Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 261: Late Season Deer Hunting with Will Brantley

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Ep. 261: Late Season Deer Hunting with Will Brantley · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This episode number two hundred and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: sixty one, and today in the show, we're joined by
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Field and Stream hunting editor Will Brantley to discuss late
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: season hunting tactics, last minute hail Mary strategies, and lessons
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: learned from his two thousand eighteen season. All right, welcome
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and today, as I just mentioned, we are joined by
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Will Brantley and he's gonna be joining me shortly. He
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is a serious white tailed nut. He's a terrific writer
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and editor and someone you'll find frequently within the pages
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines. And he's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: also just a just a good guy. I can't remember
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: if I told this story or not on the podcast
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in the past, but way back when I was still
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: working in my full time job, before I had a
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: podcast or anything like that going on for written for magazines,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I met Will at a film school and while there
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  Speaker 1: I was just kind of peppering him with all sorts
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of questions about how to get started in the industry
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and how to get published in magazines and everything like that,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and he was just so gracious and patient to to
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: listen to a crazy kid like me and to answer
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: all those questions. It was it was just a huge help,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and it really, I think in many ways led to
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  Speaker 1: directly to me being able to get published and you know,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: all the subsequent um things that I've been able to
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  Speaker 1: do over the years since he had a he had
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a big hand and all that. So all that is
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to say that Will is going to be a great
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: guest and on our show today with him. You know,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: given the fact that the final days and weeks of
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the hunting season are here for many of us. Some
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  Speaker 1: of you maybe your season is already closed, but for
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks there's still little this season left.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Because of that, I wanted to do two things. Number One,
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  Speaker 1: for those of you that are still hunting, I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to pick Will's brains for some new ideas, some different
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: things we can be thinking about right now to kill
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: mature deer as we enter this final phase of the season.
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  Speaker 1: And then secondly, I want to get Will to participate
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  Speaker 1: in what I personally like to do at this time
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  Speaker 1: of year, which is this season and review where we
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: look back on lessons learned, maybe some mistakes made, maybe
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: some changes we want to make in the future. I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: kind of had Will kind of go through a review
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: like that with me too, and we learned some really
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: interesting things. So that's what we did. I think it's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a really interesting conversation. I'm excited for you to hear it.
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  Speaker 1: But real quick, before getting to that, I do want
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  Speaker 1: to make one quick plug. Uh. If you've been listening
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to the podcast This Fault, you've heard me talk a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: lot about this Michigan buck I was hunting this year,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: started calling Frank. You know, I ended up killing him
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  Speaker 1: a few weeks back. You heard me tell the full
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: story in the podcast. You've heard all about it, but
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: now you can actually watch it. The film from that
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  Speaker 1: hunt has finally launched, and I'm just really excited about it.
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  Speaker 1: Um As you know, this dear was the was the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: largest and most impressive deer I've ever had the chance
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  Speaker 1: to hunt. So so that's cool on its own, but
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  Speaker 1: more than that, it was just such a such a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: cool experience, such a cool hunt. The way that kind
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of my My season began kind of a disappointment around
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: holy Field disappearing, but then having this wonderful surprise. The
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: way that all came together in this film, I think, um,
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  Speaker 1: it just turned into something I'm really really happy with,
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  Speaker 1: So I'm excited for you all. Check it out. You
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: can head on over to the Wired to Hunt YouTube
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  Speaker 1: channel to watch it. The title of the video is
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  Speaker 1: my once in a lifetime Michigan Buck, So check that
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  Speaker 1: one out. I hope you enjoy it. I thank you
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  Speaker 1: for watching it. And with that out of the way,
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  Speaker 1: I think we should just get right to the first
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: episode of two. All right with me now on the line,
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  Speaker 1: we've got to repeat guest, my buddy Will Brantley from
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Field and Stream. How are you well? I'm good, Mark,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Aw you done, buddy, I'm doing doing great. It's it's
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: been a little while too since we've been able to
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  Speaker 1: catch up, so just personally, I'm kind of glad that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: we're able to do this. So thanks for making the
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  Speaker 1: time to chat. Oh absolutely, man, I'm glad you had
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: me on and yes, and in too long since we've
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: been able to sit down and chat deer hunting. Looks
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: like you had a heck of a good season. Huh. Yeah,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't complain it went. It went pretty well.
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  Speaker 1: So it's one of those things. Though. Now that we're
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: into the new year, I'm just trying to knock on
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: wood or cross all my fingers and make sure whatever
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: whatever mojo I had doesn't disappear. Oh yeah, yeah, no,
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  Speaker 1: it was. I was kind of like you this year.
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  Speaker 1: I sort of had a a little bit of a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: lucky rabbit foot in my pocket this dear season. For
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: whatever reason. My wife told me several times, you need
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: to get out and by damn lottery too something and
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: uh and yeah. As the season kind of comes to
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  Speaker 1: a close. On the one hand, I'm like, well, um,
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  Speaker 1: I'm kind of ready to be down with deer heading
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: for the year and start thinking about some other stuff.
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  Speaker 1: And on the other hand, I'm like, man, I hope
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: this luck kind of sticks around for next year. So yeah,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: but those are those are good problems behalf. It is.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: It is. It's funny, you know, I was. I was
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: talking about this the other day as I was thinking
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: through my season, and um, you know, one of the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: things I noticed is that so often when it comes
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to you know, in particular if you're trying to hunt
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: mature white tails. So often the difference between filling a
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: tag and not could just be the tiniest, tiniest little details.
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  Speaker 1: You know, It's like it's a game of inches, and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you know you could look at For me, it was
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a difference between my two thousand seventeen season and my
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen season. Largely did the same things, largely
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: put in the same amount of work. Um, But in
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: two thousands seventeen, all those tiny inches went on the
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  Speaker 1: wrong side of the scale. This year, all the tiny
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: things were on the right side of the scale, and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I filled those tags this year. I didn't film last year.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And it's just you know, it's just like this, by
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  Speaker 1: the skin and your teeth, they can make all the difference.
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  Speaker 1: Oh it isn't it. I mean, man, that is just uh,
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  Speaker 1: let's just hitting the nail on the head. I mean
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  Speaker 1: the the buck that I killed in Kentucky this year. Um.
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  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you credit the hard work you put
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  Speaker 1: into it in the food plots and uh stand placement
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and playing the wind and all the things that go
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: with it. But like really getting that buck into bow
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: range the morning that I did, Um, I've seen him
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  Speaker 1: quite a few times. It all kind of came down
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  Speaker 1: to a water puddle in the field. Um, we had
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a big rain a few days before, and um, the bucks, well,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the deer that uses field and you know, in general,
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  Speaker 1: we've got about half of it in food plot. In
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  Speaker 1: the other half just kind of you know, just kind
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of follow field and they'll walk up one of two
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  Speaker 1: lanes on one side of the field of the other
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  Speaker 1: and m and for whatever reason, for a few days
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  Speaker 1: they had most of the buck traffic had been on
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  Speaker 1: the other side of the field. They had just started
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  Speaker 1: using that lane. And of course the standard I had
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  Speaker 1: set was was to hunt a lane on on the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the field where the deer traffic had
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  Speaker 1: been like all season. And I the morning that I
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  Speaker 1: killed that deer, I was sitting there thinking, I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: move this stand like I you know, I've sat here,
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  Speaker 1: I've watched several shooter bucks go down that field on
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  Speaker 1: the other side. But we've had a huge rain and
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  Speaker 1: there was just a big water puddle kind of blocking
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  Speaker 1: the trail on the other side. And when my buck
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  Speaker 1: came out, he came out in the food pud and
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  Speaker 1: he's kind of meandering down. I'm like, well, here we go,
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  Speaker 1: he's gonna take the other path. And it's like you
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  Speaker 1: got it to that water puddle and just stepped around
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  Speaker 1: it right on my side and walked through my shooting lane.
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  Speaker 1: So uh, you know, at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, you credit a little something like that,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, I guess that's where the old thing
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  Speaker 1: better be. It's better to be lucky than good comes from.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that every day.
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  Speaker 1: And so often though, it's you know, you want to
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  Speaker 1: be in a position where the luck piece is like
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  Speaker 1: the final piece of the pie, and it's not the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: first piece of the pie, because if it's the and
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  Speaker 1: I think that's the situation where you can do everything
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  Speaker 1: you possibly cand to be in that situation and take
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  Speaker 1: advantage of when it comes. So that's pretty awesome. Um.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to kind of focus most of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: our conversation on late season, you know, because it's beginning
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of January in my season in Michigan just closed, but
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  Speaker 1: there are a lot of people still that still have
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a few weeks in some states of a month. Um,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: but I guess before we do that, I kind of
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  Speaker 1: am intrigued by what you just mentioned with your hunt
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  Speaker 1: there in Kentucky. Um, and I know, I think I
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  Speaker 1: saw you killed a really nice deer in Tennessee too,
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  Speaker 1: Is that right? I did? Yeah? Yeah, I killed him
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  Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving morning, and and that one was just almost
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  Speaker 1: pure luck. Shot him while I was walking to the
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  Speaker 1: stand after getting out there late. But um, you know
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  Speaker 1: he was he was chasing the dough and uh, you
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: know knew the deer was in the area. Um or
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: knew a nice deer was in the area, you know.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: We Um it's a place that a buddy from from college.
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  Speaker 1: Now we've we've of this this farm for quite a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: few years. Of course, I live right on the Tennessee line.
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  Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, it's not like it's a big
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: long trip for me to get there. I buy a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: license for both states every every season, and and it's
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: been nearly as much time hunting in Tennessee as I
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: do in Kentucky. But this farm that that my buddy
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: and I've been hunting, um, it just has a lot
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of deer on it. Um we've never uh we've we've
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: never run many trail cameras there. We don't have any
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: food plots. We don't have any mineral science, but it's um,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it's just a good mix of habitat. It's kind of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a kind of a long, really thick, uh series of drainages.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: That's it's kind of surrounded, uh in the big picture
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: by a lot of agg fields. And we've hunted it
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: early season, we've punted it late season. But we've we've
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: come to realize here in the last few years that um,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you know, after a few years of hunting, that we've
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: we've figured out where, you know, some of the sweet
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: spots are, especially during the rut, and um, so we've
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: kind of uh kind of adopted the approach of you know,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: we we make sure our stands are are setting and
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and everything's checked out and uh, new straps
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and all of that, new lifelines and stuff are all
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: are all on the stands and they're ready to go
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and ready to hunt, but we don't, uh, we don't
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: step foot in there to hunt until usually about the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: first in November. And man, we've killed some really nice
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: year there in the last couple of years by doing that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: And this one, this one that I killed this year
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  Speaker 1: was was one of those, uh, one of the stands
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that I like to hunt. There a lot of a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: lot of bucks on there, and um, you know, like
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I said, it was Thanksgiving at the rope still going on,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: but it was kind of getting at that stage where
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: it was late in the rut and definitely getting to
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that stage where I had been in a tree a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: lot and was was tired of getting up early and
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: tired of sitting in the stand and I just almost
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: slept in that morning and um, last minute other side
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of what I'll, I'll get up and go for a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: little while. And UM was honestly, um looking to shoot
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a dough or two that morning. I had a had
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: a new rifle that I was that I was field
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: testing that I was gonna be taking on a nail
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: count later uh later that month, and just kinda was
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: wanting to get some time with that. But got out.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: There was a clear cold morning and I was sneaking
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: my way to the tree and it's already daylight, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: UH saw a dough standing uh standing in one of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the little uh roadways there that the farmer uses to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: kind of get his uh get his UTV around the place.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And sat down and was, um, you know, kind of
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: thinking about shooting her, honestly, and then this book stepped
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: out right behind her, and um, by the time I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: got on him, he was back in the woods and
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: they sort of, you know, chased one another around there,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and then he came out and gave a shot. So, um,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: that one was a lot of luck involved in that one,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: but I'll definitely take it. So he was a really nice, big, big,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: pretty eight pointer. Yeah, beautiful inful deer. Um. So now, yeah,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: maybe it was a little bit lucky that you were
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: walking in and happen to see that dough and and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: got set up on her. But was there anything that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you did, whether it be walking in carefully that morning
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and to keep an eye out, or or was it
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: other things you did in the month leading up to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it that that you think maybe you could credit for
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the fact that this buck was even around. Well, I
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: think I think, um definitely, I mean on the walk end,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean I was, I was carrying a rifle,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and if you're um, you know, if you're carrying a rifle, uh,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: just because you sleep in, just because you don't get
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: out there until daylight, until it's light and if I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: mean it was light enough to shoot when I got
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: out of my truck. Um, but I though the deer
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: were going to be on the move, and you know,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: also it was UM, I wasn't stressing getting into the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: stand a little bit late, a whole lot anyway, because
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: it was going to be a really clear, calm morning
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and it was pretty cold that morning. We had a
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: real heavy frost. And UM that's something that that I've
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: heard the juries talk about a few times, and that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: UM and their experience they they see, you know, the
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: heaviest deer movement on on those really heavy frosty mornings,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: um on up in the morning after after that frost
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: burns off. And I've absolutely found that to be true
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: around here. And UM, and so I wasn't I wasn't
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: really expecting just a ton of action until later in
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the morning anyway. But yeah, I mean I was. I
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: was picking my way to the tree. I picked a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: route where I knew I would have the wind in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: my face as as I worked my way to the stand,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And so I mean I was, I was hunting my
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: way there. And I've done that a lot over the years.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not always in the stand uh an
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: hour before daylight. Sometimes I found that, UM, you can
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: get a shot at a deer on the way to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: your stand, especially if you you know, if you happen
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to be gun hunting, then uh, it can actually be
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: more effective to sleep in for a little while. So yeah, yeah,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Actually it's those little things that you do it as
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a as an experienced hunter. You maybe didn't give it
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: too much thought afterwards, But in the fact that that
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you were careful walking in, that you thought about the
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: wind when you were heading in, that you hunted your
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: way to your stand, I think there's a lot of people,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: especially newer hunters, that in that situation, they'd be like,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I just gotta barge in there, get to my stand
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: real fast, not worrying about anything, and in that same
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: situation might have never had that chance that you had. Um. Well, yeah,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and I mean there there's so many I mean, any
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: time you go into the deer woods. Um, whether it's
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: to man, whether it's to check a trail camera or
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: put a you know, put a fresh strap on a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: on a tree stand, whatever it is that you're going
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to do, should always go in carefully, should always go in. Uh,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you know you can't you can always go in with
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the wind in your face. But at the very least,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: like you know, if it's a place that you've hunted before,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: you should have an idea where the deer likely to
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: be at any given time of day, and just about
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: practice really where or less at the time of year.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I don't like to walk in and blow my scent
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: right into what I know is a betting area if
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: if I can help it at all, and uh, you know,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and and then obviously if I'm if I'm hunting, if
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'm a little late getting to the tree, whether it's
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: early in the morning or late in the evening, you know,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I've gotten in the stand before with just an hour
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a daylight left, and your chances of killing one are
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: still better there than they are on the counts. But um,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna run into my stand and break a
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: sweat and spook deer on the way. And if I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: can help it, I'm gonna try to hunt my way
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: in there so white tails can be killed off the ground. Yeah, yeah, true,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: It's it's something that I feel like, it's it's kind
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of picking up momentum again as far as trendiness in
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the white tail hunting space, first it was with ground blinds,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Papa blinds, and everything, and now you're starting to see
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: some people getting into spotting stock a little bit. I
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: actually killed one with a bowl on the ground this year.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, yeah, you killed one at West somewhere,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: didn't know. Yeah, Nebraska just kind of was sneaking in
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it was gonna hang a hanging a saddle and hunt,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: but then ended up seeing a nice buck on the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: ground and made a stock on him and ended up
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: setting up in some seaters and killed a different buck
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: about an hour or two later. But but it kind
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: of opens your eyes to the possibilities out there. For sure. Yeah,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: for sure. Um So, now that we're talking about this,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: we just talked about this Tennessee hunt. You mentioned that
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the buck you killed in Kentucky. Um, this time of year,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of my conversations with the folks and with
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: some of my friends who are locally revolve around kind
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of a year and review, you know, looking back on
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the whole season and trying to think about what do
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: we learn, what mistakes do we make, what do we
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: want to do differently next year. Um So, since we're
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: already kind of on that topic, I saw that you
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: wrote a little article kind of in the same vein
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: over on Field and Streams website reviewing some of your
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: top late seat or not in late season, your top
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: season lessons um from two thousand eighteen. Um, you know,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: when you look back on this past season, are there
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a few things that really stand as far as what
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: you learned or what you took away from this year? Yeah?
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: For sure. I mean I'm kind of mentioned in the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: lead of that story. I mean, you know, just purely
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: going by the numbers, I had a good year. I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: shot a couple of nice books and and kill a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: few those for the freezer, and um. Just I mean,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: you just had a good season. I mean, if you
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: purely measure success by you know, by deer tax fill,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it was a good season. But um,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: but more than that, um, And I suppose it's a
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: it's a product of of doing what we do for
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a living. You know. I'm always looking for some little takeaway, uh,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: some little lesson that I can that I can learn
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: from the woods and um cash back when I was
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: when I was freelancing full time, I would get in
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a stand and I would constantly, constantly be looking for
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: little details that I could work into some kind of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a story. Pitch, you know, something that helped me be
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: successful and and so um with an eye for those
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: things this you're in particular, I had a lot of takeaways, um,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: just things that that really seemed to you know, that
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: really seemed to work for me and um, and that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: was kind of one of the one of the goals
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of putting that story together. And so um. Some of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the things that I wrote about in that piece, I
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: mean they weren't uh. Some of them had to do
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: with uh, you know, well with with uh stand access
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and and it's kind of a lot in the vein
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of what we were just talking about about being careful, um,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: not only about how you go in but um, but
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: there but the routes that you that you choose and
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: really planning planning every setup around how you're going to
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: access it. And I think whenever I was, you know,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: whenever I was a newer hunter, I would see a
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: spot that that looked really good, see a lot of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of deer sign or see a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: lot of deer, and man, I've got to have my
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: stand up right there the next evening and um, you know,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: kill a lot of deer like that. But it sometimes
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you would uh you could burn a spot up pretty
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: fast like that. And I've come to uh, come to understand,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and I think it's also personally due to um, you know,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: having a couple of small properties of my own hunt
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: um and and hunting them for a lot of years,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you start to realize, you know, you can see things
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: um in the deer movement with your own two eyes
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that the trail cameras. You know, trail cameras are an
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: amazing tool, but there's certain things that they just can't
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: teach you, you know that that actually hunting a place
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: for a few years can and so UM you start
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to those things, and you start to
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: kind of put together some you know, some plans uh
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: for you know, for future sets. And I think one
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of the things that I've learned above all else about
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of my setups, especially sets for mature deer,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: is that you know, how you get in and out
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of a stand uh uh is at least of it
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: at least as important as you know, really like the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: you know, how good a sign uh is around that stand,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: or how good the pine point is or on that
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: stand or whatever it is that you're set up on.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You have to be able to get in and out
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: of it without spooking deer. And it's it's just it's
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: just hugely important and so I've kind of made it, um,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of a point with with all of
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: my sets. You know, you always have a spot in
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: mind of of where you're gonna shoot the deer. Whether
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: it's a you know, whether it's a you know, pinch
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: point that you're hunting with a with a path in
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: front of it, or a or a scrape line or
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a bait pile or a food plot or whatever it is,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you always have somewhere in mind where you're planning to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: shoot the deer. And not only do you want to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: hunt the wind direction on that, but man, I just
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: made it a practice. I do not want to cross
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that spot either getting into or out of my stand
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: where I plan to shoot the deer. And um, you know,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: it's it's a simplistic rule and there's more to it
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: than that, obviously, but just by following at rule alone, UM,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I found that you bump way if you're a deer, Um,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: then you will, you know, if you've got to walk
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: across the food plot or whatever it is in the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: dark to get to your tree, so that's definitely a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: big one. Um, definitely an important one, you know. On
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that note, something that I remember reading I don't know
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a few years back that the kind of stuck with
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: me was an idea that that Bill Winkie was talking
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: about when he mentioned that more often than not now
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: he well, he used to and you kind of alluded
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to a similar thought process. He used to pick a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: spot to hunt based off of whatever the destination was
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: for the deer, like whatever it's the scrape or the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: food plot or the whatever. And then he would say, Okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: now I see this thing that you're gonna want to
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: use that the deal will be passing by. Now where
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: do I find the tree? And he finds the tree
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: he wants to hunt, and then he thought about, okay,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: now how do I get in out of here? And
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: he said that that seemed to be maybe the wrong
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: way good about it? And he started reversing that, and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: he started saying, Okay, what are the best ways I
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: can get in and out of this property? And he
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: finds a different access and exit routes, and then he
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: started saying, okay, now where is there a good tree
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and a good reason to hunt along that great exit
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: or access route. I thought that was a really interesting
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: way of looking at things again, pointing to the necessity
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: as it's it's yeah, that's that's exactly right, And I
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: mean that's um, you know, that's a that's definitely probably
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a more concise way of saying what I just rambled
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: on and said. But uh, but yeah, it's absolutely true.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It's it's kind of a reversal and thinking as a hunter.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we are looking for um, that great food stores
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that you know, that hot fresh sign, and like, man,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you know, how do I set up around this? Um?
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And obviously that stuff is still really important to find.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's the essence of scouting for deer um.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: But when you're thinking of how to hunt it, uh,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes right over the top of that sign
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: or right over the top of that hot spot is um.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it just can't work um, or or it at
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: least can't work more than a sit or two before
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you know those they are gonna be onto you. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: planning something like that especially, man, I think it's especially
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: importantly if you're hunting smaller properties. Um. You know, a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: lot of guys are you know, they have a fire
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: place and that's where they hunt the duration of the season,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and um, you know to to continually. Um, I'm not
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of the opinion that you know that a small property
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: is something that you can only hunt, you know, a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: couple of times a year and then it's burned out. Um.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I've I've seen that that's just not true
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: on our farms. But you do have to be careful
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: how you hunt them, and you have to be careful
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: about you know, where you you know, where you set
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: up and win. Now later in the season, Um, you
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: know it's you get to this time of year when
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: time is running out. Yeah, I'll start moving, you know,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: deeper into the core of the property and and start
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you know, pushing those souh, pushing those rules a little bit, um,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: just to you know, just kind of as a hail
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: mary chance to to get a chance at a big deer.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, if you bump one out during
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the last week of season on, he's got all the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: next all summer to get over it. So um, but
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you know, to manage that hunting pressure throughout the season
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that stand access, it's really important. Yeah. You know another
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: thing I saw you mentioned when it came to access
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in your article was how you found some success using
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: an a TV to get picked up on locations, and
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: that has been that's been a world changer for me too.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I've been able to sucker my wife into picking me
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: up from one of the small properties that I hunt,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and that I don't think I would have killed the
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: buck I did in Michigan if it weren't for that,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: because it was in this little tiny area like five
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to ten acres. Probably that I kept having to hunt
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: because I was the only place where this buck was
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: showing up in daylight. So I hunted it a lot
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: more than you might think you should. Um. And if
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I had to leave, even by foot, I would have
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: spooked so many deer every time. But by getting the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a TV or the truck driven up close to where
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I was hunting, that allowed me to get away with
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: so much more. I thinks, Oh, yeah, yeah, I I
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: think so. I mean, you know, obviously, you drive up
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: on a deer in an a TV or on the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: tractor and your trop and we and we use all
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of the above. Um, you're gonna bump them off or
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: wherever they're standing. But gosh, man, I mean over the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: course of the year, Um, the deer that I hunt
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: on our places, they see my tractor go by, they
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: see my truck go by, uh so many times. And
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and to the point where, like um, I have a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: lot of our best stands are set up right on
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: an access road. Our trail cameras are set up right
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: on access roads, or food plots are planted in such
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: a way that you can drive right up. Not all
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of them, but most of them. And that's um, that's
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: all by design so that you can get in and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: out of him. And yeah, I mean, UM, my wife
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Michelle probably deer hunts more and more than I do.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Probably maybe not quite as much as I did, because
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: she's the teacher and doesn't get the time, um, but
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: but she loves it. And so we just made it
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a point this year that that when both of us
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: were hunting, um, there was always a planned exit route.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, if one of us got stuck in
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the tree with with deer around, you know, we were
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: texting the other and like, hey, I'm stuck, You're gonna
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: have to come get me. And we did that all
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: season long, and it takes a little longer and sometimes
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you're less sitting in the dark in the tree for
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a while, but it is well worth it in the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: long run. Yeah, yeah, agree, speaking of that kind of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: this kind of I guess thought process to how you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: approach your hunting season, just being really detail we're in it,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: or trying to be smart and strategic about it. Another
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: one of the points you talked about was um persisting smartly,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: you know, making sure well, I guess rather me trying
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to explain it. Can you explain what you meant by
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that in the example you shared? Yeah, Well, I mean
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: you take all of the uh, you know, all the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: points that we talked about, um about good stand access,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's the entry and exit route that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: you're taking on foot. We've got some stands that we
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that we access by boat, um, you know, or if
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: it's in a spot where hey, I'm gonna have to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: have somebody come pick me up the dark on the tractor,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: you know, on a four wather or something. Um. Take
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: all that stuff in the in the mind, um and
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and put it into place. And then like I was
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: talking about with with a small farm, I mean, um,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: there's been kind of a kind of a trend I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: guess in the in the deer hunting world, particularly you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: for guys who are really after mature deer. That that
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I've noticed as a as a writer and communicator in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the past five or six years, and that, um, guys
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: are very cautious about when they hunt and they want
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: to be sure that that the conditions are just ideal,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that that all the stars are aligned perfectly before they
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: ever make a move. And I mean being conservative, I
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: think is is great. Uh, it's a it's a it's
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a good strategy. But you know, I've also seen it
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: go to the extreme and where people almost talked themselves
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: out of hunting all together. And um, you know, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: then check a trap. Cameron. Guys, you know there was
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a big deer under your stand in broad daylight a
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: week ago and we're waiting on things to just you know,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to get you know, quote unquote right. And so man,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: it's uh, you have to go. Um, you have to hunt.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And that persistence, um is is uh you know, is
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: what pays off in the long run. I mean it's
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: time in the tree and I mean you know it
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: as well as anybody. Um. During the early season, Uh,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you're hunting bachelor groups of bucks here in Kentucky, UM,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that are coming to a food source, but they're not
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: coming to the same spot every single night. You watch
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a bean field, you know, five nights in a row,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and you may see the group every night, but um,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: they only hit the same trail twice, and so you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: just have to play the odds. And it's just you know,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: it's pretty similar to the situation that you had with
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: your deer in uh in Michigan this year. You knew
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: where that deer lived. Um, you knew a couple of
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: areas that he was walking by. He didn't walk by
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: him every day, but you just had to put yourself
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: in that situation where you had seen him the most
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and you know, and then just stay after it. And
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: finally he walked by. And it's and it's the same way,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I think, regardless of where you're hunting white tails. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: so that's smart. Persistence means, you know, you're still doing
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: all the things. You're still planning your entry and exit,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you're still playing the win. Uh, you're still picking the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: stands based on the time of year and and your
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: most recent information and all that good stuff. But you
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: also have to just be in the tree. And man,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I you know, you hunt a whole month in November, Um,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: during the rud and and those whole day sits, you
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: you log a whole lot of time without looking at
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a deer and uh, and it's actually, uh, it's actually
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: pretty tough. But um, if you're there when that buck
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: finally walks by, that's that's when you get a shot
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: at him. And so that's that's what I meant by that, UM,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: persistence isn't just going hunting every day for the sec
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of going hunting. It's it's uh, making a good decision
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: about going hunting every day if you can, but most
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: people can't. So as as often as you're able to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: get out there, yeah, it's I feel like this is
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a huge turning point for me too, was when I
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: went from trying to hunt like by proof force to
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: then becoming a hunter that hunted much more, you know, strategically.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I guess I used to think if I hunted every
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: single day, every hour that I possibly could, that was
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: gonna kill me, dear. And you know, as we both know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: if if you're hunting just to hunt all the time,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: you're gonna you're quite likely screw things up unless you've
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: got a smart way to do it. UM. So making
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: that transition to starting to pay attention to the timing
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and conditions and when to hunt certain places and how
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to hunt certain places. But then to your point, you
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: can go too far in the wrong direction. So it's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: like finding that right balancing point where you're hunting enough,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: putting yourself in a position to be successful, but doing
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: it in a in a careful, well thought through a way.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's like I feel like this is more
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: of an art than a science, and more and more
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I dive into this, it becomes like this careful pulling
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of all these levers and almost I don't want to
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: call it a magical way, but it's just I don't know,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: every one of us has got to kind of build
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: this intuition or instinct around when to make these moves,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: when to pull back, when to strike, when to watch,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and that kind of comes with experience and messing up
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a lot and then learning from it. Right, Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I mean you as hunter, as you gain experience, you
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: start to recognize periods of time where you know what,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I'm probably not going to kill a deer today, and
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: it's better to uh, you know there to get caught
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: up on some work. And I went probably three weeks
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: in the month of October this year, with you know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: barely climbing into a tree. And Um, when I was
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a younger bow hunter man, I'd be in that tree
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: every day and shooting every day that walked by and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and having a big old time at it. But I
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: didn't get as many chances that mature bucks later on.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: And so um, with that being said, uh, when the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: conditions were right in November, Um, I was in a
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: stand just you know, every every minute that I that
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I could be. And so you learn to recognize when uh,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: you know, when the stars are aligning and it's it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: not gonna be probably not gonna be one particular day,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: but it might be a period of time. Um. Just again,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I keep using your your Michigan Buck as an example
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: because he's the perfect in that story, is a perfect
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: example of just what we're talking about. I mean, you knew, um,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that deer was there, and you knew he was moving
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: through there on occasion in the daylight, and the only
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: way you were going to kill him was to be
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: there when he happened to walk by you and you
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you know, either in bow range or finally with a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: gun in your hand. So um, that's that's what it takes. Yeah, yeah,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's always easier. What am I trying
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: to say here? Hearing that is one thing. Knowing how
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to execute on that though, is like the other. Right,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: it's a lot. It's a lot easier to say it
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: than do it. And I feel like it sometimes just
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: comes down to personally seeing the results once you do
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: start making the right decision when it starts like clicking
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to play sometimes. I mean, at least that was that
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: was how it was for me, and starting to see
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: some of these things come together helps helps a lot. Um.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So were there any other things that that really stood out?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I know you you listed a whole bunch of different
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: um examples, but were there any other top aha moments. Well,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: there's been a few on the land management front um
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: that I've been paying attention to for the last few years.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: But I think kind of um kind of really came
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: to fruition, so to speak, this year. Um, you know,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: one of them, uh is uh I had a point
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in there about timing your you know, your dough harvest. Um.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: You know, we we get in a zone one Kentucky County,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: so we we get unlimited uh antler us tags uh
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: in in several the counties that I hunt here in
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Kentucky uh and then in Tennessee. The units that I'm
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee, you can kill. I believe it's three does
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a day. And so we we shoot a lot of those.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: We we have a lot of deer here. The density
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: is pretty high, and um, you know, man, there's no
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: better practice for being able to hold it together on
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a big deer than shooting a bunch of dose uh.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And again, whenever I was a little bit younger bow hunter,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: I've man, I put that into practices about every time
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I was in the tree. If a dog came through,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I was you know, I was gonna shoot her unless
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: I could see a buck taser UM. But you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the last few years, um, I I've kind of changed
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that focus a little bit. We we still shoot a
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: lot of those, and I shot several this year. UM,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: But I like to I could really focus my dough
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: shooting in early September. And what I found is that
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you know, you'll you'll find some family groups of dose
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and then they'll move around uh and and established fall
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: ranges and things, just just the same way that bucks
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: will UM. And you'll really see a lot of that,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of that shifting around in the
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: early season. And but I found it like by by
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: the time the mass has fallen and they've you know,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: they've kind of gone through that. Uh. It seems like,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you know, about mid October, if you get a family
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: group of does that's hanging out in a certain area,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: be it, you know, around one of your food plots,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: you're your favorite white oakridge or whatever it is, they're
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be there through November if you don't mess
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: with them. Um, and uh, you know, if you're not
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: spooking them, and certainly if you're not shooting into them, um,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: they're probably gonna be hanging around. And there's just no
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: better place to be during the ruttan around a bunch
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: of oaks, I mean, the best bait that there is.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And um, and so that's um, you know that That's
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: definitely something I've learned, is you know, kind of blending
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the strategy of you know, as a manager, you wanna
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: try to keep the herd in check and and you
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: know shoot the correct number of those for a for
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: a property, but also as a hunter, um, you know
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: you need to put uh you need to keep those
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: things in mind, like why why are those bucks going
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: to be in a certain area during the rut, And yeah,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: they can pick a dough and get locked down with
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: but I'm not. I don't worry about that as much. UM,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: you know, during the rut, you know of having too
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: many dose around um within reason of course. UM, I
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have found that that no one, we're a family group
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: of those uh is feeding and where they're bedding and
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: honey really in essence hunting those those If I'm not
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: locked onto a particular buck on my cameras, if I
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: just hang out in that area where I know those
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: dose are gonna be, um, I'm in a pretty good
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: spot during the rut. And I think that, UM. It
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: certainly worked on on killing my my Kentucky buck this year,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: although I had a lot of trail camera pictures of that,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: dear and it and it definitely worked on my Tennessee buck. Um,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I knew there were kind of dose in that area.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: And um, you know, although I didn't have any pictures
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of that buck, I knew going in there in November
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: in a place where we hadn't been killing a lot
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: of those up to that point in the season was
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be a pretty good play. Yeah, So I'm
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: curious if you've ever seen this. I had. I've talked
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: to a few folks that have mentioned the idea of
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of actually paying attention in some places to specific Doe
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: family groups. And when you know, they tend when that
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: matriarch Dough maybe tends to come into heat and seeing
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: that happen kind of consistently. So this dope family group
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that seems to always be in this little section of
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the property, they tend to see like a bunch of
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: action around that area, and that dope family group maybe
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: we'll say early in November every year or maybe late October,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and then they see that same thing happened year after
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: year and have started to build a kind of focus
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: their hunts in different places based off of what they
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: think are year after year trends with the same does
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: coming in around the same time. Is that something you've
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: ever heard of or seen anyway or pay attention to. Well,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say, you know, I followed it as a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: as a year after year thing. I mean, again, we
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: have so many Doughs around here. It's you know, it's
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: difficult to pinpoint one family group um, you know, over
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the course of a few seasons. But I can say
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: that there's some areas of uh you know, of ideal
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: habitat um. You know a lot of times around food
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: plots and things, um, where you can depend on there
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: being uh one or two or several family groups of
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: dose And yeah, I mean over the course of a
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: single deer season, you'll see those individual groups and uh,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and you'll start to be able to pick out the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: individual animals and you can tell which, you know, which
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: dough is the matriarch and um, yeah, I mean you
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: just like I was saying while ago, if you can
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: pattern those groups of dose um and not spook them
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: on your way in and out of the stand, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: not shoot them when they come in there in the
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: bow range, however tempting it maybe uh, it's um, it
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: really is setting you up for a really good situation.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: And November and you know, like, um, the spot where
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I killed my Kentucky buck was on a food plot.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I had been seeing there at leased two maybe three
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: family groups of those hitting this plot just virtually every evening,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and and I'd hunted this this place a lot um
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: because I was seeing a few pretty good bucks in
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the early season that we're hitting these food plots on
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: occasion in the daylight, and these groups of those I
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: mean I came to recognize them, you know, when they
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: would come out and different groups would come out of
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: different areas on the field, and um, you know, right
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: around the first in November, Uh, they just um, you know,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: they just started disappearing. It seemed like you would still
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: see some of the fawns coming out, and and it
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: was a good you know, it's a good queue that
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: a couple of those older doughs were in heat or
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: at the very least they were tired of the young
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: bucks chasing them all around the fields. And um man,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: when I started uh started hunting that in uh in
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: early November, it was just a buck factory. I mean
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: they were dear that I had never seen cruising through
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: there at all hours of the day. And uh, you
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: know you uh that that wasn't by wasn't by accident.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think. Yeah, I love when that happens. So
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen, is there anything that you have
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: already thought through from this past season that you want
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: to do differently next year? Is there anything that you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: are not going to do again? Or that you are
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: going to fix, or that you're an altar based off
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: something you learned recently. Um, you know what I mean.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: I think I'm forever tweaking. Uh, you know, the actual
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: ambush the tree stands said, that's a ground blind set
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: up with whatever it may be. I mean, even with
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: you know, with all the factors in place of access,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: you know, you can almost always get in any tree
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and think, Man, I wish it was just a touch hower,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: just a touch lower, I'd cut this line. You know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, there's always some way to make it
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit better. And um, you know we're we're
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: in a situation on with a couple of our with
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: our family ground that that I hunt so much with
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: with the shells. She was in a pretty bad car
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: accident several years ago and uh and has some lasting
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: damage to her hip. And because of that, she has
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a really tough time, um, getting in and out of
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the lock on stand. She can do it as she
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: has to, but it's just that kind of that motion
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: of stretching her legs to make that last step and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: kind of swinging over into the stand like she can.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: You know, she might have pain for a few days
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: after that, and so as a result, we end up
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: hunting out of ladder stands a whole lot. And um,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you know, most of the ladder stands that you bow
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: off the store shelves are about eighteen feet tall, and
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: you can get away with it with a bow, um,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: particularly if you're very careful about them. But um, at
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: the same time, they're definitely not as effective as uh
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you know, as a as a lock on stand or
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: even the climber um that's you know, a foot you know,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: or higher up in a tree. And so when I
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: look at that, I mean, I definitely want to take
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: some of our sets where we you know, where we
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: have ladder stands that might be a little bit shorter.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I want to get some color stands in there, and
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: uh you know too, Um, I want to look at
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: some other ways that we might be able to help
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Michelle get in and out of some lock on stands
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: that are a little bit higher, because I definitely believe
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: that being higher up in the tree, you know, just
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: as a as a practical rule means you get busted
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: by feer deer. Um you know, say you know that
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: it's a it's an age old debate that deer hunters
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: have you know, how how high does the stand need
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: to be? And yeah, I mean I've killed them off
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the ground as we were talking earlier, and I've killed
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: him out of stands that were ten feet off the ground.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: But day in and out, Uh, if I can be
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: twenty ft or higher in a tree, that's where I
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: want to be. And so, um, it's something that I
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: want to look at a little bit uh next year.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: And then there are always things that I want to do,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: um from a management perspective, I mean, new food pods
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: that I want to try, Um, you know, new areas
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: that I I do a lot of a lot of
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: prescribed burning in the in the in the late winter,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and areas that that I want to um that I
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: want to burn this year, and and you know, kind
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: of rechards some old fields. And then also I'm I'm
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: kind of starting to get into trapping a little bit.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm wanting to you know, uh do my part
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: to take a few coyotes off the landscape and hopefully
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: reduce a little fun predation and things like that. So yeah,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: I mean there's always always a to do list. So
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: that's that's what January for, right, it is making a
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: bunch of resolutions that we that we can't keep, hopefully
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: that we can keep. But but yeah, man, the wheel
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: never stops turning on the white tail season, though, doesn't it.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just every month of the year there's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: something you can be working on or thinking about. And uh,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: I guess that's that's why I love about It can
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: really be such a such a great part of your
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: entire year. All right, Well, before moving on to our
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: next kind of topic of conversation, I want to take
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: a quick second to thank our partners at White Tailed
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Properties and Spencer New Hearth. We'll take it from here.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: This week with White Tailed Properties, we were joined by
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Andrew Schultz, a land specialist out of Illinois. And Andrew
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: is going to be telling us about how shopping for
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: land in the winter is different than other times of year.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: You know, there's lots of differences, but the main difference
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: is the foliage that's um out on these properties. So
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: with the lack of foliage, it's great for being able
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: to walk around that property, um see deer sign from
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the past season, really get an idea for what trees
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: around the property? Uh, what types of species of plant life?
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: And animals are using the property, and so that's gonna
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: be the best reason for looking at ground in the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: wintertime versus the summer spring, when there's a you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: leaves on all the trees, it's hard to see, it's hot,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: there's mosquitoes, there's ticks. Might not be quite as enjoyable
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of an experience. Um, if it's me, I'm picking the
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: cold weather and I'm learning everything i can about that
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: property after most of the hunting seasons are over and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you can see a lot of the property. Um, that's
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: my favorite time to walk a farm to really and
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: truly learn a lot about it and do so fairly easily.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more and to see the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: properties that Andrew currently has listed for sale, visit white
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: tail properties dot com Backslash Schultz. That's s h U
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: L t z. Um. But I guess you know, we
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: might be getting ahead of ourselves because there are a
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: lot of people still out there who who don't want
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: to do a season and review yet because they still
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of season left. Um. I know I've
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: got friends still in Iowa that are hunting, and other's
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Ohio definitely as a whole lot of time. There's a
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of states with times still left. Hum, So I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: want to make sure we touch on that, touch on
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: some late season hunting kind of hell Mary, late season
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: kind of things that we could try to pull off
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: here at the end of the season the beginning of
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the new year. And this kind of came to mind
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: for me because you guys had a recent feature. Um,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I think it was the most recent issue of Field
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and Stream. You guys called it The Closers, and you
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: interviewed four different hunters about their four really unique approaches
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: to hunting the late season. I really, I really was
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: intrigued by some of what these guys had to say. Um,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you covered one guy who was hunting out on the
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: planes kind of spotting stock late season hunting. Then you
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: had your more traditional hunting food sources late season approach.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Another guy talked about tracking deer in the snow, um,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and then another suburban hunter. So some really interesting unique
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: ways to think about hunting here in December, January, etcetera. Um,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: can you can you kind of walk through I don't know,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: were there anything? I know you worked on that piece
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: some as well as a couple other guys. Were there
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: any of those late season, I years, or strategies that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: stuck out to you is particularly interesting or are worth noting, Yeah,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: for sure, Um, you know, and and and just kind
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of to your earlier point about opportunities, I mean, um,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: here in Kentucky, the archery season runs for several more
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: weeks here in the mid January and uh in the
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: gun season, I believe it's still in in Tennessee. So uh.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: And then guys should get a little farther south from here,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: down in the areas of Alabama and Mississippian things. I mean,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the rut is just now uh kicking. So um for
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: for a Southern hunter, there's a you know, the late season,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of opportunity. Um. And you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to to that point, one of the guys that, uh
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that that I interviewed for for that Closers feature was
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: was j Maxwell and Ja lives uh in the Atlanta area,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: and um, he's one of those guys. Man. I've talked
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to j a bunch over the years. Um. He killed uh.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I believe at the time it was the state record
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: both kill in Georgia killed it, um in Fulton County
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: killed it in a you know, barely in the suburban
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and he killed that deer during the rug just this giant,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: non typical and I interviewed him for you know, for
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: a few different stories, um when he killed that deer.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: And he's one of those guys that you get him
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: on the phone and you can just tell that, man,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: this this guy is a hunter. Um really, regardless of
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: of what the what, what the critter at hand is,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, dear turkeys or whatever. I mean, you can
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: just tell that this guy is good at it. Um. Uh,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: both by the things that he says and and you know,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the you know, the skills that he brings up. He's
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: he's just good. And so always UM, I always like
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: to get J on the phone and discuss different tactics,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: and in this case, we were we were discussing kind
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: of late season hunting in the South. Uh. And um.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: He he has places where he can go out and
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: hunt in the county and traditional farmland, but he prefers
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: to hunt actually in those suburban woodlots in Atlanta. UM,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: partly because a lot of them are boh only there's
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: a pretty high deer population and then there guess just
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: some stud bucks down there. And he's he's shot quite
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: a few of them. And so you know, in the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in the Deep South, um, you know, your your late
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: season weather can feel you know, it can feel a
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: whole lot like October. Uh. In the in the Upper Midwest,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I mean it may be you know, maybe fifty degrees
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: for days on end, and um, you're not getting a
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: lot of really cold weather that's forcing deer in the
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: you know, in the big agricultural food sources. And then
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: in the place like a like a suburb of Atlanta,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: those food sources don't exist, you know, the deer eating
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: whatever brows they can find between one subdivision and another.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: And so the things that that Jay does to uh,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to get on deer at that time of year, I thought,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: we're pretty interesting. And I mean they you know, it's uh,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: it's not advice that that only works there. It's um,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: it's advice that that can work really, I think regardless
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: of where you're hunting deer. And a couple of the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: things that he mentioned that I thought were really cool. One,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: he is a really aggressive caller. Um. You know he
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: was talking about how from about the first of October
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: to the end of season. I mean he is, uh,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: he's rattling, he's grunting, snort, weason, you name it. And
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: whenever I was, you know, a younger deer hunter, I
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: used to call a lot of used to rattle a
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: lot of saw it work on, you know, in all
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: the videos and things, and and wanted to tray from
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: my compen and I had some success with it. I
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: called in some deer um. But you know, I guess
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: over the years I became um more conservative as we
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, and so yeah, I might run
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: out of deer. I might rattle every now and then,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: you know, if I if I saw one out cruising
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: and didn't think I was gonna get a chance. But
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: beyond that, I didn't do a lot of blind calling.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I just you know, I didn't want to call any
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: unwanted attention to my setup, you know what I mean.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I figured I was in the right place, and I just,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: you know, gonna let things happen the way that happened.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: But um man J was talking about if he sees
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: a spike, he's calling at it and he's gonna try
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: to get it to the base of his tree. And
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you know, for for one, I think it gives him
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: confidence to call deer in and then he was also
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: saying that, you know, like when you're calling it a
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: little buck, you never know what's you know, just over
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the hillside listening. And so I personally, UM did a
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: whole lot of deer calling this year, a lot of
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: rattling a little ground man. I called in a ton
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of bucks, and it was just like once I called
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: in that first one of the season, it was just
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: like my confidence just got higher and higher. And UM
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: rattled in a bunch of deer in Kentucky and and
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: uh spent four or five days in Kansas. Of course,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: do in Kansas are pretty easy to call in, but
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: nonetheless you can uh, you know, when you're rattling in
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: several bucks a day, it just really gets your confidence
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: going and it works everywhere. And and I really I
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have done that if not for talking to
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: J about that. And he was referring specifically to the
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: late season when he said, you know, look the dear, Yeah,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: they're they're focused on food. The main part of the
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: rut is over, um, but that doesn't mean that it's
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: overall together. Um. You know, there are still some late
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: those fawns uh whatever, you know, whatever, they may be
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: coming into heat uh, throughout the winter and um, and
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: so the bucks are susceptible to coming into calls and UM.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: So you know it's uh, I think the strategy of
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: UM yeah, I mean you're definitely hunting diminishing food sources
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: late in the season, but you shouldn't just you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I guess in a in a way, you shouldn't forget. Um.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: You know some of the uh, some of the things
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: that um, you know that that that are potentially good
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: rud hunting strategies as well. Um. You know your dear
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: calling um folks and does again. I my buddy Miles.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: He's a Western hunting guy from Colorado. He was in
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: here a few a few weeks ago for our late
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: December muzzle letter season here in Kentucky. He killed a
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: really nice buck on our place that came out from chasing.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Does you know several weeks after the you know, the
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: rut is supposedly over. So UM. Jay said that in
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: you know, when I was interviewing him, that he didn't
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: really believe in a second rut, so to speak. He
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: just believes that, you know, once the first few does
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: come into heat. Um. Yeah, there's definitely a main event,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: but there's still some breeding that goes on right up
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: probably until the bucks are dropping their antlers, and I
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: kind of agree with that. So yeah, you know, I remember,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: as we're talking through this, I remember another thing I
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: think that Jay had said to which which kind of
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: alludes back to what we we're talking about earlier, when
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: it came to your tree stand heights and stuff like that.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I think he mentioned that he likes to hunt even
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: higher in the late season because of reduced cover. Was
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: that remember that, right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, he likes to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: get you know, twenty or twenty five feet up in
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: the tree. And I actually have the have the store
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: in front of me right now, and he he likes
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: to look for trees that have you know, two or
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: three trunks um, you know, or two or three big forks, um,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: just to just to break up the outline even more.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Because yeah, I mean, um, you know, if you're hunting
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the whole season, the would look a lot different in uh,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: you know, in in January than they do the first October.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: There's uh, you know, comparatively no cover out there, so um,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: getting those few extra feet up in the tree, I
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: think a really big difference. Yeah, yeah, it's I've I've
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: certainly experienced the downsides of not doing that on some
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: of my some past years, I've had like a go
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: to tree stand that's always so good, and then you know,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: forget about what it's going to be like in the
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: late season. Then I've got up there in late December
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and climb in there and just realize, oh wow, I'm
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: hung out to dry right now. And then the first
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: first mature dough walks in the in the range and
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: just spots you right away. I mean, there's no worse
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: feeling than that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's no good
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: at all. Um. Were there were there any other standouts
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: for you from from that piece, whether it be with
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: j or the other guys, maybe you talked to Dave
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: or Scott after their conversations with use, Well, you know,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's um, it's a it's a pretty foreign
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: thing to me living where I do. Or we may get,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: you know, a few dustings of snow a year. But
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Joe dinto the the guy who does uh, who does
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of tracking in the Adirondacks. I mean, that's
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: just cool, um, you know. And he's another one I
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: didn't interview Joe. That was that was one of Dave's pieces.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: But um, he's another one of those guys you can
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: just tell about what he says that that that the
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: as the hell of a hunter. Um and uh, you know,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: in that specialized situation, he sounds like he's probably pretty
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: good at it, and um, you know, and I think
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: one of the neat things was we think of I mean,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: at least I do. I've never you know, tracked the
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: buck in the snow, but I would think of it as, um,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: you know, probably something that's that's pretty tough to do.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Uh and and you know, get uh and get a
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: good shot at one and uh you know this guy's uh,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: this guy's point of view was like man like, um,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know why some why everybody doesn't do this
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: is the easiest way in the world to kill a
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: big here. And uh, you know, it was just neat
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to uh to see that and to see that perspective.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a different strategy from sitting in
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: a tree and trying to call him in or you know, uh,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: hunting Nebraska plat in the late season, whatever your usual
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: go to late season strategy is. I mean, tracking one
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: down in the snow in the Adirondacks and that's that's
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: pretty badass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time I read about
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: someone doing that, I get really intrigued and keep on.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm gonna try to plant trip like that for
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: next year, because it just seems like such an interesting
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: experience and such a great learning opportunity to I feel like,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I think that these days, we we just have got
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: so hung up on whether it be trail cameras or
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: you know, all these different things that allow you to
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: see big deer on food plots or out in the open.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: It's it's really easy to to rely on some of
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: these new approaches versus going back to just look at
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: things like tracks and kind of your old school woods
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: been shipped type of tactics. That there's something to those
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: as well. Um. So I'm definitely gonna try to start
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: focusing on things like that more myself and um And
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: it certainly seems like this this Joe is a perfect
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: example of how how effective it can be. One of
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the things he mentioned too that stuck out to me
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: is as smart um is the fact that a lot
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: of people when they try tracking deer in the late season,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: they're they're almost too conservative and careful and they just
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: like edge their way along so slowly the entire time.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: And he mentioned the fact that no, you need to
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you need to go walk fast and catch up to
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: that deer until you see him slow down. And the
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: way that you know he's going fast, I think that
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: he referred to as the deers on the highway when
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: he's just going straight. When you follow this big track,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: he called it a quote, holy shit track is what
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: he wants to wait for, I think. Um, and so,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: so move quickly when he's moving straight, because he's moving
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: quickly too. But as soon as you see him swing
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: to the left of the right, that's kind of the
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: sign that he's he's left the highway, he's got unto
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: the off ramp, and now he's heading towards home. Um,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: and so that's when all of a sudden, Okay, now
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: you slow down because he's slowed down too, and now
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: he's gonna be he's gonna start his kind of meandering
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: towards his bedroom. He's gonna stop in the kitchen and
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: maybe nibble a little bit. And you need to look
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: for those signs. And once you see that he's gone
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: off the off ram, then you stop and you glass
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: and you take one step and you stop and you glass.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Because I think, and I could be getting this confused
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: with another fifteen different pieces I've read about this kind
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: of hunting lately, but I think you said, you know,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: once you see them get off of the off ramp,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: you're probably within two hundred yards. I think was there
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: was the number you put out there, and um, and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: that was like a really really insightful specific piece of
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: advice there that I thought, Man, you could even if
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: you wanted in a late season kind of hail Mary
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: approach at this time of year, if you're down to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: your last couple of days of this season and you
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: don't have some kind of lockdown strategy where you know
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: this buck is going to come out to a food source.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: If you don't have something that lined up, what a
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: cool thing to try. You find a big track, even
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: on private land, even in Michigan or Tennessee or wherever. Um,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: if you've got some snow, give us a shot. You don't.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think you need to have the big to
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: the Adirondecks to to do it, And of course that helps,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: but you might be a fine success just right here
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: on smaller properties. Well, you know, it's one of those
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: situations where I think, um, you know, a big chunk
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: of public ground. Um, even if it's a big woods
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: public ground, you know most of the year you're gonna
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: look at that. It's like, man, I really wish I
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: had a nice private spot with a soybean field on
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: the hunt. But like in that situation, you need room. Um,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you need room to cut a track, uh, and you
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: need room to be able to follow it. You know,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: it would it would be a shame if, you know,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: if your passion was deer tracking and you you know,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: had to had to stop every day because the deer
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: got to a property line you couldn't cross. So I mean,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: in that situation, a big piece of public ground could
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: you know, could really offer an advantage. And I mean
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's um, that's probably one of the one
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why Joe looks to the Adirondacks. But
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, you look at that advice
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: that he ave about, you know, following the highway to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: the off ramp and all that. I mean, you think, gosh,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: what a what a woodsman to be able to like
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: to him, that answer is so obvious to give, but
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: to somebody who's never tracked a deer, You're like, oh,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: well that makes sense, you know, and uh, it's pretty
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: cool to get to talk to guys like that, um,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: who are just really really good at what they do,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: and it might be a really specialized way of hunting
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: that like you know, again I don't I don't get
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: any snow around here during deer season, so I'll probably
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: I may never track a deer, but it's still pretty
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: cool to read about it and uh and read about
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the way a really good hunter and a different part
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: of the country does things and and it's successful. Oh yeah, fascinating.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: So so then what's what's the Will Brantley late season recipe?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: How do you approach it? Well, you know, it's it's
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: not um, you know, For for one, I I personally,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: um haven't hunted the late season just a ton because
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: we're in a one buck state in Kentucky. And uh
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: most years, fortunately I've I've killed my buck by the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: late season. Um, but the last few years, uh, you know,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: I mentioned my buddy Miles, who's who's come in and
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: and uh hunted late season with us here. Well, gosh,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: she's been coming in six or seven years in a
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: row now, um and uh, and he's killed three good
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: bucks here in the past. He killed two this year.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: He killed one in Tennessee and and one in Kentucky
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: and uh and killed a good one uh in Kentucky
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: last year. And that was you know, both of those
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: were mid December hunts and kind of after the after
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: you know, definitely after our peak of the rut. But
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: still when some things we're going on. I still think
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: there were a few uh, you know, a few those
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: maybe coming in the heat, and definitely some bucks interested.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: But I think that the take away from from the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: good deer that that he's killed just in the past
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: couple of years during the late season has has definitely
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: been uh, you know, probably even more of a hyper
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: focus on some of the things that we were talking
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: about earlier about your stand access and um, you know,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: and choosing the conditions and things like that. And um.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: The deer that Miles kill with us last year, UM
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: was in a stand I knew, um, you know, about
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: where this deer was bedding. He was coming out of
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: a pretty big woods area with a lot of cutover stuff.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: I knew the deer was bedding in that area somewhere,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: and we'd hunted this deer pretty much all season, from
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: the early season through the rut around this one particular
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: food plot, and had gotten a lot of pictures of him.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: But I had a stand set in this bedding area,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: and um, we avoided it all season, mainly because there
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: was no way to drive a four wheeler into it
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: to get somebody out of it, and um, there's really
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: no way to sneak into it of a morning without
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: you know, you may get in there without bumping the deer,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: but you may not. But um, you know, I knew
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: after our gun season this deer was still alive, and uh,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and so we Miles and I kind of
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: went for broke. I said, you know, hey, we're gonna
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: put you. Uh, we're gonna put you in the stand.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: We may spook the deer before you get a shot
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: at him, but you know, we've only got a few
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: days of the season left, so this is where we're
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: gonna go. Um and uh, you know, there was a
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: little masked uh left in this in this area. But
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: more importantly, I think it was just right on the bread,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: on the edge of where this buck was betting and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: kind of between where he was, you know, where he
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: was bedding and seeding all year long. And I mean
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: it wasn't wasn't rocket science on picking the spot, but
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: it was, you know, it was kind of that last minute,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: go for broke approach. And he killed that deer his
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: his first evening in that stand. So um, this year
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: was it was a little different. Um. You know, he
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: he he killed his buck, you know, chasing dose in
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: a food plot right before dark, out of a out
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: of a box line. And the and the buck that
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: he killed this year was was a deer that gosh,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: we had a ton of pictures of him two years
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: ago and then he just sort of disappeared and we
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: got killed. Um who's a real tall tight right eight
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: point A couple of years ago we named him up Tight.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Actually I hate naming dear, but this one just begged
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: for a name, so um and uh. And then I
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: was just out of town on a hunt and Michelle
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: was pulling trail camera cards and got a picture this
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: year and man, he'd gotten pretty uh, pretty cool, growing
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: a bunch of kickers and things around his bases and
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: just sort of showed back up around, like I say,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: around Thanksgiving and was sort of hanging around our food plots,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: and I assume, um, probably because we had a couple
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: of family groups of dose around there, and you know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: he showed up in daylight. My house killed him. So um,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: you know, good good food sources and and good stand
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: set ups. I don't think my strategy would change a
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: whole lot in the late season versus any other time
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: of year, other than I might get a little more
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: aggressive on some of the places that you know that
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit or you know, try to access. Yeah,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: that's an interesting point because I feel, at least for me,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: there's there's two times of year when I feel like
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: it makes sense to to go for the home run,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: to take that risky aggressive move. It's it's either the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: rut because you've got this disproportionate chance that deer going
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: to be a little bit off their game. There will
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: be a little bit um I don't want to say
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: stupider or something like that, but you've got a little
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: bit more of a chance of than making a mistake,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: and so it makes sense to kind of go for
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: the home run during the rut and then and then
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: to your point, this time of year, the late season,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: because what do you have to lose, right the season's
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: gonna end anyways, Um, might as well give it a shot.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: And UM, it's interesting that that worked out for you guys.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: And that kind of worked out my hunt. This this
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: bucket killed in Michigan. I he showed up in daylight
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: that morning. I saw him from a long distance away.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I was, okay, I have to get in there and
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: hunt right there tonight. But the wind was pretty darn
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: lousy for it. It was I would never I would
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: never hunt this area with that wind. But I said, well,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: it's it's December. He's here this this one day. He's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: not consistent at all. Um, he's been like once every
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, kind of dropping in. Um, I have
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: to I have to strike. It's kind of an now
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: or never. And so I tried to find a way
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: to to take a risky situation, minimize the risk as
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: much as I possibly could, but just went in knowing like, hey,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: there's a fifty chance it's either I'm gonna blow everything
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: out here or I'm gonna kill him. But sometimes you
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: have to you have to do that. Yeah, Yeah, you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: gotta have the confidence to you know, hey, all the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: all the pieces are here to tell me that there's
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a pretty good chance he's gonna come by this afternoon.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Now you know, he I'm a spooking But you know,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: like say, you've, uh, you don't have many many chances
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: left by this point in the season, so you've gotta try. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, Um, you mentioned those two things. Sometimes you're
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: more aggressive and you're smart water stand sites, and then
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: you've gotta be hunting the right food. Um. What what
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: kind of late season food sources are worth king in
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: on in the places of you hunt Tennessee, Kentucky. Um,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: whether it be you know, planted crops or native for it,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: what do you guys really focus on this time here? Well,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: so far as native stuff, Um, you know, mass is
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: still important at this time of the season. Now, we
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: had kind of a spotty mass drop here. It was
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: really really one of the best mass crops. I think
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: you can get the hunt and that some trees were
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: just dropping like crazy and others had nothing. So you know,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: if you could find a really good white oak that
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: was dropping, uh, you were gonna see some deer under it.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: But you said, by this point in the season, you know,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: most of the white oaks have been pretty well and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: but we uh, we have a lot of different red
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: oaks species, and um, although they're not as preferable to deer, uh,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: they still eat them, and they definitely eat them late
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: in the season. And what what I find around here anyway,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: is that on a lot of the oak ridges, the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: red oaks will tend to grow right on the very
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: tops of them. You know, I guess where the soil
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is isn't quite as good as what
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: I've been told anyway, And uh, you'll get a lot
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: of deer action, um cleaning those things up, some of
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: the big post oaka acrens and things like that. So
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: they definitely hit those, um if you can, if you
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: can find them, and and I mean again, uh hunting masts.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: It's um. Sometimes you you walk past a bunch of
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: trees and there seemed to be acron's land everywhere on
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the ground, and then you get to one particular tree
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: that they're hitting and that doesn't look any different than
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: any of the others. I can tell any difference in
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: the nuts, But for whatever reason, there's that one that
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: they like. And we you know, we we were running
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: in in Tennessee the other day and there was a
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: there was a red oak tree like that that for
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, that deer were hammering it and walking past
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: fifteen other red oaks, it looked just like it to
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: get to it. So um, so that's a that's a
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: big one. Um. You know, we still have some green
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: stuff um growing pretty much year around around here. You know,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: they'll be um different little pieces of uh you know,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: forbes and and native vegetation and things like that, and
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: and deer are always gonna gonna nibble on that stuff.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: And from a food plot perspective, I mean, I plant
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: most of my food plots are a blend of uh la, dinald, clover, chickory,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: and oats. Um. I do plant some brassicas, and a
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: lot of times they won't even eat them around here
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: until after the season goes out. We usually just don't
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: get weather cold enough to to really uh to to
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: make braskas that attractive. I mean, I have had some
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: askt plots that were hit pretty hard. But um, I've
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: got one that that I planted and I walked through
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the other day and they're turn ups the side of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: the softballs just laying there on the ground and it
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't look like they've been cut. They hit the they
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: hit the greens early, you know, when they're first coming up,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: and you actually can get some pretty good early season
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: hunting over him. But then through the course of deer season,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: they just they just don't mess with them. My whole lots.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: It makes a really pretty food plot, but they just
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: don't eat it a whole lot. So um, the clover,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the chickory, and the oats, I mean they in this
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: at this latitude, they are green just almost year around.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, if we get a really deep freeze, you know,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: late which which we usually will, I mean, they'll go
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: dormant for a while. Um, but from most of deer
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: season they're gonna be pretty green. And uh, and the
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: deer are gonna eat that stuff. I mean, if you
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: can get any really anything that's that's green like that, um,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: they're gonna be on. And then of course you're you know,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: your harvested grain fields, your your cut corn fields, and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: you're and your bean fields and things. They're gonna nibble
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: around in those and we get a lot of our um,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of our farmers will do a cover crop
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: of some sort um, usually wheat, sometimes uh, you know,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes rye. Every now and then some of the organic
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: farmers will will drow oats into the field. Uh di,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: coon rad issues will get some of those. But um,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: you know, any of those, any of those pit crop
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: fields that have had a cover crop, especially with a
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: cereal grain, are gonna have a lot of deer on
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: them this time of year. So yeah, yeah, definitely seen
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: similar things up here in Michigan. Um, no, no one
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: thing that is different. I imagine we talked about how
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: you know, there's this careful balancing act we have to
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: make all throughout the season between when do you strike
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: when you get aggressive versus when do you played a
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: little more safe and maybe observe or maybe don't hunt
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: some days and during the late season. So much of
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing up here in Michigan usually or or
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the Upper Great Lakes maybe Wisconsin Minnesota is
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: is keying in on certain weather events that really pushed
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: deer out to feed. So like a big snowstorm coming through,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: or like arctic temperature, something really extreme like that can
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: really get deer, especially that mature buck that maybe wasn't
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: moving in daylight at all. That might finally get them
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: up and moving. So when I see something like that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: come through, I market on the kaler, you know, gotta
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: hunt on that day. Um. But somewhere like Kentucky or Tennessee,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: that's kind of mid country. Uh, you probably don't get
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: big snow events like that. You probably don't get those
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: big arctic temperature events. Is often at least um so
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: so correct me if I'm wrong. But if that's the case,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: what do you key in on as far as weather
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: factors or anything like that to to kind of guide
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: you during the late season. Well, I still like to
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: look for cold fronts, um. You know, I like to hunt,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: you know, in the if if I can catch an
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: afternoon when a cold front is is just about to
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: pass through, when it's you know, the tampaster has fallen
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of a steady drizzle, um, before the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: wind really kicks up. I mean, I seem to always
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: see deer on their feet during those conditions, really, regardless
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: of whether it's the early season or the very last day,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: those conditions seem to put deer on their feet around here. Uh.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: And then um, in the late season in particular, I
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: think those postfrontal high pressure days when it's you know,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the sun is bright and it's cold and still and
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: there's a heavy frost like um, those days, I mean
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: you you almost always can can count on, you know,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: pretty consistent deer movement and uh you know, man, besides that, um,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: late in the season, I mean the temperature and in
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: the stage of a cold front aside, Um, I like sunshine. Um,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: you know, we are our winners are especially this year,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: like we get a lot of days rich forty five
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: degrees and drizzling rain, and it just seems like it
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: is like that, you know, for days on end in
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: the in the wintertime in this part of the world,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and it gets muddy and sloppy and all of that,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: and um, you know the sunny days, Um, the clear
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: sunny days. I just I don't know, I like to
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: go outside on days like that, and it just seems
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: like wildlife, you know, they just as a rule they
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: take advantage of weather like that when the norm has
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: been kind of cloudy, gloomy, you know, just just kind
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: of bland weather. So sunny afternoons in the late season,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: you know. I I can't I haven't documented that or anything,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: but it's just one of those things that I do
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: seem to see more dear on their feet when I'm
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: out and about you know, um doing my things. So, um,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: those are the conditions that that I kind of like
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: to look forward at least this time of year. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like, Um, I feel I've heard similar things too,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: and even I think lots of times you'll get those
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: nice sunny days tend to come with that postfront high
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: pressure system, right, Um, so you kind of get those
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: those coinciding factors that all of a sudden make it
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: especially good. So when you get that those are that's
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: another one of those check it on the calendar, gotta
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: make it happen kind of day. If you have the flexibility. Um,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: I feel like late season especially is, and it's it's
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: important all year round. I guess early season in late
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: season maybe more so, but it's if you can there's
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: gonna be a handful of special days each year that
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: are gonna be just just a notch or two above
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: all the other days because of some kinds of system
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: moving through, and if you can find a way to
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: have the flexibility to make sure you're there on those
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: couple few special days. I'm not saying that they it's
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: always gonna work out. It's not not saying that you're
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: not going to kill a deer on on a random
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: day that all the factors aren't aligned. But it just
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: seems to be that if you can take advantage of
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: those few special ones, you're gonna just put yourself in
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: a little better position. That's that's worth doing if you can.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely. Sometimes some days you get in
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: a tree and you just know things right, you know.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: I love I have a totally different physical feeling on
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: those days, Like it's usually when I'm getting things ready
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: at the house, doing my final prep, loading the truck,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be. On the days where you just
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: have that feeling your gut like it's a kill day,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: where you just know everything's lined up. That's one of
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: my favorite things all year round as far as like hunting,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Like what you just know when those special days are there.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, the sense of anticipation, excitement is just
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: it's turned up to eleven on the dial, and I
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: live for that. So so all this stuff's great, and
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: it's it's the knowledge is so important when it comes
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: to hunting all year round, of course, but late season especially, um,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: but I think sometimes the toughest thing is just staying motivated,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: you know, after a long hunting season. You're tired, you're
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: worn out. Maybe things have been going bad. Um, it's cold,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: you're recovering from eating turkey and ham and hundreds and
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds of stuffing and mashed potatoes. It can
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: be kind of tough to pull yourself back out there.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: Do you have any kind of final parting words of
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: wisdom as far as that side of things? Um, when
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: it comes to the late season and just keeping after it. Well,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: it's it's okay to be comfortable when you're deer hunting. Um.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: You know, there's some really good clothing out there made
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: that that helps keep you warm. But even with the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: very best stuff on, Uh, sitting in a little bit
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: lock on stam when it's in the teens is tough. Um,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: you know it's sometimes it's necessary, but um, you know
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with being in the ground blind with
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: a buddy heater or being in a box blind with
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: a buddy heater and keeping warm. Um. You know, when
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting during the rud or any time that I
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: need to, you know, to put time in the stand
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: that I that I know I may be sitting there
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: a while, I always bring a Thermost of coffee. Um,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: maybe it's spooked a deer before, but I can't really
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: think of an instance where I'm like, yep, that dear
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: spook because I was drinking coffee. Um, you know, I mean,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: so I bring a term, it's a coffee. It helps
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: pack the past the time. I bring plenty of next
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: and I and I read like crazy on the stand. Um,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not a fan of playing on my phone
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: a whole lot when I'm in the tree. I mean,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: I do same as everybody else. I'm checking emails on
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Facebook all that crap. But um, you know it's a phone.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Batteries die quickly, uh this time of year. So so
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: there's that part of it. And uh, you know you
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: start scrolling through in the video plays or whatever, like
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: he can really get you distracted. But um, there's something
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: about a paperback book. And I picked my books carefully.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I definitely want to get something that I
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: want to read, but I've got to get a book
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: that I need to be sure that I can quickly
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: slide it into a jacket pocket or a kip pocket
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: or something like that. At And like Michelle and I
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: are really we both read a ton in the stand. Um,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: but we're really careful about which books we pick. We
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: don't pick hard back books because you know, if you
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: happen to drop one out of the tree, it's gonna
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: make a lot of noise. But like small paperback books
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: that you can slip into a pocket quickly, um, you know,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: and you can sit there, you can read a little bit,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: you can cast your eyes up, you know, twice a
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: page and just kind of check around. And it actually
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: keeps you pretty still to have a book on your
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: lap and just turning the pages with your thumb in
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: a way that you know, even messing with a phone,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: you're moving around a little bit and there's a few
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: more distractions involved. So um, you know, you still need
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: to pay attention obviously, but it's uh, it's okay to
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: have some things to occupy yourself on the stand. You know.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: It's not like you're on sentry duty or something. So
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: I've always I've always felt the same way. I'd rather
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: have something like that that, especially for me, like during
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: all day sets in November, that kind of thing, a
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: book or reading something on my phone or whatever might be.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: I'd rather do that and stay out in the woods
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: all day because of that little bit of help versus
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: coming in for four hours or two hours or whatever
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: and completely missed that window of time out there. So
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: if you need a little something to help you, go
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: for it. As far as I'm concerned, yep, absolutely So
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: I think the perfect way then to end this would
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: be to get a couple Will Brantly book recommendations. Then, um,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: if you're if you're out there reading so much, do
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for us, well, you know, for
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: something just kind of kind of mindless to the past
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the time and be entertained. I mean, I I enjoyed
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: John Grisham and that sort of thing, like if you, uh,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of a Southern literature guy though I'm I'm
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: a Harry Cruise nut um, and uh he was probably
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: not an author a ton of people that have heard
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: about him. It's pretty uh it's pretty kind of dark gothic,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Southern humor. Um. But if you're into that
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: sort of thing, he's pretty good. And a lot of
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: his books are really small pay for backs, and uh,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: most of them are you know, you gotta shop around
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: on Amazon to find them, and some of them are
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: kind of expensive that um, you know, I really enjoy
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: his stuff. Uh you know, uh yeah, I mean just
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: as as long as it's a good story and again
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: fits that criteria of sliding in a in a pocket quickly. Um,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: I'll I'll read it in the stand or are on
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the blind. It might be you know, an old a
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: little more western, or you know, whatever I can find
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: sitting on the bookshelf at Walmart. It you know, I don't.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not not too choosy when it comes to the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: passing that time, because again, I don't want to be
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: so engrossed in something that I miss a deer coming by.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: So that's that's the that's the trick right there, is
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: not picking too good of a book because I did
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: that and missed a shot at the buck I was
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: after last year. Son't want to be sitting there with
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: a copy of War and Peace in your life, you know,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: So it's uh, it's gotta be something manageable. Yeah, it's
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: always it's a fine in line, whether it be choosing
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: when to hunt or choosing the book to read while
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: you hunt. It's always walking the line. So a lot
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: of decisions to be made. Yes, yes, important stuff. Well, Well,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: this is this is fun. I appreciate taking the time
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: to chat. And for folks that want to keep up
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: on your on your writing and the different adventures and
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: stories you've got that you're sharing in the world, where
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: can they pick those up or find them online? Field
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: and Streaming Outdoor Life magazines and uh, you know both
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: of our websites, Field and Streaming outdoor Life dot com
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: and our our social media pages on our Facebook pages
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: and Instagram feeds, so perfect. Well, well, thank you so much.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: This is uh, this is a good time. I think
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: we covered some stuff that will definitely help people here
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: at the here at the conclusion of what's what's been
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: an exciting season for a lot of people. Yeah. Man,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: well there's uh, like I say, a little time left.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: So anybody who's who's still out there, just wish someth
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: us to love him. He's safe. Absolutely, good luck trapping too. Well,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: all right, man, I appreciate it. Good talking to you.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: And that's a wrap, folks, Thank you all for listening.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna mention one more time going out and check
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: out that film from my Michigan hunt for the Buck
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: known as Frank. I'm probably biased, but I feel like
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: it turned out pretty cool. I'd love for you to
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: check a look and let me know what to think.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: So all that said, thank you, good luck out hunting.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: If you're still out there, and stay wired to hunt