Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 696: Don Higgins On Big Old Buck Personalities and Hunting Tactics

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Ep. 696: Don Higgins On Big Old Buck Personalities and Hunting Tactics · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the Whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: the show, we are chatting with the one and only
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Don Higgins about the habits, personality, traits and behaviors of
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the biggest oldest bucks he's ever hunted. All right, Welcome
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: First Light and First Light's Cameell for Conservation initiative in
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: which a portion of every sale of their Spector Camel pattern,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: which is their whitetail camera pattern, a portion of every
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: one of those sales is going back to the National
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Dear Association to help them on their mission to make
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: things better for deer and deer hunters, which is pretty
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: darn cool in my opinion, and I think today's podcast
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: is gonna be pretty darn cool. Two folks, we've got
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Don Higgins on the show. I'm guessing you know Don.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: He's been on the show a handful of different times
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: over the years, including famously a few years back, he
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: came on this show and called his shot. He said, Hey,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: this coming season, I'm gonna kill a two hundreds buck
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: from this specific blind and here's how'm gonna do it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And you know what he did. He went ahead and
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: did exactly that. So today he is a perfect guest
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: for our series that we're in the midst of, which
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: is all about big old bucks. It is about those
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: oldest of old deer getting to behind the scenes look
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: into the minds of how these mature, mature deer act,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: what they do, why they do it, how they do it,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: and what all that means for us as deer hunters.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And I think there's the few other people in the
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: world that have probably had as much experience with really
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: old bucks as Don Higgins. Don has been a very
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: long time outdoor writer. He's written about deer and deer
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: hunting for years and years and years across a bunch
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: of the different popular publications. These days, you can find
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: his work pretty frequently in North American whitetail. He has
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: now developed a whole series of different content offerings of
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: his own. He's got the Chasing Giants podcast, he has
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: the whitetail Master Academy online video course. He's got a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: website over there on Higgins outdoors dot com. He's got
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff that is all framed around sharing
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: his experiences hunting and studying and managing and improving habitat
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: for big old whitetail deer. And that's the game plan
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: today is to kind of get into all of the
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: interesting lessons he's learned from those biggest, oldest bucks. So
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: he's hunted over the years. What kind of habits have
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: they had, what were their behaviors, what were their tendencies,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: what kind of little personality traits has he noticed? And
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: you know, how can we take advantage of all that?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: So that's what we're talking about today now. As I
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: have mentioned on our previous podcast in this series, I
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: want to make it abundantly clear that although today we
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: are talking about big old deer and we are celebrating
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: how cool they are and how much fun they are
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: to try to understand and to chase and to hunt,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: with having different goals. There's nothing wrong with wanting to
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: kill the first dear you see, or shoot a young buck,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: or shoot a bunch of two or three year olds.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is that lights your fire, whatever it is
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: that makes this fun for you. Do that. Do not
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: feel any pressure to, you know, chase the same goals
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: that somebody else does. Do not feel any pressure to,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: you know, kill a big deer because everybody else seems
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: to be doing it. Do your thing, hunt your own hunt,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and most important, do what is fun. Make sure it's legal,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: make sure it's ethical, make sure it's fun. And I'll
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: give an example. I'm actually leaving tonight to go on
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: a hunting trip and I'm gonna be hunting deer in
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin on a brand new property I've never touched foot
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  Speaker 2: on before. I don't know what I'm doing out there,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm just gonna be focusing on having fun. I'm
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: not gonna try to kill some big, giant buck. I'm
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: not trying to kill a five year old. Hey, if
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I see a deer like that and I get a chance, awesome.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: But I am just gonna be going out there to
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  Speaker 2: have fun. I want to kill a dough or two
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: to help out the landowner, and otherwise I'm just gonna
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: see what gets me excited. If there's a nice two
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  Speaker 2: or three year old buck that comes by, and the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: hunt has been going in such a way that this
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: is an opportunity that I can't pass up on, then heck, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna shoot that deer. I'm gonna be happy. Or
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: maybe I'm gonna see a bunch of deer like that
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: and I'm gonna say, Nope, that's not what I want
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  Speaker 2: to shoot right now. Just given where I'm at, what's
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: going on, how I'm feeling, maybe I just want to pass.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Maybe I just want to watch those deer. I'm gonna
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: see how the week goes, I'm gonna see how the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: days go, and we're just gonna feel it out, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: when it comes right down to it, I just want
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: this to be an enjoyable experience, getting the deer hunting
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: season kicked off, spending some time with some good friends
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and enjoying ourselves and the outdoors and our company being
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: out there chasing these critters, learning stuff, and maybe put
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: a little vendis in the freezer along the way. So
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I just want to make sure that's really clear. Even
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: though we're focusing on these big old bucks, there's a
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: lot bigger things here in the larger scheme of things.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: So that all said. If you do like Big Old Bucks, though,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: this is gonna be the podcast for you. Don has
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: got a lot to share. We're gonna get right to
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: that podcast here after a couple very quick updates. Update
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: number one, make sure you're following one week in November
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: over on YouTube. That's our new series on the Meat
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Eater YouTube channel. I believe episode four came out this week,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: so you are getting to now see day one, two, three,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and four of our seven day rut hunt that we
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: had last year. And it's following my hunt in Nebraska
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and Ohio and then the hunts of my buddies Tony Peterson,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Spencer Newhart, Klay Nukomb and Giannis Putellis. And I feel
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: like day four was like this kind of day of
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: not debauchery, but but debacles, I guess is maybe the
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: right word. So if I remember this day right, we
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: just had to kind of laugh at ourselves. And so
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: be sure to check that one out and all the
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: rest that are come over these next couple of weeks.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Another update, if you haven't yet, make sure you're tuning
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: into Reut Fresh Radio, which comes out every Wednesday, in
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: which we are checking in with four or five deer
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: hunters from across different parts of the country to find
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: out what's happening right now, how's the deer activity been,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: how are current conditions impacting deer movement, what kinds of
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: tactics they're working right now? You know, what are the
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: deer doing, what are they feeding on, how are they
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: relating to this weather or whatever it might be. You
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: can learn a lot of really fresh hot intel that
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: can help you on your upcoming hunts, so make sure
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: you're tuning into that. And then finally, I think this
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: is going to come out just before I head to
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Missouri or not Missouri, Mississippi for our fifth Working for
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Wildlife Tour event. So I just want to send out
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: a big thank you to everyone who's signed up for that.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to see you guys on the twenty
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  Speaker 2: third in Mississippi. We're gonna be volunteering down there to
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: plant fruit trees, plant food plots, removing vasive species, and
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: do a handful of other good things on public land
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: down there to make it better for wildlife, to make
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: it better for hunters and all sorts of critters out there.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So it's gonna be a good time. It's gonna be
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: good work. I'm pumped about it. Thank you for being
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: a part of it. Down there, all my Southern folks,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: whether it's Alabama, Mississippi, wherever you're coming from. Let's get
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: to work. And now with that out of the way,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: we've got to get to something else, which is this
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: really interesting podcast with mister Don Higgins. And I mentioned
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: at the top he predicted a few years ago, he
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: predicted that he would kill a two hundreds buck from
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: a specific stand at a specific time when he was
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: on the show back in seventeen or eighteen. I'm gonna
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: give you a little preview right now. I asked Don
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: to call his shot again, so we do have a prediction.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: At the end of this podcast, Don will make his
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: prediction for this season. It's very interesting and I'm excited
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: to see whether or not he can prove this one
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  Speaker 2: to be true as well. Sure you stay tuned in
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: all the way to the end this great conversation with
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Don Higgins. Let's get to it all right here with
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: me now on the line back again is mister Don Higgins.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Don for being here.
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  Speaker 3: Well, thanks for having me mark my pleasure.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It's been a couple of years since you've been on
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: the show, and it was well past time that we
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: had a reunion here and talk through things. But when
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I was thinking back to those last conversations we had
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: on here, I realized that we left things on like
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: a really, really high note, because I think the last
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: time we did one of our main shows together was
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: when you were either discussing the outcome or when you
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: were calling your shots on how you were going to say, Hey,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill a two hundred inch buck this year,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna shoot it from this blind's gonna happen like this,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And we might have done one after that when you
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: actually did it. But the long story short of it
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: is that you called it, you actually killed the buck
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: you said you were gonna kill. So with all that
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: being said, I feel there's a lot of pressure on
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: you now today because you're back and we're all gonna
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: be expecting whatever you tell us today to be exactly
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: what happens this season. So are you ready for that
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: kind of pressure? Done?
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I guess so, you know, I didn't realize it had
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: been that long. That was twenty seventeen, and I absolutely
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: remember the podcast in the summer before that season, and
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: then immediately after I shot the first buck, the two
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: hundred and six inch smoky, we did a podcast and
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: I said, my odds is seeing my second target buck
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: just laying eyes on him. We're about five percent, I think. Well.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Then a couple of days later, I went hunting and
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I shot him. Yeah, and I seen him for the
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: first time ever and got a shot and killed him.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: So you brought me good luck last time. I hope
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: you can do that again.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna do my best.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like that was just like a year
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: ago or two years ago. But when I started looking
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: into it too, I couldn't believe how fast that time
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: has flown. It's all. I've had two children in the
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: years in between that, so it's all kind of been
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: chaos on my side of least. So well, congratulations, yeah,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: thank you. You know how that goes pretty wild stuff.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: But you came to mind this month because we're doing
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: this series all about the biggest oldest bucks, kind of
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: getting behind the scenes and into the minds of those deer,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: of those super mature deer, of those old, gnarly kind
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: of ghosts, and you're one of those guys who has perfected,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I think, as close as you can the art of
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: chasing that kind of deer. You know, those examples you
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: just mentioned being perfect, perfect illustrations of that, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: killing those two deer back in I guess what was
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: seventeen you said? And it seems like you're back on
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the same kind of path now again this year. Maybe.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: So my first question before you're done, before we kind
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: of dive into the meat and potatoes of all this, is, uh,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: how do you feel about this season coming into it?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: We're just a couple of weeks away from opening day
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: there in Illinois. I heard your recent Buck Forecast podcast.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: It sounds like you're a little bit maybe apprehensive, but
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I want to hear it straight from you. How are
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: you feeling going in this season as far as your
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: situation specifically and maybe the larger you know, your larger
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: take two?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I had a really good buck that
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: I passed last year. He's a five year old, and
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I had his sheds for from the two previous seasons.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: In this spring, I wasn't able to find either one,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: but a friend of mine found one side from this spring,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: and he would have scored in the mid one eighties,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: and I was hoping he would have a good jump
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: on Antler's score for this year, but he actually went backwards,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: as did just about every mature buck that I was
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I had been following, So, you know, I think that
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: was due to the drought. We had an extreme drought
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: in May and June when those bucks, you know, are
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: really set in the stage for that antler growth for
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: the year, and I think that set them all back
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: throughout much of the Midwest, because I've been hearing that
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: from a lot of guys. But for me, individually, this
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: buck that was mid one eighties last year, he's probably
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: right there about the one eighty mark, with give or
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: take an inch or two one hundred and eighty inches.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: He's six years old. This year, he's We're going to
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: get him shot. And I say we because I've got
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: two young grandsons that are going to hunt in the
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: U season and they'll be able to use a rifle,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: straight wall cartridge rifle and if one of the if
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: he steps out in front of one of them boys,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: they're going to get the green light and go ahead
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: and put the hammer down, you know. So what I'm
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: really excited about is that I've got some young bucks.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: And when I say young, I'm talking four and younger
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: coming up on my property. That show at a world
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: of potential, and I want to get these older bucks
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: off the farm, get them shot, and allow these younger
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: bucks to have the run of the place. Ideally, I
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: would like to get these bucks shot in October. There's
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: two in particular. There's also a big four by four
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: that's probably one hundred and seventy inches. So those two
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: bucks i'd like to get off the farm in October
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: before the rut heats up. And I really don't even
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: care if I'm the one that shoots them. I'll have
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: guests here, my grandsons. I'm going to keep everybody away
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: until that youth season, which I think is about the seventh, eighth, ninth,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: or somewhere in there that weekend in October. But after
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: that we're gonna be hitting it hard. If I can
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: take a friend or somebody along with me, I will
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: and allow them to shoot those bucks. To be honest,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: the whole deer management thing on the farm, I just
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: feel like I've taken this farm to a level that
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I never thought I ever could. And these young bucks
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: that are coming up. I think, in all honesty, I
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: think three of them have the potential to maybe be
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: two hundred inches. Now I'm not saying they will, maybe
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: none of them will, but I think they've got enough
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: going on on their head that they could potentially get
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: there with some age. And I want to do everything
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I can to keep those bucks alive. And you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I just turned sixty years old about three weeks ago,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: and I got a wall full of big deer. I
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: don't need to pile on a bunch more deer on
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: my wall. And if I can, you know, make someone
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: season by allowing them to shoot some of these bucks,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I get a big thrill out of that. I've never
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: been a guy that to stack up numbers of deer.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: It's just not been my thing. And nothing against people
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: that try to all over the country and you know,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: shoot three or four or five or however many big
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: deer every year. That's great for them, if that's their thing.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: It's just never been mine. And uh, I think once
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: I shoot a buck, the work starts, and you know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: then you gotta process that there, get him out of
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: the woods and everything else. You're putting pressure on your land,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: and then you gotta you gotta search for your next
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: target buck, and I like find. After I've found that
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: target buck, that's when I really start having fun. Is
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: kind of putting the pieces together, you know, until it's
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: actually time to go after him.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so do you think I mean, I know you
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: mentioned you want someone to shoot Babe now, but it
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: sounds like he's not your target buck as much anymore.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: And you mentioned the big eight pointer and a couple
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: others that you know other folks might take a crack
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: at or maybe you. But is there any chance of
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: like you having a real, real target buck that you're
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: obsessing over and chasing after. Is there any possibility there's
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: a deal like that out there still or does it
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: seem like this gonna be a waiting game for these
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: other bucks to get to next year?
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Well? Now I would after the use season, if I'm
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: sitting by myself and Babe comes along, I'm shooting him. Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I need to get him off the farm before November
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: if I possibly can. And uh, I'm as far as
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: having a giant target buck now that that one hundred
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and eighty inch Babe is probably my top end for
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: this year. And uh, yeah, if I get him great
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: if someone else does good for them.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So you mentioned that Babe was a six
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: this year. Is that right?
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: And and is he the oldest on the farming around
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: there or is that big eight point or older or
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: what's your what's like the age top end of your
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: age structure there right now?
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: No, I've got a couple of bucks that show up.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: They typically don't show up till after the ut. They
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: show up in the late season for the food when
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the deer start congregating here for the food sources. I've
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: got one that's probably I bet he's at least eight
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: and a half, if not nine and a half this year,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I'd have to go back and look at the history.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: He's not a big deer at all. He's probably high
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: one thirties one at the top. Just a clean four
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: by four. He wasn't when he was younger. He was
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: a five by five. But the last two years and
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: including that this year, be I guess the third year
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: he's lost those G four's on both sides and just
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: become a clean four by four. That buck needs shop.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: But he's really not one that's going to put too
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: much pressure on these young bucks during the rut because
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: he just isn't here during the rut. And then there's
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: another buck that shows up late and the weather has
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: to be really bad or he doesn't show up. I mean,
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: we need some snow and really cold temperatures, and then
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: he'll show up for the food, and again he doesn't
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: show up till late. So he's not one I'm real
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: really too worried about. He's probably maybe one hundred and
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: sixty inches and he's probably six seven years old. But
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: the big four by four that I mentioned, it's one
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: hundred and seventy inches. He's a five year old. But
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: he's just never going to be more than what he
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: is right now. Yea, So time for him to go.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: So when you look at these deer or the course
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: of their life as they mature, is there an age
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: when you see a big jump not an antler size,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: but in smarts or behavior, Like when is it when
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: they switch from being like a young whipper snapper to
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: a ghost? What's that age typically like in your experience?
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the toughest bucks to kill are the
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: four and five year olds. From from three to four,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: they make a huge jump in you know how hard
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: they are to kill. They just become a lot more
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: wary and a lot more cautious, And once they hit
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: about six, it seems like they become comfortable in whatever
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: they're doing and they let their guard down just a
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: little bit. I know Bill Wink's wrote about that in
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: the past, and I've heard others talk about it, and
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: I agree one hundred percent that now it might not
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: happen at six with every buck, but six seven, somewhere
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: in there, their home range kind of shrinks down. They
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: don't cover as much territory. They found their safe zone,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: their sanctuary, if you will, and they start moving within
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: that area during daylight a little more than they did
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: the two years before. I think the toughest bucks to
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: kill are probably four and five year olds.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned a couple of things, but I'm curious
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: what are with those four and five year old bucks.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I guess what's different about their behavior from the six
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: seven eight year olds. With the six seven eight year olds,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I follow you like they're starting to get comfortable. They
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: kind of know where they're safe. They've got their really
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: tight core area, and so I can see how that
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: could become a predictable. What are you seeing with those
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: four and five year olds. That is making them so tricky.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: They they're in that sw spot where they're not dumb
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: teenagers anymore, but they're not old farts that just want
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to lay on the couch, right. Yeah.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: The biggest thing is daylight movement. That they just don't
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: move in daylight as much. And it doesn't make sense,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: but those older bucks, in my experience, seem to move
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: more in daylight. But now their home range is a
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: lot smaller, so they're they're holding tight to an area
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: they're really familiar with, and I think they just get
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: over confident in their survival abilities and their ability to
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: detect danger. They're not moving in daylight everywhere, but within
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: that small core area, they seem to move more in daylight.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: What's the trick? And I've realized there's not a trick,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: But what's the key to getting a buck like that
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to that age and feeling overconfident in his zone. I've
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: got some assumptions, but I'd like to hear from your perspective,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: how do we get a buck to that age and
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: feeling like, oh man, this is pretty slick. I've got
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it made. I can feel comfortable here. I'm confident and
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: seemingly overconfident in your estimation. What gets us there?
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that you know, when when bucks are young,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think there's one buck that's smarter than the other.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of it. Which ones in most
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: of the the white tails range, I think it's pretty
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: much luck which bucks make it to the older age classes,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: because as those bucks disperse as yearlings, you know, research
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: has shown that depending on the type of terrain they
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: live in, the more open the terrain, the farther they're
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: going to disperse from their birth area. The more densely
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: wooded or the more cover, the shorter the distance they're
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: going to disperse from their birth area. But I think
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: that when those yearling bucks disperse, some of those bucks
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: are just lucky, and they happen to disperse to a
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: property or a no hunting area or whatever where the
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: hunting pressure is not as much and they survive to
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: the next age class one percent on luck. And what
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I've tried to do with the management of my property,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: and we kind of got into a little bit earlier
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: when I talked about those young bucks, that I want
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: to make it. What I've tried to do is make
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: my property a place that attracts a lot of those
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: young bucks. I want to give them the security so
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: they're safe when they get here, they're not going to
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: get shot. I want to give them all the food
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: they want, a wide variety of food. Food diversity is huge.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I want to give them the security of freedom of
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: human intrusion. I want to give them large blocks of
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: sanctuary cover that's never going to have a human step
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: foot in it. And I think once a young buck
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: finds a place like that, he's got the food he's
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: got to cover, and then obviously there's going to be
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: does there. I think you can hold a lot more
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: of those young bucks. And then from that point it's
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: kind of a matter of managing your buck herd. And
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: you know, this is one of the things that one
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: of the reasons I like doctor Strickland's doctor Bronson Strickland
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: from the MSU Dear Lab his research so well is
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: because his research absolutely backs up my approach to management.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: And so when we get these bucks staying here as
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: yearlings and two year olds, and then once they hit three,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: you've got a pretty good idea of what that buck's
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: going to be later in life. I mean, the best
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: yearling bucks as far as racks, are going to be
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: the best two year olds. Most of the time they
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: are going to be the best three year olds. So
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: when they hit three, you got a pretty good idea
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: of what that buck is going to be when he matures.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And what I've tried to do is bring in guests
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: and shoot a lot of three year olds that are
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: at the lower end of their age class, the best
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: bucks in each age class, I want to protect them,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: and starting at three years old. Now there's a lot
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: of those bucks that I mean, they're wild deer, and
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: we can hunt them as hard as we want. That
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: doesn't that's no guarantee we're going to kill them. But
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: those bucks that are on the hit list as three
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: year olds are the worst three year olds. And then
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: we allow the best ones in each age class to
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: move on up. And you know, that's been my approach
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: to you know, having a farm that produces some top
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: end bucks, how.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Much do you worry about educating your up and comers.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: So I'm imagining like you've got a top tier three
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: year old or four year old, the buck that you
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: really really want to make it. But at the same time,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I know, like you want to take out these big
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: bully bucks or lower end younger bucks. And I'm assuming
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: maybe you're shooting some dough sometimes too. If if you're
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: trying to do that, do you worry about educating that
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: top end three and a half here, Let's say they're
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: out in the food source at the same time and
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you've got a dough and he want to shoot some
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: does but also your your high potential three year olds
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: out there, your high potential four year olds out there.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Are you worried about shooting a deer while he's out
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: there and spooking him off? Same thing with a big
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: bully buck, Like, is that in your mind? Is that
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: making your shoot or don't shoot decisions in any way
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: more complicated?
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: That's definitely something I take into consideration. And you know,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I've I don't know how many tree stands I got
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: on this property. I'm gonna guess about let's just say fifteen,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: give or take. I've got certain stands that I absolutely
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: will not shoot anything except a target buck. I'm not
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: gonna put any pressure on those stands unless it's a giant.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: And most of those are like they're right on the
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: edge of the sanctuary, And I don't have any stands
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: within the sanctuary. But I've got some stands on the
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: edge of the sanctuary that I hunt with various wind directions,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: and there's various terrain features that pinch those deer up
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: closer to the edge as they travel throughout that sanctuary.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: And I won't shoot a call buck if you will,
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: And I hate to use that term management buck. I say,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: I won't shoot a management buck within the sanctuary that
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: they've got to step out of the sanctuary to get shot.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: The sanctuary remains a sanctuary for the bucks that I
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: want to raise or want to move on up. I
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: want them to always feel safe there and never feel
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: pressure there.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I think what it sounds like you've tried to do,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: and what I think a lot of people want to do,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: is try to maximize the number of top tier mature
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: bucks that will spend a lot of time on their property,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: right And I've heard you talk about different ways that
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: you might be able to do that, whether it is
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: doing what you're just described there, which is trying to
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: remove some of the competition, But what else have you
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: found can help you maximize the number of mature bucks
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: or really good mature bucks that you can stack on
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: your piece. In addition to, you know, taking out some
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: management up bucks to open up slots I guess we'll
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: call them. Is there anything else with habitat or hunting
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: that you're doing that allows that to possibly happen to
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: get not just one big mature buck, but maybe you
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: can get two or three or what's that max? Have
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: you found two per one hundred acres or two hundred acres.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about that whole set of ideas well.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: One thing that I've learned about mature box is that
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: they're all different. It would be like putting a group
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: of mature men around a table. Now, they're all going
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: to have certain tendencies, you know, but they're all going
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: to be individual also, And it's the same with these bucks.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the things that helps
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: me anyway to target specific bucks is that as I
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: watch these bucks grow up and I put the pieces
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: of the puzzle together as they're growing up, by the
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: time they're mature, I know what they're going to do
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: and before they do it each fall, and that allows
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: me to be a step ahead of that buck instead
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: of a step behind him when I go to hunting.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: So it comes down to the individual personalities. There's some
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: bucks that absolutely they don't want to be here. I've
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: got too many deer, too many bucks on my place,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: and I get bucks that come along that don't like
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: it here, and so they will go to outlying areas.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Now they will visit, they'll come through here and look
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: for doze, and in the winter when food's tough to find,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: they'll show up. But they really don't like spending a
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: lot of time around all these other deer. But there's
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: other individual bucks that don't mind it at all. And
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I'm talking a chair box four or five, six, seven
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: years old. They'll walk out and it doesn't matter. It
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: could be November and two or three of them will
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: walk out together into a food plot to look for dose.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: They don't mind each other's company. And those are the
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: ones that I think are a lot easier for me
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: because I got a fairly small property. If I had
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: several hundred acres, it'd be different. And the other thing
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: I've tried to do is, besides diversifying my food sources,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: I've really tried to diversify my bedding cover into you know,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I've got the switch grass fields, I've got well, i
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: got three different getting ready to plant next spring, I'll
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: plant my fourth different field and switch grass. So you
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: know I've got one place on the farm. It's in
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: a Actually there's two that I can think of up
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: the top of my head that are within these switch
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: grass fields. I've always got a good buck betted there.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: One of them is in a corner where two miscantis
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: edges form a corner in the switchgrass, and there always
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: seems to be a good buck betted there. Another one
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: is there there's a kind of a warsh throughout the
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: switchgrass field, and on one hillside there's a spot where
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: there always seems to be a good buck bed. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: by breaking it up like that and really thick cover
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: helps too, because you know, a buck is betted in
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: that switch grass, he can't see, you know, ten feet
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: in front of him, and yeah, he knows what's around him,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: and he can smell other deer and whatever, but he
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: doesn't see him like he would in like an open
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: wooded type cover. So you know, diversity of betting cover helps,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: and then breaking it up, you know, into different sections
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: of betting cover so that you know, one buck is
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: betted into this switchgrass patch and then over there's another
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: switchgrass patch with another buck. And I've I've learned a
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: lot since starting to manage this farm thirty years ago
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: or put it together, and it kind of blew out,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: blew away some of the ideas that people have in
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: regards to the management of bucks. And and that's one
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: of the things is I'm holding way more bucks than
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I ever thought I could.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: What would that well, what is that in your estimation?
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Like how many I mean, I recognize its like a
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: rough estimate, but how many bucks are you holding? How
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: many mature bucks do you think are on that I'm
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: just kind of curious what you have achieved given those
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: ideas you just mentioned.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Well, that varies by the time of the season. In
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: the summer, I've got none here really. During the rut,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: you know, I will have let's just say bucks that
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: are four and older. Typically, I'll have at least a
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: half a dozen well for and older bucks on one
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: hundred and twenty acres. Yeah, during the late sea in
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: when the rut's over and we get bad weather and
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: they're concentrated on the food, you know, I can probably
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: up that by at least two or three others showing up.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: So I could actually have up to ten bucks four
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: years old and older during the late season.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. So you mentioned that one
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: of the truisms of old bucks is that they're usually
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: all different. They've got those unique personalis just like mature
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: old men, Right, We've all got our personality traits and quirks.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: But is there anything that you found to be a
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: trend or pretty true across the board when you do
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: get to those five, six, seven, eight year old deer?
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Is there anything that does stand out? Is almost as
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: close as you get to a rule. I guess you
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: mentioned one being like the tighter core area, But is
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: there anything else that does stand out is pretty darn
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: consistent with those deer?
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, without a doubt. You know, any mature black desires
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: freedom of human intrusion, and the older they get, the
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: more important that becomes to them. And when their home
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: range shrinks as they get older, it's shrinking around that
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: area that they have found the least amount of human intrusion.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: And that's why I think it's so important how you
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: manage a property. And you know, I know, Mark, we've
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: talked before we started recording here that you just got
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: on the Whitetail Master Academy, and we just released a
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: video a day or two ago titled the Four Cornerstones
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: of building a world class white tail Property, and that's
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: exactly what we're talking about here. And I think one
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: huge key is, and it's the number one on the video,
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: just to give everybody a preview, is the layout of
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: the property. And the layout of the property is something
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: that you can do nothing about. It's what you're given,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: its terrain features, it's how it connects to other properties
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: around it, and that's huge. Every property has a ceiling.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: You know that the top end box that you're ever
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: going to grow there is the ceiling. And some properties
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: have a lot higher ceiling than others. And when I started,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: I never realized that my property the ceiling is two
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: hundred inches plus. I just didn't see that coming. Other
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: properties in other areas of the country the top end
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: maybe one hundred and twenty inches. And no matter what
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: you do as a land manager, you're never going to
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: get past that. And that's often due to the layout
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: of the property, how it connects with what's around it.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you've got forty acres and you got
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: extreme hunting pressure on all sides of you. Guys that
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: are shooting anything that walks, you're going to have a
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: hard time, you know, getting box past about two years old.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: And you got to start. When you want to build
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: a world class property, you got to start with a
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: property that lays out good.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So back to something he said second ago, which
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: was these really old deer don't want human pressure, right,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: and they find that they seek out those places based
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: on the layout. They can find those pockets where they
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: feel safe, and as we talked about earlier, they seem
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: to find that zone where they build confidence, where they've
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: consistently stayed away from humans, they become comfortable there. I've
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: wondered with that kind of deer that demands an absence
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: of human pressure once they get to that age six, seven,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: eight years old, I'm curious if you've found them to
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: be more or less impacted by pressure at that point,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: because part of me thinks, like, well, if a deer
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: seven or eight and he's found his little bedding spot
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: and his little sanctuary and he's been safe there over
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: the years, it might be pretty hard to push that
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: deer out of there because he knows this place works
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: for him, like it's worked for him for years and years.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: My assumption might be, like, man, if I did have
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: to get aggressive, it'd probably take a lot in a
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: consistent amount of pressure to finally push deer out of
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: there or to blow them out, because the years have
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: proven this to be safe for him. So that's one assumption.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: But maybe the flip side is true, which is man,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: they're so sensitive to it, that's the only reason why
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: they survived to this point. They're not going to tolerate anything.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: What's your experience been with how a really mature buck handles,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: you know, some kind of intrusion or an aggressive hunt
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: into his sanctuary when he's seven, or you make a
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: mistake and he smells you on the edge or something
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: like that. What have you seen in those situations.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Well, that really comes back to the individual buck again.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Some of them will tolerate almost nothing, and others will
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: tolerate a lot. I think the big thing with those
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: deer is that when you're doing projects besides hunting, working
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: food plots, checking trail cameras or whatever, the last thing
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: you want to do is slip up on a buck
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: and betting or jumping real close to his bed. If
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: he can hear you coming on a you know, a
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: tractor or whatever. He has time to decide how he
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: wants to react. Is he wanted to just put his
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: head down to the ground and let you pass by.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Does he want to you know, skip away, you know,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: keep his head low to the ground and trot into
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the brush. What's he want to do? And as long
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: as he escapes that encounter, he feels confident in his
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: method that if he lays tight and lets you pass,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: he feels he just gains confidence in that approach to danger.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: And as time goes on, as the years roll by,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: he becomes more and more likely to lay tight and
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: let danger pass. If he flees, then he's ben. He
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: lives because he fleed, he becomes more likely to flee.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: And I think it's a lot of times these bucks
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: are they've got a memory, you know, they remember where
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: they encounter danger. For example, they remember where they smelled
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: that guy in his tree stand, or they seen that
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: guy climbing a tree or whatever, and they file that
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: away for later use. And I think to some degree,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: we can turn that around against them. We can condition
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: them to certain human activities on a property. And it's
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: actually putting no pressure whatsoever. For example, working food plots,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: they hear the guy coming on the tractor and they
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: know he's in this one little area for a while
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: and then he leaves. You know, they get used to that.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: So I think we can we condition these bucks as
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: they're younger and growing up to react in certain ways
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: to different forms of pressure.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Yep, have you taken advantage of that? Then? From a
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: hunting perspective, I imagine there are certain ways you've done that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: But have you been able to over the years condition
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: them to certain things that, then you know, not only
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: allow you to get a food plot in without blowing
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: up your property, but actually have led to hunting success.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Well, when I go to hunt, I don't want that
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: deer to have any idea I'm anywhere around. I want
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: to slip in silent and get in my stand or
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: my blind or whatever. And because I think once he
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: knows there's human activity in the area, he's not going
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: to just freely get up and waltz around for a
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: period of time. Now, whether that period of time is
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: a couple hours or until it's dark can vary by
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: buck to buck. So when I go hunting, I want
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: to slip into that stand without spooking any deer whatsoever.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: I want to go in silently. I don't want somebody
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: dropping me off on a tract or anything like that.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: I want to get in as silent as possible and
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: undisturb or and have undisturbed deer you know around me.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeap makes sense. So let's let's paint a picture here
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: of no again, knowing that each dear is unique. So
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: you're gonna have to bear with me here and generalize
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: a little bit. But if you were, let's say, writing
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: a book right now, we're painting a picture of a
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: day in the life of this supermature buck. We're going
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: to talk one of these six or seven or eight
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: year old bucks that's made it to the tippy top
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: of the mountain. I want to talk about what that
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: buck's life looks like, and how he chooses a bed,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: and when he gets up and moves off to feed,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: and how he travels to a food source, how he
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: chooses what food source he wants to go to in
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: a given day. Can you walk me through a hypothetical
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: of what you've seen or learned about how a deer
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: like that might operate in a day like that? And
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I guess and one qualifier sorry don specifically king in
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: on like how the choices he makes are things he
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: does are different than that three year old or four
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: year old buck.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and I think again that changes throughout the season. Yeah,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: but typically, you know, his bed is going to be
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: chosen where he can either where he's he feels he's
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: not going to encounter danger. That That could be a
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: wide open, you know woods where there's just never been
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: any human activity that he's encountered, or human sin on
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: the ground that he's encountered. It might be the thickest,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: nastiest stuff. It may be a switchgrass field where he
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: can't see three feet in front of his face. But
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: he wants to be someplace where he knows the likelihood
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: of him encountering danger is very low. And the other
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: thing he wants is he wants an opportunity of danger
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: does come along to be able to escape that danger,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: so he's got a direction he can flee. I know
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of in more heavily wooded areas, bucks like
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: to bed out on ridge points and sit and laying
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: up on that ridge point. You know, they can survey
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: all the terrain around them, and danger comes from one direction,
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: they just bail off the ridge the opposite direction. You know,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: he's covering all his bases and that that's the area
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: where he wants to bed. He also when it comes
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: to getting up from that bed and heading towards food,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: you know, that's where these older bocks become easier to
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: kill because I think if they've never encountered danger on
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: their route from their bed to their food, they're more
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: likely to take a chance with the wind. And not
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: that they do it very often, but you know, maybe
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: one day out of the month they'll give up the
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: wind to hit that food source. Now, if there's pressure,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: they're never going to give it up. Partly, and when
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: he goes to that food he either wants a lot
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: of times if there's heavy cover on one side of
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: that food source, he will run the down wind edge
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: of that food source in the cover, send it as
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: the scent blows out of the food source back towards
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: him to make sure it's safe. And then at some
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: point he'll turn and go right into the wind as
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: he hits that food source. But he wants to use
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: the wind as much as he can. Know, my favorite
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: setup for hunting a buck is, you know, I want
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: to kill him on purpose. I mean, there's a lot
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: of big bucks to get killed by blind luck every year.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: But I want to negate the luck factor as much
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: as possible, and I want to I want him to.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I want to try to figure what he's going to do,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: because that puts the odds in my favor. And if
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: you've got a food source, and you've got a known
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: food source where you suspect he's going to go that afternoon,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: and you've got a place where you suspect he's bedded
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: that day, he's going to move from from point A
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: to point B, and he wants to have the wind well,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: instead of giving him the wind straight in his nose
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: as he makes that journey from the bed to the food,
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: if he's got a quartering wind, so it's not straight
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: in his nose, but it's hitting his nose at an angle. Well,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: that allows me to get off to the side just
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: enough where my scent is blowing in his direction, but
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: it's blowing off to the side of his direction. So
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: he's actually doing everything that a big buck should to
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: stay alive. But the wind is just enough in your
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: favor that you can be on the right side of
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: the trail and him not sent you. Now, if you
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: was on the other side of the trail, he would
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: catch it for sure. Yeah, but that quartering nose wind
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: is the ideal situation for killing a mature bog.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: So I have tried to pull off that kind of
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: set up plenty of times over the years. And one
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: thing that I have found to be challenging is in
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: areas with high deer densities, especially a lot of does,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: and having that wind that knows just barely right, start
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: doing a little switching on me throughout the hunt and
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: it'll kind of curve over and kind of curve back
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: and get that slightly shifting wind and then getting busted
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: because there's just too many deer around. Have you found
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: there to be a certain wind speed that you need
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: to make that work? Do you want it to be
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: pretty high and consistent? Do you avoid really low winds
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: or does any of that matter when choosing a day
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: that you're in a hunt like that? And if that's
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: not the thing, is there anything else you've done to
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: negate the threat? I'm talking about the risk of getting
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: buggered by a dell before your big guy comes in.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Well, it all starts with where is your scent going,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: and you want that scent and going in an area
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: where there's low likelihood that there's going to be deer
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: to catch your scent. I like a wind of about
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: say ten twelve miles an hour. That's steady. I don't
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: want to light and variable wind. But you know, you
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: check it three times and it's going three different directions,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: it's the worst I want to Yeah, keep it steady.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: The other thing is thermals come in to play big
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: time you as you get into the evening. That really
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: becomes a factor, you know, because as things start cooling down,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: that your sense starts dropping and makes it you know,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: a lot more likely than anything down wind is going
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: to smell you. But having that your scent going into
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: an area with a low likelihood of a deer encountering
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: it is huge whether it be an open field, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: deer can come out in open fields. But you know,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: if you've got a prime food source past you, they're
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: they're more likely to go hit that prime food source.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: And you got to have an idea where the deer
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: coming from and where they're going, a really good idea.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: But as far as sin elimination products, I think they
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: probably most of them work to some degree, but I
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: don't trust them at all. It's one percent the wind
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: for me. If if a deer, if there's a good
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: wind and the deer's not down wind to me, he's
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: not gonna smell you. I don't care if you worked
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: in a hog barn all day, if he just it's
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: not gonna happen.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaking of wind and how they use wind when
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: when going to feed, you mentioned when they're choosing where
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: they want to bed, they want safety and they want
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: an escape route. But there's also some theories around how
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: they might use wind when choosing where they bed. Do
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: you see anything like that? Do you think wind impacts
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: where they choose to bed? And it's so how Oh?
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Absolutely? And I've got a video out on that as well,
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: where I show real life examples of if a buck
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: knows he wants to bed at a certain spot, he
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: will first. A lot of times they do this in
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: the dark, before it's even daylight. They will run the
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: down wind edge of that area they're going to bed
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: to scince check it first, and then they will jay
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: hook right back into it in bed. I've seen that
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: many times on morning hunts. It usually happens right at
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: daylight with a mature buck, and like I said, a
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: lot of times it happens before the sun's even up.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: We don't even see it happen. But yeah, they will
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: run the down wind edge that betting cover. And that's
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: one of those deals, you know, where I see and
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: hear stories or whatever occasionally where a guy says, well,
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: I've found where my target buck is betting, So I'm
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: going to go in about three in the morning and
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna get in my stand about three in the
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: morning and beat him to his bed and I'll go
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: and be waiting there for him. Well that's fine and
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: dandy until he runs the down wind edge in the dark,
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: scent checktion finds you and then vacates the area with
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: that you ever knowing it even happened.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's one of those easier said than done
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: kind of things for sure. Right, So you mentioned that
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: there's maybe like a bell curve with his deer as
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: far as the ease of hunting them, And maybe ease
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: isn't the right word, but if we're looking at those
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: one two three year old bucks being relatively easy because
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: they're moving a lot, they're making mistakes, and then they
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: hit that four and five year old range and now
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: they you know, shrink that what they're doing. They're not
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: as active, maybe they're a little less daylight active. But
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: then when you reach that other side of the curve
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: six seven eight, now they've gotten overconfident. They've found their
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: safe area. You mentioned that maybe those deer become easier
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: to hunt in a certain way because you know them,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: you've got years of history, you've developed an understanding of
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: their personality traits. How do you go about keeping track
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: of all that stuff with one of these deer? Is
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: it all just in your head? Or do you take notes?
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Do you have a journal? Do you track data and
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: pictures and observations and a spreadsheet or anything like? How
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: do you make sure this stuff isn't just one ear
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: and one out the other.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Well, it's my life's passion, so a lot of it's
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: in my head, but a lot of it is also
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: trail camera data that I store. Well, you know, we
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: should probably back up just a second mark because I
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. When that
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: box starts becoming easier to hunt as he gets older,
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: he's never gonna be as easy as he was at three.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: A three year old buck is still a pretty easy
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: buck to kill. And yeah, he's gonna be easier than
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: maybe he was at four and five. But that as
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: that bell curve starts to slope off on the other side,
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: it's gonna it's not gonna be a sharp drop or
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: boom all of a sudden he becomes easy.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Great point.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: It's gonna be a slow, gradual decline where he becomes
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: slightly easier, but he's never going to become as easy
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: as he was as a three year old. Yea on
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: the other side of that curve.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, thanks for thanks for clarifying that. So,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: so you're you're tracking your photos, it's got a lot
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: in your head when you're sitting down leading into a
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: season or leading into a hunt. What's that like analysis
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: process look like for you when you're trying to choose,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: like how do I figure out how do I kill
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: this buck?
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Let's say, you know, let's say Babe makes it through
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: you season and you're going to try to get out
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: there and get him, get him on the ground, you know,
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: and you're thinking through all your years of history with him,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: are you looking back on individual I mean, I know
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: your big annual patterns, like are you thinking through man?
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Last year? He daylighted on this date and I don't
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: have the right win. But it's the annual pattern like
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: can you walk me through your evening before hunt or
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: whenever it is where you do this whole. I don't
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: know what it looks like for you. For me, it's
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: kind of like those detective movies or threo's, like a
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: thousand pictures on the wall and strings between all the
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: pictures and the guy in the back like pulling his
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: hair out trying to figure it out. What's that look
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: like for you?
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Well, as I'm watching these bucks mature, I'm It's not
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: like I one night, I go in and set up
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: my computer and I figure out what I want to do.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: It's the pieces are slowly coming together over years before
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: I target that buck. And even like a year or
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: two before I'm going to target that buck, I know
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: where my best chance is to kill himr Like I'll
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: know that I've got two or three stands on my
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: farm where my very best odds that killing that deer
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: are and I will wait for the perfect conditions for
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: those stands and slip in and do it, and maybe
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: maybe it's a certain time of the year, you know,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: Like I know once the bucks first week in November,
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: the bucks are starting to you know, scrape and move
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: a little bit more. I know I can count on
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: this buck to be at this particular location. And that's
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: he goes back to what I was saying earlier about
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: their certain stands. I just won't shoot a management buck
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: from because I don't want to booger them up for
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: you know, a primary target buck, and so I know
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: where I'm going to kill him, that's the big thing.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: And then I just wait for the conditions to be
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: perfect for that location. And there may be two or
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: three of those locations that take totally different conditions to
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: be prime. But whatever it is, I wait for the prime,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: the prime opportunity and the prime location, and I get
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: in and get it done.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: If you're willing to share this, I don't know if
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: you are or not, But if you're willing to share,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: could you detail for us what you think one of
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: those hypothetical prime locations might look like for babe, Like
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I'm what I'm getting at. What I'm getting is like
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: trying to get a clear picture of like what is
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: one of these bulletproof setups where you can kill a
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: six year old buck. That's kind of the idea I'm
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: going for here. So if you've got an example you're
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: willing to share, I'd love to hear, like the very
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: specific details like how you're getting in, how you're getting out,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: what it's set up, why he should come through there,
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: when he should come through there, and what makes that
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: kind of place unique compared to your average run of
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: the mail setup.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: Yep, I gotta I'll just describe perfectly one of the
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: stands that I think I have actually a blind in
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: this location, a great chance to kill babe, and it's
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: on the edge of the sanctuary. But when I've got
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: these stands on the edge of the sanctuary, I'm doing
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: everything I can to make that stand. I mean, I
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: want to do everything I can to turn a good
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: stand into a great stand. And sometimes that's using a
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: terrain feature or down trees or whatever to push that
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: buck a little bit closer to the edge, you know,
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: where it's going to push him up to the edge
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: where I can slip in and have a stand and
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: slip in undetected and hunt that stand. And there's pretty
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: high odds that he's going to come within range. Well,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: in this particular location, I've planted a small grove of
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: fruit trees in a little opening. It within the sanctuary,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: and it's close to the edge and on the edge
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: of the sanctuary. I created a sanctuary twenty five thirty
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: years ago, planted pine trees on the edge. There's two
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: rows of pine trees which screens his view out to
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: the open agfields. And i will walk across the open
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: agfield with the wind right in my face. Just as
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: soon as i get to that first row of pines,
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going right up the ladder into the blind that's
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: situated between those two rows of pines. And then right
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: in front of that is a handful of pair and
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: apple trees. Probably I'm gonna guess maybe seven or eight trees,
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: but they do produce fruit now they're big enough. And
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: then beyond that, surrounding that little grove of fruit trees
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: is thick prime bedding cover. Well, in previous years, I'll
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: keep a trail camera on that grove of fruit trees.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: In previous years, Babe has been there in October in
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: daylight quite frequently, eating pairs and apples before he heads
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: out to the other food plots or agfields to feed
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: after dark. So it's just a prime location where I
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: could not I mean, it's a place where you could
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: sit and see eight or ten bucks in one afternoon.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: But he's shown me that he's not afraid to come
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: in and feed there in daylight an hour before dark,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: especially the pairs. He seems to really like those pear trees,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: as do a lot of deer. But those there's two
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: bigger pear trees that are right in front of that blind,
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: probably twenty yards, and there is a great opportunity, and
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: he's already moved into that area. I'm getting his pictures
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: right now around that betting area nice and there's a
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: very very good chance that he could be shot right
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: there out of that mine. But I need a south
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: wind and a fairly steady wind so that if I
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: happen to make a little noise climbing up in that blind,
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's going to be betted within one hundred
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: yards of that blind, in that thick stuff. But a
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: steady south wind will allow me to do that.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Is that a spot where is that south wind going
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: to give him the wind a little bit? And he's
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: going to feel comfortable heading in there, or is this
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: a situation where it's so thick, so screened, he's comfortable
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: just moving eighty yards out of his bet or whatever,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: despite the wind not being good for him.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: He's typically going to come in with a crosswind, so
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: he's not going to come in with a tail wind
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: coming straight from the south with the wind at his back.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: But he's going to come in from one end or
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: one side of that that little grove of fruit trees,
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: and he's going to have a crosswind. But at the
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: same time, he feels he's never been pressured in that
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: betting sanctuary. He's never been pressured around those fruit trees.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: That's one of those spots that I'm never going to
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: shoot a colbuck there.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds dynamite. You mentioned that he was daylight there
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: last October? Is that right?
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah? And in fact, if you want, I can send
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: you some pictures of him at that par tree for
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: your thumbnail or whatever for this podcast or put on
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: the screen as we're talking here.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: So that brings to mind one of the things I've
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: always wondered about, which is as these bucks get older
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: and older and their core range kind of shrinks down
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: have you seen that their annual patterns get tighter too, Like,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: do they become even more locked into a routine or
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: is that or has that not been the case in
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: your experience?
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: And you know, I think once they hit about four
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: years old, they're pretty much locked in. I don't think
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: they lock in anymore. But basically each successive year just
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: kind of reaffirms what their annual pattern is.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we talked about this years ago. Your theory
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: is around annual patterns, but I guess I'm just curious
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: if that's evolved at all, or how you have how
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: other variables impact your thoughts on annual patterns, because I
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: am constantly studying this now too, and I'm looking back
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: at when a deer did something last year and when
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: he did it the year before. And one of the
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: things I'm debating a lot is trying to understand did
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: he do this because of the date on the calendar,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: so is this like a time of year thing, or
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: did he do this because of a other variable like
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: a weather condition, wind direction, something like that. And So
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: what I've found sometimes is I'll be looking at a
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: hunt coming up and I'm like, man, this buck daylighted
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: for two days during this first week of December. Let's say,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: so I see like a possible annual pattern kind of thing.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: He moved back in this area in December, so there's
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: an opportunity there. But what if the weather doesn't match
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: or is not that good, or what if the wind
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: is very different than what it was last year during
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: that period? Is it worth trying the right time of
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: year to catch the pattern even if the conditions don't
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: match up, or if the conditions are a little bit
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: risky or something like that. That what's your take on that?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: Well? I think that you know, I've talked a lot
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: about the annual pattern on various podcasts and magazine articles
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: and whatever, and I think I did not do a
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: real good job of explaining. I think people take it
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: a little bit too literal, Like he showed up on
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: November fifth, So next year, on November fifth, I need
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: to be right where that camera was at. And it's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: a little bit looser than that. I think on November
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: fifth the following year, he's going to be right close.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: He's going to be in that location. Now, whether he's
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: going to be on his feet, whether you just mentioned
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: may you know cause him to remain betted, but he's
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: going to be close to there, and typically you know,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: he's not just coming through for a day or two.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: When he moves into a different part of his range,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: it's for a period of time. So I know that
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: in the situation I just describe, if he shows up
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: on November fifth, I know that, you know, around November fifth,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: give or take a few days either side, I've got
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: a really good chance to kill that buck really close
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: to where I got his picture. It doesn't have to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: be right there at that exact spot, but real close,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: and the day doesn't have to be the exact day,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: but real close to that date.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So how much weight, though, do you put on
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: those outside factors, so that being wind or temperature, anything
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: like that. So knowing that you've got a few days
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: on either side that he's going to be in the zone,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: does that mean typically, let's say November fifth is the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: day last year, So now you're looking at a couple
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: days on either side of November fifth, Would it just
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: be that you are now looking for when is the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: day or the two days within that six day window
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: when I've got the right wind and I've got a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: slightly more advantageous weather system something like that.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: The biggest thing that's going to make a change that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: pattern is human intrusion, hunting pressure. You know, somebody there's
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: some form of human intrusion within that close proximity that's
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: going to cause him to vacate that area. That's the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: biggest factor that's going to cause him to switch that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: annual pattern.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Another annual pattern. Thought the kenmin I have hunted deer
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: on an annual and thought about their annual patterns, but
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: then thought about what's the impact of the crop rotation
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: on them. So let's say, like I'm hunting, like I'll
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: give you perfect sample. I'm hunting a deer this year.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: He's a five and a half year old buck. He's
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: the oldest buck in this area that I can hunt,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: and so I have I have four years of data
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: from this deer. I've noticed when he was two, so
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: I've kept track of him since he was two. He's
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: not five, and I'm looking at what he did last year,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: and I'm looking at what he did as a three
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: year old. I'm thinking to myself, well, what he did
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: last year is probably value in a lot of ways,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: because he was four last year. He's five. Now he's
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: you know, was kind of mature last year, so that
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: kind of behavior patterns are probably similar. On the flip side,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: it's a cornier this year, and it was a corner
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: when he was a three and a half year old.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: So do I give more weight to what he did
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: as a three year old, even though he was a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: crazy three year old, but at the same time that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: was the year I had corn, Or do I pay
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: attention more to what he did last year because he
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: was a four year old. He's smarter, but it was beans.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: What would you think about that situation?
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I live in an area where there's
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: agriculture everywhere, so the crop rotation and I've actually tried
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: to note crop rotation on as I'm putting together annual
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: patterns and things to see if that affected at all,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: and I have not seen it here. Because let's say
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: a buck is key and n on soy beans and
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: this particular field is corn this year instead of beans. Well,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: there is where I'm at, there's going to be a
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: soybean field in close proximity. There's just so much agg
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: around me. If I was in a different type of terrain,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: then it would probably have a much bigger impact. And
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: that's one thing I've really noticed about that there's some
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of deer hunters I really respect,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: big name deer hunters, that their opinions on certain things
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: differ from my own. And as I've really looked at that,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: because I know these guys are killing giants too, and
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: they're doing it consistently, and but but yet their opinions
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: on certain things are like one hundred and eighty degrees
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: different than mine. And I think doctor Strickland really opened
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: my eyes on this because he comes from the South.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: You know, his region is totally different than mine, and
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: he opened my eyes to the I think it's a
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: fact even that deer habits changed from region to region
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: and works for me in the Midwest and the heavy
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: agriculture region, you know, it might not work near as
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: well for say someone like Dan Infault, who's holding who
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of respect for. I read his stuff,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: and I mean, you can just tell when you get
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: to a certain point and another deer hunter puts something out.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: There's a certain point where you just know this guy
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: is the real deal. Dan Infault is the real deal,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: but he hunts a totally different type of terrain than
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: I do, and so while his opinion on in mine
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: on certain things may vary, I think it's regional. I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: don't think it's one of us is right and one
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: of us is wrong. I think it's the difference, is
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: the difference in regions or the type of terrain that
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: we're hunting. And I just see that with a lot
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: of different guys that I respect that are dropping giants,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: but yet we don't align one hundred percent on some
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: certain things. And I think it's regional differences. And I
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: think as hunters anybody listen to this podcast, you need
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: to really take that into consideration and not think that
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: this guy is wrong or this guy's right. It's that
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: this guy is right for his region. This guy is
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: right for his region.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's certainly one thing I've seen too, Like,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: over the years of doing this podcast, talk to so
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: many different people that are consistently successful on big old bucks,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: and there are so many differences between them. There's just
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: like you said, there's so many regional differences, and then
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: also just styles, right, Like one thing might work for
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: a person because they're a certain way, or their properties
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: that they hunt are a certain way. You know, there's
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: just so many different circumstantial factors that can make one
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: thing work in a certain spot and not work in
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: the other, or personality traits in the hunter themselves. So
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: that's a great point to bring up that a lot
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: of this has to be kind of passed through a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: filter of what's right for your area, what's right for you,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: what's right for your personal goals, what's right for your
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: available time, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: And another perfect example is Bobby Worthington. You know, he
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: hunts the mountains of East Tennessee totally different than what
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: I'm hunting Central Illinois, and him and I absolutely have
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: opposite approaches to chasing giant box. I mean, he's way
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: more aggressive. He doesn't have a choice. He's going to
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: be in the deep timber because everywhere he goes it's
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: the deep timber. From my perspective, where I'm out on
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: the edges, I'm giving the deer the cover and I'm
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: sitting out on the edge. Bobby's in the cover and
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: you can't argue with his success. So yeah, there's a
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: lot of good hunters approaching things from different angles, but
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: they're they're the big thing is they're hunting different regions
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: of the country. I mean, I think southern Iowa, you know,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: the hotbed if you will, of giant white tails. The
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: approach that those guys are using there is totally different
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: than my management approach where I'm at in central Illinois,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: where it's not heavily managed.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, speaking of things that hunters like to debate
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: or differ on, maybe there's all sorts of different theories
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: and now even apps and tools that try to predict
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: what kind of conditions will get deer to move more
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: often or get a buck daylight, whatever it is. So
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: I want to remove all the dose out of the equation.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: I want to remove all our one and a half
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: year olds and two and a half year olds and
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: three and a half year olds and maybe four and
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: a half year olds. When we look at things like temperature,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: wind speed, barometric pressure, anything related to the moon, cold fronts, precipitation,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: anything like that, is there any one of those things
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: that stands out to you as really making a difference
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: for those old old bucks? Like, what is there anything
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: that in your mind truly does make a difference when
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: you're hunting a six or seven year old buck that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: when you see that coming in the forecast or whatever
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: it is, you think to yourself, Okay, yeah, this is
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: one of those special opportunities.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I think there's two things. First of all, the rut.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: The rut's going to have those big bucks moving more
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: than they typically would in daylight. The other thing is
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: really huge, and I think you know, when I wrote
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: my first book, I kind of brushed off the late season.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: There's the late seasons of time where it's all about
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: luck and the property you have access to and this
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: and that, and the property you have access to is
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: right to some degree. But in the late season, if
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: you can get brutal cold weather conditions, snow helps, but
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: it needs to be cold. There's no such thing as
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: a nocturnal buck. When it gets zero. Those bucks have
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: to consume a lot of calories to stay alive. And
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: they're going to be on their feet in daylight every afternoon.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: They're getting up and they're headed to food somewhere. And
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: if you happen to be on the right food source,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: on the right path leading to the food source, you're
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: going to see deer and the mature buck is going
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: to be coming along right with the rest of them. That,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: in my opinion, the very very best time to kill
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: a mature buck on purpose is during the late season
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: during a brutal cold spell. And if you look at Iowa,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: look at that late Mussloder season they have at Iowa,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: and how many giants are killed over soybean fields or
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: whatever in that late Mussloder season. Those bucks are not
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: no longer nocturnal. They have to be on their feet
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: feeding and that's when they become the most vulnerable.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, hard to argue with that. Speaking of the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: rut you mentioned a second ago, what have you seen
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: as far as how these really old deer partaking the rut?
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: I know they're doing a lot of things differently than
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: a three year old. What have you seen unique to that,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: like top aged class of buck. Are they getting active
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: earlier later, do they locked down for a longer or
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: shorter period? Do they do anything unique in your.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: So last season, I had a really unique circumstance and
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: something I'd never seen before. And I had a buck
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: on my farm that I know was nine and a
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: half years old. I'd followed him since he was three
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: and a half and this buck has been here every
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: fall during the two falls before when he was seven
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: years old, and eight years old, he forgot the rut.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: He did not I mean, he did not move until
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: it was dark. He would just go to feed. Never
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: seen him at a scrape anything like that. Seven eight,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: he forgets about the rut. Last year he's nine and
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: a half years old. And at nine and a half
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: years old, he's running around like a three year old,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: chasing does grunting, working scrapes. And I could have killed
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: him two or three times, real easy.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: He actually ended up going off my property and getting
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: and I got a picture of him as he's leaving.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: Within thirty minutes of him walking off the property, he
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: got shot. He killed. So you know, he came back
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: and I'd never seen anything like it. At nine years old,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: he started acting like a three year old again. But
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: at seven and eight he didn't hardly participate in the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: rut that I seen whatsoever, and and almost a zero
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: daylight movement. He became like a nocturnal recluse. He basically
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: avoided the rest of the deer herd. He would bed
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: by himself, he would feed by himself, and then boom,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: at nine years old, here he comes, you know, acting
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: like a teenager again. And wow, I guess it's like
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: the old men, you know, my age, in their sixties
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: and they go out and they buy a new corvette
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: and they start chasing young girls or something. But yeah,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: it's a great I've never seen that before.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great analogy. So you're so if that's unusual,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: then would you say the usual behavior seeing from a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: six or seven or eight year old buck is that
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: they do participate, but at some point they trend down
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit or or what is it?
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: Well, it comes down to the individual buck. I'd never
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: seen one totally become a recluse like he did at
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: seven and eight. I think it slowly tapers off. But
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: you know, I've got the other buck here that I
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: told you about that comes, you know in the late
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: season that's probably I don't know, eight or nine years old. Now,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: i'd have to go back and look at some history,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: but you know he's chasing those when he comes in
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: the late season, he's still chasing those around. And if
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: other buck, if there happens to be a doe fawn
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: coming in heat or whatever and bucks are chasing around,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: he'll join right in the chase. So I think it's individual.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: The nine and a half year old I described earlier.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: That's a very unique situation. I've never seen anything like
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: that before, you know, with an older buck.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it seems if there's any theme through a
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: lot of this talking about maybe the very most you
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: correct me if I'm wrong here, but maybe one of
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: the very most important things that we need to keep
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: in mind when it comes to understanding and targeting, Like
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: one of these old old deer is just the number one.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: They're all different, like at that point especially, they really
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: develop personalities. They all have those unique traits. So probably
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: the best thing we can do if we're at the
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: point where we want to hunt a deer like that
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: is just pay super close to attention to all those
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: unique factors with each unique buck, Like, figure out that personality,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: do your homework, do your studying, think about it right.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's where trail cameras are huge. I mean,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: having a lot of trail cameras out helps you to
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: know where that buck is at and what he's doing
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: at various times of the season. And you do that
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: with the same buck for three seasons, you know you've
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: got a pretty good idea what he's going to be
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: doing on the fourth season. That's where I'm sitting with babe.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: You know, I know he's going to be hitting those
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: fruit trees. And he may not hit him every afternoon
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: before dark. But if I hunt that, if I hunt
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: that blind every time, the conditions are good for me
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: to slip in undetected and slip out undetected. Ah, I'm
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: going to get a crack at him there.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, speaking of these these personalities and these old bucks,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: if you were to think back over all your years,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: you've hunted a lot of these big old deer. Is
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: there any one super mature buck that stands out in
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: your mind as having taught you the most important lesson?
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: Is there any buck that taught you more than any
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: other or that right now you can think back on say, oh, yeah,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: either a buck you got or buck you didn't get.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure which is going to be for you.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: But is there one that stands out for you as
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: having really drove home something really really important for you?
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: And if so, can you share with us that story
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: and what that lesson was?
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah? So I don't even have to think twice about this.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: It would be the second buck I shot back in
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. Trump. You know, I came on your podcast
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: in the summer, I said, I'm going to kill Smokey
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: killed him. We got on another podcast a day or
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: so later. I killed Trump. Yep. Trump's personality was so
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: different than any other mature buck I'd ever chased. There
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: was absolutely no pattern whatsoever to that deer. He would
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: show up here, there, and everywhere. And if you got
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: his picture here one day, you was not getting his
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: picture there the next day or the day after. He
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: was here. He was there, He was there, and it
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: was just one hundred percent random. And the year I
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: shot him, he was seven and a half years old.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: And the day I shot him was the first time
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: I ever laid eyes on that deer. Wow, I'd only
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: seen him in trail camera pictures. And what he taught
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: me was that I totally had to change my approach
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: that deer, because as his rack blew up the year before,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: so I started really I was trying to shoot him
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: the year before, actually, and I was expanding my range
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: where I could hunt by gaining access or permission to
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: hunt properties where I thought he might be. And I
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: was putting trail cameras in places I'd never had him before.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I'd get his trail camera on this property
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: and that property and this property, all random and as
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: well as the place where i'd originally got his picture.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: And boys, I'm sitting there that summer trying to think
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: of how am I going to get Trump. I've never
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: lit eyes on this buck yet, and most of the
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: bucks I shoot, I've seen him before when they were younger,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: but Trump is one I'd never seen, you know, firsthand before,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: and typically I had to totally change my approach to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: hunt that buck. And I think that's the lesson here,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: is to be open to, you know, throwing everything out
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: the window and doing something that you would never typically do.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: And that's what I did with him, is I hunted.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: I looked at all those properties where I had his pictures,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: and I thought, well, I could hunt him here and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: I could hunt him there, and I had stands on
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: all those properties, and I thought, if I jump around
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: from one property to the next, I'm just going to
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: be one step behind that bock, because I'm going to
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: be there today and then two days later, I'm going
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: to get his picture there. And I never get his
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: picture anywhere two days in a row. So I thought,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: my best bet for this buck do something I never do.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to camp out. I had one property
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: where I had three tree stands. It was a small property.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: I had three tree stands there for three different wind directions,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: and I thought, I'm going to camp out on this
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: property until I kill him those three stands based on wind.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: And that's what I did. And I ended up shooting
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: him on the tenth hunt. And he was the first
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: that I seen. On all ten hunts. The first nine hunts,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: I did not see a single deer. But I kept
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: at it because I knew he's there, He's coming through here.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: If I start jumping around, he's gonna show up here.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: I just need to stay here until he does show
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: up here. Ye, And I've never done that with another buck,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: but uh, you know, his random personality just being everywhere
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: with no pattern whatsoever, I knew I just better camp
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: in one spot and just wait him out. And like
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: I say, that's the only buck that I've ever hunted
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: that way, and it ended up paying off.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that's that's such a great example. So to
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: put a bow on this done. If we were to
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: give you an opportunity to like have a stone tablet
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: that you could etch your three commandments for hunting the
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: super old buck. If you could write down those three
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: most important rules that someone leaving today, if they remember
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: nothing else, they have to remember these three things Don
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: Higgins command for hunting old old dear. What would those
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: three things be?
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: Number one, every mature buck has a sanctuary. If you
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: want to kill him, you got to find it. If
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: you own property, you can create a sanctuary and bucks
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: will use it, and that includes the older bucks in
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: your area. Every mature buck has a sanctuary. That'd be
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: number one. Number two, play the wind. Every mature buck
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: uses the wind. They use the wind to the degree
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: that or they use their nose to the same degree
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: that we use our eyes. You got to play the wind.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: And number three would be that annual pattern. They've got
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: an annual pattern. So find their sanctuary, play the wind,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: put together that annual pattern.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: All right, there we go. So here's here's my last
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: thing for it down. I want to give you a
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: chance to call your shot again. Do you feel confident
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: enough in babe or any other scenario it could be
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: with you or when your grandkids or someone else. Do
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: you want to call a shot for us this year
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: and in guarantee. Where as close as guarantee something happened
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: in this.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: Fall, i'd think. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: get specific down to the day, but I think Babe
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: will be shot out of one or two stands in October.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: The fruit tree stand or blind that I described earlier,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: or there's another stand in a pinch point that I
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: can hunt. It requires an easterly wind, which we rarely get.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: But he'll be killed on an afternoon hunt in October
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: from either the blind in front of the fruit trees
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: or another pinch point stand about one hundred and fifty
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: yards away from that fruit tree stand.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, I would not want to be Babe this
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: year because he's in trouble. I can tell you that
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: I love it. I appreciate you sharing this down. This
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: is fun. This is the kind of stuff that I
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: geek out about, and you're one of my favorite people
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: to geek out about it with. You've got a whole
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: wealth information share, So thank you for that.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you having me Mark. You know, you
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: kind of opened the door to hunting podcast years ago.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: I think you had the very first hunting podcast, and
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: now I think everybody that's ever shot. Two Bucks has
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: got a podcast.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: Well, you've kind of been a pioneer in the whole industry,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: at least the podcast. It's the industry.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: It's been wild to see that growth and I've been
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: fortunate that's that's worked out for me. But speaking of that, don,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: I did want to get give you an opportunity to
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: tell folks about the whole slew of different things you've
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: got going on these days. You've got a lot of
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: great resources and content. Can you give people a rundown
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: of what they can find and where they can find it.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I've got the website. It's a subscription based
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: website for videos, but there's a lot of free videos
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: on there as well, called the whitetailmaster Academy dot com.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: You can go there and check out the videos and
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: if you like what you see, you can subscribe. But
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: we do a lot of just everything land management. You know,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: I'm a consultant, So when I go on these consulting visits,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: I take my video producer along and we feature different properties.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: We try to feature one property a month. Tree stand videos,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: my actual tree stands. We go there with my videographer
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: and we film some videos there, but just a lot
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: of different types of videos on that I got. The
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: Chasing Giants podcasts, it basically is a little bit different
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: than a lot of the other podcasts. Instead of having guests,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: we have the listeners submit questions and we read those
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: questions and answer them on that podcast. Boy, what else
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: the consulting that I mentioned. If you go to Higginsoutdoors
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: dot com you can find just about everything there that
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: I've got going. So that's probably easier than me sitting
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: here for the next thirty minutes rattling on one thing
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: after another.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll give a quick little plug for your masterclass.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: I subscribe to that and have been checking it out.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: And something that's really cool for people that listen today
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: and heard you talking about Babe. You've been posting updates
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: all throughout this year as you've tried to put together
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: your plan for Babe and try to find him again
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: and get pictures of him and figure all these different
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: things out. I've really enjoyed that just getting to see
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: these little like three four or five minute updates on Hey,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: today I'm doing this, or today I'm going to go
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: out and try to get video of Babe or today,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: I'm setting this thing up or planting this food plot
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: and getting to see that three hundred and sixty five
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: kind of day process leading up to the season has
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: been really fun, and I think it'll be extra fun
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: when you make your prediction come true here in a
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: matter of weeks. So that's definitely something to take a
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: look at. So they're chasing two hundred series on there,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: I think is what you're calling it, and I got
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: to kick out of that. It's pretty cool.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you, we'll see you know. I'm not going
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: to chase Babe hard at all until after the use.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: I want to get my grandsons a first crack at
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: him and hopefully one of them shoots him. But if not,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: after that U season ends, I'm going to be hitting
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: it hard. Well.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: I wish you all luck in the world done. I
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: know it doesn't take luck. I know it takes hard
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: work and a good plan, which you know you've got.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: But I'll be sending luck your way downetheless.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it, Mark, thank you, and thank you for
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: having me. It's always surprising.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. All right, that's our show today.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this one. I certainly did. It's
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: got me fired up for this upcoming season. My Wisconsin hunt,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: as I just mentioned, is wrapping up, so by the
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: time you're listening to this, that hunt's probably done. But
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Michigan is going to be taken off here in just
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: about a week, and I'm over the moon for that
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: to get started. So if you're out there already hunting,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: I'm wishing you all the best of luck. I hope
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: you're having fun. I hope you're being safe. I hope
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: you are taking the lessons you've learned over the years
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: on this podcast and applying them to make your hunt
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: it's more successful and enjoyable. And finally, I hope you
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: will stay wired to hunt.