Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 444: What Would Zach Ferenbaugh Do?

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Ep. 444: What Would Zach Ferenbaugh Do? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and today on the show, we are joined
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: by Zach Farrenbaugh from the Hunting Public to dive into
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: how he would handle some of the most difficult situations
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in the deer hunting world. All right, welcome to the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. Today
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: we are wrapping up our series of what would you
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: do podcasts. Hopefully you've heard the three prior. We've talked
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to Jeff Sturgis, Michael Hunt, Sucker, and Adam Hayes, and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you know the deal. We're gonna break down and discuss
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a series of different hypothe medical scenarios. We're gona paint
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a picture and we're gonna have our guests describe how
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: they would handle this situation, what they would do, how
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: they think about it, et cetera. Our guest today is
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: someone you probably know. Hopefully no, he's been in the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: podcast in the past. He's well known because of his
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: exploits on YouTube. This is Zack Farrenball. He is a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: member of the Hunting Public team previously was seen on
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Midwest white Tail. Zack is a phenomenal white tail hunter
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and he's doing it almost all on public land, all
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: on public land these days, and uniquely compared to a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: lot of folks, he's doing it almost all on the ground. Now.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: He has really gotten into and perfected a style of
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: hunting in which he's on the ground, still hunting, spot
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and stalking, occasionally ambushing. But he's doing it not from
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a tree. He's doing it down at deer eye level,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and he's done it, jeez, at an astounding rate of success.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: This guy knows what he's doing. And so I today
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: want to see how he would handle a set of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: different situations, and I brought on my buddy and Wired
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Hunt host of the Wired Hunt Foundations podcast, Tony Peterson,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to help me do it. So Tony and I are
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: going to present a bunch of ideas and situations and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: stories and circumstances to Zach and we'll see how he
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: handles them. That is it. That's the game plan. This
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: was really good. We're get into some good stuff. Even
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: if you don't hunt from the ground, even if you
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: don't think that's something you want to do. We get
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: into some good general deer hunting knowledge kind of conversations
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that I think will help anyone out there, whether you
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: hunt public land or private land. There are some some
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: really good themes here that we touch on, so i'd
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: highly encourage you to give this one to listen. Uh.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: In other news, I would just remind you to be
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: following all of our Wired Dunt content because we're pumping
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: it out at double speed these days. We're getting out
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: new articles on the new Wired Hunt website. You can
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: find and that the meat eater dot com slash Wired
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: w I R e D or just google Wired to
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Hunt you'll find it there. We're putting in a lot
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of work to get these articles out there from great
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: people that really know that what they're doing. Tony and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I are pushing out our new YouTube video, so check
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: that out. We've got quick educational videos coming out on
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the Wired Dunt YouTube channel. A lot is gonna be
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: coming out on social media here to Hunting season is
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: kicking off for both Tony and I and Spencer and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: all the other folks on the wire Dunt teams kicking
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: off for a lot of us in just a matter
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  Speaker 1: of weeks. So let's go time and I hope you are.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I hope you're as excited as I am, because we
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: work all winter, spring, summer to lead up to this
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  Speaker 1: point and uh and now it's time to cash in
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: on all that investment of time. So here's the opening
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: day coming soon and without other way, let's get to
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: my chat. Me and Tony talking with Zach Farenbaugh. Alright
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: with me on the line, I've got back fair and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: bo Zach, welcome back to the show. Thank you, thanks
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: for having me. Yeah, I uh, I just was looking
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: back to try to see what it was we talked
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: last on here, and it was I think two thousand eighteen,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: so almost three years ago. So it's it's definitely good
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that we're doing this again, and definitely good that we've
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: got you on for this kind of episode because you're
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: kind of wrapping up a series for us. SAC For
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the last month or so, we've been doing this series
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of what would you do? Podcasts? And I told you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit about this, but the basic gist of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: it is that we give people a whole series of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: challenging hypothetical situations. We're gonna paint a picture of a
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: hunting scenario, throw you in the middle, of it and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: see how you would handle it, what your thought process
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: would be, why you would do what you do, et cetera. Um,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and then if you can make it out the other
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: side and you're still alive, you win. You get to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: go on and continue on with your day. So that's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: what we wanted to put you through. Are you up
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: for that? I'm up for it. Let's do it all right.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And I brought my secret weapon with me. It's not
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: just me, Tony Peterson is here to throw the real curveballs. Yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's a pleasure to get to do this with you, Zack. Yeah. Yeah,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to it, and and I'm excited to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: hear what what type of situations I get topped into?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Only the worst, only the worst. That but that's good.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: That's the way I like to look at this is
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it's like a little bit of preseason training. Like people
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: in football right now, they're training camp, they're getting ready
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: for the season. Well, all three of us have our
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: hunting seasons kicking off here in a matter of weeks.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So I figured let's let's mentally go through some of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: those tough times so that when they actually do arrive
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: in season, will be it will be a piece of cake.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: We've already been through it. Mark already forced me into
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: this one, and I figured it out. I love it.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I love like visualizations and you know, trying to prep mentally.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I love it. I'm into it. Yes, all right, well, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I think we's just jumped into it. No beating around
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the bush. Let's just get going on these. And the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: first one is a little different than the rest um
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna ask you to actually step out of
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: your own usual situation and instead imagine you're in an
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: alternate universe. In this alternate universe, sec you are not
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: filming for the hunting public. You are not able to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: hunt for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks a year. Instead,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you're working a day job, and you gotta work every
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: day all day. It's like ten hour days. You get
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: home and you have three kids and they need you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: doing stuff with them right when you get home, and
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: on the weekends your slam with house duties and all
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So instead of being able to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: take off for a week long rut hunt or a
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: week long hunt in September and week long here to
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: this day, in that state and stay out of that,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you maybe could get away with two hours on a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning. And the thing is that you are in
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: a meat crisis, like the season is just opening up,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: your freezer is empty, the family needs food like now,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and you've got two hours on a Saturday morning. So
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: my question to you is this, in that situation, if
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that was your life and you have two hours opening
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning, let's say, how exactly would you go about
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: doing that? Like, what would be the specific way you
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: would approach that situation and and how would that be
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: different than what you do when you're traveling on a
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: weeklong hunt trying to kill a big buck. Walk me through,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like the details of what you do in that one,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: because we always talked about how to kill big buck,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: we never talked about how to kill a deal quickly.
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  Speaker 1: What would you do? Then? Sure, I think that if
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I was in that situation, you know, trying to squeak,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it sounds like, you know, the busy lifestyle, um, with
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: not a lot of time to focus on finding dear.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: But any chance I got outside of that two hours,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe on my way home from work, Um,
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  Speaker 1: if I could swing and just do a little bit
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of glassing, you know that's a big thing, and I think, um,
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  Speaker 1: we don't necessarily talk about a lot in our situation,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: but like something I've done in the past, like when
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  Speaker 1: I was in school or just you know, working a
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  Speaker 1: job in between school, It's like, if I only had
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of time, I'm trying to spend more
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  Speaker 1: time just kind of driving around trying to figure out
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  Speaker 1: what you're doing. That way, when you do have that
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  Speaker 1: two hours, you're able to just you know, commit to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: being in you know, or the right spot because obviously,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: if you're on the limited time, you want to put
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the odds in your favor as much as possible. And
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: if you can't get out, um and put boots on
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  Speaker 1: the ground or whatever, hunting just any little thing that
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  Speaker 1: can help just tell you what the deer doing. So
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  Speaker 1: what I would try to do, probably in that situation
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  Speaker 1: of it, Saturday morning is when I have the time,
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  Speaker 1: maybe I would trying to make a loop before work,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you know, depending obviously, um, if work starts at you know,
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  Speaker 1: five am, and I gotta work until dark or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: it's like it's going to be more difficult. But um,
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  Speaker 1: just trying to put as much time you know, glassing
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: or just cruising around places that I have access to
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  Speaker 1: would be huge. You know, I think about the not
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: exactly this situation because you know, it definitely is an
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: alternate universe because I don't have any kids. But like
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: when I was in when I was in college and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: working in the winter, I would get home from work
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  Speaker 1: and would just have like this tiny little window to
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: where I could just drive around check out the places
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that I was hunting, and I was able to put
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a pretty decent pattern on what the deal were doing.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: That way, when I did get the opportunity over the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: weekend to get out and hunt, I was able to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: just go right to where I felt like I had
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the most confidence u you know, and just try to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: take advantage of that small amount of time. So you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: that's that's just I guess how I would try to
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: create a little bit of extra time. I would just
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: try to go out of my way to just get
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: a tiny little bit. I mean it may literally be
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: just driving top by and checking the checking the open
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: field or past or whatever just to see if deer
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: moving through it. And then that's just you know, helping
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: put me in the game, because you know, you're talking
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that little amount of time you definitely want to put
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: all the odds in your favor. Yep, I follow you
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: there for sure. Okay, so you you've you've added a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: little bit of intel through scouting. Now Saturday morning arrives,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: walk me through like a hypothetical morning hunt. Would you
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: still be stalking like you'd like you do a lot
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of times now or do you think with this situation
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you would instead post up in some kind of place,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Like what specifically would you do with those two hours?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I think if I just had two hours, like, I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: would just try to be um so like hopefully that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: intel from driving around would give me Like, okay, I
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: can assume dear coming from this betting area. Um, you
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: know they're feeding in this spot, they're betting in this spot,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: and you know, maybe I've learned a little bit of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a pattern that way. I would just try to get in,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you know, if that amount of time and stuff, I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you know. I guess in general, I've I've gotten
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: away from using a lot of gear, so it's like
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I just have that amount of time, I'd probably just
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: slip in somewhere, set up on the ground, you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: have a really high ops shot inside. It's one of yards, um,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and then you know, the opportunity was there, I would
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: absolutely always stop. But you know, I guess probably what
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I would do is just set up slip in, set
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: up on the ground in the dark and you know,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: trying not to make a whole lot of noise, can
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: kind of be in and out and you know, not
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: have a huge impact on that area and just be
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: able to you know, yes, pop in there and hopefully
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: get get something down. Um. You know, I guess I'm
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: always at this point, at least in in this universe
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that I live in, I'm always trying to like you know,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: make moves on stuff at the opportunities there. But in
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: this situation with just a short window, um, you know,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I would just have to play that by ear something
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: was moving and I needed to get closer. Absolutely would
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: get aggressive on it. But like you know, I guess
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the the initial setup would would be just that, like
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a set up probably sucked in somewhere, Um, nothing real fancy,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: just you know, hopefully a high odds shot where I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: got there, you know, coming in close, but you know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: also having that confidence to be in that location, just
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: based off that intel from driving around before work or
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: after work or whatever it may be. Yeah, follow up
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: on that. Let's let's assume that right, you're trying to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: fill a freezer, so you would shoot a oh, you
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: would shoot a year and a half old spike whatever.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And let's say one of those dear shows up but
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: out of range, and you find yourself thinking, Okay, I've
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: got to put a move on in these deer. Um,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: would you like, I don't know if you've had some
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: experiences with this in your own life and you've noticed anything,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But have you noticed anything different with how you need
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to or how you can approach and try to stalk
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: in on a mature dough versus a mature buck or
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: something like that? Is there anything you're doing different, thinking
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: about different, trying to be more careful about or less
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: careful about when trying to move in closer with a
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: deer like this? Um? You know, I think that with
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: with those, the biggest thing is you've got um a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: lot of times with the mature dough, you've gotten you know,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: younger deer with it. So if that's the case, you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: it just is more eyes. Therefore, that can be a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: little bit challenging. And um, you know, as soon as
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: one of those funds, takes up and gives you know,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: picks its head up and gives you that alert like, hey,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: what's that. You know, Usually the does right behind and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: starts getting real curious real quick. Um. But you know,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: as far as a loan deer, it's just kind of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean, Um, you know, ideally I'd
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: always rather be moving in on a loan deer versus
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a group of deer. You know, more I more noses
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: makes it more challenging for sure, But I wouldn't say
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: there's any real difference. Um. You know, I guess I
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: guess maybe with the dough I would be like more
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: aggressive there, just because it's like typically there's more of
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: them in the woods versus a mature buck, you know.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, the goals filled the freezer, like, um,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: just I guess taking it, just taking it appropriate and
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: just reading the beer. You know. If I can see
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a deer, that's when I feel the most confident because
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: you can just read that body language. It's like if
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: it's heating and relaxed and just browsing through the woods
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: moving slow, um, you know, you can keep cutting distance. Um.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And then obviously if the deer is dead and in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: one spot and you can see it. It becomes really
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: easy to read the body right, which because it's like
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you're either good or you're not. You can tell it
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: real quick. And a lot of times if you can
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: read the body language, it's like there's any amount of
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: like like alertness to the deer. You just back off
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit, or not back off, but just slow down,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: let the situation play out like deer calmed down, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: then keep making your move. So I wouldn't treat it
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: that much different. I do think that, um, I do
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: think that does tend to like rely on other deer more.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: So that's the one major difference. Where you know, a
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: mature buff bettered alone, like way off away from all
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the other deer, he's got to be checking himself a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: little bit more frequently. But at the same time, you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: throw a dough with a couple of fawns in there,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and she cares protecting those songs a lot, so like
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: he's really looking a lot. So I just you know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: it's it's just I would just treat it pretty much
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the same. And like I always think of it like this,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: if I'm making a move on a deer, it's like
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm committed to shooting that deer. I just try
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to put my mind and like a different, completely different
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: states than normally. I'm not thinking about anything else, so
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that making a perfect move, it's just like total game time,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you know. Focus, don't make any little mistakes, don't break
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: any sticks. Um, just really really really focused in on
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that because I think of it like this. It's like, yes,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: you're committed to doing it, and you're gonna make every
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: perfect move like there's really nothing. And I guess if
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you make every move perfectly, you don't make any noise.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: You don't really you're you're probably not going to spoop
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the deer. But if you start getting easy, you started thinking, oh,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: this isn't worth it, and then you bumped the deer,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you're gonna look back on that moment where you took
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a playoff, you know, and you're gonna get maud of yourself.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And I just think, hey, even when I start to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: make a move too fast, I like check myself and remember, hey,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: if you make this move too you're probably gonna blow it.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And if you blow it, you can never like let yourself,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: you know. I'm always just gonna remember that moment. Think man,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: why did I just like layoff? Why did you can
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: play off? So so if I were to bet you,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: if I were to bet you a full American quarter,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: would you take that? Would you take that bet that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you could get this deer killed in two hours on
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning for a quarter? Oh No, that's a tough one.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of variables that come into play. Um,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know, to be honest, I mean, it's always
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: one of those things like I think, I think when
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you said, no matter what goal you said, when you
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: set a goal, it's like if you if you I guess.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Let's put it this way. In my experience, the times
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: when I say I'm gonna go shoot a deer and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: you know X amount of time, it usually ends up
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: being more of a challenge. I think. You know, you
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: set this goal and you're like, oh, I got this,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I got this in the bag. Man, I'm gonna go
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: out shoot a deer and get me the freezer like
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna fill a tag. Every time might say
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: that ends up being more of a challenge than I think. So, Um,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd say I'd say there's a fifty
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: fifty chance that I pull it off. I don't know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I've got faith. I think you'll get that twenty five
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: cent piece. That's that's my take off. Um, so let's
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: let's pull you back into the real universe. Yeah yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: let's let's put you back into your own life. And uh,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and Tony, where do you want to take it? Can it?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Can we stay in in this alternate universe for a second? Mark?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Because I think, well, two things. You could have given
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: him eleven kids and made him an accountant, and you didn't.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: You would you went really easy on him, and you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: didn't have any like uh, you know, there wasn't any
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: roadblocks there. You could have went nuts. But what I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: what I think I love that hypothetical because when Zach,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: when I hear you talk about, you know, just just
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: hunting a meat, dear, let's say it's there's still so
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: many variables and still this reluctance to just be like,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I got this. And I think that's an
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: important point we should we should kind of break down
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Is we give advice constantly on hunting
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: big bucks, hunt mature bucks, and then you throw this
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: out there, this is reality for a lot of people
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: where you know, killing any deer is not easy. You know.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: It depends where you're hunting and your experience level. And
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: what you're really describing is the all these different things
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that go into just trying to find a concentration of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: any deer and then get in on him and get
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: that that boshe uh. And that's like the basis for
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you becoming this guy who can go out and stock
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: bucks and in some ways have an easier stock on
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: them if they're loaners in there in the right spot
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: versus those dough groups. This is it's kind of a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: neat thought exercise because it kind of highlights how difficult
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: this stuff really is for us. Yeah, for sure. I
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: mean just in general, Um yeah, we talk about big bucks,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I guess, and and we don't talk about just killing deer.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And I think that it's one I always I guess,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: let's put it this way. I always think in my
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: own situation, like if there's a beer that goes by
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: inbow range, like it's a little exact, you know, because
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of days, even when I'm looking for
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a big buck that I don't you know, have the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: opportunity to take a shot at the don there's a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: lot of days they don't have deer in range. So
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: like anytime you know a I really do see it
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: as a huge win. Anytime a deer lost past me,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: like you know, a small buck though whatever, I love it,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: like like gets me so excited because it's just like, man,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: like I really did something special here because full the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: deer's you know, I full the deer's nose and eyes.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And I guess I always just the market is a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: little win. I can think back to last season hunting
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, um in the hills of the Ohio, and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: like I can tell you the very few days that
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I had deer even in range, you know, like I can,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I can remember him specifically, and you know, I would say,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. I guess this. It's interesting in general that
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: when you're hunting big bucks, it does seem to be
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that like you don't actually get a ton of other
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: deer in range necessarily. Like I would say of the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: deer that I got in range were I didn't kill
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: any during both season. I did end up shooting one
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in Ohio with a gun, but I'm during both season,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I would say fifty percent of the deer I hadn't ranged.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: We're like those are younger bucks that I chose not
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to shoot, but like theah' were some pretty nice bucks.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: It's just really weird how that ends up working out.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So anytime I do have a deer in range, it's
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: like awesome because it has a challenge. I mean, it's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: not it's suthingly take for granted. It's like having a
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: wild animal inside of Boone Range, especially inside of like
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: twenty yards, it's like quite the feat It's it's a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: good example of how valuable it is to learn to
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: hunt deer first, and yeah, focus on the big bucks later.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But if you can't get there, if you can't get
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the same thing happens. You know when when people go
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: out west for the first time and they're gonna hunt elk,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and they're like, oh, you know, I just
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: want a nice like tull and you're like, man, you
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: got to get around you gotta learned to get around
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: elk first, and that might take you ten seasons. Like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's crawling before you walk type of stuff. Um,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: should I throw my first scenario, Adam? Now? Mark? I mean,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: can we explored that alternate universe enough? Yeah? I mean,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you did intrigue me by throwing the eleven kids in
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: accounting and maybe marital strife. I would like to explore that,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: but for the sake of Zach, I say we we
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: move on, all right. So Zach, I'm sure you guys
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: hear this, and you you've done a really good job
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: with THHP on expanding where you guys are traveling to
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and where you're filming. But I know I I hear
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: this a lot from people in a deep cell. So
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: this is kind of where this scenario comes from. So
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: you have five days to get it done in the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: swamps of Louisiana on public land, starting on their October
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: one opener. This is a two parter. What do you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: look for east scouting before you ever hit the road?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And then what's the first thing you do when you
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: show up there in person? Okay, so the very first
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: thing I'm looking at the act, it's like, I don't
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: spend I mean, honestly with deer right now that I've
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: been doing the last couple of seasons, it's just mostly
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: looking for access points to start, just seeing where the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: road touches up a plan, and then I'll zoom in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and out and just kind of get a read on
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: what every access point looks like. If it's there's a
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: big pole in with a big turnaround, I'm less interested
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: in that versus something where you know, I don't see
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that poll off or I don't see the big you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: kind of parking lot type um access points. And then
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: because there's any trails, you know, kind of take note
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of those as well. But then I always just zoom
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: out and look at it big scale, have those pins,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you know, pins where I can tell there's obvious access points,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and then just try to find like any corner or
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: like it may be a deep spot, but it may
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: be something that's just kind of um, I don't know,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: maybe like a backdoor type spot, don't or you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: we always always talk about overlook but like you know,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that sometimes can get confusing. It's like overlooked can look
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of different ways. You know, an overlooked spot
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: could be parking off the side of the road where
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: there's not a major pull off and walking straight up
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a steep face to get you know, on the back
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: side of a hill right off the road. Um, that
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: may look like and then I get the Louisiana but
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: maybe not look like that, but maybe it's water so
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: maybe it's like I can tell there's a bunch of water,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, nobody's probably walking around this big
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: slow and just hunting, you know, ultimately three yards from
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the road or something. So I would look at it
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: like that I find, um, you know again access points
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: tough to find place or you know, tough to get
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: to places. And then once I get there, even with
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: five days, I would spend you know, at least probably
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the first day, the first full day, driving around and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: just like hopping out and looking at stuff real quick,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: like really just getting a gauge of what the area
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: looks like, what these access points actually look like. How
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: long does it take to drive to a spot from
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the nearest town, um, because those things have definitely an impact,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Like even places and you know, tons of place I funded, um,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: different states, Like if you take that nearest town, which
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: is kind of like probably where the most hunters are
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: coming from, if you find a place on the particular
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: piece of public lands furthest from that town, if it
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: takes you know, if you can be to the public
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: land in like fifteen minutes versus forty five or an
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: hour and fifteen to the other side of the piece
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: of public. You know, that's the type of stuff that UM,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I think does have an impact on pressure a little bit,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Like that's a good start. Um. There's always a chance
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that you get to a piece of um public that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you thought was gonna be an easy access point. But
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's a wet year and that swamp
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: has swelled up and it's now going across the road
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and nobody can drive there. Maybe the rivers flooded. Um.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: You know, all that stuff I think is really important
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to just get your eyes on, because if you just
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: look at a piece of public and you're like, this
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: is the funnel, like this is where they're going, you
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: know that. I mean that may be true, but in
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: my experience, the places that I think are going to
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: be the best, maybe they end up being good spots.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's even when I end up shooting a deer.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: But like, UM, a lot of times, I would say
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: more times than that being the case, I'm driving around
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and I signed some oddball thing. It hinders people from
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: getting into the public, and then you know that ends
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: up being something that I focused more on than I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: hadn't anticipated. UM, So driving around looking for that type
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: of access and everything and then the next thing is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: is just topic. Well, the other of thing I do
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: when I'm driving around obviously looked for deer and I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: tried to get a Really this is one thing I
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: guess I haven't mentioned a whole lot in general, is
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like I drive a real slow, like I'm talking slow,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I don't cover a whole bunch of grounds. I'll literally
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: drive with my head out the window looking for deer tracks.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're on a sand road or like
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: down South and my experience, you know, you have a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: little bit sandier of a road versus like um Illa
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: for example, You've got like straight uppart gravel road, it's
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: harder to see deer tracks on the road. But driving
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: down the road hanging my head out the window just
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: looking for deer tracks, It's like if they're starts to
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: be a big increase in tracks, you know, that might
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: impact you know, where I want to be, especially you know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: if you see a big buck track, I might have
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: an impact on where you're interested in hunting as well,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: or like a high density of the big buck tracks.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: But drive really slow, look for tracks, look for rails
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: crossing the road, and then also really break down the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: forest type like look at the difference in diversity. Like
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: if you hit a big patch like like in the South,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: for example, a big patch of monotonous pine trees that
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: are pretty mature that are about you know, probably gonna
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: be harvested for you know, like in the rotation of
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the pine operation down there, it's like if they're gonna
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: be cut soon and it's not real, you know, not
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of diversity going on. Like I don't
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: necessarily anticipate deer being right in that. But if I
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: hit a patch of wetland where I can just tell
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the I mean, you can just look at it and say,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, there's a whole bunch of different plants in this.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: You know, I might start relating what I'm seeing in
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: real life in this spot. Two, Like I'll look at
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: where I'm at, look at it on the map, and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: try to find something that looks similar on the map.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's harder to get to, you know, that's not
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: right off the road, So just getting it like a plant. Uh,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I guess inventory is really important to me to Oak
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: trees obviously have a big impact on you know, where
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: dear could be. So while I'm driving around looking at
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: if milk trees hanging over the road. Are their acorns
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: laying on that their road, you know? And then it's like, Okay,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that's a whatever oak. Then I know when I'm back
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: in there to see that oak from a distance, I
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: can assume that it's dropping acorns. You know. It's all
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: those little things just trying. You're almost like I think
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: on that first day, like driving around, you're just trying
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to gain like as much knowledge as possible, and sometimes
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: it really feels so silly. We're like looking at the
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: most minuscule little thing, like it seems people see that
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: you're paying attention to it, like oh, there's a track
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: right here on the road, But like you gotta think
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of it, you know, detective style, and you got to
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: find every little, you know, thing that could give you
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a clue and just relate that to where you're actually
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: gonna go hunting now. So, um, I think that's all
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: that stuff important for the first day. Yeah, I guess.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I guess that maybe answers the question. I don't I
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: think that answers the question. Well, it does. And it's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: what was interesting is it took you about ten minutes
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to get to the deer because everything was about where
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: are the people going to be first? And you know,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of East Coating advice is like, hey, look
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: for the funnels, look for these soft edges, you know,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: look for stuff that's yeah, like important to deer. But
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: if you're in a place where the hunting pressure is,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: you know, is at a saturation point, none of that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: stuff matters, and so you're go ahead, good, Sorry, sorry,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that's right, buddy. Think about that though. The other thing
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: about that, though, is like, if you're so, we can
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: flip the situation and say you're a guy in in
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Louisiana going to you know, Drew and Iowa tag or
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you drew your drew a can this tag? Like, if
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you don't understand the plants that are growing on the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: areas that you can hunt, and you don't understand how
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the deer are using those plants, funnels may not really
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: matter at all. Like there could be the greatest funnel
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: of all time. But if it's like in a patch
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of trees that the deer's you know, there's a bunch
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: of walnuts in there, like, the deer may not even
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: be spent in any time in there at all. You know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So I think I think you know, you get your
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: access points, you get figure out where you think antisipate
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the most pressure is going to be. But then you know,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: kind of learning just about it's something different, right if
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I was in Louisiana, Like I've never even been to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Louisiana yet, so it's like I can make guesses on
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: what the deer habitats gonna what's gonna be good, But
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know anything, Like I gotta actually get there
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and just spend some time, um, just learning about the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: plant life there and how the deer interacting with that. Yeah, yeah, no,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that's all right, buddy. Yeah. And you make you make
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: a good point there about funnels and pinch points, because
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: we talk about them as if they're absolute places deer
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: are always going to go through and they have to
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: they have to have a reason. Like if they don't
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: have a reason to go from one side to the other,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how awesome it is. Um. I want
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to I want to touch on one other thing that
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you brought up there that you know, you said that
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: you drive down the road really slowly and you're looking
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: for tracks if the if the conditions allow for it,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: and that sounds like that sounds like kindergarten stuff, right,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people go in with this idea
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that I've you know, I've got all these pins dropped,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hike in here and look at this,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and hike in here and look at this. And what
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you're saying is I'm just gonna be open to the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: fact that this gravel road might clue me into a
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: place where these dear cross in a way that I
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: could never see on East scouting. And sometimes I know
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you guys have seen this if you're in the right
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: place with like patchwork public, where you've got you know,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: checkerboard public private, public, private, and you know, you might
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: have really nice egg or feeders or something on the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: on the private, and then the public doesn't. You can
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: you can cruise those section lines and see serious travel
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: roads in the right conditions just by driving a road.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And it sounds like too simple, but it works in
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: some places. I mean it really works. It works well too.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I think. Just learn so much about i mean different
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: edges that they are using. I mean, like you said,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: dear transitioning from maybe they're betting on public and they're
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: moving to private to go to a feeder or or
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a pasture with you know, just a different type of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: food source for them where they're getting some diversity in
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: they're diet. I mean, I mean one time we were
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: in Alabama driving around and we found where two bucks
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: were fighting on the road, like it was just playing
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a day, Like there was definitely a buck fight right here,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's it's it's like, man, that tells you, O,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: there's two bucks here pretty close. You know, it doesn't
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: have to be anything like I mean, I'm not saying that,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: it tells you exactly where it is, but then you
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: can kind of use your other uh skills, like just
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: knowing where dear bed to kind of reference that and say, okay,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: if there's two bucks right in this on this section
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: of road, like where did they come from? Where maybe
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: where they may be going. If this happened at night,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you know what time and night, how far are they
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: from their bedding area? You know, and stuff like that
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: really can help put you right in the right spot.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's I love that. I mean I love
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: driving around looking at the trails crossing the road and like, yeah,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: again it does seem kind of silly, but like I mean,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: it definitely can put you in the right put you
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: in the game. At least you can help point in
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the right direction and maybe even teach you something about
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: how the deer interacting with the vegetation. I want to
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: play this scenario out a little further, um because I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: like where we're going here, and I want to let me.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Let's assume that you start doing your drive, your slow driving.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: And to be honest with you, Zach, I don't know
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: if I fully believe you on this because when I
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: envisioned you driving around, I envisioned you driving just like
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: you start walking into the woods, Like I see you
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: sprinting in the woods and screaming. Well, I could just
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: see you get in your truck and like peeling out,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: like put your head out the window and scream let's hunt,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and then go seventy miles down the dirt road. That's
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: what I think actually happens. But that's that's where it is.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I could actually see how I do you would think that.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: But it's funny because I get accused of driving like
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a grandpa all the time, and like I always get
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I actually get frustrated when my dad is driving when
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: we're hunting, because I'm like, hey, you gotta flow down
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking at stuff pretty funny, but yeah, I
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: can see where you think that. Yeah, well, let's let's
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: say you do rip slow though. As you do that,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: you're you're seeing tracks crisscrossing everywhere. You're even seeing like
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: big tracks that make you think, oh, that could be
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: a big heavy deer. Maybe you are driving at last
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: light and there's some crop fields kind of on the
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: edges of this marshy stuff down there, and you see
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: like good bucks um and just the area is seemingly
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: loaded with deer, more than you could have imagined. There's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: a bunch of deer hanging out in this area. But
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you decided to poke around in the woods and you
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: get to the first access point that you pinned. You
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: start walking in there and you bump into another guy
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: who's walking out to hunt a tree stand. Uh. You
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: pivot and you go look at another spot, and there's
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: two trucks at this access point, and then you decide
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: to pivot again, and as you're hiking into another spot,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: you pass by two tree stands. So there's there's a
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: lot of deer in the area, but you're finding people
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: everywhere you turn. My question is, how do you navigate
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: that situation. Do you say, all right, there's people everywhere,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: but there's also deer. I can work around them and
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: figure them out, or you can say, screw it, I'm
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: finding somewhere else where. There's not people all over the place.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of deer and there's a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: lot of you know, buck for example, Like you've seen
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: them in there there and there's trapped everywhere. Like I'm
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: saying you can work around them in that situation, um
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: for sure, Like sometimes then and that's kind of helpful really,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you know, if there's a bunch of deer but there's
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: a bunch of hunters, it really like limits where those deer,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: especially like your older bucks and does are gonna be
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: hanging out. Uh, because people are so virtual man, Like
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's kind of weird, like you go into certain
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: areas of the country and everybody hunts the same way,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: like like everybody kind of does the same thing. And
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: gun season in Wisconsin, you know, like they all got
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: up in an elevator a box line and they right
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: there four wheelers to the spot, like you know, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: if you can just kind of do something different than that.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: It's like a lot of times you surprise the deer.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: So I guess what then I would do if I'm
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: in in this Louisiana situation and driving down the road
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: density high hunt hunt deer, but also hunters, I would
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: just really start focusing on some of those, like how
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: can I do something completely different? You know? Maybe I park,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it looks like this, Maybe I park
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: at the access point that everybody's parking at, But then
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I walked two miles down the road instead of driving
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: my vehicle down there and just kind of right off
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the road. But have walked, you know, a long way
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: down the road. Maybe I you know, go or you know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: get the waiters out across the you know, like waves
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: high water to get to a spot that otherwise is
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: tough to get to. Um. Maybe I guess this just
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: really trying I get I guess to find the common
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: theme of like what is everybody doing? You know, are
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: they all walking in putting up three stands on a
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: specific type of dry land, or are they hunting? Um,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: everybody hunting in the marsh, you know whatever it may be,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: like just trying to mix it up and do something different.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Like it is really weird having traveled around to a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: lot of different places to see the tendencies of hunters,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, you hear this, and I mean
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I remember reading articles about this, like long long ago
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: when I was in like middle school. I remember getting
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: a magazine. You know, it might have been like q
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: d M at the time or something like or whatever
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: it was, because it doesn't really matter, just like, had
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: this magazine article and was talking about our dear patterning
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: you and I like at the time that it made
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: sense what the article was saying. But the more I
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: hunt and the more I see different tendencies of hunters
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: in a given region, the more I'm just like, these
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: things are not even doing anything. They're not that far
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: from you, and they're like the most tempting things. You
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: know that they're they tempt you, especially if you got
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: kil cameras out, you're getting pictures of these deers like
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: they're literally living right where you're hunting. But how do
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: you break up the like the same exact thing that
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: everybody's doing. How do you get into a spot that's
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: completely different. Maybe it's not even a spot, but maybe
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: how you approach the spot. You know, maybe there's a
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: guy that's got to treat them in the spot. It's
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: just a great spot. Deer go through it. But the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: deer are betted in a positions they know when he
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: gets there, you know, or they hear you know, they're
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: betted just close enough that when he climbs up the
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: ladder stand and that ladder makes that pop, they hear
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: it and they're like, Okay, that's our Q to not
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: build that direction today. Like I think that stuff happening
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: like so much more than people give dear credit for, um,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: unless unless you know, you spend a bunch of time hunting,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: like a ton of time hunting, you know, you kind
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of overlooked it. This thing so my best I guess
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: my the decision I would make at that point, and
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's worth hunting, which it sounds like
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: it is based off of the situation you've described, Like
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I just want to try to pattern the hunters yet again,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: like how do I get to where the hunters are not?
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Now Here's here's an interesting situation that I think is
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: happening more often these days now where what you described
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: is what someone plans on doing. They show up, they
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: see there's hunting pressure out there, and then they determine Okay,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going to figure out what these other people are
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: doing and then I'll do the opposite of it. And right,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: like you're saying, a lot of times the current hunters
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: are sitting in their tree stands in certain types of places,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: and once you figure that out, it's pretty clear how
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: to get around that. But let's say when you show
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: up at this spot and you're sitting all this deer
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: and you're realizing there's hunters all over the place. What
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: if you go back to the parking lot and you
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: happen to see that there's two vehicles there in the
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: parking lot and they both have THHP stickers in the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: back window. And then you go to another spot, you
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: bump into a guy and there's three buddies there, and
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: those three guys like, dude, Zach, we love you. You know,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: we're doing all the same stuff you do. And you
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: find out that there's five buddies all here hunting like you.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: How would you hunt around people that hunt like you do,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: all trying to stalk one down, walking around scouting everything.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: How would you handle that? Um? Probably just I mean
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the reality is like if that's the case and everybody's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: doing exactly the same thing, it's me. I mean, there
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: is a certain point where like it's you know, pulling
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: out and moving through a different location, san is reality
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: for me, Like I if it gets to a point
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, you know what, I'm not feeling it here,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Um just move, you know, Like that's a that's like
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: an easy out answer, though I guess, um just very
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: it depends to on this piece of public and like
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I try to almost always hunt an area that like
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: prior to getting there, I feel like that's not going
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: to be the case as far as like there's just
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: never gonna be too many people with no matter what
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: their ideas are, where there's not enough room to breed. You,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I guess, you know, and I'm I guess I mean
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to like it doesn't matter to me as much, like
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I guess, let's put it this way. I can guarantee
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: if I'm gonna go to Ohio, like I can tell
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: you the places where there's too much there's too much
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: of exactly that like what you described, but tell you,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: like if I go to a place in Virginia, like
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: there's not going to be that because it's just there's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: more room, there's more, there's less Honestly, people are so
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: drawn to big bucks it's kind of comical. Like I
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: don't care if there's not as many like big antlerd
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Bucks in an area. I'll just go to where there's like,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: you know, less deer numbers probably and smaller you know,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: smaller antlerd deer you know. I guess that's one of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: those things to me too, where I feel like it
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: gets to a point where like I'm not as caught
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: up and shooting like the biggest ANTLERD Buck as much
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: as I'm just like I want to get it out
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: and I want to have the type of experience where
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of out there alone. I feel like, um,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I just have room to breathe. That's that's
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: what I'm attracted to. I want to adventure. I don't
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: want to be bumping elbows with people. So like, I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: guess there is just a point where if that is
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the case, I'll let's get out of there, you know,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: just go do something else. But um, if I don't
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: have another option, just to answer the question, I'm just
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: gonna keep again or just reading what everybody's doing, Like
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll talk with hunters, see what they're thinking,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: see what they're doing, kind of give them my game
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: plan or whatever, and if it's like too much, then
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I'll just bounce within that piece of public to a
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: different section where we're kind of spreading ourselves out. I
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: do think talking with other hunters is really important to
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: you know, just saying hey, you know, like we were hunting,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: hoping to hunt back in here, but like what's your
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: game plan? You know what I mean? And then or
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: we're hoping to hunt right in this spot back here,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: this is where we've been going. What's your game plans?
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Can we work around it? Or should I go somewhere else?
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: And you know that's ultimately like what you have to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: do sometimes in some situation and if it gets too bad,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: just you know, pick up and drive. And I always
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: have a backup plan and backup plan, you know, I
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: always save a bunch of maths that way. It's like
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I've been in this situation a ton where I'm like,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: that's like hit a wall man, It's like drop down
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: on my knees. And I pulled my phone out and
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I started looking at like where else can I go
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: within the state where my tag, you know, where my
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: tag is legal? And I do that often so you
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: know that's that's like kind of my final straw type deal. Uh.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not letting you off the hook here completely, Zack,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: but I gotta ask Tony a question. Uh, what would
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: you do in that scenaric, Tony, what if you were
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: hunting a piece of public land and Zach or like
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: a Zach lookalike or like wants to be like an
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: acolyte of Zach shows up and a couple of guys
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: are going to start hunting the same public land that
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: you're hunting, just like Zack does. How would you handle
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: a situation? I can tell you very specifically that one
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: time I was hunting public land and Zack was across
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: the river from me, and I shot a buck and
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: got out of there, honestly, But no, I take the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: same approach. Uh, yeah, I'm not. I'm not joking. There's
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Zack um about that talked about that. I'm the same
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: exact Zack's answer there is my answer. I mean, I've
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I've gone to places and a good lesson there like
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: with what he said is without saying it was, you
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: can't fall in love with the idea of a spot.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: And you see people do this a lot when they're like,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going, you know, I'm going to hunt public land
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: in this state and it's gonna be awesome. And that's
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: the that's the spot. Like they take this w m
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: A or they take something, they go, you know, I
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: got all my way points here, I got I got
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: all my research, you know, dedicated to one area. Then
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you show up and there's people everywhere, or it just
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't play out the way you hope. And if
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: you don't have that backup, you're gonna ride out a
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: dead program. And so I do the same thing. I mean,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: I've had times where, you know, I went down to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Oklahoma one time to hunt a property that was big,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and I was like, this thing is gonna be unreal.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And my buddy and I got down there and after
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: two and a half day, as I was like, this
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: is terrible. There's people everywhere and we can barely see
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: a deer. But we had backup spots. We drove four
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: hours to a different area of the state and had
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: an awesome hunt. And so I think, I think, if
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you're gonna do this, you just have to have like
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Zach said, like, what's your plan, b what's your plans? See?
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, are you, like, are you of the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: mindset where you can just go this is not what
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: I want out of this hunt. I need to go
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: find something different, And can you pull up camp and
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: go do it or you're gonna kind of default and say, well,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe something will show up. I mean, I'm a
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: mover man. I don't like I don't like not enjoying
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: my hunting. And if I'm in a position where I
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: have no faith in my spot anymore, I don't enjoy it.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: And so it's like it's worth it to burn a
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: half a day or a day to go, you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: drive somewhere new, pull up camp, scout somewhere new, and
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: just try to get that reset moment where you can
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: start enjoying it and get in the game again. No. Yeah,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: that's that's huge. I mean with Turkey, we do it
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: so easily that it's like I don't know, I didn't
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like almost like old news at this point,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Like we pull into a place and there's people and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: like Turkey is a really easy one. There's a lot
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: of a lot of the situation you just described marks
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: of like you know, people doing the same thing, and
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: it's like if that's the case, I'm just leaving, like
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: no questions asked, like not spending any amount of time
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: on it, even if there is a bunch of turkeys.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, I hunted a place in West Virginia one time,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: but it was like, I mean, it was comical how
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: many hunters were there. Now I was also on the
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: flip side, the amount of turkeys was easily the most
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: turkeys that I've heard gobbling in one spot in the
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: whole season. But it was like we spent one day
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: doing it, and Ben and I and my buddies and
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Collins who a hunt at the time, We're like, never again,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: make at least at this point the excuson Like so
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: first of all, you could see in West Virginia never
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: hunting the spot again, Like, no way, it doesn't matter.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I'd rather hunt a place with like, you know, a
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: tenth of the birds, with the not seeing anybody, versus
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: hunt this place where there's like, you know, four on
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: a tiny little ridge, but you know also five guys
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: going in after him. It's just it gets to a
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: point where like, to me, that's not that's not the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: experience that I want to get out of. Funting is
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: like I don't feel like I want to have action.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: It's like, super consistently, I'd rather just have, you know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: an adventure. I love being on an adventure and being
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: a new stuff. So you know, it quickly gets to
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: that point for me and I guess, yeah, uh, you
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: want to throw up another situation, Tony. Sure. So Zach,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you're you know, you've got this reputation as a guy
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: who you stalk a lot of deer, but it's kind
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: of a You've kind of got this style that's sort
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: of a mix of spot and stock and still hunting
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and even posting up on the ground. It's kind of
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: this diverse ground game approach. And so we know that's
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: what you like to do, that's what you're kind of
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: weird for. So let's say you're hunting Midwestern the East,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Not not a crazy it's not Iowa white tails,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's just a decent Midwestern or eastern state. You're
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: in a big chunk of public that's mostly deciduous forest.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: It's October, a lot of the leaves are down, it's
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: been dry for three weeks. It's super crunchy out there,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and you've got, you know, your cameraman behind you. And
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: every step he takes like a it's like stepping on
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: potato chips. Do you do you ever hit a point
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: when the conditions, you know, and let's say it's pretty
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: calm too, because it's warm, You ever hit a point
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: like that where you're like, man, my preferred approach of
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: slipping around and seeing if we can get eyes on
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: one and crawling in just feels it feels like that's
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: not gonna happen. Do you do you kind of default
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: back to the saddles then, or do you just try
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to figure out a way to keep riding that program? Um?
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I just keep riding that program. But it definitely looks different.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Like the situation you described is exactly what happened to
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: me last year in both hunting in Ohio. Um, it
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: was November. It was in October, but the leaves were down,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: and like every time he stepped as like a bomb
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: going off. It brutal and it was it was like
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: early November was like seventy degrees every day for the
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: whole entire like whatever seven that I think it was
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: seven days I was there. Yeah, brutal, man, Like I
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: didn't so loud, so hot, um so dry, but I
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: mean I can. I can just give you like kind
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: of that that experience, and it's the same thing I
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: would do. UM. It's basically the same exactly um situation
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: you just described. It's like what I'm doing then, is
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not picking a spot even until i feel like
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: there's a good enough sign. So I'm still cruising around
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: moving um. But I'm just picking the easy, the quietest route.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: So like I love to move because I'm too like
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: anxious to just sit for too long. I just kick
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: myself if I sit for too long, but I want
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: to But I will sit if I feel confident in
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: the location, but I have to see the sign first.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: So for example, if I'm in like that situation that
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: you talked about, I'm gonna try to find a route
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: because there's always a route. You know. It may not
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: be exactly where I'm gonna be still hunting along and
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: kill a deer, but it's just a route that I
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: can travel and learn about that area. So for example,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a ridge top. A lot of times there's
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: a trail on a ridge top, and maybe like a
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: old two track or something. You know that maybe the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: quieter option versus being down on the bench below where
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I actually think the deer are gonna be bedded. UM.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: But I can slowly move through that chain, just the
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: pace of it a little bit and just read that sign.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Then that's going to give me the confidence to move
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: in tighter and get set up and actually find a
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: ground set up. UM. Another like location or route that
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I like to take this creek bottoms, Like I'll just
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: get straight if it's hot and dry, take my shoes off,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: and just straight up walk down the creek. Um. That's
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: an option walking right on the inside bank of a creek,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: you know, where there's just mud and you don't have
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: to be on those dry leads. But again, that's just
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: trying to give me an idea of a spot, like
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: finding a spot that I feel really confident in setting
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: up in UM, and then I still just set up
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: on the ground. And you know, for me, it's just
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: like I don't I keep trying to minimize what I
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: take to the woods, Like I just don't like carrying stuff,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, the other alternative to that is,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: you know, prep stuff prior. But you know, hunting public land,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: you know there's not a whole lot of prep work
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: you can do. UM. You know, you can't really put
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: stands up and leave them, I mean without the risk
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and them getting going. And I'm not in a place
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: really long enough to do that anyway. So it's like
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I just don't like carrying stuff, Like even as easy
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: as the saddle is to carry, like it just would
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: prefer to not do it because I like to go
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: out all day. I like to carry a ton of water.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm carrying him three to five liters of
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: water a day, depending on the temperature. You know, those
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: days when it was November seventy degrees, like we had
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: to bring five liters of water between like like cooking
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: up a little freeze dried meal or something, or just
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: drinking in general. Like you get to a point where
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: like you need that water, So I don't want to
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: sacrifice that to bring gear. Um, So I still want
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: to set up on the ground, and like the more
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: I do it, the more I'm just like I really
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: don't need a tree set up. I mean, there's really
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: not many situations where I'm like I can't figure this out.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: You learn how be You're see and react two different
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: setups than us, and it's like you just know what
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get away with and where you're not going to. Yeah,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: there's some risk involved. Yeah there's you know, windows where
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: the setup isn't great. The deer kind of have to
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: come through here. But you know, I'm willing to try
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: it versus I just don't like bringing stuff in. I
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: don't like climbing up. I think that climbing up gives
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: you away a lot too. Where do your hear you
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: or see you climbing a tree, like maybe are like
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: a hundred fifty yards? Like what does that do sit
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: doing climbing that tree? Like I can hear him playing
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: a day, you know, and I guess I don't want to.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do that, So therefore I don't
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: do it. I just keep playing the ground game, and
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: then I just commit to setting up a little bit more.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: I find those routes where I can still hunt and scout.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be right through the heart of it,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: but it may be like if I think, for example,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: there's a valley, but there's a valley, and there's a
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: bunch of finger bridges that are falling into that valley.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I may walk that valley and try to find where
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: the highest doneity of crossing trails is if I find
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: that X, then I can say, Okay, I want to
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: set up in here, I want to set up close
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: to here, and I'll just commit like to getting in
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: there really early in the morning and the dark, when
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: you know I'm not expecting as many dear to be
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: in the bedding area for example. So um yeah, I
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: guess that's how I would approach it. And another thing
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: is too, seriously, if it's wet and dry, I shift
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: to like setting up close to water um a lot
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: more too. It's just because I kind of have a
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: lightbulb moment last year when in that situation where I
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: was hunting um really dry stuff stephany trees sept in
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: this my great funnel, and it just made sense for
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: dear to be crossing there. Go from you know, a
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: number of betting ridges across this ridge that was kind
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: of in between more bedding ridges, and that could just
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: run up and over the saddle. There was tons of
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: um scarlet oak acorns of the dry often. But we
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: were way up at the tip top and I'm sitting
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: there and I'm literally myself I'm drying out, man, like
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I'm hot. Just it is uncomfortable and I'm like, why
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: would a deer, ever in the right mind, be spending
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: any amount of time up here, Like down there low
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: they can for one, get shade and two they can
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: get water in three it's been so dry that up
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: here everything's so dried out that there's not a whole
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: lot of diversity as far as you know, vegetation goes
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: definitely not as much as there is down that bottom.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: And man, we moved down that bottom in within an hour.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: We had a monster come into five yards and didn't
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: get a shot, and he I guess he got close
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: enough to be caught with of us and then looked
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: at us and it was too late, but like he
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: just kind of caught us off guard. But being in
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: that being down in that position, we were in the
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: game just by taking advantage of those conditions, And um,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: you know, to be honest, I just don't. I don't
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: think that I would ever change enough. And I'm stubborn
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: in that way too. I mean, I definitely am. It's
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: like I love when people say, you know what, man,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: you couldn't do that in this situation. It's like he could.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: It doesn't like why does it have to be that way?
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Like why do people say it has to be you
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: have to do it my way. Like if I want
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: to do something different, I'll just keep trying and like
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: I'll just keep adjusting and yeah, I'm gonna fail. But
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: that's part of the fun if time thing is to me,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: it's like the failure that's what keeps me coming back.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: I do you know every situation it's just like I'm
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: just slaughtering dear. It's like it would not be that fun.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: I love like failure and just like that chet. You know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: it's like, hey, maybe I don't know what I'm doing
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: in this situation, and that's cool. How do I learn?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I want to learn? Yeah, I guess can I keep
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: going down this road? Mark it? So I love that
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you just said that right there about people saying there's yeah,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you know that might work an eye, Well, but it's
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: not gonna work here. I think one of the things
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: that I mean, but you hear it every where. We
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: had we all our deer hunting difficulty biases, like our
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: bias toward our dogs. Right, everybody has the best dog,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Like you talked to somebody who owns the lab. It's
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the best dog ever. And the last dog was the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: best dog it always right. And then the best point, dude,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: you always have. The best point is this is great. Well,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: but you brought it up. It reminded me that when
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I started, you know, I had all these preconceived notions
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: growing up in Minnesota hunting the way I did, and
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: then starting to expand and go to these other states
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: and hunt public land. What I realized is everybody has
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: a local bias that they're hunting the most difficult deer.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: And it kind of ties into what you said earlier
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: when you were like, you know, people are pretty consistent
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: across the board, or at least regionally where they hunt
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: a certain way, and you can kind of you know,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: some some places you can pull up your you know,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: on X and you can call your shots and say,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a tree stand there, a tree stand there,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: a tree stand there, And people are insanely consistent and
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: that it and and you know, habituated to their circumstances.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: But that works against them, just like believing that you
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: have the hardest deer possible. It gives you an out
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: or you know, if you think, well, yeah, you know,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: those Iowa hunters they have it easy. And I live
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: in X state and I have it hard well that
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: that may be true, but it doesn't do any good
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: to focus on that. Like you still you're still hunting
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: rabbits with antlers, and you can kill them in a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: shipload of different ways. Like you just gotta get out
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: of your own way and just go, okay, well, yeah,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'm not as lucky as somebody who
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: owns a thousand acres in southern Iowa, but I have
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: this national forest to hunt. There's deer in there they're killable,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: or I have this you know, grandpa's farm or whatever,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: and I think so much of that mentality like that
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: just works against us so much. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: It's it's really interesting to like, you know, it's the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: out thing is so true. It's just like, well but
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: here we are in this place and it's not this place,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, it's not. But like there's always
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: a local that's kicking ass out there, like you know,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: like there's always a local that's doing really well because
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: like they found a style that works for them, or
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: they just recognize what their situation is and they you know,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: they take advantage of it, like they learn, they learn
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: what the deer doing. They learn what the hunters are
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: doing and then they you know, take advantage of those
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: things that they've learned, like you gotta go out and fail.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: And I just think that that's I don't know, it's
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: it's something that we don't want failure, right, like as
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: hunters there are just humans in general, like we don't
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: want to show that we've failed. And that's while while
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: that is true, you have I think I do believe
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: that it's healthy to show or you know, admit that
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: you're failing and say, hey, why am I failing? Want
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: if you are failing, why and then what can I
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: do to change that? And you know, you hear it
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: all the time, and I mean it's kind of cliche
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: almost at this point. It's like, you know, with the
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: rise of social media and hunters, you know, sharing pictures
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: of big bucks, other hunters feel discouraged when you know,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: it's like it really is becoming a cliche things like
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: you've read that article before, you've heard that podcast. Whatever.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: It's like, but I guess it's just who gives a ship?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Like who cares? Why do you worry about failing? Because
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: like nine times out of ten or way more probably
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: you don't kill a deer, you know, you there might be,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: there might be, you know, it might be every third
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: time you even have a deer in range. So it's
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter. And why compare yourself to other hunters,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: because there's no more true things than hunting than this.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody's hunting situation and goals are different, period. Like what
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I think is, you know what I what is a
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: goal to me is not a goal to you guys. Necessarily,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, But like who cares
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: to me? When I go hunting? It's me versus like
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the woods and the deer. I'm just going out to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: be competing against them like they are living in their world.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to be a predator in their world and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to go in and trip them, you know.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And I just think it's like why why care? Why compare?
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: You know, because again, if you start, and it's so
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: it's so crazy, have the like routes to comparing, you
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: can go like if you're sitting comparing your Antler score.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: That's why I think score is so ridiculous. It's like
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: your Antler score if you live in you know, uh,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: the Southeast for example, like if you live in North
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Florida and you're comparing score to what guys are shooting
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: even in Tennessee, like you're probably gonna get discouraged. And
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: then the guy that's comparing his score in Tennessee to
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: the guys in I or Kansas, he's probably going to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: be disappointed. Go out that goals for yourself that you
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: feel are realistic, and just go have fun because like
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: it's no competition and it just is, like I don't know,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: it's it's frustrating to think that it is a competition,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: like you know, and it doesn't matter what anybody who
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: else's goals are. Make your own, have fun like it's
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: a it's a sport that is meant to be just
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: like fun. Yeah, and it's an individual pursuit. Yeah, Mark,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: can I keep going? I gotta keep going on this right, No,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: you're fired too much. I'm down, I'm having I'm having
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: a blast, So let's keep doing. I want to talk
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: about failure because you know, you brought it up. And
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: I always use the example of like an over the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: counter l hunt in Colorado, which is you know, everybody's
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: default ELK hunt, Like if you you know, whether we
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: love failure, hated or indifferent, whatever how you feel about it.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: If you say I'm going to go do that hunt,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: you're saying I'm as with certainty you're going to fail
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: as far as killing an elk, But that's that's not
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: why you're going. You're going to elk hunt and have
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the experience. Like we have a harder time with white
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: tails in that same like getting that mindset right with
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: white tails. It's like so so important to kill and
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: and we're like a verse to this failure, but it's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: such a integral part of it, like it's it's coming
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: no matter what. And so like that example you gave
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Zach of you know, when it was super hot and
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: you're sitting there on top and you're going, why would
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: a deer be here? Like you're you're hunting a place
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be hunting or a spot, And dude, I
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: had an exact same light bulb moment, probably like five
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: or six years ago in Nebraska, same kind of deal
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: with like seventy five degrees. I'm sitting on this top
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: in this public land that I've killed big Bucks in
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: and I'm seeing nothing and I was just sitting there
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: sweating my ass off, and I'm going, why would a
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: dear be here? Like they're not here obviously, like I'm
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: not seeing them, they're not coming through here. And I've
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: got this stream in the valley below oh me with
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: you know, all these nice conifers along it in this
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: good cover, and I'm like, what, why are you sitting
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: up here failing at this when you know like you'd
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: feel better down there that's probably where they are. And
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I did the same thing. I went down there and
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: I killed a buck. I didn't even have like my
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: shirt on. I was wearing a T shirt and hung
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: a stand and he came in right along the crew.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was like over and I hadn't hardly
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: seen it here in two days hunting us out, And
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: it's like one of those moments where like, yeah, that's
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: awesome because the success came, But really the important part
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: was like questioning why you're failing so bad? Like why
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: why are you sitting here wasting your time doing something
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: that you know? Like if you start to question it
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: and go, why is this not fun? Why is this
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: not working out? You're gonna make different decisions and probably
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: move in that right direction. But it's it's like a
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: hard thing to overcome sometimes in those little epiphanies though,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: are what are so fun? If you did? Yeah, that's
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: that's it. It's the journey, the process having these little
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: aha moments as soon as you start learn to appreciate
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: that and realize that that's really the thing we're chasing
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: here in a lot of ways, Uh, that's that's the ticket.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: Definitely agree with that as well. I Mean it's like
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: we all want when we go hunting, we all want
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: like a certain thing to happen, Like that's the the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: goal is like I want this here to walk down
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: this trail in front of my set up, or I
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: want to find a bedded buck or whatever. And it's
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: like when all of a sudden it does happen exactly
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: what you want to have happened. That's when you feel
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: like on cloud nine and you're like, man, I knew
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: exactly what was going to happen in this situation. And
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: then like most times though, you don't, you know, and
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: you just gotta keep chipping away at it. It's like, yeah,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: I mean you're gonna like hunting is like lower odds
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: and you're you know, gonna batting average. You know, you
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: think of a good batting average being over or whatever.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: It's like you're hunting at batting averages not through over
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: three hundred like it my mind, isn't you more times?
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna fail? So it's just I guess it's
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: just one of those things that you embrace it. You're
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: gonna have a lot better time. And then the other
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: thing is like what is failure? You know? Because I
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: always say I'd rather I'd rather be around I guess.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Let's put it this way. There's a lot of hunters
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: that have found like what works, and they just keep
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: doing the same exact thing. And those people start to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: get to a point where it's like I'm not as
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: interested in what they're doing because for their situation, I've
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: learned or they've they figured that out and they just
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: keep doing it. I'm almost, well, I'm not almost. I
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: enjoy having a conversation with people, like I love talking
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: to a guy that's only hunted a few years or
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: you know, just less than me in general. But it's
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: just like super curious, like they're they're asking questions or
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: like what type of tree is this? You know what,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: you know, what would you do right here? Right whatever?
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Like asking a bunch of questions. Just you can tell
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: they just care about it and they're thinking about it
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: a lot, and like, if you're doing that, in my opinion,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: you don't you're not failing ever, you know, if you're
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: always asking yourself like why didn't that work? You know what,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I can't really figure out why that deer did that,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: but I'm thinking about it a lot. What do you think?
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: You know, they want to have those conversations. They want
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: to dive into like just deep thought about the situation.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: And then how do you ever fail? Because you're just
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: trying to learn? And I think, you know, I think
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to learn, you're never failing and hunting
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: because it's just you know, you can just being curious
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: about it. Man. I think it's huge and just caring.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Because if you say I didn't get one to fail
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and then you give up, it's just like it's just
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: like if you were if that guy was on your
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: football team, Like you don't like that guy, right, It's
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: like if you lose the game here and and that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: guy is like, oh man, we lost, you touched his
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: tail us put his head down. It's like, hey man,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: we gotta get back to work. Like we gotta get
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: back in and you know, we gotta this week in practice,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: we gotta like really focus on the things that we
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: did wrong, and then we gotta get better, you know.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know that, I just I
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: find myself relating sports to hunting a lot these days. Honestly,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, having having a positive mentality in it,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: you know, just keep continuing to improve. It is important.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: I think the two or two of the most important
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: questions that should like always be on the tip of
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: your tongue during hunting season is remember, one, why when
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: something happens, asking yourself, like we're talking like why did
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: this happen? Why isn't this working? Or even why it
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: does this work? And the second question is what now?
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: If you can if you're always asking yourself those questions,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: why did this happen? Or why did that deer do that?
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: Or why did this not work? And then what now? Okay,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: how do I deal with that situation? Rather than tucking
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: your tail, rather than giving up or saying what was me?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: It's like that thing happened or I learned this thing
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: or observe this thing. What now? How do you move forward?
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Like those two things. Constantly ask yourself those two things
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: and keep moving forward and enjoy it. That's that's it.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: I think the thing to add to that too is
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: just like really nail that like really pounds of mistakes
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: into your head, like how like don't forget that thing again.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: You know, if you make a mistake, try not to
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: make it again, like I can. I'll use an example
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: from last year, is like the most bonehead mistake that
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: haunts me and we'll probably haunt me for a long time,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: is I was? It was? It was that time of
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: the year, November, Ohio Hot dry found a really good
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: funnel had set up close to it, knew there was
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: probably a hot day in the area that they stop
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the day prior. Um we're basically set up right in
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: the perfect spot where was gonna pinch deer down to
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: inside of twenty yards and hilly terrain, which isn't always
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: always an easy thing to find, but we felt good
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: that we were in the right spot. Look down about
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: nine o'clock and only deer we had seen all morning
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Shooter buck cruising. It was one of the bucks that
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: we've seen the day before. He's cruising down below us.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Um on the bench and I don't know, a hundred
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: twenty yards down the hill. And you know, I love
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: talking about the little things, you know, the little things
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: that we we do that can cost us an opportunity
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: or um whatever, you know, it can we can blow
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: the deer before we get a shot, or make us
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: miss or whatever. And one of the things that I
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: always try to make right do well is be ready,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: you know, just like always being ready. And this deer
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: went down below us and he just got outside. We
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: tried grunting to him. He didn't make any he didn't
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: have any reaction to it at all. And I looked
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: at Keith, who I was hunting with him. Should we
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: just try to rattle, like you know, I don't, I
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: don't really want that was like the last resort, because
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: it's like in a different situation, we just try to
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: cut him off and try to get a different angle
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: on him. But we couldn't move because we had too
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: much crunchy. Um. It was just the conditions were too crunchy,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: too calm, that we didn't feel like we could ever
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: you know, fool him. As fast as he was moving,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: we were never gonna be able to get in front
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: of him quiet enough without spooking him. So the last
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: resort was, well, we'll rattle and make a bunch of noise.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: But when I rattled and made a bunch of noise,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: I it worked great. Keith and I were both banging
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: about just like thrashing in the leaves, rattling, and the
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: deer was on us before I was even done rattling,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: Like I was just setting the antlers down, and he's
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: a fifteen yards coming fast, and he's coming, I mean
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: right at us. And the mistake that I made was
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: is there two mistakes really breaking down the situation is
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: I should have stopped midway through the rattling sequence to
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: listen to see if I can hear him, because again
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: the crunchy conditions, that was an advantage that we had
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: that we could hear a ton. So I didn't do that.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: But then on top of that is I had turned
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: to face where the deer was, but in my setup,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: I had been facing the other way when we were
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: just sitting there, you know, looking for deer and waiting,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: and my bow was on the other side of me,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: and the deer ran up to like literally six yards
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: and before he knew anything was up, and I ruined it.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: Because I wasn't ready, And I mean it would have
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: been the most chip shot of all times. The thing
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: was at point blank and I wasn't ready, and I
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: didn't have my bone front of me. Like again, I
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: kicked myself. I think about it all the time. Sometimes
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: I wake up in a cold sweat because I've been
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: having a nightmare about it. I'm just kidding, but I
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: think about that all the time. But like, the worst
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: thing I could do now is make that same exact
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: mistake in the future. Now, it's just like focusing on
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: that little thing and just being like, you know, sometimes
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: it seems, uh, it seems like the most basic lesson ever,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: but like to make sure your bows in front of you,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: make sure you've got an arrow knock, make sure you're ready,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: make sure you're ready, you know. And I just pound
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: that into my brain for the future to hopefully never
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: make that mistake again. And you know, it's like I
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: could power out about it, and you know, I definitely
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: do sometimes in my own head. For sure, it's like, damn,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: I wish I wouldn't have done that, But hey, you
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: gotta just cut your loss and say next time, I'm
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: gonna do better. And the chances are that I'm gonna
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: be in a similar situation to that again, And it's
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: kindly not gonna list exact play the same. I mean,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: chances are I'm not gonna be in that same again,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: that same exact log I'm that same exact for it
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: rattle into a buck with those same exact conditions, but
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: I'll be in something similar, And just learning from that
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: mistake is like, to me, that's what makes to me,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: that is what makes somebody really a a good hunter.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what you're shooting. It's just like, can
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: you look at your mistakes and say, hey, this is
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: what I did wrong, here's what I'm gonna change in
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: the future, cut my losses and move on. Yeah. Well,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: and you know what's really important about that lesson too,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: is you know you talk about that buck come into
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: six yards and how easy the shot would have been
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: if you'd have been ready, But everybody who bow hunts
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: gets surprised by them, and that's when bad shots happen.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: So you you didn't have the chance to get off
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: a shot there. But you know, every bow hunter with
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of seasons under his or her belt has
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: been out there. You know, in quiet conditions or just
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: not paying attention. You know, just got set up and
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: then looked in that bucks walking through and it's a
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: mad scramble, and that's when the panic sets in. And
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: that's when gut shots happened. That's when mrs happened, and
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: that's when you just fall apart, you know. So so,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: like you said, paying attention, if you get that you know,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: ten second lead time, or you see that movement in
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: the brush fifty yards away versus fifteen, you've got a
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: lot better chance of making a good shot because you
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: have a chance to get your ship together versus just
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden having that Chinese fire drill and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: being in real trouble. Yeah, and where what I you know,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: looking back on that situation, what I would change exactly
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: is is I would just not turned towards the deer
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: while rattling. I would have just stayed quartered towards my bow,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: rattled with my you know, my knees still facing my bow,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: twisted to the left and made the noise so that
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: paused mid rattle, heard him coming drop. The antlers grabbed
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: my bow and then just you know, I read antlers
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: a lot on the ground, Like I it low enough
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: and I practice draw where I can stay low and
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: you know, knowing that the deer can't see me just
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: based off what his you know, I'm low enough that
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: I can only see his antler tips and I'm just
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: reading that how to drawn low and then just slowly
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: rose up and he you know, chances are high that
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: about it. Done all those things a little bit different,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: it would have been money. But like, had you know,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: had I been in that same situation, let's say um
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: turned the wrong way rattling. Even if I do pause
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: and here I'm coming, I'm in that situation like you said,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: where I'm scrambling. I gotta turn back around, I gotta
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: grab my bow, I gotta get ready. And at that
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: point maybe he's he's too close, and you know, and
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: they gets it gets sloppy. But like just in general,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: I look back and then what the hell was I doing?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, just so spy, like just just not good.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: But hey, you know, sitting complain about it or thought
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: about it, but the reality is next time, I guess
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: I just gotta try to do better. They get and
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: or you know, make sure you're doing a little thing.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: What about a slight variation on that situation that I
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: imagine has happened to you. I know stuffitely this is
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: similar to this has happened to you. But I think
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of other people, if they're trying this kind
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: of thing, would happen too. Whether you're sitting in a
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: place like you were, kind of waiting or stalking it
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: on a spot and you get pegged by a buck
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: that you were either moving in on or he moved
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: in on you. He's right at the edge of your range.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Let's say so he's not a chip shop, but he
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: is hypothetically in range. He's a alert. You have your bow,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: you have it an arrow knocked, but he is on alert.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: He knows something is kind of up. He's doing the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: head bob. He's curious, unsure, not quite aware though that
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: he should be out of there right away in that situation,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: given some the experiences you've had, what's the best thing
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: to do in that situation? And from your perspective, do
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: you wait till he makes any kind of tiny little
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: movement and then just go for the snapshot or a
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: You're gonna wait it out and wait till he's comfortable
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: again and starts walking away. What's the take in that situation,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: if you could have taken a shot, just stay calm.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: I think, like read that deer, cover your face in
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: your eye you know, have hopefully have you got your
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: face and your eyes covered as best as possible, and
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: just stay calm, because I've had that happen a lot. Actually,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: um Buckeye shot him New York, totally saw me, but
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: he didn't know what I was. Um Buck in North
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Dakota that I shot last year, he saw Jake, didn't
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: know what Jake was. UM. So I've been in that situation,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: and the best thing, like, man, it runs through your
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: mind every time, should I just draw them, set up
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: and shoot? And I don't think. I think sometimes it works,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: and I guess in one situation I did that. Um
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: I did do something similar, but but we'll kind of
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: loop back to that. In most situations, I think deer,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: And again it comes with a little bit of experience
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: of knowing like what deer can see and what they
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: can differentiate from like danger and just like a blob
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: in the woods. UM, I think dear c head and
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: shoulders so and face. I think face is a big
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: one too. So like a lot of times I pulled
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: my if a deer is closer. I know a deer
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: is close. I really shade my eyes with my hat
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: and basically cover half my my eyes with my hat
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: and or put my bowcam in front of my face
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: because I think that they see those two predator eyes,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: you know, looking right at them, especially there whatever twenty
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: thirty yards, They're like, what is that thing? You know
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: that doesn't look right? And if you've ever seen a
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: human face in the woods sometimes it does stick out
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: like hundreds of yards is just like, well, there's a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: person sitting right there and see their face, So covering
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: face is like important. And then I mean I really
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: do grow my hair out at this point. I mean
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: I grow it out because I like it number one,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: but number two, like it breaks up the head and shoulders,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: you know, like I think that's like human outline humans
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: standing on two legs and obviously walking across the landscape,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: like gear pick up on that quick. But also, um,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: just that head and shoulder outline is like, you know,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: very specific to humans, and I think they pick up
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: on that as you know, predator danger real quick. So
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: you know, if you know, like let's say, oh, in
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: movement movements to the other final straw. So like if
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: a deer is locked onto you and he's head bombing
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: and he said, you know, your range is thirty yards
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: and you're like, I know, he's right at thirty He's like,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: I know I can make that shot. He's broadside right now,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: and you rip the bell back. I mean, see you later.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: He's I would say, nine times out of ten running now,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: if you have a little bit of front cover, you know,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: and maybe you know, maybe it's worth a shot. I'm
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: not saying that a percent of the time it does
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: not work. But you know, if they're already pretty locked
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: on and they're already like you know, on max suspicion
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: as like is that a predator and you blow up
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: out of your you know, your your hide, they're they're
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: probably gonna run. So in my experience, I've just been
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: really really patient, stayed, stayed, blow looked at there um antlers,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: and really just make that read you know, once they're
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: not looking at you to make that move. Um. So
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: I'll use the cample of New York real quick. New York.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: I was stalking in on a buck that was better
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: with the dough. I was staying along a shaded the
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: wind was coming out across wind. I love across wind
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: and moving in on deer um standing on a shaded
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: fence line. And as I was moving towards him, I
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: was starting they stood up, and I knew they were betted,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: and I didn't know exactly. I mean, I pretty much
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: knew exactly where, you know, within like a ten yard circle.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: I knewhere there were but I was playing it slow
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: and safe. And then they stood up and I could
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: see about stantler tips and I just started reading that.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: I was moving in, moving and moving in, and every
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: step I would take, I would like tick the next
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: step right, I would like take the next little patch
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: of shadow or place also where I could get knelt
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: down and draw my boat out getting hung up on stuff.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: So like really particular about where I'm making these next moves,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: and midway through as I'm like cutting distance, you know,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: really cutting some distance heat a car like stops or
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: something or like rev the engine, maybe even just hip
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: stop sign. I don't really even know what happened that
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: you can hear it in in the footage the engine
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: wrapped up. Deer looks at the engine or you know
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: where that sounds coming from, And just like streaks out
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: and he just takes off round it and he does
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: a few bounds and he ends up landing right in
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: front of me at like I don't know bow range,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: you know, pretty easy shots. But what I had done
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: is because I had been picking that next spot. I
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: already had my next spot pick, and as soon as
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: he started bounding, I just, like you know, one too quick,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: scurried right into a little patch of shade. I got
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: down into a ball as small as I could, and
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: I put my cam in front of my face, my
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: hat bound over my eyes, and I just was barely
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: looking at him through my hat Billy and my bow
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: can and he runs like head on right at me
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: and stopped it. I don't know, let's just say yards.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how far, but I know it's
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: really really close, and he's locked on. Like his pail
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: goes up. He starts like kind of walk stomping towards me,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: and I just waited, and I mean it went through
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: my head. It's like, man, he's closed, and he's as
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: he started walking closer, like man, I might be able
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: to just whip this bow back and shoot him right
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: in the chest, and like you know what, that's never
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: gonna happen, like never ever gonna happen. I mean, you know,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: your mind's racing at this point. My heart's going to
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: the roof, and I just remember thinking to myself, it's blown.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: If you move. If you move at this point, you've
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: blown it. The only chance you have is if he
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: circles back to that dough and starts worrying about that
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: dough again, or worrying about some other, you know, issue
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: that could be going on in his brain, whether it's
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: that car or whatever. You have to wait till he
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: looks away from you, and then you got to try
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: to draw. So because I had that cross wind, it
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: was moving from right to left, and he had to
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: circ if he wanted to circle me or that dough,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: he had to go to the left. And he just
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: started walking and he cut back into taller grass, and
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: then again just waiting for him to not not see
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: his eye. You know, I I really think there's it's
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: kind of as simple as that. You can't actually see
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: their eye at all in your safe but like they'll
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: check you too, like what he did the first time,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: and I didn't draw on this is he checked me
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: like he acted like he wasn't looking, you know, and
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: he looked to the right, and then he snapped it
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: back to the left and he checked me, and I
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: let him have that one. And then he did it
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: again because he started to trust to the situation because
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: he checked me, and I didn't move even when he
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: allowed himself to be vulnerable, and I just like let
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: him have that one. And then he looked again, and
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: I drew stand really low, knowing that he at this
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: point is starting to kind of go into this ocean
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: of grass, and drew back slowly. And then he looked
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: a third time at that dough and I literally stood
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: all the way up and I shot him at twenty yards.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: It's like the woodshoot a three D target in the yard,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: and I mean it was it was. It ended up
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: just being a complete chip shot, like he was looking
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: the other way at twenty yards. So that's one situation.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Another situation is in Nebraska. I called him on a
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: buck um a couple of years ago, a few years ago,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: you have twenty eight and I was it knew exactly
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: where he's dead. It I had a spot picked where
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: I thought I was going to be inside his spent
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: of yards or right at spent of yards or whatever,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: and I ended up getting there and here's the buck land.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: I arranged him three times, nineteen yards. I'm like, man like,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: all he's gotta do is stand up. And Logan, who
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: was the guy that was filming at the time, Um,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: he was up on the hill and he was just
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: barely skyline like the way he had to get up
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: the camera. He was just barely, you know, sticking out.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: He he was wearing a gilly suit, so he didn't
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: look like a human, but he definitely was abnormal in
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: that landscape. And I was wearing a gilly suit and
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: also just like tucked up against the cedar tree. I'm
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: not perfectly covered, but I'm you know, I know that
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: they can't tell exactly what deer can't tell exactly what
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: I am. And I'm watching this buck bedded And in
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: the meantime, the smaller buck came in and walked up
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: to like point blank, he's probably five or seven yards
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: away on the other side of the creek, and he
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: starts looking at me, and then he starts looking at
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: Logan up on the hill, and you just can't really
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: tell what we are because I'm we're not moving either.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: One of us are moving, and he eventually gives up
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: on the wind winds in our favor. That's important to note,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: and he eventually gives up on the situation. And for
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: some reason, I almost made a bone head mistake here.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: As that other buck worked away, I looked up at
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: Logan to make sure that he wasn't like signaling me,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: you know something. I don't really even know why I
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: cared at that point. Again, it was it was kind
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: of bonehead for a second. Actually what happened is that panic.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, I hope he's got enough battery or
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: I hope he's got enough memory in the card. And
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: then I like, really, I thought, why didn't matter at
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: this point, But I looked up at him the only
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: movement I made since I've got into the set up,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty minutes prior, and I look up at him,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: and I look back and the buckets standing up looking
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: in our direction, the buck that I'm trying to shoot,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: and it's that was one of those situations where I
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: knew prior, I'd visualized how he was going to stand
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: up in that bed. I see how his body was oriented.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: I knew that if he stood up and he took
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: one step, he was gonna be you know, there wasn't
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: gonna be a lady there. And he stood up, He's
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: looking in my direction, got a gilly suit on, I
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: you know, got a pretty good amount of cover, and
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: I thought, whatever, it's now or never he takes one step,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: he's out of there. And I just like pointed that,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd already had the arrow pointed right at him,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: and I just you know, with as much with as
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: little movement as possible, I just drew the bow straight back,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: set will the pen and john him and he never moved.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: So two kind of different situations there, in two different
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: slightly different, you know, again every situation being a little different.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: I did decide to pull the trigger there, but he
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: wasn't as locked on like I think he probably at
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: that point was just like huh, like that's kind of
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: weird that something's right there, and he had not not
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: really put that, he hadn't got fear in him yet
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: if that might be a predator. I think you just
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: thought on something different. And my movement was so minimal,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: and I was so broken up with that gilly suit that, um,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: you know I think that I just well, I mean
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: I definitely did get away with it, but not every
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: situation I would do that. I would say, most times,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: play it safe and just wait for them, and if
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: you're not moving, they're probably not gonna run. Like it
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: is really weird and like we're taught. We're taught when
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: we first started hunting, or at least a lot of us,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: you know, um, you know, growing up in the East
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest, you're taught to get into a tree
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: stand and what movement you can and can't get away with,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: how to get you know, the right cover for a
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: tree stand. But we're not really taught like what deer
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: can and can't see when you're on the ground. And
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: we give dear too much credit because what they are
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: really good at is skylining you in a tree. They
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: can pick a human body out of a blob out
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: of a tree pretty easily. But when you're on the
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: ground and you're broken up, I mean sometimes it can
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: be a tuft of grass that's between you and the
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: deer and they just can't really pick up if you're
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: not moving. But if you're moving around, you know, they
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: can see really well, but they're there. Their eyes are
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: definitely different than ours, like they just don't see the
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: same thing. Movement is bad, you know, having your face exposed.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: I think it's bad. But like it's really crazy what
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: you can get away with um on the ground and
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: and um, just like you kind of have to relearn
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: what is right and wrong. I guess because in the
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: tree stand you you play the situation a little bit
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: different because they're not looking up all the time, you know,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: But in on the ground you just have to read
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: the deer and and UM, I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I guess it's it's I just think of it. It's
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: often like I'm surprised that what you can get away
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: with in my setup now. Sometimes are like a few
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: years ago, I've been like, oh, that's a sloppy set
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: up that will never work. And it's like sometimes now
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, if the deer comes right
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: from that direction, it's gonna work. And I you know,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: it may not work from every direction, but I feel
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: most confident in the deer coming from that spot. If
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: he does, you know, it'll work. And it doesn't have
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: to be like super fancy. Sometimes it's just just a
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: log in front of you. Sometimes it's just a big
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: tree in front of you. You know, you're just kind
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: of hiding off to the right side of the tree
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: looking to draw around. But it's just, um, I don't know,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: setup set up things with a lot different I guess
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: I got way off traff of here. I'm loving it
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: and it's just got me chomping at a bit even
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: more than I was to take off in like ten
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: days heading out for my first hunt of the year.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: And uh, I gotta believe Tony and a whole bunch
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: of other people listening are feeling in the same way.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: So you've done your job well, Zack. I just know
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: it's something that I got just an extremely passionate bottle.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: I started doing this. My favorite favorite thing. It really
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: hunting deer off the ground and that style. Man, it's
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: just like I guess that's why I promote it so much.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: It's like it doesn't have to be hunting off the ground.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: It could be hunting out of a tree saddle or
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: tree stand. You know, maybe it's hunting deer off of
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: a horse or something. I don't know, whatever, like really
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: makes you tick like that, That to me is um,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: you can make it so much more on if you
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: just kind of mind a style that works for you.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: And I I was in a rut of deer hunting,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: not the right type of rut. That was just like
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: kind of doing the same old thing over and over again,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: and I was getting kind of tired. I loved it. It
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: It was always my favorite thing, but hunting off the count,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: he's made it that much more of my favorite thing.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: Like it's awesome. Yeah, I think that's a perfect place
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: to wrap it up, because this message of just finding
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: what you enjoy, finding where your passion is and and
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: chasing it regardless of what other people do, or regardless
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: of what other people say is gonna work or not
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: gonna work, or no matter what other people think is
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: okay for your shoot or not shoot. Like, I think
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: the moral of a lot of this is go back
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: to what makes you know, what scratches that is for you,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: what gets you fired up, and just do it shamelessly,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: screw everybody else. If it's legal, and if it does
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: it for you, enjoy the hell out of it. So yep,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm all about it. So, Zach, you have made
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: it through the what would you do? Gauntlet? You have survived,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: You've proved yourself very worthy of the challenge. Um, we
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: gotta wrap it up. But I've got one last, like
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: rapid fire round of questions for you, and uh and
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: then that would be as this would be like one
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: word answers is all we're gonna give you. Okay, okay,
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: all right, so real quick? Does the moon matter to
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: dear movement? Yes? Or no? Mm hmm Yes, but I
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: don't understand it. Okay. I would say it probably has
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: an impact, but I don't understand it. Okay. Would you
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: take a fifty yard shot at a white tail with
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: your bow? Yes? Or no? No? If you could only
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: have one of these tools for us of your hunts forever,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: which one would you take? Rattling antlers or grunt to
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: grant two? Expandable or fixed blade broadheads? Fixed blade? Should
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: you stop a buck with a sound if he's walking
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: before shooting? Yes or no? M hm? Yes? Yeah, okay.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: I mean that's one that I could go on and
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: on about, and I think it's very situational. But yeah, okay. Um,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: if you could only pick one season that you were
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: allowed to scout, which season would it be? Winter? Summer
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: or fall? Mm hm fall? Which state has the better
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: deer hunters? Iowa or Ohio. Oh man, I don't know,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: no comment, okay, fair enough, got to keep good graces.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: I don't want to offend anybody. I don't want to
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: piss off your buddies in Iowa or the locals. We're
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: you're up, Yeah exactly. I'd rather just yeah, there's no yeah,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's yeah. It's a trick question. It's a
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: trick question. All right. Here's one that you can expand
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: on a little bit. So imagine that I am omnipotent
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: I have full control of everything in the world, and
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take away your hunting privileges for the
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: next ten years, no more hunting at all, unless unless
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: you kill a mature buck this year on public land zact.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: So let's say, let's say four year ol buck. You
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: gotta kill a public land four year old buck this
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: year to keep the next ten years of hunting available
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: to you. But here's the rub. You only get one
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: day to do it and one spot to do it in.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: And since you hunt like a you hunt a different
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: way than some people. You can have a type of
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: spot that you want to walk around and check out.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: So give me the day. You're gonna pick, what date?
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: You would think you've got the very best chances, and
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: then described to me the kind of you would ideally
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: want to pin your hopes on for this very high
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: stakes hunt. Uh, Like first it would be it would
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: be like, um, real early in the season. Let's just
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: say I've had pretty good success on like the fifth
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: and sixth of September. So I'll say sixth of September. Um,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: in just any wide open country where I know there's
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: a good water source. So like if there's water and
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: it's like it's a river bottom um with hills around
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: it and pretty open, that's where I want to be.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: That's that's where I feel the most confident. Um, just
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: where I can see it dear um ideally see a
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: dear bedded That's that's where I feel the most confident.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: Like I would say that, yeah, seeing seeing is really
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: important to me. So that definitely makes me feel like
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: I could be successful. Um in that date. I just
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: kind of love the mentality of the year. It's just
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: kind of laying around kind of like that. So if
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: you get them in an open, open country and they're
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: just laying around and you can see him that it's
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: it's nice. So that's that's where I've had probably the
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: best success consistently. Really, I like it. That's a super
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: fun way to hunt. I know Tony and I both
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: are with you on that one. So you did it, Zach.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you bearing with us through all these questions, and
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: uh it was fun. It was a lot of fun.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Oh yeah, then I had a blast. I
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: I hope we can do it again sometime soon. Good
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: luck on these hunts you got coming up. And uh
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: we'll check in with it after September six and see
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: if you killed the one already. Yeah, that's good, it'll
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: be that'll be all right about the time to be
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: see it, you know, see you too good. I'm gonna
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: go to I got a new Mexico deer tag. It's
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: a like four cantler deer so any buck, you know,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: I can shoot deer out there mostly, but that's that's
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: it's going to be open country. So we'll see fingers
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: crossed that that's uh, we can pull it off. So
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: I love it. All right, we'll get there. You guys
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: to have a good season, all right, Thanks buddy, Thanks Zach. Yeah,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: all right, and that's a wrap. I will just remind
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: you that If you're not already following Zach and the
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: Hunting Public team, you gotta check them out. They're producing
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: some of the very best white tail content out there.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: Their deer tours kicking off and just a matter of
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: probably days from when this episode drops, so be sure
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: check out the Hunting Public on YouTube, They're on Instagram,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: they're on iTunes, basically anywhere you want to find stuff.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: They've got something. So check out what Zack's doing and
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: the whole through. Give him, give him a subscribe, watch
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: their content and you will not regret it. So that's
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: all I got for you today. Thanks for listening, appreciate
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: you being here. Best of luck with your archery practice,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: with your final scouting, with your trail camera polls, whatever
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: you're doing, get after it, have some fun, and until
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: next time, stay wired to hunt.