swirling Um. Can you can you leverage on
- 37:07Speaker 1: that in any other kind of topographic features that seem
- 37:10Speaker 1: to have a consistent effect or something that you always
- 37:12Speaker 1: keep an eye out for or aware of. Yeah. Sure,
- 37:15Speaker 1: And it changes throughout the time of the year because
- 37:18Speaker 1: of sun position, right, especially when you're talking topography and
- 37:22Speaker 1: thermal's um, a north facing slope gets less sunlight in
- 37:29Speaker 1: November than it does July. That makes any sense because
- 37:32Speaker 1: the suns of your head so and the north facing
- 37:33Speaker 1: slope is always your coldest facing. So that's the one
- 37:37Speaker 1: that always sticks out to me, um when you're hunting
- 37:40Speaker 1: a new facing slope, especially you know, we as being
- 37:44Speaker 1: in the three stand deer hunters end of October three Thanksgiving.
- 37:48Speaker 1: Depending on how steep that hill is and how high
- 37:51Speaker 1: on the hill or lower you on the hill, it
- 37:53Speaker 1: may be pen o'clock in the morning before the sun
- 37:57Speaker 1: is i'll high enough, or even later. Uh, you know,
- 38:00Speaker 1: to change those normal so, you know, and I've experied,
- 38:03Speaker 1: I learned that through a bad experience of a really
- 38:06Speaker 1: good scenario. Here is if you can picture this, and uh,
- 38:10Speaker 1: the ridgeline running east to west um on the on
- 38:14Speaker 1: the west side of the rags almost excuse me, on
- 38:17Speaker 1: the east side of it, to the northeast, it was
- 38:19Speaker 1: like a bowl almost of a thicket and every little
- 38:23Speaker 1: nasty thing you could think in there, and maybe a
- 38:25Speaker 1: topless twenty acres or so. And I just knew that,
- 38:28Speaker 1: you know, I didn't really call it a betting area,
- 38:30Speaker 1: but deer state, and it's just always does it's around
- 38:32Speaker 1: there and everything and this regionally and you know, ran
- 38:36Speaker 1: east to west from this this betting area, and so
- 38:40Speaker 1: the deer would come from the west basically like it
- 38:44Speaker 1: kind of angled, so they would come from the northwest
- 38:46Speaker 1: across this north facing slope if you will, if you
- 38:49Speaker 1: can follow me, um and then you know, heading to
- 38:52Speaker 1: set check this dough betting areas I called it or whatever.
- 38:56Speaker 1: Um on a northeast wind, and I had hunted this.
- 39:00Speaker 1: I was about three quarters that went up on this bridge.
- 39:02Speaker 1: And as I was scouting it, there was a SEEPI
- 39:04Speaker 1: or a drainage that came out of this rich line
- 39:06Speaker 1: had basically forced movement around it up it so that
- 39:09Speaker 1: the deer walking across the hill, they would come to
- 39:11Speaker 1: this big drainage just seeping out of this this north
- 39:14Speaker 1: facing slope, and rather than than across it was rather steep,
- 39:18Speaker 1: they would they would just overtime. All the trails just
- 39:21Speaker 1: funneled around the top of it. You know, it's like
- 39:23Speaker 1: a no brainer. When you knew what was going on,
- 39:26Speaker 1: you know, you hang on, you know, the the south
- 39:29Speaker 1: side of that, and you know it funnels all to
- 39:31Speaker 1: do the type of dealing on the northeast wind. You know,
- 39:34Speaker 1: it would only make sense that a buck could scent
- 39:36Speaker 1: check that dough betting area, um, you know, just with
- 39:41Speaker 1: his nose, you know, from seventy five yards away, type
- 39:44Speaker 1: of deal. So I hunger standing, you know, putting way
- 39:47Speaker 1: for that first northeast and and I've got in there
- 39:49Speaker 1: and every you know, the winds out of the northeast
- 39:51Speaker 1: and every gear that first morning, I'll never forget this,
- 39:54Speaker 1: you know, to the north and me was blown. It was.
- 39:56Speaker 1: It was a bunch of those and little ones and
- 39:58Speaker 1: you know they're you know, thirty yards twenty yards and
- 40:01Speaker 1: you know to the north of me, and you know
- 40:03Speaker 1: they're just hitting my wind. I'm like, the winds out
- 40:06Speaker 1: of the north, there's there's no way they should be
- 40:08Speaker 1: smelling me. And I hadn't tested it, you know, I'm like,
- 40:11Speaker 1: when the world's going on here, this is probably you know,
- 40:13Speaker 1: ten years ago. And finally, you know, I went back
- 40:18Speaker 1: in and with the whole fire deal, I'm like, I
- 40:20Speaker 1: gotta figure this out, and you know, built a fire.
- 40:23Speaker 1: And what was happening was that there were light wind days.
- 40:26Speaker 1: And again, wind speed has a lot to do with it,
- 40:28Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to think, I don't know, I've
- 40:30Speaker 1: never really measure, but somewhere over eight millon how wind
- 40:34Speaker 1: gets kind of forceful, so it forces your scent or
- 40:37Speaker 1: whatever in the direction it's coming from. So it's basically
- 40:39Speaker 1: pushing it with enough force that it will get it there.
- 40:42Speaker 1: But when it's less than that, a lot of times,
- 40:45Speaker 1: you know, your center to that hand and it becomes
- 40:47Speaker 1: heavy and it just kind of gravity takes its toll,
- 40:51Speaker 1: if you will, especially on those cold thermals, but they
- 40:54Speaker 1: are pulling, you know, towards the earth surfaces. And that
- 40:57Speaker 1: was this exact occasion. It was, you know, one of
- 40:59Speaker 1: those old Chris November mornings. Was hardly any wind at all,
- 41:03Speaker 1: um you know, very overcast type of day. So I
- 41:06Speaker 1: call that heavy air, you know, very heavy air type
- 41:08Speaker 1: of day. And the sun was up, but it wasn't
- 41:12Speaker 1: up high enough to where it was, you know, reaching
- 41:14Speaker 1: the forest floor on that part of the facing slope.
- 41:17Speaker 1: So my thermals were, you know, working as if it
- 41:20Speaker 1: were over the evening. My thermals, you know, my sense
- 41:22Speaker 1: you know, coming out of the body, if you were
- 41:24Speaker 1: I don't fire, you know, it's going up a little bit,
- 41:27Speaker 1: but it was cooling down rather quickly because the air
- 41:29Speaker 1: temperature was cold, so the smoke's cooling down and they
- 41:32Speaker 1: cooled down, it were going to the north a little
- 41:34Speaker 1: bit with the north wind direction, the smoke to the
- 41:36Speaker 1: north a little ways. But once it got cool enough
- 41:39Speaker 1: and then its thermal started pulling it, it would literally,
- 41:41Speaker 1: you know, pull it to the ground and then suck it,
- 41:43Speaker 1: you know, back down to the bottom, which would be
- 41:46Speaker 1: to the north of me. So that's what my sent
- 41:49Speaker 1: was doing. If you think of yourself at a little
- 41:52Speaker 1: fire constantly putting off smoke, um, you know, yeah, it's
- 41:55Speaker 1: going the right direction for you know, a certain amount
- 41:58Speaker 1: of time. But once that air cools down, once it
- 42:01Speaker 1: cools it down you know from your body, uh, and
- 42:04Speaker 1: those thermals pull down towards your surfaces, and then it's
- 42:07Speaker 1: gonna go. You know. You think of scent or that
- 42:10Speaker 1: smoke just as water on the hillside, and and even fog,
- 42:13Speaker 1: if you will. Fog always lays in the lowest parts
- 42:16Speaker 1: of the fields. You know, if you're going around and
- 42:19Speaker 1: at a cool morning where the fog is, it's always
- 42:22Speaker 1: just like water where water would pull, fog pulls up
- 42:25Speaker 1: and that's usually you know, the lowest, coolest spot, and
- 42:28Speaker 1: that's what your scent does. And and uh, I learned.
- 42:31Speaker 1: I still hunt that that fence line, that's I call
- 42:33Speaker 1: it the north Ridge stand um, but I don't. I
- 42:37Speaker 1: purposely set a stand about eighty yards from it that
- 42:40Speaker 1: I hunt until about you know, twent o ten something there,
- 42:44Speaker 1: and then I get down and sneak over and that
- 42:47Speaker 1: stands and get up in it, you know, around ten
- 42:49Speaker 1: o'clock if you will. Uh, the sun is usually high
- 42:52Speaker 1: enough and the thermals are now going again back up
- 42:54Speaker 1: the hill, and it puts everything you know, right into
- 42:57Speaker 1: my favorite there's deer that are scent checking that ridge line,
- 43:00Speaker 1: you know, on a north wind that my scent, my
- 43:02Speaker 1: thermals are going upwards and you know, to the south
- 43:05Speaker 1: like they should be up over the hill type of deal.
- 43:07Speaker 1: And I've actually shot there from that stand, shot box
- 43:10Speaker 1: out of that stand, you know, getting in it ninety
- 43:13Speaker 1: and I think the earliest I shot one at twenty
- 43:15Speaker 1: after ten one time. I've shot them at eleven, you know,
- 43:19Speaker 1: I think one in one in the afternoon one time.
- 43:21Speaker 1: But yeah, that was definitely an eye opener for me.
- 43:24Speaker 1: It definitely works. So to answer your question. That's one
- 43:27Speaker 1: of the you know, the like you say, the topography,
- 43:31Speaker 1: the low spots um and those north facing slopes, and
- 43:37Speaker 1: they said you can use the layman the thermals and
- 43:43Speaker 1: eliminate um stand lowcases. And you know, I've want to
- 43:48Speaker 1: have all but eliminated the low ones. But it takes
- 43:51Speaker 1: the perfect scenario for me to get into a low stand,
- 43:54Speaker 1: and usually it has to have water around it. Uh,
- 43:58Speaker 1: water can get me, can can do a lot, you know,
- 44:01Speaker 1: get your scent where you want. It cools down the
- 44:03Speaker 1: year and around you. Sort it's gonna pull those your
- 44:05Speaker 1: thermals down to the stream and then you know, right
- 44:08Speaker 1: out out with the flowing current almost so it'll your
- 44:11Speaker 1: scent will stay right with the water type of deal. Okay, Um,
- 44:17Speaker 1: I'm finding myself being pulled in like seven different directions
- 44:20Speaker 1: at once. I'm trying to do Sometimes you have to
- 44:23Speaker 1: stop me because I get going. So it's perfect. It's
- 44:27Speaker 1: it's perfect because you're you're laying down all the different
- 44:30Speaker 1: things I'm interested in. You're like kind of putting them
- 44:32Speaker 1: out there for me. I'm just trying to pick trying
- 44:33Speaker 1: to choose which apple to pick off the tree. Um
- 44:36Speaker 1: So one of the things I kind of struggle with
- 44:39Speaker 1: sometimes is knowing how to like rank or prioritize wind
- 44:45Speaker 1: direction versus the thermal and knowing like when one is
- 44:48Speaker 1: going to trump the other. And I think you kind
- 44:51Speaker 1: of mentioned your threshold, but I want to make sure
- 44:53Speaker 1: I'm clear on this. Are you? Are you saying that
- 44:55Speaker 1: if you have a wind direction of more than eight
- 44:58Speaker 1: miles an hour or so, that's probably going to trump
- 45:02Speaker 1: a thermal effect, so that in that case you wouldn't
- 45:05Speaker 1: be so much worried about the thermal sucking you down
- 45:07Speaker 1: if you had like twelve or thirteen or fifty mile
- 45:09Speaker 1: an hour wind blowing to you in a certain direction.
- 45:12Speaker 1: Is that right? Or correct me on on that? Yeah,
- 45:16Speaker 1: So putting on when you have them those you know,
- 45:19Speaker 1: those perfect chris blue bird mornings, but not bluebird but
- 45:24Speaker 1: low wind. You know, there's just hardly any noise in
- 45:26Speaker 1: the woods, so low low wind speed um thermals really
- 45:30Speaker 1: come into play. But usually when those crisp, cool bluebird mornings,
- 45:34Speaker 1: is I call those uh light air days, you know,
- 45:37Speaker 1: I call them heavy air and light air. But when
- 45:39Speaker 1: you have that that high pressure, your therminals, you're you're
- 45:42Speaker 1: your tumals, I like to think of it. You know,
- 45:44Speaker 1: we grew up in the north and you know when
- 45:46Speaker 1: you go past people's homes in January and they have
- 45:49Speaker 1: a chimney and the stone pipes comes out of the
- 45:51Speaker 1: top of their roof and they have a fire, and
- 45:53Speaker 1: the stone pipes like ten inches and you ever see
- 45:55Speaker 1: those the smoke out those pipes like keep a ten
- 45:59Speaker 1: inch or maybe be just day out to twenty inches around,
- 46:02Speaker 1: but just it just goes straight op in the air
- 46:03Speaker 1: for as almost as high as you can see it.
- 46:06Speaker 1: Those really light air days, there's nice, beautiful high prince days,
- 46:09Speaker 1: and your thumbs are just going straight up. So there's
- 46:11Speaker 1: since almost like in that stove pipe, it's just going
- 46:14Speaker 1: straight up. Um. Those are the days and again that
- 46:18Speaker 1: sixth sense that you can almost get away with just
- 46:19Speaker 1: about anything. But then when on the flip side, when
- 46:22Speaker 1: you have those heavy air days when everything is being
- 46:25Speaker 1: pushed down to the ground, and you know you can
- 46:28Speaker 1: again see those days, just build a fire in your
- 46:31Speaker 1: yard a few times, you know you're and watch what
- 46:33Speaker 1: the smoke does. Um. You know when your neighbors are
- 46:37Speaker 1: you know, four or five doors down coughing because you
- 46:39Speaker 1: got your you're burning leaves in your yard. Those are
- 46:41Speaker 1: heavy air days, and that's exactly what your sense to
- 46:43Speaker 1: be doing, so it's forced down. And those are the
- 46:47Speaker 1: days that wind speed comes into play because if you're
- 46:50Speaker 1: if those heavy air days are forcing your sent to
- 46:52Speaker 1: the you know, to stay within you know, whatever ten
- 46:56Speaker 1: are surface, then you need wind speed from a direction
- 46:59Speaker 1: to move your scent where you need it to go. Hopefully,
- 47:02Speaker 1: you know your your tree stands positioned to where you know,
- 47:05Speaker 1: you know you're on the downwind side of wherever you're
- 47:07Speaker 1: gonna walk if you need your scent to go that way,
- 47:09Speaker 1: so you obviously need wind speed to push it there
- 47:12Speaker 1: on those heavy air days. That makes sense. So so
- 47:16Speaker 1: high pressure days are when you're typically gonna get those
- 47:19Speaker 1: that air blowing up, pulling your scent up and out
- 47:22Speaker 1: in a way so you can get away with a
- 47:23Speaker 1: little more. And also we oftentimes hear the high pressure
- 47:26Speaker 1: days or days that deer like to like to move
- 47:28Speaker 1: a little bit more too, So that's kind of a
- 47:30Speaker 1: double positive there on the flip side, right, you got
- 47:34Speaker 1: the low pressure days which you usually are coming in
- 47:36Speaker 1: with the front. Like at the beginning of the front. Right,
- 47:38Speaker 1: you got a big storm front moving through something that's
- 47:41Speaker 1: gonna be what you're calling a heavy air days, pushing
- 47:44Speaker 1: things down. It's gonna make things a little more difficult
- 47:47Speaker 1: unless you do have the higher wind speed that's gonna,
- 47:49Speaker 1: as you said, push the wind where you need it,
- 47:51Speaker 1: your scent where you need it. So that all that
- 47:53Speaker 1: all makes sense to me now I think, Um, now,
- 47:56Speaker 1: this is a slight pivot. But when it comes to
- 47:59Speaker 1: wind speed and and dear movement, do you see any
- 48:02Speaker 1: certain um you know, threshold of below this you know
- 48:06Speaker 1: speed they tend to like it or don't like it,
- 48:08Speaker 1: or above the speed they like it or don't like it.
- 48:11Speaker 1: Um do you do you have anything there that you
- 48:13Speaker 1: that you like? The key in on well, I think
- 48:16Speaker 1: it varies regionally for the hunt. You know that you've
- 48:19Speaker 1: flund a lot of listeners in upstate New York, you
- 48:21Speaker 1: know hunting big woods. Um, I and I grew up
- 48:24Speaker 1: in areas like that, and I've also hunted you know, Iowa.
- 48:27Speaker 1: So it definitely, in my opinion, varies regionally, and definitely
- 48:31Speaker 1: topography has a lot to do with that. But in
- 48:33Speaker 1: the big woods, when you have you know, big mature
- 48:37Speaker 1: you know, red oak and maple forest, and stuff, and
- 48:40Speaker 1: that wind speed picks up and it stays a constant,
- 48:43Speaker 1: and those tree tops are banging together and you know,
- 48:45Speaker 1: swirling winds because of the ridges in the valley. Um,
- 48:50Speaker 1: to me, dear tend to moves less now on the
- 48:53Speaker 1: flip side, you know, on the other coin of that spectrum.
- 48:56Speaker 1: And I've heard you know, when you've had more journal
- 48:58Speaker 1: and how he likes higher winds speed. But I think
- 49:01Speaker 1: that has a lot to do with it's a constant. Uh,
- 49:03Speaker 1: it's coming from a certain direction. They can feed in
- 49:07Speaker 1: bed with their nose in a certain position to to
- 49:10Speaker 1: cover you know, their backside. You know, deer is a
- 49:12Speaker 1: prey animal. You know, basically it's just trying to do
- 49:15Speaker 1: everything to stay alive. So that would make sense that
- 49:18Speaker 1: if it's being a constant that then they can always
- 49:20Speaker 1: monitor that. But when it starts to scroll around, and
- 49:22Speaker 1: then you throw in the banging tops of trees and stuff,
- 49:25Speaker 1: that is now giving them another trigger to their ears,
- 49:28Speaker 1: you know, to be alarmed. To um, I think it
- 49:31Speaker 1: adds a little stress to him. And when they're stressed,
- 49:33Speaker 1: they tend to move left. So I think that would
- 49:36Speaker 1: definitely depend on you know, what part of the country
- 49:39Speaker 1: you're hunting in for me? You know where I where
- 49:42Speaker 1: I'm hunting now. You know today it was a perfect example.
- 49:46Speaker 1: It was a high wind day and it was you know,
- 49:48Speaker 1: steady twelve the sixteen or seventeen, and Gustin it was
- 49:53Speaker 1: just the buck I saw he was actually moving. You know,
- 49:57Speaker 1: it was eight o'clock. It was actually before the wind
- 49:59Speaker 1: really started pick up heavy about you know, as the
- 50:01Speaker 1: sun got higher and when you know, obviously gained speed
- 50:05Speaker 1: and around ninety I mean, it was just, you know,
- 50:08Speaker 1: it was just a bunch of nonsense. Really, I just
- 50:11Speaker 1: it was just wasting my time. I didn't even say
- 50:13Speaker 1: it though. Huh um. Interesting. Let's let's go back to
- 50:19Speaker 1: what you were talking about two seconds ago then, which
- 50:21Speaker 1: was water, and you alluded to that was you know,
- 50:24Speaker 1: utilizing water as a as almost like a thermal pool
- 50:27Speaker 1: was something that you you would would think about in
- 50:30Speaker 1: certain situations. It would allow you to get away with
- 50:32Speaker 1: hunting in like a low spot, like a bottom or
- 50:35Speaker 1: a creek bottom or something like that. Can you can
- 50:37Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit more about how water
- 50:39Speaker 1: impacts all this stuff, thermal's, wind, currents, et cetera, and
- 50:43Speaker 1: then elaborate on how you use that, Yeah, definitely, it's
- 50:48Speaker 1: it's it's on the evening. Um. I mentioned before, you know,
- 50:51Speaker 1: I tried to I hunt is I hunt higher in
- 50:55Speaker 1: topography as much as I can, because obviously that's more
- 50:58Speaker 1: constant um. But when you know, you start talking to
- 51:03Speaker 1: different found hunters and starts, especially the RNA season, there
- 51:05Speaker 1: was a lot of people that do a lot of
- 51:07Speaker 1: evening hunts. Makes sense, you know, through the bed and
- 51:09Speaker 1: then then the evening next when they do most of it.
- 51:11Speaker 1: But umform topography to me plays a big rule in that,
- 51:17Speaker 1: especially when you start dealing with order eh class dear
- 51:20Speaker 1: and going on this or stumbled across the one. You
- 51:23Speaker 1: just watching deer from long distance. I was watching the
- 51:25Speaker 1: mature buck one time. He kept coming out in the
- 51:27Speaker 1: field the four seasons. This is like mid September, you know,
- 51:31Speaker 1: feeding in the beans type of deal. And he would
- 51:33Speaker 1: come out in the same spot on a certain win
- 51:35Speaker 1: direction all the time, almost religiously, and he would never
- 51:39Speaker 1: other deer would feed, you know, within you know, a
- 51:42Speaker 1: couple hundred yards of him, but he stayed within a
- 51:44Speaker 1: thirty or forty yards circle. He would never really leave
- 51:47Speaker 1: that circle. UM. And at the time he was either
- 51:50Speaker 1: four or five year old, I can't remember, but you
- 51:53Speaker 1: know what it was was he was feeding. Eventually later
- 51:56Speaker 1: I fixed this side. He was feeding, you know, honestly
- 51:58Speaker 1: with his head thou clover, and it was over the evening,
- 52:01Speaker 1: every evening, and and he was basically in an area
- 52:05Speaker 1: where all the the topography was pulling all the his
- 52:10Speaker 1: the scent from around him. The thunals were calling down.
- 52:14Speaker 1: He was in the lower spot, and he stayed in
- 52:16Speaker 1: that lower spot because he could feed with his nose.
- 52:18Speaker 1: You head to the ground. Those that are ground look
- 52:20Speaker 1: up every now and again. But basically how all facets covered,
- 52:23Speaker 1: because he was in one of the lower spots around them,
- 52:26Speaker 1: and he's thinking about trying to get in there and
- 52:27Speaker 1: hunt that deer. And he was where he was seeing
- 52:30Speaker 1: was really from his betting area where I assumed he
- 52:34Speaker 1: was betting. And the only spot I could get into
- 52:38Speaker 1: was if I walked a creek, a creek bottom up
- 52:41Speaker 1: and it had some that had water. And when you
- 52:43Speaker 1: get to when I'm talking about the water temperatures is
- 52:47Speaker 1: what does causes this? And you've only probably everybody has
- 52:50Speaker 1: probably stood next to a stream and it's just always
- 52:53Speaker 1: you know, more chilly down, it's corner next to the water.
- 52:56Speaker 1: Um that has a that that's a positive for you
- 52:59Speaker 1: if you're trying to you know, if your tree stands
- 53:01Speaker 1: close to that water, then that that cooler air temperature
- 53:05Speaker 1: in and around that water, especially of an evening a
- 53:08Speaker 1: storm as are falling, will will funnel your scent you know,
- 53:11Speaker 1: to the water. And then whatever direction the water currents going,
- 53:15Speaker 1: your wind speeds not too high, and usually in the
- 53:17Speaker 1: evening as when wind speed starts to die out again,
- 53:20Speaker 1: that would that would not be the case if you
- 53:22Speaker 1: had stronger wind speed, you know, forcing it you're sent
- 53:25Speaker 1: a certain direction. But if you had you know, three
- 53:28Speaker 1: or four or five miles wind, uh, really cooler temperatures
- 53:31Speaker 1: in that water, and you could you can literally sit
- 53:34Speaker 1: next to the standom thinking about and now I could
- 53:36Speaker 1: take you there and you could sit next to feel
- 53:38Speaker 1: the temperature difference. And you know, I was able to
- 53:41Speaker 1: sneak up that creek bottom, um, you know, with the
- 53:43Speaker 1: water in it, get out within you know, five or
- 53:45Speaker 1: six yards in the creek bank and uh, you know,
- 53:48Speaker 1: into the stand type of deal and and shoot that deer.
- 53:51Speaker 1: Um he you know, he in his mind, I think
- 53:56Speaker 1: he was you know as the safe as he could be.
- 53:58Speaker 1: But I just found that one area where I could
- 54:00Speaker 1: get in there and and him not be aware of
- 54:03Speaker 1: my presence, And it was because of that stream. For sure.
- 54:07Speaker 1: Do you have anything like that when you're hunting near
- 54:09Speaker 1: big bodies of water, like hunting next to a lake
- 54:12Speaker 1: or a really large pond or anything. Is there any
- 54:14Speaker 1: kind of weird current or thermal effect of that? Um,
- 54:19Speaker 1: I don't know if I have ever thought about that. Yeah,
- 54:22Speaker 1: I don't know. I've never really handing next to a
- 54:25Speaker 1: big lake. I hand hunted closer to some ponds, but um,
- 54:30Speaker 1: I would think just thinking about it, you know, it
- 54:33Speaker 1: would have to be a bigger pond because I think
- 54:35Speaker 1: the statinant water especially they kind of whole heat like
- 54:38Speaker 1: a swimming pull, the whole teet. But a stream, you know,
- 54:40Speaker 1: moving water, especially in a mountainous region, is cold water.
- 54:44Speaker 1: You know where the trout look, that's really cool water
- 54:46Speaker 1: type of deal. Um, it would make sense if it
- 54:49Speaker 1: would definitely change it, but it might actually change in
- 54:52Speaker 1: the reverse. If there was a pond, that would you know,
- 54:53Speaker 1: like a swimming pool sometimes if you jump in, you
- 54:56Speaker 1: know you have an in ground swimming pool. An air
- 54:58Speaker 1: temperature of a morning or any evening is quartered in
- 55:01Speaker 1: the water temperature, you know, so the pool actually old
- 55:03Speaker 1: heat um sometimes you know, depending on what's around and
- 55:07Speaker 1: I guess how much sunlight it get, So there will
- 55:09Speaker 1: be a lot of variables are but I can definitely see,
- 55:11Speaker 1: you know, it'd be something words looking into. I never
- 55:13Speaker 1: really studied it. So here's another thermal scenario. I'm curious
- 55:18Speaker 1: on your thoughts about this is when I've heard some
- 55:20Speaker 1: other guys talk about the hunt some hilly country talking
- 55:23Speaker 1: about um what they call a thermal tunnel, where basically
- 55:27Speaker 1: you've got a situation where you have a your imagine
- 55:30Speaker 1: a ridge and you've got the wind blowing over the ridge,
- 55:34Speaker 1: and you also they'll have a thermal rising. So we're
- 55:38Speaker 1: gonna say it's late in the morning or in the
- 55:40Speaker 1: afternoon when the wind or the thermals are coming from
- 55:43Speaker 1: the bottom coming up the ridge, but you have a
- 55:44Speaker 1: wind direction that's coming from the opposite side of the
- 55:46Speaker 1: ridge and it's hitting that thermal, creating almost a tunnel effect.
- 55:51Speaker 1: You've got thermal hitting a wind direction. Typically I've heard
- 55:54Speaker 1: about this being about three quarters of the way up
- 55:56Speaker 1: the ridge line. And then this this kind of this
- 55:58Speaker 1: spinning tunnel of of wind. Supposedly, the theory being that
- 56:03Speaker 1: this location about three cords of the way or two
- 56:05Speaker 1: thirds of the way up a ridge. Because of that effect,
- 56:09Speaker 1: bucks sometimes like to run that height on the ridge
- 56:13Speaker 1: to try to take advantage of that. Have you heard
- 56:15Speaker 1: of that before? Or if if not, does that make sense?
- 56:19Speaker 1: Have you seen anything like that? What do you think
- 56:20Speaker 1: about that theory? UM? I have heard of that, and
- 56:24Speaker 1: I've heard it. I've heard it talk. I've heard it
- 56:27Speaker 1: talked a lot when that'sked with the elk hunters. UM,
- 56:30Speaker 1: but I've never I guess I've never really played with
- 56:33Speaker 1: I have heard of it. Does make sense, um a
- 56:36Speaker 1: little bit, But I think would have to do with winds.
- 56:37Speaker 1: It would have a lot to do with wind speed. UM,
- 56:40Speaker 1: depending on you know how much uh how much force
- 56:43Speaker 1: is behind the wind, whether that would take effect or not. Okay,
- 56:47Speaker 1: that makes sense? Um? Does does any of this stuff
- 56:50Speaker 1: with thermals matter when we're not in country with a
- 56:53Speaker 1: bunch of ridges and hills? I mean, if I'm in
- 56:56Speaker 1: flat as flat ground can be, let's say middle of
- 56:58Speaker 1: Illinois or something like that. Um, do you need to
- 57:02Speaker 1: worry about this stuff as much sure. Uh, you know,
- 57:06Speaker 1: just like today, you don't want even you want your
- 57:09Speaker 1: thermals on a rise, especially for hurting from a treest
- 57:12Speaker 1: and even even fifteen you know, twenty feet can make
- 57:14Speaker 1: a difference if if you're in a tree stand twenty
- 57:17Speaker 1: feet and you're a bow hunter, you know, hunting a
- 57:19Speaker 1: specific deer, trying to get him within a specific you
- 57:22Speaker 1: know yardage. Um, you don't want your your you know,
- 57:26Speaker 1: if you're expecting the deer and where I was, I
- 57:29Speaker 1: would call it this morning, like close quarters. That's a
- 57:31Speaker 1: good example. You know, if the deer continued on, he's
- 57:34Speaker 1: gonna end up you know, twelve thirteen yards maybe a closer.
- 57:37Speaker 1: So when when your thermals are you know, going straight
- 57:41Speaker 1: to the ground. I mean he's basically a ground zero.
- 57:44Speaker 1: You have to have everything right, so yeah, topography or not.
- 57:47Speaker 1: You know, if your trumbals are going straight to the
- 57:48Speaker 1: ground and you're expected, you'renna be that close. You know,
- 57:52Speaker 1: if you want to shoot that deer, I would just
- 57:53Speaker 1: shoot him before he gets that close, because you know,
- 57:56Speaker 1: he may not smell you at thirty yards, but he's
- 57:58Speaker 1: probably definitely gonna smell you a ten uh, you know,
- 58:00Speaker 1: and turn inside out once he does, because he's gonna
- 58:03Speaker 1: know he's right on top of the type the door
- 58:05Speaker 1: basically right underneath you. Um, i've heard, but yeah, but
- 58:09Speaker 1: when so, I was gonna say that that I've heard
- 58:12Speaker 1: you talk about these kind of days like that where
- 58:15Speaker 1: you've got a low pressure, so a heavy air day
- 58:19Speaker 1: that pushes your scent down, and if you don't have
- 58:21Speaker 1: a lot of wind, you essentially create a pool of
- 58:24Speaker 1: scent around you. Um, that just kind of lingers there.
- 58:28Speaker 1: And in the context of that situation you were talking about,
- 58:31Speaker 1: if you've got a scenario like that and you're in
- 58:33Speaker 1: the rut, you wouldn't hunt all day like many other
- 58:37Speaker 1: people would say, because you just are creating this scent pool.
- 58:40Speaker 1: Is that right? Is that day here? That right? Do
- 58:41Speaker 1: you avoid all day sits in the scenario? Like? Yeah,
- 58:46Speaker 1: I do? And you know they're doing the show scene
- 58:48Speaker 1: and you know, I feel like in January when we're
- 58:50Speaker 1: all out there on shows. You talk to every year
- 58:53Speaker 1: hunter in North America, and I've always found it fascinating
- 58:57Speaker 1: how many people sit from daylight to dark in the
- 58:59Speaker 1: same trease then all different fashions of weather. Sometimes I
- 59:05Speaker 1: would say that that's fine and probably would suggest it.
- 59:07Speaker 1: But there are other times, especially there's heavy air days,
- 59:09Speaker 1: when I think just that I think of myself as
- 59:12Speaker 1: like I said, I have built fires. I think of
- 59:13Speaker 1: myself as a fire and constantly putting off smoke. And
- 59:16Speaker 1: if I don't have wind speed and thermals taken my
- 59:19Speaker 1: scent or that smoke in the direction where I wanted
- 59:22Speaker 1: to go, it is I am just you know, constantly
- 59:26Speaker 1: saturating my area. I would just only imagine that it
- 59:30Speaker 1: would just can you know the pool of scent would
- 59:32Speaker 1: just increase and get larger and larger and larger, you know,
- 59:35Speaker 1: basically you know, twenty yards saturbination from my stand, thirty
- 59:39Speaker 1: year and forty yar and fifty yard and eventually if
- 59:41Speaker 1: I've sat there eight nine ten hours and I've not
- 59:44Speaker 1: had wind speed to move, you know, to clean the
- 59:46Speaker 1: airing out type of deal, and I've had you know,
- 59:49Speaker 1: a low pressure gay and heavy air day and everything's
- 59:51Speaker 1: just fallen to the ground, I would, you know, And
- 59:54Speaker 1: I've kind of testing it, Ferry not specifically sent out
- 59:57Speaker 1: the bit, but sat areas where I knew that was
- 59:59Speaker 1: going on, really good areas and have sat there and
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: just not seen deer Um, I guess the argument could be, well,
- 1:00:06Speaker 1: you know, how do you know you would have seen
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: here was a better day? And I don't know that,
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: but you know you do that so add so many times.
- 1:00:13Speaker 1: The likelihood is if you go, you know, if you
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: know the area and you know how many do you have,
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: and you know what's going on if you're not seeing deer. Uh,
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: and on those types of days, the likelihood is I
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: would think it only makes sense no how well they
- 1:00:26Speaker 1: smell that if that's probably why. Um, So those days,
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: I definitely tried to get to an area where I
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: caught my dead zone where I know that I try
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: to get my scent to pull in an area where
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: I don't expect any dearer to be or come from,
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: or I just I just chalk it up as if
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: they get there, then it's it's, um, you know, I'm busted.
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: And that's that's part of the game type of deal.
- 1:00:49Speaker 1: We talked about all these scenarios now where we're thinking
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: about trying to manage where our scent is going, where
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: are smoke is going. Um, And so we've talked about
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: ways that we can think about thermals too to our advantage.
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: We've talked about ways that we can use wind direction
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: to our advantage. Um, what about actual tools or products
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: that can help us deal with this? So there's a
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: there's a bajillion different scent control products out there, UM, ozone,
- 1:01:20Speaker 1: sprays cover sense, YadA, YadA YadA. From your experience thinking
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: about this and putting a lot of these things to
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: the test, do any of those things work really well
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: to combat some of the wind issues or is there
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: anything that you recommend over another or thoughts on that
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: in general? Um, well, I've never I've never fought with
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: the ozone. It's become of nations basically because it just
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: didn't really spend the one to spend the money on.
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: Um Uh. I do keep all my clothes and sent
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: free tubs. Uh you know, I Washman sent free determindent,
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: I sprayed down um sometimes are and put you know
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: a little bit of cover song on my boots type
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: of deal. I keep my boots and separate tubs. I dress.
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: You know, when I get out of my truck in
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: the morning, I have with them out. I stayed on
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: a dressed I answer all those I think it makes sense. Um.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: I trying to keep the foreign smells too, as as
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: minimum as I can, but I rely more on trying
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: to understand the wind direction and just keeping my scent
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: from getting to their nose. I really feel like, you know,
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: knowing how well they smell. Um, I feel like if
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: you're no matter what you're doing, if you're sent you know,
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: the human gets to it ears nose, they're gonna know it. Now,
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: how they react to it is the you know, is
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: the difference. Um. I've hunted urban areas you know, in Ohio,
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania that are beer just used to to human
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: spelled they're used to. Yeah, they're almost a different animal
- 1:02:51Speaker 1: from some of that. You I grew up hunting into
- 1:02:53Speaker 1: wods of Pennsylvania, so you can get away with some
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: of that stuff. And I think even a step further,
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: I think something are just have different personalities. You know.
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd ever had a way of
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: proven this about this saw. Some dude, older deer just
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: didn't seem to decared, you know, and then I hear
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: the littlest things set them off, just like some deer.
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: You know, last year, I was hunting the buck that
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: was a falling a five year old, and he reacted
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: so negatively to you know, the grunt, the weeze, or
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: rattling antlers. I mean literally, if I grotted at him,
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: if I were weed at him or rattled antlers at him,
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: he turned around in the other direction. And he was
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: one of the oldest dude on the floor and one
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: of the biggest. Um. I think it was his personality.
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: I don't you know, I don't know what it is.
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: Maybe he was beat up a lot as a kid.
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: I don't know, Uh, you know, but it was. And
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: other dear, it's just on the flip stead. I've had
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: told you to come in all bristled up and just
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: challenge you. So I do believe that they have personalities. Um.
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: And I think some deer or more tolerant those things.
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: When they smell it, some get curious. Um. I've had
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: deer followed my cent trail, you know, to the tree.
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: Well you would think they would turn around and run,
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: and especially more so it does than bucks. But they
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: they're very curious. They want to know, you know, what's
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: going on over there and where is this thing at
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: that I'm smelling. I don't think they necessarily associated with danger,
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: but it's something that they want to investigate. Towny Year
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: has a lot to do with it too. Um you know,
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: early season when they haven't been hunting for pressure, you know,
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: throughout the summer, I think their guard maybe a lot
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: lower on the on their you know, a lot further
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: down on the scale of what they learned to And
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: then you know, you enter into five or six weeks
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: of both season and followed by a gun scene before
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: you know it, like in Michigan and Pennsylvania, million hunters
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: have been in the woods. You know, they're just triggered
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: by the smallest thing. So I don't tell me. You know,
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: late season is way different than the early season as
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: far as a lot of those those alarming factors, if
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: you will. Yeah, yeah, I feel like I've seen a
- 1:04:46Speaker 1: lot of the same things there. Um so so further,
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: I wanna I want to get your thoughts over there,
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: because for me, this whole topic of wind and understanding it.
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: This is definitely one of those light bulb moments for
- 1:04:59Speaker 1: me too. And I and actunately hunted for like eighteen
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: years or something before I really started paying attention to
- 1:05:04Speaker 1: win the way you should have. I probably would have
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: done a whole lot better as a teenager if I
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: was sharpened up on this Um. But when I finally
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: did things start clicking. Now you're more of an adult
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: onset hunter, late teenager on set hunter. Um. When you're
- 1:05:17Speaker 1: hearing all this stuff from Ryan, where where are your
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: questions still at or what are what aren't recovering that
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: you that you're curious about. I mean, you've you've hit
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: on a ton of stuff, and you've got to have
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: like a notebook or something with all these with all
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: these specific scenarios for different stands, because I don't know
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: how you keep this all straight. Um. But you know,
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: I didn't start really thinking about Thermal's mark until Jesus.
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: It was probably on your elk count a couple of
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: years ago, Um, when we were talking about strategy and
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: where we wanted to be in the morning and in
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: the afternoon, And then I kind of started thinking about
- 1:05:49Speaker 1: that for deer hunting, but definitely not to the level
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: that I should be. And I'm kind of having a
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: moments right now talking with you Ryan, um about the
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: place we hunted in Ohio. Um, there's just so any
- 1:06:00Speaker 1: different scenarios that you're talking about, like, oh, that's why
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: that buck did that, and that's why that dough you know,
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: winded me there or you know, even the buck that
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: I shot last year. UM, he came in right where
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: he should have and I had a perfect wind, but
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: he knew something was up. And I'm just kind of
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: I want to go back and look at historical weather
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: data because I think it was a calm bay and UM,
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: you know, just thinking right now, he could have very well,
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: you know, caught my cent just because of the thermals. UM.
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's like fascinating stuff. UM. One thing
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on, um Mark you kind of
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: asked my question about uh, you know us flat landers
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: here and like you know where I'm hunting in southeast Michigan,
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: we don't have a ton of photography. UM. You know
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: other than water, Ryan, are there any like there's sort
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: of natural features, UM and flatter areas that that could
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: have an effect on you know, your thermals or the
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: wind current. What are those kind of things that you're
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: looking for in the flat areas? In the flat I mean,
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: it could be any that's the flatter you know, you know,
- 1:07:02Speaker 1: I know where they're talking about, um, those islands of
- 1:07:05Speaker 1: trees and it could definitely alter wind wind current, UM
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: air current. If you will, you know. So if you
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: got a bit you know you're talking about you know,
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: some of the agg agg areas where you have you
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: know two hunderd acre corn fills and uh you know
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: tannic or stand of oaks or you know what have you.
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: Um those areas could definitely alter the wind the air
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: current for sure. So any structure, anything that is rising
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: above the air surface um and would allow you know,
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: just like if you were displayed, if you were you know,
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: had a chin hoose and were stand back and spraying
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: water on it, you know what. You know, however, it
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: would deflect or reflect that water. You know, whatever could
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: do that to the air with you know, will in
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: fact do it. The difference being out there is it's
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: something gonna do it for a little bit of the time. U.
- 1:07:52Speaker 1: What I mean is like if it would deflect or
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: or you know, flu deflect the air, it would get
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: back to its normal course rather quickly because it's not
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: bouncing off of you know, five different things like in
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: a region of of high topography. If that makes sense, Yeah, yeah,
- 1:08:13Speaker 1: I got you cool. So if do you have a
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: fault question, Josh, or should I pivot to another question?
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: I think I think I'm good there. You know, I
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: think I'm good. I just need to I need to
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: spend more time building fires and tree stands. Please don't
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: do that on any the farmers I hunt during the season. Um,
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: and I'll get in there and start a fire to
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: let you know how to go. Yeah, you have to
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: have a lot of time. And that's all stuff I did.
- 1:08:40Speaker 1: You know before I had any sense of responsibility as uh.
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: And my mom used to saying that time me and
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: she would just say, your head on all the amount
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: of time I was wasted trying to figure out how
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: to shoot it to hear, you know, And then she
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: would tell why do you think these things smart? Hit
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: him in my carner all the time? Yeah? I hate
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: that when they said that kind of thing. It's not
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: quite that easy to do. Um. So speaking of how
- 1:09:04Speaker 1: it's not quite so easy, here's the here's the crux
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: of the deal, though. I feel like for a lot
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: of guys, when we start targeting this mature deer, one
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: of these big first aha moments for a lot of
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: us is understanding, oh wow, the wind is really important
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: because deer have these incredible noses and we gotta make
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: sure they don't smell us. So step one is figuring
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: out how to try to keep deer from smelling us.
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: Step two seems to be, though, how do you understand
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: how a mature buck uses the wind to his advantage?
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: Because right, that seems to happen a lot. And then
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: with that knowledge, how do you hunt him? So how
- 1:09:39Speaker 1: do you manage to keep this buck from smelling you
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: but also be in the place where he wants to
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: be because of the wind that he's trying to use
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: to his advantage. That's like the the crux of the
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: whole deal. Can you talk about I guess the first
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: step being how you see mature deer using the wind?
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: Are there any consistent things like mature bucks tend to
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: want the wind doing x, or when they're gonna bed
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: they tend to wire or anything like that As far
- 1:10:08Speaker 1: as how you see mature bucks tending to want to
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: use the wind or used to rain to take advantage
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: of wind. Yeah, um, And again they can never say never, right,
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: because there's almost the never. You know how that works.
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: It's just there's always something you know that's gonna throw
- 1:10:26Speaker 1: a variable there. So I'll say this, when we say
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: a mature deer, you know, it's all in the abbe
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: hold or some mature deer three. Some don't call mateer
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: mature deer until they're five. UM. And I think with
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: it's each age class, each extra year they have from
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: three on take gains just a little more knowledge. But
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: on the flip side, I think the order they get,
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: the less they move to. So let's say order from
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: after they're staking five. In my experience, I've noticed that
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: their home ranges become smaller, their core ranges, core areas UM,
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: and they move less but more deliberate. So for the
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: most part, I like to say, you know, and again
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: there's always somebody out there remember this one time when yeah,
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: you know, anything can happen in a while. But for
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: the most part of my experiences, UM, the mature dear
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: order age class dear tend to move. I think they
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: like to move with the wind quartering at their rear.
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: So basically, if you think of you know, the cone shape, UM,
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: when it gets their nose, if it's quartering to their rear,
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: like they that gives them the biggest sense of security
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: with their nose and then they obviously can see what's
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: in front of them. And how I used to study
- 1:11:35Speaker 1: this UM and they said, actually, how Barry and Jean
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: did this back in the seventies. Uh, they cue me
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: on it, but um, it should be late season or
- 1:11:45Speaker 1: in the wintertime. And again in Pennsylvania playing snow as
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: Michigan you could do this, but um, I would purposely
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: walk around and try to jump a mature buck in
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: its bed right and then track it backwards. Um, so
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: when I knew it entered its bed undisturbed. Um. And
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: then followed the toofprints in reverse and saw how they
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: maneuvered from wherever they came from feet or he's this
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: originally to get to hear and this that and the other,
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: and how they used you know, how the wind was
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: blown that day. So there's a ton of information to
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: be learned from their tracks. And if you have a
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: compass and under you know, know what the wind did
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: that day or the day before, uh, and how they
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: used the wind to get to where they where they
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: were going to tape the deal And it was really
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: I learned probably more on that with mature buck moved
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: during you know that type of deal. And I did
- 1:12:35Speaker 1: that for I still do that. That's you know, it's
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: kind of like my early shed hunting. If I get
- 1:12:41Speaker 1: out and you know, January February type of deal. But
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: you know, I'm purposely looking for any and if I
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: don't jump a buck, you know, you can tend to
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: see a buck bed over a dough bed if it
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: maybe a little bit bigger. Some of the urine marks
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: in the snow and stuff, Um, I just track them
- 1:12:55Speaker 1: backwards just to see how they were moving. Um, younger bucks,
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: you know, the year and a half and the two
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: in the house, they seem to be very sporadic, just
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: kind of all over the place, like you know, and
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: equated to people humans if you will, like a year
- 1:13:08Speaker 1: and a half old block, I kind of equate to
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: like a thirteen year old boy to nineteen year old boy.
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: I mean, think of how active you were in that
- 1:13:15Speaker 1: time frame. And then a two year old buck or
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: two and a half year old buck to be over
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: twenty or thirty, still pretty happy, you know, you still
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: have that immature this to you, but you still, you know,
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: kind of settled in your ways a little bit. And
- 1:13:27Speaker 1: then obviously thirty and forty, you're just getting more set
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: on your ways. You tend to move last. You know,
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: you don't go to the gym as much you're getting heavier, um,
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: and forty you know, forty to fifty to be year
- 1:13:37Speaker 1: four and a half year old, you know, same type
- 1:13:39Speaker 1: of thing. And then I noticed their core areas getting smaller.
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: I noticed their betting areas becoming posted closer together. I
- 1:13:47Speaker 1: didn't notice they betted in different areas. It's really surprised.
- 1:13:50Speaker 1: One buck in particular, Um, and he did this for
- 1:13:53Speaker 1: a couple of years in a row. He betted right
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: next to the highway. Uh. And he tended to only
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: do it in gun season, and I only it was
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania and Ian it was he was literally at
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: the time, you know, would have been a really nice buck,
- 1:14:06Speaker 1: I mean nice buck anytime. But then there wasn't a lot,
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: you know, it was he was the eleven point, like
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: I don't know, probably right at one forty and I
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: killed a buck with my bow that season, and um,
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: you know, you know, you get one buck in Pennsylvania,
- 1:14:20Speaker 1: you're done type of deal. So I was, you know,
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: sitting the bench in gun season and I actually was,
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: you know, just out riding around the first morning a
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: gun season, like opening day a gun season, and PA
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: is a huge deal. And it was just the right
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: daylight and I actually cut this buck going into his
- 1:14:34Speaker 1: band area. I watched, I watched him bed down the
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: snow on the team and uh, I rode past him.
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: Four days in a row he was still laying in
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: the same squat and never I mean, obviously he probably
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: got up at nighttime, but he went back there to
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: bed four days in a row, and then on the
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: last Saturday or a gun seasons two weeks, he was
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: still there on the last Saturday. So he had found
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: that little spot. And I never saw him there again
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: ever after that. And then the following year I purposely
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: went and watched for that. It was just to see
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: and it was actually it was in a pretty high
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: pressured area and lo and behold that buck a year
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: later was betting in that same area. So it was
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: fascinating how he had found you know, literally, I'm talking
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: like a half an acre just deepending on what the
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: highway to his back and he just you know, looked
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: down through the what's type of deal and it was
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: like almost in a little triangled area. Um, and you know,
- 1:15:24Speaker 1: he just found the place to do safe. And I
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: don't know if any hunter killing him, because I knew
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: someone hunters at other end I can only imagine that
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: he probably got I bet he ended up getting hit
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: by a car, because a lot of deer get hit there,
- 1:15:36Speaker 1: you know, after they would have shared or stuff like that.
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: And it was crazy to me how he knew that
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: that road could keep him so safe, yet it was
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: probably what ended up killing because I don't think the
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: hunter killed him. I would have I lived right there.
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: I was sure enough had heard about it. But anyway, um,
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: I learned all that, you know, I would go in
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: there and follow his tracks and see how they moved
- 1:15:54Speaker 1: and such. That's a great way to do it. That
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: that's uh, it's it's so hard to tell what a
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: buck is thinking or or factoring into his movements if
- 1:16:06Speaker 1: you're just like seeing him and at point now, like
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: if you show him show up, he pops out into
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: a field, and if you try to make assumptions about
- 1:16:14Speaker 1: how he got there, it's it's really easy to make
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: the wrong assumption without doing what you just said, actually backtracking.
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: Like that's such a smart way to do it. And
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: obviously you can't do that during hunting season without probably
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: blowing things out to some degree. But that's a really
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: smart idea to do that in the postseason and and
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: and be able to take those lessons to learn and
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: apply them to the future year. Um. And that's probably
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: why I'm such a poor stand hunter because of that
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: type of stuff that looks for ship. But you know,
- 1:16:42Speaker 1: back to, each deer has its own individual personality, and
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: you know, back to for the majority of hunters out there,
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: if you hutting a specific deer, to do that too.
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: It's still beneficial to you to know how de your
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: move and just play those odd You know, the deer
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: you may be hunting may or may not be on
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: that you know, but that's okay. If you're you're still
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: at it. You're stacking the odds in your favor. So
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you can and again those
- 1:17:08Speaker 1: aha moments when you it sounds like a lot. I'm
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: sure that your listeners, you know that aren't versed in this,
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, this is way too much information.
- 1:17:15Speaker 1: I never hunting again. It's crazy. It does sound like
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: a lot. I get that. But if you just start
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: like thinking about a little bit and piecing it together,
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: and you know, and the next time you're on piece
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: little morning next season, it's a little more then all
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: of a sudden it does click and you're understanding. You
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: can look at the weather station and you see the
- 1:17:32Speaker 1: wind direction and you know from past experiences you know
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: what this. You know, whatever stand you have on this
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: north ridge of the morning works little why and you
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: know you can position you know, you know which way
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: that they're gonna be using that. It's because historically, you know,
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: traditionally speaking dear older age class box tend to move
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: this direction. If they come the other way, then that's
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: okay too. But you know, you it's all about stacking
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: those odds in your favor, especially if you don't have
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: a specific form that you can hang you and you're
- 1:17:59Speaker 1: out and an odd hunting specific deer. Yeah. Yeah, And
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: and this is definitely one of those advanced topics that
- 1:18:06Speaker 1: that we're getting here. We're diving deep in the weeds.
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: So if if you are new, do not feel bad
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: if this is like whoa, this is a whole lot
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: of crap. Um at the at the very basic level,
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: you know, start kind where you said, Ryan, Um, this
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: is one of those things. As you dive deeper and
- 1:18:20Speaker 1: deeper and deeper, that's when it's okay to start thinking
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: about things to this degree. Um. Do not feel bad
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: for being a little overwhelmed if if you're if you're new. Uh.
- 1:18:28Speaker 1: That said, though, we're gonna continue going down the advanced
- 1:18:31Speaker 1: path for those who are at that point in their
- 1:18:33Speaker 1: hunting journey. So if we're thinking that the deer as
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: you described in some way or another are using wind
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: in their favor to move, the issue I've you know,
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: always think about that is okay, if if I if
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: I'm expecting this deer to come to where I'm standing, like,
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: if that's what I'm hoping for right where I'm sitting
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: in a tree, I'm hoping he's gonna come here. But
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: if that happens, and if we believe that a buck
- 1:18:57Speaker 1: is usually going to be moving with the wind some
- 1:19:00Speaker 1: in his favor so he can understand what's happening to
- 1:19:02Speaker 1: some degree, many times that means that he's going to
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: have the wind blowing towards him, possibly from where I am,
- 1:19:08Speaker 1: although I guess the scenari you painted is a little
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: bit more rear in quartering. So maybe you can get
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: away with what I'm going to describe a little bit better.
- 1:19:15Speaker 1: What I'm what I'm basically trying to get at is
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: can you talk to me about how you think about
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: setting up in situations where the deer has the wind
- 1:19:23Speaker 1: in their favor, but you also have the wind in
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: your favor. Um, Can you describe how you think about
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: that and lay out how that might work. So this
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: is where it gets. This can get into you know,
- 1:19:35Speaker 1: the really advanced level and off into the wheats. But
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: there's two There's two ways I hunt, Like if I'm
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: going into there's two different scenarios I can and I
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: know what you're saying. But if I'm hunting a specific
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: deer like I was this morning, or not really hunting
- 1:19:51Speaker 1: that deer, but in that scenario, a deer I know
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: a lot of form, I know well, and I'm probably
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: not gonna shoot any other deer than than that type
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: of deer. I almost want I try to position to
- 1:20:00Speaker 1: myself where my wind is almost wrong, if that makes sense, um,
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: because that when I know how the deer using the
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: terrain to get from point A to point being what
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: they're doing. And let me rewind. The time of year
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: plays a big role in that as well. I'm speaking
- 1:20:17Speaker 1: specifically speaking, you know, from the middle of October to
- 1:20:20Speaker 1: first of December, so not not those two weeks of run.
- 1:20:23Speaker 1: But when those deer up on their feet, you know,
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: trying to find a girlfriend type the deal for the
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: most part. So they're they're covering as much ground they can,
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: you know, while they're on their feet and they're using
- 1:20:33Speaker 1: their nose to do it. You know, they're they're if
- 1:20:34Speaker 1: they're older deer, they tend to be lazy, and they're
- 1:20:38Speaker 1: trying to cover as much ground they can find every
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: septide as quickly as they can. And get with that though,
- 1:20:43Speaker 1: and then you entered a lockdown phase or whatever. But
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: so how how in my mind, I don't want my
- 1:20:50Speaker 1: wind almost wrong so almost paralleling like it's it's it's
- 1:20:55Speaker 1: real close to being wrong, but so close to being
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: like you're never going to get it better for getting
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: is deer. You know inside of that twenty yard and
- 1:21:03Speaker 1: rewind I stumbled on it. There's I still do a
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: hunt with a recurve some but there was five or
- 1:21:08Speaker 1: six us where I specifically hunting the recurps. Say again,
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: I took that, you know, my fifty yard range moment
- 1:21:14Speaker 1: from a compound found the twenty yard and recurp. So
- 1:21:17Speaker 1: you just gotta figure those those spots out. And then
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: also not only the wind direction being on this wrong
- 1:21:23Speaker 1: the perfect spot, you know, being a really nearrow funnel
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: where you almost kind of have them pinned in there,
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: you know, type of deal. Like when they're there, you've
- 1:21:32Speaker 1: got wind in your favor and they're inside of your
- 1:21:35Speaker 1: wheelhouse and they have no idea that they just just
- 1:21:38Speaker 1: walk right into the trap type of deal. Um, that's
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: the perfect scenario. But that's the somebody again hunting a
- 1:21:46Speaker 1: very specific deer, probably with history with it and knows
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: the ground really well, you know, and understands how the
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: wind moves around the ground and such. Um. For the
- 1:21:55Speaker 1: most part, when I get asked that question, or if
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: I'm explaining to people like, uh, you know, the different
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: way is you're hunting an age class of deer, not
- 1:22:04Speaker 1: a specific deer. So let's just say some of your
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: listeners just want to hunt an older age class gear.
- 1:22:09Speaker 1: So let's just say, you know, we're just loving for
- 1:22:11Speaker 1: a two year old deer, you know, we want to
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: killing a nice buck type of deal. Then what I'm
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: trying to do is position myself to where if in
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: my scouting missions or when I'm looking to talk down maps,
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: I'm trying to identify those areas that are gonna hold
- 1:22:23Speaker 1: fig numbers of deer, you know those and fallings and such,
- 1:22:26Speaker 1: and then I'm going to look for those key areas
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: that those transition areas that that or those hogbacks or
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: funnels or whatever they be that connect those areas. So
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: you gotta abating areas. Some calls over here and you
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: have another one over here, Well how do they get
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: from there to there? And then how can I get
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: to you know, in between those areas the most undetectable,
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: and by most undetectable, not walking through their way, but
- 1:22:53Speaker 1: also taking a step further. I don't I think there
- 1:22:57Speaker 1: are a lot of hunters mess up by waw came
- 1:23:00Speaker 1: to that perfect spot within mind that they're gonna hunt
- 1:23:02Speaker 1: the perfect wind, but while they were walking there, they're
- 1:23:05Speaker 1: set was blowing to the area that they're expecting. The
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: deer tay frm, you know as well as deer snow.
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: I know a lot of people that much deer just
- 1:23:13Speaker 1: was sent on me, you know, especially out West Montana, Miami.
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: I know guys that do deer nudge is if you will,
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: from a half mile away, just using their scent, that
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: run deer on the block. September just by letting their
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: their sent drift into the block September. So it's one
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: thing to say of camin X tree stand and I've
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: got everything set in my favor. I expect the deer
- 1:23:33Speaker 1: you know, to be to the north and me moving
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: from east to west. The wind is only the northwest
- 1:23:38Speaker 1: and my sense going to the southeast, and this is
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: the perfect transition point between those two spots. But yet
- 1:23:44Speaker 1: they parked, you know whatever, three hundred yards from that
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: that that area, and that they walked to their stand
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: with the wind blown with into that area. So you
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: have I think it's just as important to keep in
- 1:23:57Speaker 1: mind entering and exiting with the wind end in your
- 1:24:00Speaker 1: favor as well hunting into me in your favor. So again,
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: when you're just hunting an age class of deer in
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: that you know, five or six week time frame when
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: they're gonna be on their feet the most in their
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: life they're out there, do you want to find those
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: those areas that they're gonna use their nose to check,
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: uh for receptive those and find those transition points in
- 1:24:20Speaker 1: between those hogbacks and those funnels that connect those areas,
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: those little drainages. There's a little just those little things,
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: you know, where they narrating where you know they're gonna
- 1:24:28Speaker 1: walk through, and and you can even manipulate that. I've
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: you know, I've cut tree down and and and I've
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: even built snow fence. Uh you know that snow fence
- 1:24:38Speaker 1: so as you can alter movement with that UM on
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: a big ridgeline. Um. You know, I've I've struved that
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: stuff up throughout the woods. And and you know at
- 1:24:47Speaker 1: an angle you don't want it on a ninety, but
- 1:24:49Speaker 1: as an angle, just like if you were to dump
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: water on it, you know you wanted to go in
- 1:24:53Speaker 1: a certain way. Uh, deer would come across that and
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: they would get to that that orange snow fence. It's
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: something like thirty set or thirty inches high twenty seven
- 1:25:01Speaker 1: inches high. They don't jump over. It's amazing to me
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: that they come to it and then they just fall it,
- 1:25:06Speaker 1: you know, like where at the angle you have it
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: on and then you stop at like eighteen yards in
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: front of your stand type and there they are. UM
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: and you know, maybe check your laws. But I know
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: I think got an aisl one time, and it's not
- 1:25:18Speaker 1: able to do. There's only a sixty yards snow fence,
- 1:25:21Speaker 1: but it altered their movement. Um, so you can do that,
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: and you know you when you're I was hunting with
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: the recurve, so I needed, you know, in that that
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: twenty yard range type of deal. So three interla. There's
- 1:25:33Speaker 1: two two different styles that are hunt. I'm hunt a
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: specific here. You know, I'm really getting advanced level there.
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to try to almost have if
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: I think that that he's doing most of his moving
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: with the wind, you know, quartering to him a little bit.
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: And again town of years have a lot to do
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: with that. If he's if he's if it's the heat
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: of the moment, like you know, there's two weeks in
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: November and October and November kill Thanksgiving, then I would
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: tend to think they probably move a little bit more
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: of the wind and they're using their nose to get
- 1:26:03Speaker 1: around rather than trying to stand alive. Their focus has
- 1:26:06Speaker 1: changed just a little bit from that that prey animal
- 1:26:09Speaker 1: and I know things are trying to kill them. They
- 1:26:11Speaker 1: want to stay alive. That's my best way of doing
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: that too. I'm trying to read and you know, sorry
- 1:26:16Speaker 1: young type of deal. So, uh, that movement can change
- 1:26:20Speaker 1: a little bit, but I still I still use the
- 1:26:22Speaker 1: wind just where you know it's it's a very touchy
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: wind right there. It's hard to explain on there if
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: from doing a good job of it. No, you are,
- 1:26:30Speaker 1: you are? Um, I want to I want to throw
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: an example out at you of my own situation and
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: kind of here, um, what you think about some of
- 1:26:38Speaker 1: my ideas on this, or kind of putting what you're
- 1:26:41Speaker 1: talking to into into actions. So I've got this deer
- 1:26:44Speaker 1: I've been hunting forever. Everyone knows I've been talking about
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: this stupid deer forever. We'll we'll call him h And
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: I've got a spot on the edge of one of
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: the main betting airs he hangs out, and that's that's
- 1:26:55Speaker 1: to the west of me. I'm sorry, to the east
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: of me, and I can't hunt in there because it's
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: on the a ring landowners. So we often, though have
- 1:27:03Speaker 1: westerly winds blowing from my side of the line into
- 1:27:07Speaker 1: the bedding area where he's at. I've always assumed though,
- 1:27:10Speaker 1: and based on pictures in the past, he most often
- 1:27:13Speaker 1: comes out to my side of the line when we've
- 1:27:16Speaker 1: got those kinds of winds, Because as you're talking about,
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: he wants to have like a southwest or northwest or
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: west wind where he can see what he's getting or
- 1:27:25Speaker 1: smell what he's getting himself into. He's trying to use
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: that usually quartering too into some degree when he's gonna
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: come out to feed or check does or whatever in
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: this area where there's there's a food source that a
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: lot of does come to. But I have also historically
- 1:27:36Speaker 1: hunted this area decent b now over the past three years,
- 1:27:39Speaker 1: trying to kill this dear. So I've always thought I
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: can't hunt there with a due west wind because it
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: blows right into that stuff. Um. But I've always always
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: the one time I've tried, or when I try to
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: hunt him is usually when there's like a northwest wind
- 1:27:53Speaker 1: or maybe a southwest wind, because I kind of, as
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: you're alluded to, I think I can maybe cut the
- 1:27:59Speaker 1: corners there, um, hoping that he's more west of me,
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: You're sorry, more east of me, so that I'll go
- 1:28:04Speaker 1: kind of angled beneath him. He'll still want to come
- 1:28:06Speaker 1: out that way because he's got a quartering wind. It's
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: in his favor. My hope being that the wind angle
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: will be just enough off of that where he's coming
- 1:28:14Speaker 1: from that will slip past him. So that's usually snare.
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: I try hunting it in UM. So that's how I've
- 1:28:19Speaker 1: done the past. Sometimes, though, do you end up still
- 1:28:23Speaker 1: catching my wind because I am blowing in the general
- 1:28:25Speaker 1: direction of the bed and cutting the bottom of it.
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: So I've gotten blown out a handful of times doing that,
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: and I'm almost excuse me, always kicking myself like ask you,
- 1:28:33Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done that. Um. He never showed up,
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: probably because I spooked some does and alarmed the whole area. Man,
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: I can't talk. But going back to something you mentioned
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: the beginning thermals and pressure, I'm wondering if I might
- 1:28:50Speaker 1: be able to better get away with this kind of
- 1:28:51Speaker 1: scenario if I'm in a situation where I have one
- 1:28:54Speaker 1: of those light wind days where I have a high
- 1:28:57Speaker 1: pressure day that's pulling up my there. So maybe I
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: hunt this when I have that kind of quartering winds
- 1:29:03Speaker 1: like a northwest wind. It's just off of where I
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: think he is. But I might be able to get
- 1:29:07Speaker 1: away with it even better if I waited for that
- 1:29:10Speaker 1: scenario with the high pressure that's kind of pushing my
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: wind up on Maybe that kind of lightish wind day.
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: UM is my way of thinking through this the way
- 1:29:19Speaker 1: you envision people thinking how to make these decisions, factoring
- 1:29:23Speaker 1: in thermals, pressure, wind and how dear use all that. Yeah,
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: But when I think, I don't think, I don't think
- 1:29:32Speaker 1: like the every day bow hunter deer hunter goes into
- 1:29:35Speaker 1: it like that. I think you know wind and thermals,
- 1:29:39Speaker 1: or you could probably take thermals and air currents and
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: how the equation. It's just when you talk one oh
- 1:29:44Speaker 1: one and most people think of it wind and more
- 1:29:48Speaker 1: so wind direction. Um. What you're explaining, I think is
- 1:29:51Speaker 1: a very advanced level. When I think, you know you're
- 1:29:53Speaker 1: probably onto something there. You know, again, those high pressure days,
- 1:29:56Speaker 1: light air days, UM definitely give you the advantage. Then
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: I think that quartering wind, if you almost that wrong wind,
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: as long as it's as long as you know it's
- 1:30:05Speaker 1: not going somewhere and hitting something and edding back into
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: the area where you think is holding that deer, you know,
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: I think that's probably your best bet. But I you know,
- 1:30:15Speaker 1: i'd be I'd check on that first to make sure
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: you know you'd somehow inadvertently your sense not entering that
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: deer's betting area even when you think you have the
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: wind direction, nail it down. But to answer your question is, yes,
- 1:30:27Speaker 1: how you're looking at it, I think it's a very
- 1:30:29Speaker 1: advanced and I wanted it's a correct way to do it. Um.
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: But I think probably most deer hunters, you know, the
- 1:30:36Speaker 1: you know, the one oh one version is just you know,
- 1:30:39Speaker 1: the winds coming out of the north, and I want
- 1:30:41Speaker 1: deer north of me, so I want, you know, my
- 1:30:43Speaker 1: sense to the south. That type of deal. Very basic. Yeah,
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: and then a great place to start, Yes, absolutely. Um.
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: One final thing on the wind side of things that
- 1:30:54Speaker 1: we haven't touched on is when it comes to all
- 1:30:55Speaker 1: this stuff, does any of this change if you're hunting
- 1:30:58Speaker 1: in a ground blind or a box blind versus a
- 1:31:01Speaker 1: tree stane um necessarily changed. I found in a ground
- 1:31:07Speaker 1: blind that it seems to be they're just they're just
- 1:31:11Speaker 1: more in tune, I think, because maybe it's because if
- 1:31:14Speaker 1: my thermals are going up, I'm on the ground, so
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: you know, I'm down on their level. And then you know,
- 1:31:19Speaker 1: quite on the on the flip side of an evening,
- 1:31:22Speaker 1: if I'm in the ground blind, usually on a food plot,
- 1:31:24Speaker 1: so then it usually is an evening in the early season,
- 1:31:27Speaker 1: and um, I just find dear when I'm on the
- 1:31:30Speaker 1: ground at their level of an evening. When I know
- 1:31:32Speaker 1: the thermals are coming down, I just feel like they're
- 1:31:34Speaker 1: high learned all the time. UM. Let's say I haven't
- 1:31:38Speaker 1: had luck. I've I've had, you know, instances in luck
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: where what they weren't alarmed, But um, it's I think
- 1:31:45Speaker 1: it definitely gets trickier in the ground blind depending on
- 1:31:48Speaker 1: the situation. You know, close quarters I like to call it.
- 1:31:51Speaker 1: If you're in somewhere tight expecting them to be close
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: to you. Um, you know you you you have to
- 1:31:57Speaker 1: take in a lot of consideration to your scent and
- 1:31:59Speaker 1: then also the noise that you make inside of it. Um.
- 1:32:03Speaker 1: I've not had I've hunted out of the tower blinds
- 1:32:07Speaker 1: in Texas. UM, but I don't have a whole lot
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: of experience out of them. I basically hunt lock on
- 1:32:14Speaker 1: everywhere else, lock ons and ladder stands. Do you do
- 1:32:17Speaker 1: you think that any of these things when it comes
- 1:32:19Speaker 1: to how you're thinking about wind do you think any
- 1:32:23Speaker 1: of this is different in a public land or heavily
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: pressured area versus big private property that's well managed and
- 1:32:30Speaker 1: very little hunting pressure. Do you see any of this
- 1:32:33Speaker 1: do you would you think about differently at all in
- 1:32:34Speaker 1: those two scenarios don't necessarily differently. You know, I think
- 1:32:40Speaker 1: the more information you're armed with again stacking those odds
- 1:32:43Speaker 1: in your favors of benefit. Um. I think being able
- 1:32:47Speaker 1: to apply a lot of the you know, this type
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: of thought process on public land. Uh, it is more
- 1:32:54Speaker 1: difficult to do just because you probably don't have history
- 1:32:57Speaker 1: with the animals trying to hunt. Um, you may not
- 1:33:01Speaker 1: have as much knowledge of the topography because you know,
- 1:33:04Speaker 1: most public lands are pretty big areas. Uh, the pressure
- 1:33:07Speaker 1: factor goes up. So I think the deer are definitely
- 1:33:10Speaker 1: you know, they may move less, they're very you know,
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: probably more on hotler, depending on pressure. So it just
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: makes it more difficult to apply. But if you do
- 1:33:18Speaker 1: understand it and can't apply it again, you're putting those
- 1:33:21Speaker 1: odds in your favor for sure. Um. But you know,
- 1:33:24Speaker 1: I hunted a lot of public land, you know, and
- 1:33:27Speaker 1: honestly back in the day when you know, when I
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: was just you know, late teens, early twenties, and I
- 1:33:32Speaker 1: didn't even have a treat and I did a lot
- 1:33:34Speaker 1: of hunting off the ground. I did a lot of
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: steel hunting. Um, when the weather was right for it
- 1:33:39Speaker 1: or you know, I did a lot of bow hunting
- 1:33:41Speaker 1: in the rain and a rainstorm and just just sneak
- 1:33:44Speaker 1: around and check on different areas, and I've shot a
- 1:33:46Speaker 1: lot of deer off the ground, um, And you learn
- 1:33:49Speaker 1: a lot when you get in close quarters like that.
- 1:33:51Speaker 1: You know, scenarios tend to play themselves out more because
- 1:33:54Speaker 1: you have a bow and you're on the ground and
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: you know, for whatever, he couldn't get a shot off
- 1:33:58Speaker 1: or this, that and the other. So just so the
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: simple fact that you're there in experiencing it in a
- 1:34:03Speaker 1: scenario is playing out um. Whereas if you were a
- 1:34:06Speaker 1: down home or you know, maybe you weren't even there,
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: you know, you didn't learn anything from it. So just
- 1:34:11Speaker 1: the fact that you know, you put yourself in those situations,
- 1:34:14Speaker 1: you get to learn from it. Um. I think access
- 1:34:17Speaker 1: is the hardest thing on public plan especially. You know,
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: when I was hunting a lot of public land, a
- 1:34:22Speaker 1: lot of it was really hard to get to and
- 1:34:25Speaker 1: you worked your butt off, you know, to get to it.
- 1:34:27Speaker 1: You're tired by the time you got their type of
- 1:34:29Speaker 1: deal and then you know, you had a hunt all day,
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: change your clothes and you know this that you know,
- 1:34:33Speaker 1: so it's definitely a unique set of challenges for sure. Yeah.
- 1:34:37Speaker 1: And I know that I know that access, entry and
- 1:34:39Speaker 1: exit and all that is something that that you really
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: focus on is an important part of your hunting strategy
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: when you're tireding mature deer. Um. And you alluded to
- 1:34:49Speaker 1: it a little bit earlier when you said you want
- 1:34:51Speaker 1: to make sure your winds not blowing into areas you
- 1:34:53Speaker 1: think the deer are going to be when you're coming
- 1:34:55Speaker 1: in and out. Um, can you can you give us
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: some more detail into what you think about when it
- 1:35:00Speaker 1: comes to accessing and exiting properties and and anything like
- 1:35:03Speaker 1: the more advanced ways you go about trying to get
- 1:35:07Speaker 1: a good entry and exit. Yeah. Um. You know, when
- 1:35:13Speaker 1: I've been set up a property or new property type
- 1:35:16Speaker 1: of deal, uh, you know, I look at the top
- 1:35:19Speaker 1: of the maps and you do some boots on the
- 1:35:20Speaker 1: ground stuff, and you know, the late winter, early spring,
- 1:35:24Speaker 1: so you're looking at old sign and you know, just
- 1:35:27Speaker 1: you're seeing where everything kind of comes together and where
- 1:35:29Speaker 1: you need to be, and you know, you put an
- 1:35:30Speaker 1: X on the map type of deal or drop a
- 1:35:32Speaker 1: pin and then you know you look at the parking
- 1:35:34Speaker 1: area and even if it's program and you still have
- 1:35:36Speaker 1: areas where you can park type of deal, and then
- 1:35:38Speaker 1: you figure out the best ways in there. Um. So
- 1:35:41Speaker 1: just as you're looking for that stand location, I think
- 1:35:43Speaker 1: it's in the late winter, it's just as important to
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: look for those areas where you think there are going
- 1:35:49Speaker 1: to feed come the upcoming both season and where they're
- 1:35:52Speaker 1: gonna you know bad the upcoming both season. So where
- 1:35:55Speaker 1: they're at, where they're gonna be coming from, and where
- 1:35:57Speaker 1: they're gonna be going to. And then you say you
- 1:36:00Speaker 1: have okay this, you know, you find in the areas
- 1:36:02Speaker 1: just tore up with sign, rubs and scrapes and you know,
- 1:36:05Speaker 1: inside edges and you know, has everything. Uh, then you
- 1:36:08Speaker 1: want to ask yourself, well, I know that you were here,
- 1:36:10Speaker 1: they laid down all the sign where did they come from?
- 1:36:12Speaker 1: So then you need to find okay, and you men,
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: you know, late winter you're looking at tracks, you know,
- 1:36:16Speaker 1: and you're following backwards and you find a couple of
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: thickets here and there or hill set its and you
- 1:36:21Speaker 1: know it maybe you know probably that time of year
- 1:36:24Speaker 1: it's just south facing slope to catch the morning sun
- 1:36:26Speaker 1: and that type of deal. And then you look at
- 1:36:29Speaker 1: all that so you have on your back you know
- 1:36:31Speaker 1: where you want to hunt, you know where you think
- 1:36:33Speaker 1: the majority that you're coming from, um, and even where
- 1:36:36Speaker 1: they're gonna go if there past you type you know,
- 1:36:38Speaker 1: once they passed you, and okay, then here's where I park.
- 1:36:41Speaker 1: Now how can I get there? You know on a
- 1:36:44Speaker 1: predominant in my areas, you know, the predominant winds or
- 1:36:47Speaker 1: south southwest and west. Uh you get a lot of
- 1:36:50Speaker 1: noitherally winds in late October, early November. So I'm gonna
- 1:36:54Speaker 1: park only a couple of specific areas no matter what.
- 1:36:57Speaker 1: Usually even you know, the most private farm, you know,
- 1:37:00Speaker 1: you probably only have a couple of specific parking areas.
- 1:37:03Speaker 1: And sometimes you're just gonna walk way out of your
- 1:37:05Speaker 1: way and you may have to walk driving upstream bed
- 1:37:08Speaker 1: or down the hard top road. I've done that a lot.
- 1:37:10Speaker 1: You know. One of the neighbors where I hunt, he
- 1:37:13Speaker 1: thinks I'm crazy, which just me, you know, me parting
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: my truck at the barnom and you know, I walked,
- 1:37:18Speaker 1: you know, between a quarter and a half a mile
- 1:37:20Speaker 1: down the road past his house and and then it
- 1:37:22Speaker 1: was above his house, and you know he's like, what
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: are you doing? You know type of deal. But you know,
- 1:37:27Speaker 1: then I get into a drainage and you know, I
- 1:37:30Speaker 1: sneak my way into a stand. It makes all the
- 1:37:32Speaker 1: difference in the world, you know where and when you
- 1:37:34Speaker 1: start doing that stuff and paying attention to entering and
- 1:37:38Speaker 1: uh leaving a stand site undisturbed hunting, undisturbed deer, your
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: deer sighting, one of those talking buck sightings. But you
- 1:37:45Speaker 1: know when you're going to stand, like you specifically when
- 1:37:47Speaker 1: when you were going into a stand not paying attention
- 1:37:50Speaker 1: to that stuff and you see two or three four
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: deer and it's set and everything was good, and you
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: know you're a happy type of deal. And then you
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: really start paying attention to those little details. And when
- 1:37:59Speaker 1: you use you see you know, two or three or
- 1:38:01Speaker 1: four dear, and now you're seeing eight, nine, ten, and
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: three of them were bucks, and one of them was
- 1:38:05Speaker 1: a big shooter, and no one of them the most
- 1:38:07Speaker 1: important part, none of them knew you were there. Um.
- 1:38:10Speaker 1: You know that's when it really really cool feeling. Uh
- 1:38:14Speaker 1: when to me, it's when you know it's not to me,
- 1:38:17Speaker 1: it's that whole romance to hunting, you know why we hunt. Um,
- 1:38:22Speaker 1: I really really enjoy that part of it. You know,
- 1:38:25Speaker 1: I don't want to say as much or more than
- 1:38:26Speaker 1: the killing part, because at the end of the day,
- 1:38:28Speaker 1: we're all hunters and you know, we want to hold
- 1:38:30Speaker 1: those big as at the end of the day. But
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: there's something about having dear you know, parade past, you know,
- 1:38:36Speaker 1: knowing where they come from, why they were where they were,
- 1:38:39Speaker 1: you know, how they got the fifteen yards and shop
- 1:38:41Speaker 1: and that on by you and had no you know,
- 1:38:44Speaker 1: clue in their mind that you were there hunting down
- 1:38:46Speaker 1: because everything was right, uh, and you specifically manipulated it
- 1:38:50Speaker 1: to be that way. There's really something to be said
- 1:38:52Speaker 1: to that that I think, really, uh, you know it
- 1:38:58Speaker 1: really a lot of people are missing out on it's
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: too much about the I just gotta get killed. But
- 1:39:02Speaker 1: it doesn't matter why how we're aware and yeah, you
- 1:39:05Speaker 1: toil the bucket. It feels good for a while, but
- 1:39:06Speaker 1: whenever you really start piecing together of that whole, you know,
- 1:39:09Speaker 1: that learning experience or the apprenticeship program if you will,
- 1:39:12Speaker 1: and you become a journeyman, and it's it's a really
- 1:39:15Speaker 1: cool feeling. And I guess it's a sense of satisfaction
- 1:39:18Speaker 1: even like anything you know, you put your your work into.
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: You feel better about the type of deal. But I
- 1:39:22Speaker 1: really enjoy that. Oh yeah, that that the chess match,
- 1:39:26Speaker 1: all of the work that goes into that. That makes
- 1:39:29Speaker 1: you know, every time you see the antlers on the wall,
- 1:39:31Speaker 1: or every time you take a bite out of that
- 1:39:33Speaker 1: animal when you have a meal, It all makes all
- 1:39:37Speaker 1: those things so much, so much sweeter when you know
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: just the level of understanding that was required to get
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: to that point, the level of work that was required
- 1:39:44Speaker 1: to get to that point, the level of frustration and
- 1:39:47Speaker 1: failure probably leading up to those successes. Uh man, it
- 1:39:50Speaker 1: makes it all a whole lot more meaningful when you
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: have to go through that to get to your end goal. Yeah,
- 1:39:57Speaker 1: and it's it's such a hard thing to explain, you know.
- 1:39:59Speaker 1: It's of the non hunters or people that may just
- 1:40:02Speaker 1: be hunt a little bit. You know, I didn't understand,
- 1:40:05Speaker 1: you know, but it's like anything else and you start,
- 1:40:07Speaker 1: you know, pouring your heart into it. Um you know. There,
- 1:40:09Speaker 1: it's definitely and there's nothing wrong with you know, being
- 1:40:13Speaker 1: outdoors and enjoying all that. You learn a lot of
- 1:40:15Speaker 1: a good Linth lessons out there the time to do.
- 1:40:18Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just really cool, it is. It is
- 1:40:21Speaker 1: so so speaking of this kind of process though, like
- 1:40:24Speaker 1: getting to the point where we're like you and I
- 1:40:26Speaker 1: are at maybe where we really want that difficult challenge
- 1:40:29Speaker 1: um and and figuring out all the details. But also
- 1:40:33Speaker 1: there are some people at the beginning of that journey.
- 1:40:35Speaker 1: We're just trying to find any dear um. It would
- 1:40:38Speaker 1: be an incredible challenge to surmount. Now I'm about to
- 1:40:41Speaker 1: shift topics here, but before I do that, I want
- 1:40:44Speaker 1: to take one last break today and think our partners
- 1:40:48Speaker 1: at White Tail Properties. And speaking of new hunters, white
- 1:40:52Speaker 1: Tail Properties puts out a series of YouTube videos they
- 1:40:55Speaker 1: call their land Beat video series. I've been mentioning it
- 1:40:58Speaker 1: every other week here they've got a new video out
- 1:41:01Speaker 1: that I think new hunters especially or really anyone interested
- 1:41:04Speaker 1: in becoming better deer hunter it might be of interest
- 1:41:06Speaker 1: to you. This one dives into trail camera tactics, which
- 1:41:10Speaker 1: trail cameras are one of those most incredible and useful
- 1:41:12Speaker 1: tools for a deer hunter. You can learn so much
- 1:41:15Speaker 1: about dear behavior, about what specific deer doing, or just
- 1:41:18Speaker 1: how deer use a property, whether that be a mature
- 1:41:20Speaker 1: buck or doze or young deer. Whatever it is that
- 1:41:23Speaker 1: you want to target. Cameras can help you do that.
- 1:41:25Speaker 1: So this quick video cover some of the basics, including
- 1:41:28Speaker 1: when to hang them, where to hang them, and a
- 1:41:31Speaker 1: bunch of things along those lines. Very simply. If you
- 1:41:33Speaker 1: go to the white Tail Properties YouTube channel, you will
- 1:41:36Speaker 1: see it's the most recent land beat video. It's called
- 1:41:39Speaker 1: Trail Camera Tactics. Check it out, and if you'd like
- 1:41:41Speaker 1: to learn more about white Tail Properties and the properties
- 1:41:44Speaker 1: they have for sale, you can visit white Tail Properties
- 1:41:47Speaker 1: dot com. Um talking about new hunters, I know, and
- 1:41:50Speaker 1: I'm kind of shifting here to a totally different topic,
- 1:41:53Speaker 1: but I do know that both you and further with
- 1:41:55Speaker 1: what you guys are doing with the q d m
- 1:41:57Speaker 1: A are really focusing on hunter recruitment, trying to help
- 1:42:01Speaker 1: bring new people into the fold. And before we go
- 1:42:04Speaker 1: too much longer with the podcast, I want to make
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: sure we get to touch on that a little bit.
- 1:42:08Speaker 1: Is that something you can can talk about a little
- 1:42:10Speaker 1: bit what you guys are up to. Yeah, poor, you know,
- 1:42:16Speaker 1: like I said in the beginning of the podcast, and
- 1:42:18Speaker 1: really fortunately towards in the industry, you know, revolving around
- 1:42:21Speaker 1: the white tail deer, because that's just basically have been
- 1:42:24Speaker 1: my life. Um, and you know, we're at a point
- 1:42:27Speaker 1: right now with the k D m A and and
- 1:42:29Speaker 1: you know a lot of the other nonprofit uh conservation
- 1:42:32Speaker 1: organizations out there. I mean, we're specifically focused on white
- 1:42:35Speaker 1: tail deer, but um as they're the number one song
- 1:42:38Speaker 1: after big game animal in the country, you know, and
- 1:42:42Speaker 1: you start looking at the business behind that, if you will,
- 1:42:45Speaker 1: you know there's a whole business side of that, and
- 1:42:47Speaker 1: how much money the white tails white tail deer generates
- 1:42:50Speaker 1: and how conservations funded through which I know you're aware
- 1:42:53Speaker 1: of the Pittman Robinson acted such um. You know, the
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: hunter recruitment rate is in a decline and in the
- 1:43:00Speaker 1: last you know, ten years, we've lost about thirty percent
- 1:43:02Speaker 1: of the license buyers. And you know that starts to
- 1:43:05Speaker 1: equate two dollars and cents and then obviously a snowball effect,
- 1:43:09Speaker 1: um you know when state agencies have to make cutbacks
- 1:43:12Speaker 1: and and you know, so forth me was the big
- 1:43:15Speaker 1: public lane moving out there, and licensees you know, driving
- 1:43:18Speaker 1: force behind that as well. So you know, a lot
- 1:43:22Speaker 1: of the nonprofit conservation organizations are doing everything they can
- 1:43:26Speaker 1: to you know, try to you know, turn around the
- 1:43:30Speaker 1: hunter recruminate at least slow the decline down. Um Like
- 1:43:33Speaker 1: I said, we've lost thirty in the last ten years. Um,
- 1:43:37Speaker 1: you know that's that's alarming in and in and of itself.
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: Uh to think that as passionate as I am about
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: you know, white tailed deer hunting, you're hunting in general. Um,
- 1:43:46Speaker 1: It's all I've ever done in my life has been
- 1:43:48Speaker 1: a hunter. Uh. It's literally all I've ever and I
- 1:43:51Speaker 1: couldn't imagine, you know, I don't know what I would do,
- 1:43:53Speaker 1: you know, if I didn't have hunting in my life,
- 1:43:55Speaker 1: and I mean that last I don't what would I
- 1:43:57Speaker 1: do in November. I don't know, you know, Like, um,
- 1:44:00Speaker 1: so to think that this could potentially go away. I
- 1:44:03Speaker 1: mean again, there's a lot of statistics out there, and
- 1:44:07Speaker 1: we're not trying to you know, being the sky's falling type,
- 1:44:10Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you know, we've
- 1:44:12Speaker 1: lost you know, a good amount of hunters in the
- 1:44:15Speaker 1: last ten years. Uh. The average age of the license
- 1:44:18Speaker 1: Byron right now somewhere around fifty six years old, and
- 1:44:21Speaker 1: in all recents says there's a hard stop at seventy.
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: So you know, there, technically speaking or arguably speaking, there's
- 1:44:29Speaker 1: a shelf life to hunting as we know it did
- 1:44:31Speaker 1: not do whatever, go away. But in the next you know,
- 1:44:33Speaker 1: twelve or fifteen years, you could see a drastic cut
- 1:44:36Speaker 1: um in funding for you know, this resource that we
- 1:44:40Speaker 1: loved to chase around and chairs hope the deal. So
- 1:44:44Speaker 1: you know, we're going We've really shifted our focus the
- 1:44:47Speaker 1: first you know, we're we're in our thirtieth year. The
- 1:44:49Speaker 1: first fifteen or twenty years we were very big in
- 1:44:52Speaker 1: the habitat and herd management and overall you know, the
- 1:44:55Speaker 1: wait till dear, you know, health of the herd type
- 1:44:58Speaker 1: of deal and in the habitat um and now it's
- 1:45:01Speaker 1: you know, the deer or gonna be okay, we gotta
- 1:45:04Speaker 1: have people there to hunt them type of deals. So
- 1:45:06Speaker 1: we're really uh focused on the youth. We have a
- 1:45:10Speaker 1: big youth involvement there. Probably more so are the first
- 1:45:13Speaker 1: time adult onset hunters. I think you mentioned that you
- 1:45:16Speaker 1: talked you called Josh that earlier in the podcast. But
- 1:45:20Speaker 1: you know, we find through research that taking a kid
- 1:45:23Speaker 1: hunting is great, and we always have to continue to
- 1:45:25Speaker 1: do that. The problem is, or the catching is if
- 1:45:27Speaker 1: you take you know, a young person hunting today and
- 1:45:31Speaker 1: they want to that tomorrow and you're not available, then
- 1:45:33Speaker 1: what do they do. You know, they're they're stuck sitting
- 1:45:35Speaker 1: the bench. Uh. They don't have a job, so they
- 1:45:37Speaker 1: can't go out and buy stuff. They can't draw themselves
- 1:45:39Speaker 1: to the owning property or you know, to a state man,
- 1:45:41Speaker 1: whatever they'd be. So you know, we've shifted focusing. We
- 1:45:45Speaker 1: among other Conservational visitors, have shifted focus over to the
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: adult onsets the first time mid thirty mid forty something
- 1:45:54Speaker 1: that have always had the desire but maybe nobody's ever
- 1:45:56Speaker 1: taught them and asked them to go. Uh And just
- 1:45:59Speaker 1: as we were talking been earlier. You know, if you
- 1:46:02Speaker 1: have the desire thirty five thirty eight years old, sitting
- 1:46:05Speaker 1: in a cubicle somewhere, you know, have always been interested
- 1:46:07Speaker 1: in hunting, but just never had anybody really wanted to
- 1:46:10Speaker 1: to take in. It's intimidating to try to do yourself,
- 1:46:13Speaker 1: and it's even more so intimiding, you know to uh
- 1:46:16Speaker 1: maybe ask one of your buddies, you know, in forty
- 1:46:18Speaker 1: years on, Hey do you gonna teach me out of hunt?
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: You know, like this watch your thing to do type
- 1:46:22Speaker 1: of deal. So, uh, you know, we're putting some programs
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: out there. We have are sharing your hunt program um
- 1:46:29Speaker 1: where filled the fort program or we're trying to get
- 1:46:32Speaker 1: more people involved in hunting. I'm actually leaving from one
- 1:46:35Speaker 1: in the morning. Uh. It's in north central Pennsylvania. We
- 1:46:38Speaker 1: have six first time adult hunters coming into camp. Um,
- 1:46:43Speaker 1: we're gonna hunt Friday and Saturday to sets a day,
- 1:46:46Speaker 1: morning and evening. Um. We brought them in back in
- 1:46:48Speaker 1: August and went through a training day with prospers. I mean,
- 1:46:52Speaker 1: we teach them dear biology, we do some habitat management,
- 1:46:55Speaker 1: you know, everything there needs to know about it. Deal ever,
- 1:46:57Speaker 1: teach them how to shoot, and we're gonna take them
- 1:46:59Speaker 1: hunt to teach them how to porcher deer. And the
- 1:47:02Speaker 1: idea is they want to be hunters, you know, they
- 1:47:05Speaker 1: want to source through room protein and sustainability, and we
- 1:47:08Speaker 1: want to hopefully give them enough knowledge to do that,
- 1:47:12Speaker 1: you know, within a few meetings with us. So it
- 1:47:14Speaker 1: is definitely a process, but it's definitely something we're extremely
- 1:47:18Speaker 1: focused on right now as an organization. And I think
- 1:47:21Speaker 1: that's I think that's awesome. Um. Now, further, you you
- 1:47:26Speaker 1: have gotten to be involved in this a little bit
- 1:47:29Speaker 1: already yourself, haven't you. How's that been? Yeah? Um, last
- 1:47:33Speaker 1: weekend actually I was involved in one UM that was
- 1:47:36Speaker 1: called Learned to Hunt UM, and this one was specifically
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: about deer UM. It's UH. It was kind of a
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: joint effort between uh Q d M, a National Wild
- 1:47:46Speaker 1: Turkey Federation UM, the Michigan DNR Pheasants Forever has a
- 1:47:52Speaker 1: role in it UM and they do these for different species.
- 1:47:55Speaker 1: They have them small game Turkey Pheasant UM. Basically, what
- 1:47:58Speaker 1: it is is we've got UM. We've this This program
- 1:48:02Speaker 1: has received grants from the Cabella's Outdoor Fund where they've
- 1:48:05Speaker 1: been able to go out and purchase crossbows and camo
- 1:48:09Speaker 1: and ground blinds UM through that grant, and then also
- 1:48:12Speaker 1: different branches UH and chapters will will donate money UM
- 1:48:17Speaker 1: for these types of programs. So what we did is
- 1:48:20Speaker 1: UH I kind of gave like a deer Hunting one
- 1:48:22Speaker 1: oh one UM presentation on a Saturday morning. We spent
- 1:48:27Speaker 1: some time at the range with crossbows and then we
- 1:48:32Speaker 1: had there's four people there were supposed to have eight,
- 1:48:34Speaker 1: but we had a just torrential downpours that day. I
- 1:48:37Speaker 1: think scared some people away, but we end up having
- 1:48:39Speaker 1: four people come and UM we were able to go
- 1:48:42Speaker 1: out with mentors. Then those new hunters were able to
- 1:48:44Speaker 1: go out with mentors in the afternoon on Saturday and
- 1:48:47Speaker 1: then Sunday morning. We unfortunately didn't uh harvesting deer that weekend,
- 1:48:54Speaker 1: but but they got a processing demonstration and a butchering
- 1:48:57Speaker 1: demonstration and um you know, I think every one of
- 1:49:00Speaker 1: those people left and said, yeah, we want to do
- 1:49:03Speaker 1: this again. One gal that came had already purchased a crossbow.
- 1:49:07Speaker 1: Um So, I mean, these are the people that are
- 1:49:09Speaker 1: going to go out and start contributing funds to Pittman
- 1:49:12Speaker 1: Robertson dollars and they can go out and replicate these
- 1:49:15Speaker 1: types of you know, they can go they can go
- 1:49:17Speaker 1: hunt on their own whereout where a youth that's gonna
- 1:49:20Speaker 1: need a a family member or a friend or somebody
- 1:49:23Speaker 1: to drive them to a spot where these people can
- 1:49:26Speaker 1: go out and do that themselves the next day if
- 1:49:28Speaker 1: they wanted to. Um, so, yeah, I got to do that.
- 1:49:31Speaker 1: One one of our branches up in northern Michigan are
- 1:49:34Speaker 1: Tipping the Mid Branch. They're doing a field of fork
- 1:49:37Speaker 1: program where they've got three hunter hunting with mentors throughout
- 1:49:40Speaker 1: the season and one of those new hunters shot at
- 1:49:44Speaker 1: buck the first week of the season already and just
- 1:49:47Speaker 1: a ton of great success going on with that kind
- 1:49:49Speaker 1: of stuff. That's really cool, and it's it's it's great
- 1:49:54Speaker 1: to see you guys and the different branches out there,
- 1:49:59Speaker 1: you know, stepping up and ownating their time and funds
- 1:50:02Speaker 1: to make that happen. Because it's one thing to say it,
- 1:50:04Speaker 1: it's a it's a lot more to actually go and
- 1:50:07Speaker 1: actually do these things. So it was I think it's
- 1:50:09Speaker 1: pretty awesome, Josh, seeing you going out on these mentor hunts.
- 1:50:13Speaker 1: You went and you did the youth hunt, uh. A
- 1:50:15Speaker 1: weekend or two before that, you did a veterans hunt, um,
- 1:50:19Speaker 1: and I know you're leaving again next week to do
- 1:50:20Speaker 1: another youth hunt helping out people. UM. So I just
- 1:50:23Speaker 1: want to say that as a friend, I I commend
- 1:50:26Speaker 1: you and everyone else out there who is donating their
- 1:50:28Speaker 1: time in this kind of way like huge props. I'm
- 1:50:31Speaker 1: so glad that people are doing that. I need to
- 1:50:33Speaker 1: do a better job of doing more of that. UM.
- 1:50:35Speaker 1: I was hoping to be a meet up with you
- 1:50:37Speaker 1: guys for that that first time Hunter event last weekend
- 1:50:40Speaker 1: didn't work out. But I need to do a better
- 1:50:43Speaker 1: job of that, and I hope that people listening. Hope
- 1:50:45Speaker 1: there's a few people listening that maybe are are intrigued
- 1:50:49Speaker 1: by the opportunity to help mentor some new hunters too.
- 1:50:52Speaker 1: And if that's the case, Ryan, Um, how can a
- 1:50:56Speaker 1: hunter listening get involved and and be able to get
- 1:51:00Speaker 1: involved the programs you guys have out there to become
- 1:51:02Speaker 1: a mentor or or helper with some of these things
- 1:51:04Speaker 1: you guys are doing well. I mean there's a couple
- 1:51:07Speaker 1: of different ways, and I'm glad you ask um each
- 1:51:11Speaker 1: almost every state now and on every state, if they
- 1:51:13Speaker 1: don't have a designated our three coordinators that's retain, react, activate,
- 1:51:18Speaker 1: and recruit new hunters, Um, states are you know, state
- 1:51:22Speaker 1: agencies are putting in an R three coordinator if they
- 1:51:24Speaker 1: don't have an acting one, uh you know specifically hiring
- 1:51:27Speaker 1: for that position they have they usually have somebody within
- 1:51:30Speaker 1: the state that's covering that so that the force thing
- 1:51:32Speaker 1: they can do if they don't want to be involved
- 1:51:34Speaker 1: with a K d M, A branch or if maybe
- 1:51:36Speaker 1: there's not one close to them, Um, you know, they
- 1:51:39Speaker 1: can go through the state through there are three coordinator.
- 1:51:42Speaker 1: They can definitely put you in touch with a hunter
- 1:51:44Speaker 1: or a group of people or you know, the next
- 1:51:46Speaker 1: event they have coming up, UM, or they can easily
- 1:51:49Speaker 1: seek out a KDUM a branch. I mean we're not
- 1:51:52Speaker 1: in everyone's back here, but you know usually there's one
- 1:51:55Speaker 1: anywhere within the way, tells range, within driving distance. UM,
- 1:51:59Speaker 1: reach out to them and and tell them that you'd
- 1:52:01Speaker 1: like to be involved, or can be a simple with
- 1:52:03Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to be involved with a group,
- 1:52:05Speaker 1: and you don't have to be involved with the state
- 1:52:06Speaker 1: at R three coordinator. You can just if you're a hunter,
- 1:52:09Speaker 1: you know you can do your part by seeking somebody
- 1:52:12Speaker 1: out and your work with or data heads with, or
- 1:52:15Speaker 1: teaches your white school wherever it may be that one's
- 1:52:18Speaker 1: learned how to be a hunter, take them hunting with you,
- 1:52:20Speaker 1: teach them how to be a hunter. Um. You know,
- 1:52:22Speaker 1: if just think about it, you know there's somewhere around
- 1:52:25Speaker 1: you know, ten of eleven million deer hunters in the
- 1:52:26Speaker 1: country right now, it's de counting who's doing accounting. But uh,
- 1:52:30Speaker 1: if half of them took one person hunting next year,
- 1:52:32Speaker 1: you know we can fix the problem in one year
- 1:52:35Speaker 1: type of deal. So it could be something this is
- 1:52:37Speaker 1: that simple. Seek out somebody that's never hunted before but
- 1:52:40Speaker 1: has the interested. You know they run in your circles
- 1:52:42Speaker 1: and take the time to take them to teach them
- 1:52:44Speaker 1: to be a hunter. And I know it sounds like
- 1:52:47Speaker 1: a lot, and even with me and I have a
- 1:52:51Speaker 1: lease in Ohio, and but honestly, I've done this now
- 1:52:54Speaker 1: for a couple of years. We've had kind of an
- 1:52:57Speaker 1: internal ken m a challenge amongst our staff that you know,
- 1:53:00Speaker 1: we're gonna seek out new hunters every year, you know,
- 1:53:02Speaker 1: and and take at least one per uh. And we've
- 1:53:05Speaker 1: done that and it is a very satisfying and gratifying
- 1:53:09Speaker 1: thing to do. Um. You know it's not you don't
- 1:53:14Speaker 1: mind doing it once. Once you get involved in seed,
- 1:53:17Speaker 1: the level of enthusiasm that these people display, um, the
- 1:53:21Speaker 1: appreciation they have for you taking the time out and
- 1:53:24Speaker 1: and honestly, you develop some of the best friendships you
- 1:53:27Speaker 1: may ever have in your life for hunting. And this
- 1:53:29Speaker 1: is a perfect example of that. So you know, don't
- 1:53:32Speaker 1: don't be you know, can be dated by it. Do
- 1:53:34Speaker 1: think it's too much or you know, you don't have
- 1:53:36Speaker 1: so much time The sport is depending on it. We
- 1:53:39Speaker 1: need people out there to teach others how to become hunters.
- 1:53:42Speaker 1: And you know, think of think of it as almost
- 1:53:45Speaker 1: a sense of as your responsibility. Uh, just one a year.
- 1:53:49Speaker 1: You know. Introducement doesn't have to be deer hunting either.
- 1:53:52Speaker 1: That's another thing. Um, you know, there's nothing wrong with
- 1:53:55Speaker 1: teaching somebody how to be a small game or take
- 1:53:57Speaker 1: them squirrel hunting, take them rabbit right, take them feather hunt. Um,
- 1:54:00Speaker 1: you know, just get them old than the outdoors and
- 1:54:03Speaker 1: let them progress naturally. You know that that's that's how
- 1:54:07Speaker 1: we're going to fix this for sure. Yeah. Now on
- 1:54:10Speaker 1: the flip side, what if what if someone listening is
- 1:54:13Speaker 1: a new hunter and maybe they want to hunt, so
- 1:54:17Speaker 1: they've been listening to hunting podcasts they stumble across Wired
- 1:54:21Speaker 1: to Hunt. Somehow they managed to listen to the very
- 1:54:23Speaker 1: advanced stuff we talked about without getting discouraged and studying
- 1:54:26Speaker 1: this thing off. What if there's a new aspiring hunter
- 1:54:30Speaker 1: and they're hearing about these programs and they're thinking in
- 1:54:32Speaker 1: their heads, WHOA, that would be amazing. I could really
- 1:54:35Speaker 1: use a weekend mentor program. That would be such a
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: great start for me. How can they get tapped in
- 1:54:40Speaker 1: and signed up for a program like this? Where do
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: they find that information? The same type of thing our website? Um,
- 1:54:46Speaker 1: you know, we went from last year I think Josh
- 1:54:48Speaker 1: we get I think two or three nationwide, and we're
- 1:54:51Speaker 1: gonna do eighty or twenty this year. Uh and obviously
- 1:54:55Speaker 1: we hope to build on for that next year. So
- 1:54:57Speaker 1: our website we have a long are field defork programs listed.
- 1:55:01Speaker 1: You get involved that way and then again, you know,
- 1:55:03Speaker 1: through your state agencies and the other three coordinator I
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: mean one song called to the state agency, especially with
- 1:55:08Speaker 1: a specific R three coordinator. Uh, you know that's their job.
- 1:55:12Speaker 1: If you're don't hunt a hunt, they're gonna they're gonna
- 1:55:15Speaker 1: place you within the right people. Uh for sure. Awesome.
- 1:55:20Speaker 1: Well yeah, I'll add one more thing to that too,
- 1:55:23Speaker 1: is um, there's a lot of different resources out there,
- 1:55:26Speaker 1: Like I know, just recently, a lot of us qd
- 1:55:29Speaker 1: m A staff just became digital mentors UM on a
- 1:55:33Speaker 1: platform called powder hook Mark. I'm not sure if you're
- 1:55:35Speaker 1: familiar with that or not, but um, that's a great
- 1:55:38Speaker 1: place for people to check out too and maybe be
- 1:55:40Speaker 1: able to connect with a mentor through something like that
- 1:55:45Speaker 1: where you can find people are willing to take you out. Um.
- 1:55:48Speaker 1: And maybe you don't even need something to take you out,
- 1:55:50Speaker 1: but you have questions for them. Um, you know, so
- 1:55:52Speaker 1: many different ways to connect with with people and this
- 1:55:55Speaker 1: day and age, and um, I mean that's do a
- 1:55:58Speaker 1: Google search, you can you can sign people, I'm sure,
- 1:56:01Speaker 1: get on Facebook. There's groups or you know, like I said,
- 1:56:03Speaker 1: there's digital mentors on this powder hook Um network that
- 1:56:07Speaker 1: you can check out. Um So, all kinds of different
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: opportunities to get connected with people. Social media has gonna
- 1:56:13Speaker 1: not to interrupted social media. Um. You know Instagram is
- 1:56:17Speaker 1: there's a local board, movent. You know, there's a group
- 1:56:20Speaker 1: of people that wants to ares their own protein and
- 1:56:21Speaker 1: hunter and being a hundred you know, one of the
- 1:56:23Speaker 1: best ways to do that. Um. So you know, just
- 1:56:26Speaker 1: about any avenue of communication you can think of. You know,
- 1:56:29Speaker 1: you can get a home to somebody and and hopefully
- 1:56:31Speaker 1: for the most part you're going to find a willing
- 1:56:33Speaker 1: mentor out there is going to help be helpful to you. Yeah, Josh,
- 1:56:37Speaker 1: can you elaborate on what the digital mentor thing is
- 1:56:40Speaker 1: with powder hook Um. What is the service that you'll
- 1:56:44Speaker 1: be providing the folks by way of that. So if
- 1:56:46Speaker 1: someone's here in this and they're thinking, oh I could
- 1:56:47Speaker 1: use a digital network, what does that mean? Well, you know,
- 1:56:50Speaker 1: I'm not sure because we just signed I just signed
- 1:56:54Speaker 1: up for it last week. But UM, what I did
- 1:56:56Speaker 1: is I basically went on there and put some information
- 1:56:59Speaker 1: about myself, UM, how long I've been hunting, what species
- 1:57:02Speaker 1: I have been hunting, UM, how far I'm willing to
- 1:57:05Speaker 1: travel to to mentor a new hunter. UM. And so
- 1:57:09Speaker 1: people can can look they pull up a map or
- 1:57:12Speaker 1: put in your zip code and they can find where
- 1:57:15Speaker 1: these different mentors are that they can try to connect
- 1:57:18Speaker 1: with UM if they're looking for someone to take them
- 1:57:21Speaker 1: out hunting UM or kind of asking questions. So just
- 1:57:24Speaker 1: kind of a cool networking tool for for new hunters
- 1:57:28Speaker 1: UM to to get involved with people that are in
- 1:57:30Speaker 1: their area they just maybe don't know about them. Very cool, awesome,
- 1:57:34Speaker 1: And that's the powder Hook app. That sounds like a
- 1:57:36Speaker 1: great way to UH to get connected with further and
- 1:57:40Speaker 1: get further take you out to his favorite tree stands?
- 1:57:45Speaker 1: All right, can I can I touch on one more thing?
- 1:57:47Speaker 1: Let me tell some more UM. And this goes back
- 1:57:50Speaker 1: to what Ryan was saying about just you know, we
- 1:57:53Speaker 1: need to do a better job as hunters taking taking
- 1:57:55Speaker 1: other people out. And you know, one of the people,
- 1:57:58Speaker 1: one of the one of the end Vigils that's going
- 1:58:00Speaker 1: through our Field of Fork program up with the tip
- 1:58:03Speaker 1: of the mid branch. Um. He has worked for a
- 1:58:06Speaker 1: company that is very involved in UM outdoor clothing and
- 1:58:12Speaker 1: work UM work where UM and I know that he
- 1:58:17Speaker 1: works every day with other hunters and he is interacting
- 1:58:19Speaker 1: with other hunters on a daily basis, and he's just
- 1:58:22Speaker 1: never had anybody say, hey, why don't you come out
- 1:58:25Speaker 1: with me? Um. You know, we just did another field
- 1:58:28Speaker 1: of Fork I think this one was a New York
- 1:58:30Speaker 1: Ryan where Hank New Hampster are New Hampshire, Okay, So
- 1:58:35Speaker 1: there was a gun manufacturer that had people reach out
- 1:58:37Speaker 1: to us that they wanted to learn how to hunt.
- 1:58:40Speaker 1: And you you know there's people there that hunt, right,
- 1:58:42Speaker 1: I mean, there's no reason why we can't do a
- 1:58:45Speaker 1: better jobs as hunters saying hey, you know, identify these
- 1:58:49Speaker 1: people that have shown an interest in it and then
- 1:58:51Speaker 1: reach out and offer that lending hand to get him
- 1:58:54Speaker 1: out in the woods and um, you know, be a
- 1:58:56Speaker 1: mentor to him. We just got to do a better job.
- 1:59:00Speaker 1: Very very true. Well, I certainly appreciate what you guys
- 1:59:03Speaker 1: are doing, so thank you Ryan, and further and followed
- 1:59:07Speaker 1: your management association for for stepping up and leading in
- 1:59:10Speaker 1: this way. Um I I hunt a percent agree it's necessary,
- 1:59:15Speaker 1: and I think, you know, we need to wrap it
- 1:59:16Speaker 1: up here, but I want to give you a chance
- 1:59:18Speaker 1: for Ryan, if there's any last plug you want to make,
- 1:59:22Speaker 1: or any last topic we haven't touched on that you
- 1:59:24Speaker 1: really want to make sure you can mention if you've
- 1:59:27Speaker 1: got any final parting words, what would you like to
- 1:59:30Speaker 1: just share? But I think anything is They know we
- 1:59:34Speaker 1: definitely dove into advance level and I don't. The last
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: thing I want to do is is intimidate or scare
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: something away from hunting. I think it's important to get
- 1:59:43Speaker 1: out there and do whatever you want to do and
- 1:59:45Speaker 1: enjoy it and uh, you know, just cherished the moment
- 1:59:48Speaker 1: type of deal and it doesn't have to be that
- 1:59:51Speaker 1: to you know, it's a lot of fun if it is.
- 1:59:53Speaker 1: It's also a lot of fun if you're not taking
- 1:59:55Speaker 1: it that serious. So the main thing I want to
- 1:59:57Speaker 1: leave people with is, you know, don't be intimidated and
- 2:00:01Speaker 1: if you're doing anything, it's better enough and get out
- 2:00:03Speaker 1: there and enjoy the great outdoors and being a deer hunter.
- 2:00:06Speaker 1: For sure absolutely agree with that, and I will say,
- 2:00:11Speaker 1: and I'll probably mention this at the beginning of the episode,
- 2:00:14Speaker 1: so this is the second time you'll probably have heard this.
- 2:00:16Speaker 1: But if you are new, make sure can go back
- 2:00:18Speaker 1: and listen to that Deer Hunting one on one podcast.
- 2:00:21Speaker 1: We did great kind of starting point that will help
- 2:00:24Speaker 1: put some of these basic pieces in place, so that
- 2:00:26Speaker 1: when you go back and listen to a lot of
- 2:00:27Speaker 1: these other podcasts that we've done that go more advanced,
- 2:00:31Speaker 1: you have that foundation and do not. Just like you said, Ryan,
- 2:00:34Speaker 1: don't feel bad if some of these things are a
- 2:00:36Speaker 1: little bit complicated, because it took all of us, all
- 2:00:39Speaker 1: three of us here talking, you know, years and years
- 2:00:42Speaker 1: and years and decades of experience in trial and air
- 2:00:45Speaker 1: and start figuring some of these things out and making
- 2:00:47Speaker 1: sensitive all on our heads. So um, it's perfectly fine
- 2:00:50Speaker 1: to to go through that process yourself. UM. And one
- 2:00:54Speaker 1: and more, one more thing mark for for new hunters
- 2:00:56Speaker 1: is q d m A has got a free e
- 2:00:58Speaker 1: book that people can go down mode and that's a
- 2:01:00Speaker 1: great resource for new hunters, and um, even people that
- 2:01:04Speaker 1: are experienced has some great info in there. It's a
- 2:01:06Speaker 1: free download from our website. So I just go to
- 2:01:09Speaker 1: QUTM dot com and what should I search for or
- 2:01:11Speaker 1: is where do I find it? You know, put an
- 2:01:13Speaker 1: e book or I think it's QTMA dot com Ford
- 2:01:15Speaker 1: Slash e book. I think is a direct um linked
- 2:01:18Speaker 1: to it. It's deer hunting one on one perfect. Well,
- 2:01:23Speaker 1: that's that's an awesome tool as well. So further, Ryan, big,
- 2:01:28Speaker 1: thank you, I appreciate it's been a lot of fun. Ryan.
- 2:01:30Speaker 1: I really enjoyed you kind of divulging the the in
- 2:01:34Speaker 1: depth wind and thermal knowledge that that I think for
- 2:01:38Speaker 1: those guys who are trying to take things to the
- 2:01:40Speaker 1: next level, for guys and girls want to take to
- 2:01:41Speaker 1: the next level, I think this stuff is really an
- 2:01:44Speaker 1: important focus area. So I found it fascinating. Thank you
- 2:01:48Speaker 1: for sharing that. Absolutely go further and with that, let's
- 2:01:55Speaker 1: wrap this one up. Okay, and that's to wrap, folks,
- 2:02:00Speaker 1: So thank you for listening. I hope you will check
- 2:02:04Speaker 1: out those mentorship programs and get involved like further mentioned
- 2:02:07Speaker 1: um and other than that, I suppose I'll just give
- 2:02:11Speaker 1: you all another reminder that my new wire hunt content
- 2:02:13Speaker 1: will be featured and shown now on the meat eater
- 2:02:16Speaker 1: dot com. It's a new website for meat Eater, Inc.
- 2:02:20Speaker 1: Which is the new company and a part of Now
- 2:02:22Speaker 1: with Steve Ronella and a handful of other folks. Lots
- 2:02:24Speaker 1: of cool new content. They're not just my stuff, but
- 2:02:27Speaker 1: Now stuff from Steve, stuff from Ben O'Brien and Hunting Collective,
- 2:02:30Speaker 1: stuff from April Okey and Anchored uh at war A
- 2:02:33Speaker 1: Garcia and all sorts of other people will be showing
- 2:02:37Speaker 1: up there soon. Check it on out brows around, lots
- 2:02:40Speaker 1: of interesting stuff. With that all said, I hope you're
- 2:02:44Speaker 1: gonna be in the tree here soon. I hope you
- 2:02:46Speaker 1: have an amazing hunt and hunt's coming up. Hope the
- 2:02:49Speaker 1: wind is in your face. I hope that big bucks
- 2:02:52Speaker 1: will be running into the bottom of your tree stand,
- 2:02:54Speaker 1: and I hope you shoot straight. So until next time,
- 2:02:57Speaker 1: good luck out there. Thank you so much for following
- 2:03:00Speaker 1: along and being a part of the Wired Hunt community,
- 2:03:02Speaker 1: and stay Wired to Hunt. M