Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 939: What Would Troy Pottenger Do?

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Ep. 939: What Would Troy Pottenger Do? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the white tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
0:08
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
0:13
Speaker 1: Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week of
0:22
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Troy Pottinger and I'm running
0:26
Speaker 2: him through are what would You Do gauntlet, giving us
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Speaker 2: insight into exactly how we'd handle some of the most
0:32
Speaker 2: challenging hunting scenarios I could throw at him. Absolutely all right,
0:39
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to
0:43
Speaker 2: you by First Light and their cameo for Conservation. It
0:47
Speaker 2: is their season opener sale this week. By the way,
0:49
Speaker 2: if you're listening to this right when it launches, which
0:52
Speaker 2: would be to Thursday, August twenty first, twenty twenty five.
0:57
Speaker 2: If you have to be listening to it that week,
0:59
Speaker 2: season on, check it on out over at first light
1:02
Speaker 2: dot com. There's some good deals going on. But in
1:06
Speaker 2: more relevant news today, we are continuing are What Would
1:09
Speaker 2: You Do? Series. The gist of this series is that
1:14
Speaker 2: I talked to different expert whitetail hunters and give them
1:17
Speaker 2: very specific hypothetical deer hunting scenarios or challenges or circumstances
1:25
Speaker 2: and ask them to detail for us how they would
1:27
Speaker 2: handle them, how they would think through this challenge, how
1:30
Speaker 2: would they act on this challenge, What would be their strategy,
1:34
Speaker 2: their thought process, why would they do these different things?
1:37
Speaker 2: All of that we've had it so far. We've done
1:40
Speaker 2: one of these with Ted Zanyerlei, we've done one with
1:42
Speaker 2: Terry Drury earlier this month, and today we have Troy Pottinger.
1:47
Speaker 2: And last week with Terry that was a little bit
1:50
Speaker 2: more of a private land focused conversation. Today we're back
1:54
Speaker 2: to more of a public land focused conversation because Troy
1:58
Speaker 2: specializes in hunting big country, big timber, big hills or mountains,
2:04
Speaker 2: and finding really big bucks in these pretty darn tough circumstances.
2:08
Speaker 2: So it's going to be a very interesting one. Troy
2:10
Speaker 2: comes to us from the White Tail Addictions Crew. He
2:13
Speaker 2: is a proven DIY deer hunter who has gotten it done,
2:17
Speaker 2: not just in his home state of Idaho and the
2:19
Speaker 2: surrounding area of Canada, Montana, Washington, but also he's headed east.
2:24
Speaker 2: He's done it in Ohio, He's done it I think
2:26
Speaker 2: in Iowa or Illinois, some of these other states in
2:29
Speaker 2: the Midwest. So his tactics will work for you whether
2:33
Speaker 2: you're on the West coast or the east. The terrain
2:36
Speaker 2: that he's specialized in, these big hills, rolling topography, mountains,
2:40
Speaker 2: it's stuff that I know that people in southern Ohio
2:43
Speaker 2: or Virginia, or Pennsylvania, or New York, or the Appalachians
2:47
Speaker 2: down Tennessee, Georgia, whatever. This is something that can apply
2:52
Speaker 2: to many of you. And I think there's some other
2:54
Speaker 2: ideas that Troy shares with us about using scrapes that
2:57
Speaker 2: can be applicable even in flatter country, whether you're in
2:59
Speaker 2: Michigan or Mississippi or somewhere in between. So he's a
3:03
Speaker 2: great hunter, a great storyteller, and communicator around how he
3:08
Speaker 2: develops his plans and his processes. There's a lot we
3:12
Speaker 2: can learn from Troy today. So I don't want to
3:14
Speaker 2: beat around the bush too much on this one. I
3:16
Speaker 2: mentioned already that our first Light season opener sale is
3:19
Speaker 2: going on right now. If you are listening on the
3:22
Speaker 2: twenty first or twenty second of September, or sorry it's August,
3:26
Speaker 2: I guess now twenty twenty five. Also, the Wired Ton
3:29
Speaker 2: hats've been telling you about. Those are still in stock,
3:31
Speaker 2: but we have these brand new T shirts. If you
3:34
Speaker 2: are watching, you can see the brand new Wired Hunt
3:37
Speaker 2: T shirt just dropped this week as well. You can
3:40
Speaker 2: find all of that over at the Mediator's store. I
3:43
Speaker 2: hope you guys, alikam, I appreciate you showing your support
3:46
Speaker 2: for this podcast and what we're trying to do over here.
3:48
Speaker 2: So thanks in advance for that and thanks for tuning in.
3:51
Speaker 2: I hope you're gonna enjoy this one. I know you're
3:53
Speaker 2: gonna enjoy this one. Troy's a great guest, He's got
3:56
Speaker 2: a lot to share. So why don't we just get
3:58
Speaker 2: to my chat with me Pottinger. Here we go, all right,
4:09
Speaker 2: joining me once again. The show is mister Troy Pottinger.
4:13
Speaker 2: Welcome to show.
4:14
Speaker 3: Troy, Hey, Mark, thanks for having me. It's great too,
4:18
Speaker 3: great to get a circle back and talk to you again.
4:20
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely. I always enjoy our chats. We've had
4:24
Speaker 2: some good ones over the years, and excited for today
4:27
Speaker 2: though because it's a little bit different than usual, as
4:30
Speaker 2: you know, and we're just you know, jumping right in
4:33
Speaker 2: no formalities here today. We're just gonna we're gonna get
4:36
Speaker 2: right into the fun stuff. The format for today's show
4:40
Speaker 2: is this what would you do gauntlet, in which I'm
4:42
Speaker 2: gonna throw you into the throw to the Wolves. With
4:46
Speaker 2: all these different hypothetical situations, some might be like fun
4:49
Speaker 2: to consider, some might be stressful to consider. I think
4:53
Speaker 2: plenty of them. You've probably experienced yourself, and I've ran
4:57
Speaker 2: a number of the white tail addictions through this one.
5:00
Speaker 2: I know we've done Andre, we've done justin maybe Heath,
5:06
Speaker 2: I can't remember. But you're in good company and I
5:10
Speaker 2: think it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting, So I
5:13
Speaker 2: just want to jump into it so we maximize our
5:15
Speaker 2: time here. Imagine this one. Imagine that the season is
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Speaker 2: coming soon. It's August. I know, opening day of archery
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Speaker 2: for you in Idaho is August thirtieth. So you're excited,
5:28
Speaker 2: you're amped up, everything's prepared. But a week before opening day,
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Speaker 2: I pick you up and I say, hey, Troy can't
5:38
Speaker 2: hunt Idaho. I'm flying you to New York State and
5:42
Speaker 2: you've got to hunt the adirndecks of New York this year.
5:47
Speaker 2: But you've got one weekend here in August to prepare
5:50
Speaker 2: for your hunt coming up. Later that year. Okay, so
5:53
Speaker 2: you got Saturday and Sunday in the Adirundecks of New York.
5:57
Speaker 2: What would you do in that two day window to
6:00
Speaker 2: prepare yourself for your week long return trip Let's say
6:03
Speaker 2: in November out in the mountains of the ad Airundecks.
6:06
Speaker 2: Walk me through thought process and plan for maximizing two
6:10
Speaker 2: days in this brand new mountain area.
6:13
Speaker 3: Okay, so I've got two days to get out there
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Speaker 3: do my due diligence of scouting to prepare for a
6:21
Speaker 3: November hunt. What what time in November?
6:24
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, you were going to be there
6:26
Speaker 2: from November first to the seventh for your return trip,
6:30
Speaker 2: And and you can, you can. You can do anything
6:34
Speaker 2: digitally beyond the two days, but you only have two
6:38
Speaker 2: days on the ground to do your work.
6:40
Speaker 3: Right, So obviously, the the easy thing that I know
6:47
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be able to do is do a massive
6:49
Speaker 3: amount of East scouting outside of those two days.
6:52
Speaker 2: Yep.
6:53
Speaker 3: But those two days are crucial. And this kind of
6:56
Speaker 3: plays into my hand because thirty three years as a teacher,
7:03
Speaker 3: I have had to teach, force, train, whatever word you
7:08
Speaker 3: want to say, myself to figure out deer in the
7:12
Speaker 3: summer when I have free time to be able to
7:16
Speaker 3: kill them in October November. And there's a lot of
7:19
Speaker 3: people out there that don't like to scout hard heart
7:23
Speaker 3: in the summer, but that's been my life. My whole
7:26
Speaker 3: life has been can I scout effectively in the summer
7:32
Speaker 3: and translate that to late October November type hunts? And
7:36
Speaker 3: I do that, but it takes a lot of effort
7:40
Speaker 3: and paying attention to details that are hard to see.
7:44
Speaker 3: So let's say the e scouting side of it. I'm
7:48
Speaker 3: a big Google Earth, Google Earth. I love Google Earth
7:51
Speaker 3: because I can really look at the right now habitat
7:54
Speaker 3: and conditions of what's going on out there, and then
7:57
Speaker 3: I like to overlap it with you know, whatever your
8:00
Speaker 3: favorite hunt app is. So I would do a ton
8:05
Speaker 3: of that as much as I could before that two
8:08
Speaker 3: day trip out to get my boots on the ground,
8:11
Speaker 3: and I would do a ton of that after I
8:13
Speaker 3: got to put boots on the ground on those two
8:16
Speaker 3: days to try to make sure it all made sense
8:20
Speaker 3: in the big picture of that early November hunt. So
8:25
Speaker 3: that's just a given that's going to happen because I
8:27
Speaker 3: have ample amount of time to scout this before and after.
8:32
Speaker 3: But to me, the crucial part would be I would
8:37
Speaker 3: if I had two days, I would use every ounce
8:41
Speaker 3: of daylight till dark to cover ground. And I do
8:45
Speaker 3: that all the time out here right now in the
8:48
Speaker 3: summers in August on Bucks. But out here right now
8:55
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get within one hundred yards of a
8:57
Speaker 3: bucks betting zone to killing August thirtieth. That wouldn't be
9:01
Speaker 3: my focus as much in the Adirondacks in August, because
9:05
Speaker 3: I'd be hunt in November. I would scout the living
9:08
Speaker 3: daylights out of the wind, how it worked in the Adirondacks,
9:13
Speaker 3: how it positioned deer. I would do a ton of
9:16
Speaker 3: research behind the scenes of my free time on the
9:19
Speaker 3: favorable food sources. I would get on the ground out
9:23
Speaker 3: there every second of daylight I have, and I would
9:27
Speaker 3: just cover a ton of ground based on my eat
9:29
Speaker 3: scouting prior to get in there. And then I would
9:32
Speaker 3: break down first how the wind is working in those
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Speaker 3: mountains and how the thermal is working, because that will
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Speaker 3: always position whitetail deer for safety in mountain country no
9:45
Speaker 3: matter where you're at, really anywhere, they will always live
9:49
Speaker 3: their life around wind the thermals. And then of course
9:53
Speaker 3: the obvious, the water, the feed, and everything that's going
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Speaker 3: to be available to them. November window I get a hunt,
10:03
Speaker 3: so I would hit the ground running and I would
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Speaker 3: cover as much ground as I could, and I would
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Speaker 3: look for historical, traditional, long standing evidence sign of community
10:19
Speaker 3: running areas. All the sign's gonna have to be there
10:23
Speaker 3: from the year before. I need to. I need to
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Speaker 3: find the licking branches that most guys will walk by
10:30
Speaker 3: because the leaves have the ground covered up. I need
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Speaker 3: to find the old scrapes, all the traditional rubs that
10:37
Speaker 3: have been pounded over the years. I need to walk
10:40
Speaker 3: with the wind and the thermals, so let it walk
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Speaker 3: me into those areas that give a give deer herds safety, solace, food, water, security, cover,
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Speaker 3: habitat all of it for November. And I can't and
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Speaker 3: I wouldn't focus on Like if I bunked a buck
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Speaker 3: out of his bed while doing it, no bother at all,
11:03
Speaker 3: wouldn't bother me a bit? I would ask myself, you know,
11:07
Speaker 3: where would this deer be based on the dough family
11:11
Speaker 3: groups that I'm finding evidence of and the community type
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Speaker 3: hubs that I'm finding evidence of, where would this deer
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Speaker 3: probably stage based on the topography the Terraine to cover
11:24
Speaker 3: how the wind works in there to service these doughs.
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Speaker 3: So I would really focus on the dough family groups
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Speaker 3: evidence from the previous running time of the year to
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Speaker 3: circle back and hunt them in that first that first
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Speaker 3: week in November, because I'm gonna hunt. I'm gonna be
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Speaker 3: hunting for one week, hardcore on where I believe a
11:48
Speaker 3: big buck would feel safe servicing dose in the daylight
11:52
Speaker 3: that time of year, checking scrapes, and really doing his
11:56
Speaker 3: work that time of year.
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Speaker 2: So I know you put a huge priority on those
12:01
Speaker 2: community scraping areas, but as you as you mentioned in
12:05
Speaker 2: the summer, it's a lot harder to see them. You
12:07
Speaker 2: might be able to see the liaking branches if you're
12:08
Speaker 2: really paying attention, but it's probably not gonna pop like
12:11
Speaker 2: they normally would. What what would that I know, I
12:16
Speaker 2: personally know what that looks like when I'm out there
12:18
Speaker 2: in October or November. But if I'm out there for
12:21
Speaker 2: listeners out there in August, what would a community scrape
12:25
Speaker 2: area look like, a primary scraping area, whatever you want
12:27
Speaker 2: to call it, What would that look like in August?
12:29
Speaker 2: How do I know, like, oh, yes, this is actually
12:31
Speaker 2: a really good one, even though it's really overgrown and
12:33
Speaker 2: it doesn't jump off the map like they normally would,
12:37
Speaker 2: right you know.
12:39
Speaker 3: The uh the number one thing I see when I
12:42
Speaker 3: like teach my boot camps out here in Idaho and
12:45
Speaker 3: when I'm working with guys when I walk them through
12:48
Speaker 3: the woods this time of year, because I do the
12:50
Speaker 3: boot camps in June and July, they walk right by
12:54
Speaker 3: laking branches all the time. They don't even they don't
12:57
Speaker 3: understand what they need to be looking for. So I
12:59
Speaker 3: teach them so that that whole strap science, that hub
13:06
Speaker 3: science of deer and how deer use that like you
13:09
Speaker 3: and I do on social media to communicate, to know
13:12
Speaker 3: each other, to you know, send messages. It's all about
13:17
Speaker 3: those licking branches. So I would be looking for and
13:21
Speaker 3: not trying purposely making sure I don't walk by those discrete,
13:27
Speaker 3: hard to see in the summer, weathered well used decades
13:34
Speaker 3: of you signed on specific liking branches. Now, I'll do
13:38
Speaker 3: my due diligence before I get out there too, on
13:42
Speaker 3: species of favorable licking branches and the Adirondacks. And I'd
13:46
Speaker 3: talk to some guys that I know hunt the Adirondacks
13:49
Speaker 3: that know there's that would really know their stuff, and
13:51
Speaker 3: they'd give me some species to look for. I would
13:55
Speaker 3: do all that ahead of time, so then I would
13:57
Speaker 3: really know what to key in on on those licking branches.
14:00
Speaker 3: And that's the key in the summer, all the scrapes
14:03
Speaker 3: that I run year round, all of the scrapes that
14:06
Speaker 3: I find in my scouting, I do a ton of
14:08
Speaker 3: prospecting to stay ahead of the curve out here. Year
14:12
Speaker 3: after year after year, I stay way ahead of the curve.
14:15
Speaker 3: I'm always keying in at eye level. And it's nice
14:18
Speaker 3: because liking branches are usually at eye level. I'm five
14:21
Speaker 3: to ten, they're right there, so I'm not gonna miss them.
14:25
Speaker 3: And it's only because I've trained my brain to really
14:28
Speaker 3: focus on those because it's been so successful. So I
14:31
Speaker 3: would focus in on the torn, tattered, beat up, even
14:35
Speaker 3: if it's got leaves growing back on it. Let's say
14:37
Speaker 3: it's some type of a brush or whatever they love
14:40
Speaker 3: to use, or it's a specific tree that is deciduous
14:43
Speaker 3: and grows leaves drops, And I'm still looking for those tips,
14:46
Speaker 3: those little ends of the licking branch that have been
14:49
Speaker 3: beat to heck and a lot of times deep best
14:52
Speaker 3: community hub type scrapes that deer use decade after decade,
14:58
Speaker 3: are positioned such to where the wind the thermost, the feed,
15:03
Speaker 3: the security cover, everything plays into the deer's favor. The
15:06
Speaker 3: deer favor that time of the year, and I'm looking
15:11
Speaker 3: for those places where I would fill that lower light,
15:14
Speaker 3: heavier canopy, little darker timber. Potentially I see that a
15:19
Speaker 3: lot out west, at those corridors where it's not so
15:24
Speaker 3: wide open that deer are a little spooky about using it
15:28
Speaker 3: in the daylight. I would really key in on those
15:30
Speaker 3: types of licking branch scrape hubs, if you will, But
15:34
Speaker 3: I'm breaking down those details on those actual branches.
15:39
Speaker 2: Okay, Now you mentioned covering a lot of ground over
15:44
Speaker 2: those two days. Would you devote anytime to taking things
15:49
Speaker 2: the next step, which would be either deploying cameras on
15:52
Speaker 2: those scrapes or in other areas and or picking trees,
15:56
Speaker 2: prepping trees, anything like that.
15:59
Speaker 3: Yes, And to be fair mark in this question, I'm
16:02
Speaker 3: not dealing with any agriculture, am I at all?
16:05
Speaker 2: Correct?
16:05
Speaker 3: This would be just big woods, big woods, no destination
16:08
Speaker 3: food sources. Yes, I would obviously obviously if there's oaks
16:12
Speaker 3: out there. I'm looking big time for community scrapes around
16:17
Speaker 3: isolated white oak type pockets things like that. Yes, I
16:22
Speaker 3: don't go into the woods, and I can say this
16:24
Speaker 3: from my heart. I don't go into the woods ever
16:28
Speaker 3: without intent, specific purpose. Always. I never go into the
16:34
Speaker 3: woods anymore just to dick around. Excuse my language. I
16:37
Speaker 3: don't do it. I don't have time for it, and
16:40
Speaker 3: I care too much about being proficient with my time
16:43
Speaker 3: that I have because my family, my kids, everything comes
16:47
Speaker 3: first before that. So I would be My pack always
16:52
Speaker 3: weighs about twenty to thirty pounds when I go into
16:55
Speaker 3: the woods. Why I go in heavy, I come out light.
16:59
Speaker 3: I'm probably past. I can at least four or five cameras.
17:03
Speaker 3: I'm packing my scrape synthetics. I don't go anywhere ever
17:08
Speaker 3: without that stuff, because it is so easy in the
17:13
Speaker 3: world of scrape science to jump in the game with
17:16
Speaker 3: the deer when you find a spot that screams you
17:19
Speaker 3: need to hunt here in November. So yes, I would
17:23
Speaker 3: deploy when I come across something that gives me all
17:27
Speaker 3: of the like not just instinctual but proven past checks
17:33
Speaker 3: all the boxes for me that this could be a
17:35
Speaker 3: spot that I want to come back to. I would
17:39
Speaker 3: set it up over market. I would open up their
17:41
Speaker 3: scrape in august on them because it's getting close to hardhorn.
17:45
Speaker 3: I would open stuff up everywhere, and one thing I
17:49
Speaker 3: didn't touch on. When I find those linking branches, I
17:52
Speaker 3: immediately inspect the ground below it, even if I got
17:56
Speaker 3: to move all the needles and debris or leaves to
17:58
Speaker 3: see if they're there's a big scrape there. And usually
18:02
Speaker 3: you can see through that stuff and identify it without
18:05
Speaker 3: moving moving it. But sometimes the groundcover is crazy. But
18:08
Speaker 3: I would want to see that dirt from the past.
18:12
Speaker 3: That identity of that scrape being there too on the
18:15
Speaker 3: ground is what I'm getting at. So yes, I would deploy.
18:20
Speaker 3: I would open up over mark and even build some
18:24
Speaker 3: mocks in the right terrain type funnels that you know.
18:28
Speaker 3: I haven't even said the world were trails yet. Trails
18:31
Speaker 3: are huge to me. When I walk through the woods,
18:34
Speaker 3: I map out all the trails. I map out all
18:36
Speaker 3: the lateral trails on mountains. I map out all the
18:40
Speaker 3: vertical decent trails on mountains because during the rut, the
18:45
Speaker 3: white tails run the lateral trails to cover the most
18:48
Speaker 3: ground to pick up scent on the mountains, on the terrain,
18:51
Speaker 3: if that makes sense. So I would be mapping out
18:55
Speaker 3: all of those lateral trails for November, even more so
19:00
Speaker 3: of in the vertical ascent and decent trails that you
19:03
Speaker 3: would hunt August September. And then it all just comes
19:07
Speaker 3: into a big picture scenario to where I'm prepared and
19:13
Speaker 3: in ten minutes i can build over Mark Fresh and
19:18
Speaker 3: do all my work, hang a camera and I'm going
19:20
Speaker 3: to the next one. And I would do that from
19:22
Speaker 3: daylight til dark each day, and of course i'd be
19:26
Speaker 3: running either an off grid saved offline map, and i'd
19:31
Speaker 3: be running all of that in my hand nowadays, which
19:35
Speaker 3: I'm kind of happy that I grew up in an
19:37
Speaker 3: era before all of this because I actually don't have
19:40
Speaker 3: to use those, but they're extra confirmation for me now
19:44
Speaker 3: of seeing the big picture on my map. But I
19:47
Speaker 3: used to do all of this one hundred percent without
19:50
Speaker 3: any type of electronic device, and I just store it
19:53
Speaker 3: all right here in my brain or in my head too,
19:56
Speaker 3: and I just memorize it. So that's just a great
20:00
Speaker 3: addition for me. So that's what I'm taking into the Woodsmark.
20:03
Speaker 3: That's what I'm deploying. I'm definitely gonna leave cameras, and
20:06
Speaker 3: I'll be honest, if sell service is out there anywhere,
20:10
Speaker 3: and if sell is legal, I'm not going to sell
20:12
Speaker 3: camera with me to just in case, absolutely, especially being
20:16
Speaker 3: a two thousand miles away in Idoh.
20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take let's take this like one step further.
20:25
Speaker 2: You described a number of different things you would do.
20:28
Speaker 2: I want to give you a little bit more of
20:29
Speaker 2: a set of specifics and then have you kind of
20:32
Speaker 2: break it down a little bit more so. So imagine
20:34
Speaker 2: this this area that you went and checked out. Let's
20:37
Speaker 2: imagine that there is a main ridge running north south
20:43
Speaker 2: and then it's got two finger ridges coming off to
20:46
Speaker 2: the east. So it's kind of like the letter C.
20:48
Speaker 2: All right, if you were like a like a flat sea.
20:51
Speaker 3: Almost got a big basin.
20:54
Speaker 2: Big basin exactly, That's what I'm trying to paint here,
20:56
Speaker 2: big basin here, and you've got you've got a short
21:02
Speaker 2: window of this day of your two days. Let's let's
21:04
Speaker 2: say you dedicated a quarter of your day excuse me,
21:08
Speaker 2: a quarter of your weekend was to this basin. I'm
21:12
Speaker 2: curious how you would break down that basin specifically, So
21:16
Speaker 2: how you would do what you described doing, but now
21:19
Speaker 2: put it in this picture for me. And then also,
21:22
Speaker 2: how would you prep and pick the one best stand
21:26
Speaker 2: location in that one basin. So so again looking to
21:30
Speaker 2: take what you described kind of high level and apply
21:32
Speaker 2: it to this specific north south running basin picking the
21:38
Speaker 2: best spot and how you would prep that best spot
21:40
Speaker 2: in this short window of time. Does that make sense?
21:42
Speaker 3: Yeah? So if it's a quarter of the day and
21:46
Speaker 3: in the summer, you get about fifteen hours at daylight
21:49
Speaker 3: in August. Correct, I'm pretty close there.
21:52
Speaker 2: This sounds about right, Yeah, pretty close.
21:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a quarter of it is quite a few
21:57
Speaker 3: hours that'd ads that I could use in there. I
22:01
Speaker 3: would not on that boots on the ground day those
22:07
Speaker 3: seven hours, let's just say seven and seven a half hours,
22:10
Speaker 3: I would not be as concerned so much as to
22:17
Speaker 3: how I entered east west north south. I would want
22:20
Speaker 3: to cover it. And I'm I'm of the mind of
22:24
Speaker 3: find find the pocket, find the honey hole, find that
22:30
Speaker 3: safe security spot that those deer will breed and chase
22:33
Speaker 3: in the daylight November based on the Dough family groups,
22:37
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna look for all their sign their tracks,
22:39
Speaker 3: their trails, even in the grass. Even in the tall stuff,
22:42
Speaker 3: you can see I can see a buck walk through
22:46
Speaker 3: tall grass or a dough. You just got to look
22:48
Speaker 3: at the grass and you'll see where they're working through it.
22:50
Speaker 3: So I'm not sure what the Adirondacks look like on
22:53
Speaker 3: the ground in August, but out here there's a lot
22:56
Speaker 3: of vegetation. So I would get in there, mark that
23:00
Speaker 3: drik in that basin and those ridges, and knowing me logically,
23:07
Speaker 3: I would go high right out of the gate so
23:09
Speaker 3: I could work my way downhill all day, so.
23:12
Speaker 2: Back on top of the walk, on top of the ridges.
23:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would go high. Early in the morning, I
23:17
Speaker 3: would uh, I would analyze the thermals. I might hike
23:21
Speaker 3: in and I would get up high. Then I would
23:24
Speaker 3: run those you know, It's kind of like when I
23:25
Speaker 3: el kind. I like to get on big ridges and
23:27
Speaker 3: stay high above the animals and work at them right
23:30
Speaker 3: across the tops. So in that scenario, I would be
23:35
Speaker 3: deciphering the thermals and I would keep closed track to
23:38
Speaker 3: when I fill them switch and I would get up high.
23:40
Speaker 3: And because if you work high early, your energy that
23:45
Speaker 3: you have to work you get up. You get up
23:48
Speaker 3: there early, and then you have all that energy that
23:51
Speaker 3: next five six hours out of the seven hours whatever
23:54
Speaker 3: it takes to get up high to break that entire
23:58
Speaker 3: basin down working downhill, and I would probably do great
24:02
Speaker 3: big ce type not exactly a grid, but kind of,
24:08
Speaker 3: and I'd work that whole basin and I'd want to
24:11
Speaker 3: come out at the bottom where I entered in the
24:15
Speaker 3: evening at freaking dark. I plan on walking out with
24:18
Speaker 3: my head light on, my headlamp on, because then I
24:21
Speaker 3: would so let's say I did from two o'clock till
24:25
Speaker 3: nine o'clock at night when it got dark, you know,
24:27
Speaker 3: one of those half days in there. To me, that
24:31
Speaker 3: makes sense to get high, work my way down, have
24:33
Speaker 3: the whole day to work downhill, and then I would
24:36
Speaker 3: be packing everything I need on my back. I probably
24:39
Speaker 3: have my spy high stick as a walking stick, so
24:42
Speaker 3: I could put a camera up high if I need
24:44
Speaker 3: to it's public. I would just literally lay that sucker out,
24:49
Speaker 3: and I believe in seven hours, let's say six seven
24:52
Speaker 3: hours of actual really working that basin over, I would
24:59
Speaker 3: know how the prevailing winds work, for the most part,
25:02
Speaker 3: how the thermals and when they switch. I would study
25:05
Speaker 3: the slope that I'm on the north south east west slopes,
25:07
Speaker 3: because that dictates wind and cooling of the thermals and
25:11
Speaker 3: heating of the thermals differently at different times. I would
25:15
Speaker 3: read all of the trails, the lateral trails, the vertical
25:17
Speaker 3: trails to sign. Obviously, I'm looking for those hubscrapes, those
25:21
Speaker 3: licking branches, and I would be blowing those up, setting
25:25
Speaker 3: cameras and trapping. I'm literally a whitetail trapper. I would be.
25:30
Speaker 3: I would be setting a trap line in that basin
25:33
Speaker 3: and then let all of that foot you know, boots
25:39
Speaker 3: on the ground, strategic movement through that basin, laying out
25:45
Speaker 3: of the cameras, refreshing, opening up, creating a mock scrape
25:49
Speaker 3: if I think it has to be there, based on
25:52
Speaker 3: what I find with trails and how the timber and
25:56
Speaker 3: the ridges funnel everything, how the wind makes it, you know,
26:00
Speaker 3: will always position deer in their betting zones, always wayndon
26:04
Speaker 3: thermals does. So I would That's all rolling through my
26:08
Speaker 3: mind as I break it down. And when I come
26:10
Speaker 3: across the sign and it's from November from October, when
26:15
Speaker 3: the sign is there and I can see that old sign,
26:19
Speaker 3: I'm keying in on it, because that's when I'm hunting
26:21
Speaker 3: this November.
26:33
Speaker 2: If I were to, if you and I were looking
26:37
Speaker 2: at the topographic map of this basin together and I said,
26:41
Speaker 2: pick the four best looking places on this topographic map
26:45
Speaker 2: right now, put a pin on it or circle it
26:47
Speaker 2: on the map, and then you went back there and
26:51
Speaker 2: actually scouted on the ground as you described. And now
26:53
Speaker 2: you went and you checked all the spots and you
26:55
Speaker 2: found the single best place. Do you think that in
26:58
Speaker 2: your map pre work, do you think that you could
27:01
Speaker 2: have picked the best spot? Would the best spot in
27:04
Speaker 2: real life actually have been one of the four places
27:06
Speaker 2: you picked ahead of time?
27:08
Speaker 3: I believe I can, yes, And I do it a lot.
27:11
Speaker 3: Do I always hit it perfect? Note, but I really
27:14
Speaker 3: focus in on wind and thermals where it positions dare
27:17
Speaker 3: for betting, and how you know how mature bucks really
27:23
Speaker 3: like to have the high ground and the wind and
27:25
Speaker 3: thermals on doe betting, dough family groups and dough betting.
27:29
Speaker 3: So they like to they like to be able. It's
27:32
Speaker 3: simple common sense. A thermal blows up hill during the
27:36
Speaker 3: day way more hours than downhill, So if you want
27:40
Speaker 3: to kill stuff in the daylight in mountain country, big
27:45
Speaker 3: bucks use those uphill thermals to travel and sent check
27:48
Speaker 3: before they drop, before they bail off. They run those
27:51
Speaker 3: high lines, those lateral lines like crazy in the mountains,
27:55
Speaker 3: and I see it in Ohio on a two hundred
27:58
Speaker 3: foot elevation gain on Ohio, I see the same thing.
28:01
Speaker 3: I see the exact same thing, just a smaller version
28:04
Speaker 3: of it. So do I believe I could nail a
28:09
Speaker 3: really productive spot with the maps one hundred percent? But
28:14
Speaker 3: what might What I think I really need more than
28:19
Speaker 3: anything is finding those white oaks or whatever type of
28:22
Speaker 3: food source is the best for November for those dough
28:27
Speaker 3: family groups. And then if those correspond with the terrain
28:32
Speaker 3: features and the prevailing and thermal winds that I think
28:36
Speaker 3: would really make a buck want to be there with
28:38
Speaker 3: those Dough family groups close, then it's going to be money.
28:43
Speaker 3: But where I think I might run into trouble with
28:47
Speaker 3: a map only quest is I got to go find
28:51
Speaker 3: where the best feed is going to be in November
28:53
Speaker 3: two And it's I'm assuming correct me if I'm wrong.
28:56
Speaker 3: I don't hunt a lot of oaks, but I'm assuming.
28:59
Speaker 3: You know, so, how long do those oaks drop in
29:02
Speaker 3: that kind of country? You know, how long is that
29:04
Speaker 3: food stores there, So I would have to do all
29:06
Speaker 3: that research too, Mark yep.
29:10
Speaker 2: So so where I'm getting where I'm going with that
29:12
Speaker 2: is this last file, which would be could you just
29:14
Speaker 2: paint a picture for me of what that place that
29:18
Speaker 2: would jump off the map would look like from the
29:20
Speaker 2: map perspective, because because I feel like I've got a
29:22
Speaker 2: good understanding now of what you're looking for on the ground.
29:25
Speaker 2: But what I do want to make sure folks understand
29:27
Speaker 2: is what are the key things on the top on
29:30
Speaker 2: map or even the you know, aerial top all hybrid
29:32
Speaker 2: that you would say, oh, yes, this is the spot
29:34
Speaker 2: I need to go ground truth. Can you paint that
29:37
Speaker 2: picture for me real quick and then.
29:38
Speaker 3: We'll move on to it. Yeah, I think I could
29:41
Speaker 3: paint one that would probably work. I would on a map,
29:47
Speaker 3: I would be looking for off that big ridge system
29:52
Speaker 3: within that basin, I would be looking for finger ridges
29:55
Speaker 3: and benches that come down off of it yep. And
29:58
Speaker 3: I would be mapping out in my mind based on
30:00
Speaker 3: those terrain features where the best security cover and happy
30:06
Speaker 3: place for doze are where a buck could position himself
30:10
Speaker 3: to monitor them without having to be right in the
30:12
Speaker 3: middle of him every day. And then I would probably
30:19
Speaker 3: hit first that halfway two thirds of the way up
30:22
Speaker 3: in those mountains, on those ridges where I believe i'd
30:25
Speaker 3: be pretty close to where Bucks felt very good about
30:29
Speaker 3: betting hanging out even you know, checking on those I
30:33
Speaker 3: would probably not be in the very bottom unless I
30:37
Speaker 3: thought that I could get a wind to work down there.
30:41
Speaker 3: I would most likely be looking at saddles within saddles,
30:48
Speaker 3: finger ridges that have nice benches, things that are terrain
30:53
Speaker 3: no things is the wrong word, terrain features that really
30:57
Speaker 3: aid in the movement and monitoring of right tail Bucks
31:00
Speaker 3: overdose and that dose are close proximity to them. Then
31:04
Speaker 3: you got to look at the habitat. You have to
31:06
Speaker 3: get on that, Like I say, get on Google Earth
31:09
Speaker 3: and look at the actual habitat. Try to find pictures
31:11
Speaker 3: from November of what that habitat looks like. It might
31:14
Speaker 3: be wide open with no leads, what kind of brushes
31:18
Speaker 3: in there? So there's a lot this is, you know,
31:21
Speaker 3: these questions are there's a lot loaded into them in
31:24
Speaker 3: my mind of the stuff I would have to break down.
31:27
Speaker 3: But I guarantee I would be on terrain features that
31:30
Speaker 3: are conducive for Bucks, Comfortable daylight type observing dose, monitoring dose,
31:39
Speaker 3: and even chasing a breeding dose. I would want to
31:42
Speaker 3: be right in the middle of that to start, because
31:45
Speaker 3: I want to find daylight movement, and I want wind
31:48
Speaker 3: that I can hunt. I want wind in thermals that
31:51
Speaker 3: I can enter and exit and be able to hunt
31:53
Speaker 3: it without just wasting my time at a spot. I
31:56
Speaker 3: have to be able to hunt in my mind on
31:59
Speaker 3: a map. I have to be able to get to
32:00
Speaker 3: that location, exit ander it, even on a map before
32:04
Speaker 3: I ever walk there. I have to be able to
32:06
Speaker 3: look at it and go, yeah, I could get there
32:07
Speaker 3: and get out of there, hunt off to the edge
32:10
Speaker 3: of those prevailings and thermals and kill something. And I
32:12
Speaker 3: would also look for terrain barriers that would protect me
32:17
Speaker 3: from deer wanting to walk and directly downwind to meet.
32:20
Speaker 3: Might be an opening, might be a you know, a
32:23
Speaker 3: bunch of blowdown timber. Might be a bluff, might be
32:26
Speaker 3: a deep ravine with a creak in it that really
32:29
Speaker 3: steers deer around it because it's so steep and they'd
32:31
Speaker 3: rather travel a trail just above it. I would look
32:34
Speaker 3: for all of that.
32:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let's let's let's pivot something a little bit different.
32:40
Speaker 3: Here.
32:40
Speaker 2: Let's put you back home. You're an Idaho or one
32:43
Speaker 2: of your you know, other areas you hunt there, Montana, Washington.
32:47
Speaker 2: You've done your work, you've prepped, you've got your cameras
32:51
Speaker 2: that you've got your trap line set. You're good to go.
32:53
Speaker 2: Season opens. You start heading out to whatever your best
32:56
Speaker 2: spot is that you thought for that part of the
32:58
Speaker 2: season would be, and you start driving by a number
33:02
Speaker 2: of different trailheads that you've historically used. Maybe you're not
33:04
Speaker 2: going to be there today, but you drive by one,
33:06
Speaker 2: there's two trucks there, kind of surprising. You keep going
33:09
Speaker 2: your heading towards your best spot for that particular day.
33:12
Speaker 2: You drive by another basin, two trucks there. You get
33:16
Speaker 2: to your spot that you're gonna hunt and there's two
33:19
Speaker 2: or three trucks there too. Yep, a bunch of hunting
33:22
Speaker 2: pressure in your zone now. And I don't know what
33:25
Speaker 2: it's usually like there, but let's say there's more than
33:27
Speaker 2: you would expect. Right, Let's say it's the COVID year again.
33:32
Speaker 2: Whenever one came out of the woodwork and started hunting again, right,
33:35
Speaker 2: what would that do to your plan for that day
33:38
Speaker 2: or the next couple of days. There at the beginning
33:40
Speaker 2: of the year, when you're flooded with an unexpected amount
33:42
Speaker 2: of hunting pressure, does that change your plan at all?
33:44
Speaker 2: Or do you still stick to the program, do what
33:47
Speaker 2: you're gonna do.
33:49
Speaker 3: That's a good question because I'm not so big a country,
33:53
Speaker 3: and if it's opening day that's August thirtieth, I have
33:57
Speaker 3: till December twenty fourth to kill the back Cup. After
34:00
Speaker 3: eight I usually have a group of bucks that are
34:02
Speaker 3: on my list that I want to hunt, So that
34:05
Speaker 3: kind of answers your question right there. If I saw
34:07
Speaker 3: that type of scenario in the vast public that I hunt,
34:11
Speaker 3: that guys literally park right where I want to park.
34:14
Speaker 3: First thing is is, in my case, just for my
34:18
Speaker 3: past of being successful with mountain white tails, I don't
34:22
Speaker 3: want to park by those guys and leave my identity
34:24
Speaker 3: with them. What if they hunt half a day and
34:27
Speaker 3: walk out, Oh there's Pottinger's pickup, they take your you know,
34:31
Speaker 3: So first of all, I'm not leaving my identity there,
34:36
Speaker 3: and I'm just going to plan B. It's I've done
34:39
Speaker 3: this for years. I always have a Plan B, C, D,
34:42
Speaker 3: and sometimes E. And because I hunt such vast country,
34:49
Speaker 3: it's pretty hard for me based on all of the
34:54
Speaker 3: homework I do on these white tails and effort I
34:56
Speaker 3: put into finding them early them year after year, I
35:01
Speaker 3: usually can go to Plant B or C mark and
35:05
Speaker 3: go find a quiet place be only because of that
35:09
Speaker 3: work that I put in to have that going. Yeah,
35:12
Speaker 3: it would never be that way if I didn't put
35:14
Speaker 3: all that year around working to have that stuff established
35:17
Speaker 3: and working for me. So I would go to Plan B,
35:21
Speaker 3: and if Plan B wasn't good, I'd go to C.
35:23
Speaker 3: But I'm not going to give away in my case
35:27
Speaker 3: where I'm at, I'm just not going to do it.
35:29
Speaker 3: I don't need to because I have four months to
35:31
Speaker 3: hunt a deer that that I may be targeting. I
35:34
Speaker 3: would have now if it was at the end of
35:36
Speaker 3: the season and I had three days left. That's a
35:40
Speaker 3: little different question.
35:43
Speaker 2: Oh now, what about this. Let's let's say it's similar
35:46
Speaker 2: but slightly different. Let's say you go to your best
35:49
Speaker 2: spot and maybe this is let's sweeten the deal a
35:51
Speaker 2: little bit. It's opening day and a cold front happened
35:55
Speaker 2: hit on August thirtieth, So when from maybe eighty degrees
35:58
Speaker 2: to high fifties and you just know it's gonna be
36:02
Speaker 2: good and you get to the trailhead and there's no cars.
36:06
Speaker 2: Looks good going to plane A. You hike up to
36:09
Speaker 2: your spot and you get to I'm just gonna make
36:13
Speaker 2: an assumption here, kritma if I'm wrong, but let's assume
36:15
Speaker 2: it's gonna be some kind of you know, community scrape
36:17
Speaker 2: area near some buck betting, and you had a camera
36:21
Speaker 2: set up and you see, we'll say, what could be
36:24
Speaker 2: one of two things. Either a someone set up a
36:28
Speaker 2: camera right on your setup, near your camera, and or
36:33
Speaker 2: someone set up a tree stand in that same zone.
36:36
Speaker 2: So there's a camera or tree stand right in your zone. Now,
36:38
Speaker 2: there's not anyone there right now, but you see that
36:42
Speaker 2: someone has found your zone and set up on it.
36:45
Speaker 2: It's the afternoon of opening day and you've hiked all
36:48
Speaker 2: the way in and it's a banging cold front.
36:50
Speaker 3: What do you do now, Well, I'm gonna hunt it,
36:53
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna obviously wonder how the heck somebody's found
36:56
Speaker 3: me there and why they would want to set up
36:58
Speaker 3: near me. And I've had that happen And I came
37:02
Speaker 3: in on one of my incredible I came in on
37:05
Speaker 3: a just an incredible spot I had set up one
37:07
Speaker 3: time to get my tree and hunt this deer. And
37:09
Speaker 3: and to be fair to your listeners, I never go
37:11
Speaker 3: to spots. I go to the deer I'm after, So
37:16
Speaker 3: I don't really have a honey hole. I hunt specific deer,
37:21
Speaker 3: so my spots. The nice thing about that is mark
37:24
Speaker 3: some of my spots get moved year to year, even
37:27
Speaker 3: on a specific deer, even if it's one hundred yards
37:30
Speaker 3: two hundred yards quarter mile, because I'm working on him
37:34
Speaker 3: with his changes with his as he gets older, he changes,
37:38
Speaker 3: he mixes it up based on pressure. But back to
37:41
Speaker 3: answer the exact question, and I've had this happen, had
37:45
Speaker 3: it happen. I've had it happen where I've walked in.
37:49
Speaker 3: And this is a shout out to most of us
37:51
Speaker 3: Western guys, which I really like, because guys are we
37:55
Speaker 3: have so much ground out here that nobody needs to
37:59
Speaker 3: set right unless they're just being an ass. I mean, seriously,
38:03
Speaker 3: they don't need to. But anyway, I've walked in on
38:05
Speaker 3: a guy before in my spot, or let's say it
38:07
Speaker 3: was a camera on my spot, I would hunt it.
38:10
Speaker 3: And if I walk in on somebody sitting right next
38:12
Speaker 3: to me, I just talked to him and say, hey,
38:15
Speaker 3: I you know, been running this for a long time.
38:17
Speaker 3: I'm like, I've hunted here forever. Did you notice it?
38:20
Speaker 3: I would just ask if they noticed my setup, and
38:25
Speaker 3: I don't care really what they say to me. I
38:26
Speaker 3: could tell by the way they act if they're being
38:28
Speaker 3: honest or not, and then i'd have to play it
38:31
Speaker 3: from there. Obviously, I don't want to sit right next
38:34
Speaker 3: to somebody, but let's say I do talk to him.
38:36
Speaker 3: And this has happened to me before. I literally had
38:38
Speaker 3: a guy say I am so sorry. He was in
38:41
Speaker 3: a climber, he goes. I literally thought I'd just set
38:44
Speaker 3: up on the greatest scraping spot in the world. He goes,
38:47
Speaker 3: I've never seen sign like this, and it's because he
38:51
Speaker 3: found one of my spots that I'd had been working
38:53
Speaker 3: deer for years. And he was again back to this
38:57
Speaker 3: Western culture out here. I was like, man, I'm sorry,
39:01
Speaker 3: he goes, I'm gonna get down and I'm out of here.
39:03
Speaker 3: I'll go hunt somewhere else because I can see that
39:06
Speaker 3: you will put so much work into this. And I
39:10
Speaker 3: pointed out my cameras, I pointed out my tree stand.
39:13
Speaker 3: I had all the stuff hidden so well he couldn't
39:15
Speaker 3: see it. So I have ran into that a little bit.
39:19
Speaker 3: But let's say it's just a camera on my spot
39:21
Speaker 3: and it's that day and I see a camera right
39:23
Speaker 3: on me or close to me, I'm gonna hunt it.
39:26
Speaker 3: I'm gonna hunt it, and I'm gonna probably assume that
39:29
Speaker 3: they probably didn't even see my cameras are stand because
39:33
Speaker 3: I do on purpose so stuff doesn't get stolen. I mean,
39:37
Speaker 3: I try to really keep my stuff hidden, and I
39:42
Speaker 3: sit in trees or I have great back cover, and
39:44
Speaker 3: you know, I never leave sticks on a tree, or
39:47
Speaker 3: you know, I climb a tree and hang that day
39:49
Speaker 3: and hunt and leave or whatever. So I would hunt it.
39:53
Speaker 3: I would hunt it, especially with that cold front that
39:56
Speaker 3: opening day. Bucks are gonna move. Nobody's there, he has,
39:59
Speaker 3: somebody has a camera, say off to my side of
40:01
Speaker 3: me out, I'm gonna hunt it, and I'm gonna make
40:03
Speaker 3: sure they see me on their camera. I'm gonna make
40:06
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make sure when they check that camera they're like, oh,
40:09
Speaker 3: somebody's here. And again I'll go back to mindset culture.
40:14
Speaker 3: Us Western guys, we don't want to hunt their people.
40:16
Speaker 3: We don't want to be next to other people. We've
40:19
Speaker 3: grown up. We grew. That's how that's how we do
40:21
Speaker 3: things out here. For for the most part. I mean,
40:27
Speaker 3: I have been hunting this country for forty some years, Mark,
40:31
Speaker 3: I've never had a guy be an asshole about wanting
40:33
Speaker 3: to set right next to me. Ever. Now have I
40:36
Speaker 3: had guys follow where I'm at and hunt within a
40:40
Speaker 3: quarter mile of me, hundred percent. But I've never had
40:43
Speaker 3: anybody want to be right next to me like usually
40:45
Speaker 3: guys in this country will leave you a note or
40:49
Speaker 3: read or reach out to you if they think, oh,
40:51
Speaker 3: that's that's a Lone Wolf custom gear camera, and I know, Troy,
40:54
Speaker 3: I'll just reach out to me. I've had I've had
40:57
Speaker 3: multiple good people reach out to me and say, true,
41:02
Speaker 3: I think I found one of your setups. It was awesome.
41:04
Speaker 3: I'll stay, you know, and they literally they say, yeah,
41:07
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna hunt on top of you. It was awesome.
41:09
Speaker 3: I think guys come to my boot camp that have
41:12
Speaker 3: found my stuff before and said it all made sense
41:15
Speaker 3: once I found it while you were there. So Mark,
41:18
Speaker 3: So Mark, I've been fortunate. I would hunt that spot
41:21
Speaker 3: if it was a camera, if there was somebody there
41:24
Speaker 3: already sitting there. I talked to him and just be
41:26
Speaker 3: a good human about it, Like, why not just be
41:30
Speaker 3: a good And if they were, you know, if they
41:32
Speaker 3: wanted to get all I would call it immaturely defensive
41:36
Speaker 3: or act ignorant. I just I got lots of options. Yeah,
41:41
Speaker 3: and I would move and I would move on that
41:43
Speaker 3: same deer and just get away from that person. If
41:46
Speaker 3: they were going to continue to hunt there, I would
41:48
Speaker 3: just move on him and hunting, you know, maybe a
41:50
Speaker 3: quarter mile away somewhere else, because there's always room to
41:54
Speaker 3: move on on deer in the big woods. Always, there's
41:57
Speaker 3: always room to move on.
41:58
Speaker 2: Them, all right, So speaking of movin, I've got one
42:03
Speaker 2: here that that I feel like I know exactly what
42:05
Speaker 2: a Justin Hollinsworth would do, or I know what a
42:08
Speaker 2: Andre Dequista would do. I'm not one hundred percent sure
42:11
Speaker 2: I know what you would do with this one. Imagine
42:14
Speaker 2: you have one of these very well put together sites
42:17
Speaker 2: that you've described several times. You've got the community scrape
42:20
Speaker 2: area dialed. You've been working this maybe for years or
42:23
Speaker 2: at least months leading up to this hunt. Right, we're
42:26
Speaker 2: to say, yeah, at least months, and we're gonna say,
42:29
Speaker 2: we're gonna say this is a November situation here okay,
42:32
Speaker 2: and your camera has been there, your scrapes have been there,
42:37
Speaker 2: your stand is prepped, it's perfectly hidden. You've obviously dotted
42:41
Speaker 2: your eyes and crossed your t's. You show up to
42:44
Speaker 2: hunt in November and you see three different bucks this morning.
42:51
Speaker 2: One of them is a shooter, to others like pretty nice.
42:54
Speaker 2: All of them are forty to fifty yards out of
42:59
Speaker 2: range for some reason. Everything is just outside of where
43:04
Speaker 2: you would typically want it to be, and they're not
43:07
Speaker 2: coming into your spot. Would you, I guess I won't
43:11
Speaker 2: to even give you options. What would you do in
43:13
Speaker 2: this scenario where in the same morning you see three
43:15
Speaker 2: different bucks do the same thing, all out of range.
43:19
Speaker 3: Right right, and now you're you're also adding in that
43:25
Speaker 3: I try to call them to me and it still
43:26
Speaker 3: didn't work.
43:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, because I'm imagining like an Andre or a Justin,
43:31
Speaker 2: they might right away tear down their set and go
43:33
Speaker 2: move to where they're seeing this moving. But with you
43:37
Speaker 2: having invested so much time into picking these spots and
43:40
Speaker 2: making them so good right where you want them to be,
43:42
Speaker 2: I'm curious if you trust your spot more than you
43:45
Speaker 2: trust the eyes, or or what your process would be.
43:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really trust my preparation. My preparation has always
43:52
Speaker 3: paid off. I'm extremely patient and as long and that
43:59
Speaker 3: you know, if you're gonna move on him, even if
44:01
Speaker 3: it's one hundred yards fifty yards, that move has to
44:04
Speaker 3: work with the win, the entrance and the exit just
44:06
Speaker 3: that far away, Like you got to map that out
44:09
Speaker 3: in your head to even consider moving on them. Two
44:13
Speaker 3: fold answer here, I have moved on dear big time
44:16
Speaker 3: in November because they moved on me. Fifty yards is
44:19
Speaker 3: a different scenario than a quarter mile. Fifty yards fifty yards.
44:26
Speaker 3: He's right there in my wheelhouse, and based on the
44:29
Speaker 3: intel that I have on that shooter deer I'm after,
44:34
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm going to play the odds. If nobody's around, nope,
44:38
Speaker 3: I'm going to look at their demeanor. I'm going to
44:40
Speaker 3: look at their body language and if they're just doing
44:42
Speaker 3: what white tails should be doing in November, and they're
44:45
Speaker 3: just outside of where I want to shoot them, or
44:47
Speaker 3: I didn't have a shooting lane at fifty yards fifty
44:49
Speaker 3: some of poke, in my opinion for white tails out
44:52
Speaker 3: of a tree stand, A lot of guys do it.
44:53
Speaker 3: I usually kill everything at under twenty that's because my
44:57
Speaker 3: setups are set up for that. I would play much
45:01
Speaker 3: more of the patient game on that deer because I'm
45:03
Speaker 3: right with him and in the mountains, in the vast country.
45:07
Speaker 3: Fifty yards is nothing like. That's like a yeah, he's
45:11
Speaker 3: basically dead if he doesn't know I'm there, if he's
45:15
Speaker 3: been frequenting there, If he just happened to get lucky
45:19
Speaker 3: that day and get a trail just out of where
45:21
Speaker 3: I wanted to shoot him, I would. I would believe
45:24
Speaker 3: wholeheartedly if he showed no behavior whatsoever of being nervous
45:31
Speaker 3: in there. When I'm in there, I would actually be like, yeah,
45:34
Speaker 3: he's in trouble, because I'll kill him tomorrow or two
45:36
Speaker 3: days from now or three days from now, based on
45:40
Speaker 3: everything he shows me. Yeah, I probably wouldn't just tear
45:45
Speaker 3: down and move over for any reason at a fifty
45:48
Speaker 3: yard range. Now, let's say I'm in Ohio and I
45:53
Speaker 3: have limited space, and I need to be thirty yards
45:57
Speaker 3: over to kill this deer, and I'm on a short
46:00
Speaker 3: one week window to kill a specific deer, I'm tearing
46:03
Speaker 3: down and moving just like Andre and Justin. Because you
46:08
Speaker 3: hunt the situation, you don't hunt blanket statements you hunt
46:13
Speaker 3: the situation, so if I'm limited on space, I need
46:17
Speaker 3: to get over there. That's the trail. They like, I'm
46:20
Speaker 3: moving on them right away. Yes, is that fair?
46:23
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, I'm gonna throw one more kind of
46:27
Speaker 2: wrench into it for you. And let's imagine, And I'm curious.
46:32
Speaker 2: I liked how you broke that down on what you
46:34
Speaker 2: would do at home where you have this you know,
46:37
Speaker 2: long window and a lot of prep versus like a
46:39
Speaker 2: shorter hunt in a new place. Imagine this slight tweak
46:43
Speaker 2: on that scenario. Let's imagine you only have one buck
46:46
Speaker 2: you're after. It's one really special buck you're after, as
46:49
Speaker 2: you often are, and it's again this November time frame.
46:54
Speaker 2: It's evening, you've been sitting. It's an evening hunt. The
46:57
Speaker 2: last couple hours of daylight are just ahead of you,
47:00
Speaker 2: and you see the one buck you're after, but instead
47:03
Speaker 2: of just passing by out of range, he's actually with
47:06
Speaker 2: a dough. He's locked on a dough and they were
47:08
Speaker 2: kind of walking slowly straight away from you. Two hours
47:11
Speaker 2: of daylight. What are you do in that scenario? He's
47:15
Speaker 2: right there, but he's locked on a dough, walks away
47:18
Speaker 2: from you. Slowly. They're just doing their thing. What are
47:20
Speaker 2: you doing?
47:21
Speaker 3: All right? I'm smiling because I don't know if you
47:24
Speaker 3: can see this buck back here now you can't.
47:26
Speaker 2: I can't.
47:29
Speaker 3: Back there in the corner.
47:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, so three years.
47:32
Speaker 3: Ago that happened. Okay, that's a buck I call half rock.
47:36
Speaker 3: He's hidden up and down in a corner. You can't
47:38
Speaker 3: see him. But he was just to give your listeners
47:41
Speaker 3: and he grows to hirred and seventy two inches. Jeez,
47:45
Speaker 3: mountain buck, just to I mean, you're talking. And I
47:48
Speaker 3: shared that with you, not to be cool. I shared
47:50
Speaker 3: that because it's a buck I wanted to kill. I
47:52
Speaker 3: wasn't going to shoot any other deal. He did it
47:55
Speaker 3: to me, came across above me, was with a dough
48:00
Speaker 3: and I really study a white tail's wants and needs
48:04
Speaker 3: based on his body language and behavior. And I knew
48:07
Speaker 3: what he was wanting. I knew what he was doing,
48:10
Speaker 3: and it was I posted a picture of this after
48:15
Speaker 3: I killed him two days later, three days later. It's
48:18
Speaker 3: a short window behind that I killed him, might have
48:21
Speaker 3: been four or five days at the most, just there
48:23
Speaker 3: with me here, I posted. I took a picture of
48:27
Speaker 3: him because I looked at him, and that's who I
48:31
Speaker 3: wanted to kill. And he was with that dough and
48:34
Speaker 3: I had about two hours left in the daylight. He
48:36
Speaker 3: was beautiful out afternoon, snow on the ground, looking up
48:41
Speaker 3: a steep mountain face. They came across the lateral trail
48:44
Speaker 3: above me that drops down to my community scraps just
48:47
Speaker 3: off to the northeast of me, probably twenty yards away,
48:54
Speaker 3: and I thought, I ain't saying a word. I'm not
48:57
Speaker 3: making a noise either that doe is going to come
48:59
Speaker 3: down through here and I'm gonna kill this buck or
49:02
Speaker 3: I'm gonna wait, I'm not gonna blow him out of here.
49:04
Speaker 3: I got him. He's in here, comfortable with two hours
49:07
Speaker 3: of daylight left, and all of that process through my
49:11
Speaker 3: mind based on his body language. So I took my
49:15
Speaker 3: camera and took a picture of it, and I videoed,
49:18
Speaker 3: and they walked across the lateral trail above me, and
49:23
Speaker 3: I think I posted this at fifty three yards and
49:28
Speaker 3: I thought about, you know, I could he came across
49:32
Speaker 3: the glade and mark. You know, Idaho it has open
49:36
Speaker 3: glades in some spot, So there's this little tiny glade
49:39
Speaker 3: that's about thirty yards wide, there's just no trees above me.
49:43
Speaker 3: And I used that opening because most of time then
49:45
Speaker 3: bucks will skirt it and come right down to me
49:47
Speaker 3: instead of walking across it. But we all know why
49:50
Speaker 3: he walked right across it. He had his nose with
49:52
Speaker 3: a dough. So I played the odds. I said, I'm
49:56
Speaker 3: just very patient, and I never or I don't anymore
50:01
Speaker 3: at all. I'd never let like, I really try not
50:04
Speaker 3: to make foolish mistakes when I'm after a buck of
50:07
Speaker 3: a lifetime, you know, for most for anybody, even me.
50:11
Speaker 3: You know, anytime I get into that quality of buck,
50:13
Speaker 3: it's like this is again a buck of a lifetime
50:16
Speaker 3: out here. So let him go. He went, the dough
50:20
Speaker 3: went into the timber above me to the right. They
50:22
Speaker 3: went to the north of me, and he followed her.
50:25
Speaker 3: I took that video. I think I took a video
50:28
Speaker 3: of him, and it did a steal off the videos.
50:30
Speaker 3: What I did, I did it real careful, real careful,
50:32
Speaker 3: because I want to get some I want to get
50:34
Speaker 3: some be roll of him, you know, I wanted some
50:36
Speaker 3: be roll. Yeah, well I did that and they never
50:40
Speaker 3: came back. I sat there till dark. I listened to them,
50:44
Speaker 3: and you know, this is something to share who You
50:47
Speaker 3: really learn a lot about dere when you're patient and
50:50
Speaker 3: you don't allow that adrenaline to take over and try
50:53
Speaker 3: something that's iffy. I really hate. I really hate wounding
50:57
Speaker 3: deer like I like to slam dunk kill him close.
51:01
Speaker 3: So it paid off. I can't remember the exact days,
51:06
Speaker 3: but within one week I killed that gear right there,
51:10
Speaker 3: and instead of him coming across the lateral trail with
51:12
Speaker 3: that dough, he had serviced her, taken care of her
51:18
Speaker 3: as soon as he left her alone, and he was
51:22
Speaker 3: done with her. It probably was five or six days later,
51:25
Speaker 3: because that I think that's how it played out. He
51:28
Speaker 3: was already checking on my other does in the family
51:31
Speaker 3: group and hitting the scrape again. So I capitalized, in
51:36
Speaker 3: my opinion on leaving him be not messing it up,
51:42
Speaker 3: knowing I was in his wheelhouse, knowing that he had
51:44
Speaker 3: more does to service there, and I killed him within
51:48
Speaker 3: a week. To be fair to listeners, within a week,
51:52
Speaker 3: I killed him. He was at fifty three when he
51:55
Speaker 3: hit that lateral trail. I killed him at thirty three
51:59
Speaker 3: to thirty five. Coming down off that lateral trail a
52:02
Speaker 3: week later, down to hit the scrapes on his way
52:06
Speaker 3: down at thirty three to thirty five. And you know,
52:10
Speaker 3: to me, I made the right play on an old
52:14
Speaker 3: mountain buck that everybody was trying to kill in that area.
52:17
Speaker 3: I know multiple hunters that were trying to kill him.
52:21
Speaker 3: I was in his pocket of comfort. Reverting back to
52:24
Speaker 3: the Adirondacks, Yeah, I would look for those places that
52:28
Speaker 3: I just sense and feel hard to get to really
52:32
Speaker 3: good cover habitat thermals wind breeding areas in early November,
52:37
Speaker 3: those pockets of comfort where those deer just feel safe.
52:41
Speaker 3: I was in the right pocket to kill that deer
52:43
Speaker 3: when I killed them. And I had multiple doze on
52:48
Speaker 3: the community scrape on the laking branches year around there.
52:51
Speaker 3: And he knows it. He grew up on me. I
52:53
Speaker 3: knew that deer from when he was younger. But anyway,
52:56
Speaker 3: I hope that answers it. That's my play. I didn't
52:59
Speaker 3: move my stand because my stand is just bulletproof there
53:02
Speaker 3: for almost every wind situation because of some terrain features
53:07
Speaker 3: and barriers, I just stayed. I stayed put at that
53:10
Speaker 3: tree where I was hunting and killed them a week later. Yeah.
53:14
Speaker 2: That and also I think another important thing is that
53:17
Speaker 2: you didn't in that moment when he was walking away
53:19
Speaker 2: with that dell. You weren't sending out hail mary grunts
53:22
Speaker 2: or rattling or making any racket trying to make it
53:24
Speaker 2: happen right then, either, which I was a lot of
53:26
Speaker 2: people do.
53:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was quiet. I was quiet, Mark, I was quiet.
53:29
Speaker 3: And if there's anything I've learned to kill these old,
53:34
Speaker 3: real savvy, mature mountain bucks out here, I only talk
53:39
Speaker 3: to them when I think the time is right, and
53:41
Speaker 3: I usually only soft social dough grunt if they're by themselves,
53:46
Speaker 3: because that never threatens them. Or if there's multiple deer around,
53:52
Speaker 3: in a younger buck around in this scenario, I will
53:54
Speaker 3: snort weason and they'll use it. Come right in. If
53:57
Speaker 3: you have other deer, like stay down at your scrape
53:59
Speaker 3: or in the in the invisibility in the area, have
54:02
Speaker 3: that deer scent right there in November, I will snort
54:05
Speaker 3: weeze at a big mountain buck with the right scenario.
54:07
Speaker 3: Two to me, he was so enthralled with her, he
54:13
Speaker 3: was willing to walk across that open glade two hours
54:16
Speaker 3: in the daylight. And that immediately told me this guy's
54:20
Speaker 3: in love. So I just left him be, and I
54:23
Speaker 3: was hoping that dough would pull him to me without
54:25
Speaker 3: me saying a word. I didn't want to figger it.
54:28
Speaker 3: I didn't touch the grap too. I just let him
54:30
Speaker 3: do their thing.
54:42
Speaker 2: What did you do that next day? Did you go
54:45
Speaker 2: right back in that same spot?
54:47
Speaker 3: Well, because of my work schedule, and this is three
54:51
Speaker 3: years ago, so I'm going to try to get this
54:53
Speaker 3: as accurate as I can. So if somebody goes back
54:55
Speaker 3: and listens to another podcast, don't bust my ass on it.
54:58
Speaker 3: But it's I. I looked at my I remember, I
55:04
Speaker 3: was like, yes, and I've never text and tie and Jess,
55:06
Speaker 3: that probably gonna kill him. He's in trouble because he's
55:09
Speaker 3: he loves it in here and he's got he's on
55:11
Speaker 3: this dough. I okay, I believe I went back and
55:15
Speaker 3: tried to hunt him on that dough after work for
55:21
Speaker 3: a two hour window. I believe one time, because that's
55:25
Speaker 3: all I had with work schedule. But then I was
55:29
Speaker 3: freed up being teaching only four days a week. We're
55:32
Speaker 3: on a four day work week out here. I was
55:35
Speaker 3: freed up to hunt him for three days on a weekend,
55:38
Speaker 3: if you will. I killed him on the first day
55:41
Speaker 3: I had off that. That's great. So I think I
55:44
Speaker 3: killed him Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I think I killed him
55:47
Speaker 3: the first day of the three. I had to hunt him,
55:50
Speaker 3: so almost almost a week later. Yep, interesting, I remember, right,
55:54
Speaker 3: and he uh, he was in there on the camera too, Mark.
55:57
Speaker 3: I got to watch the intel I had. I had
56:00
Speaker 3: three cameras in there, and I got to watch him
56:03
Speaker 3: service that dough for a couple more days, you know,
56:08
Speaker 3: after I looked at all the intail. This is after
56:10
Speaker 3: the fact, after I kill him and actually pulled cards. Yeah,
56:13
Speaker 3: and then I got to see how it all played out.
56:15
Speaker 3: He was in there the whole time, even at least
56:16
Speaker 3: at night when daylight. He daylighted a couple of times,
56:20
Speaker 3: not on the little two hour window I had to
56:22
Speaker 3: hunt him. I didn't see him that day, but I
56:23
Speaker 3: didn't lose any hope. I know it was just a
56:25
Speaker 3: matter of time with with this area, and because I
56:29
Speaker 3: had those other doughs, he was that I got to
56:31
Speaker 3: look at after the fact. He was a hearty snooping
56:35
Speaker 3: for those other doughs. Within three or four days after
56:39
Speaker 3: I saw him with the dough once he serviced her. Yep,
56:43
Speaker 3: that's why he came back to those scrapes.
56:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is this is another scenario. Then I'm
56:48
Speaker 2: gonna take a little bit of something you inspired me
56:52
Speaker 2: to think about, which is a scenario that I've experienced
56:54
Speaker 2: and I frequently debated how I would approach this differently
56:59
Speaker 2: based on the deer density of the area I'm in,
57:02
Speaker 2: and I have some assumptions about the deer density in
57:05
Speaker 2: a big woods place. I know, northern Idaho is a
57:08
Speaker 2: little bit unique when it comes to I think it's
57:10
Speaker 2: a little bit unique compared to other big woods place
57:12
Speaker 2: they've hunted. But ah, I guess rather than me giving
57:16
Speaker 2: this whole preamble patist, she just ask the question. The
57:18
Speaker 2: question is this. Imagine Imagine you're hunting. You're hunting one
57:24
Speaker 2: of these great spots that you've prepped. All Right, You've
57:27
Speaker 2: just said you have a lot of patience and you
57:29
Speaker 2: have a lot of confidence in your spots. Let's say
57:32
Speaker 2: you have a spot where there was some cell service,
57:34
Speaker 2: so you have a cell camera in there, and you
57:36
Speaker 2: have confirmation not only that this is a great spot
57:38
Speaker 2: because you prepped it well and you picked it well,
57:40
Speaker 2: but also you have pictures of the buck you're after
57:42
Speaker 2: several times in the last week in this spot it's November.
57:47
Speaker 2: You go there to sit, and you sit three full
57:50
Speaker 2: days and you don't see hide or hair, not just
57:53
Speaker 2: of him, but nothing else. You set three full days
57:56
Speaker 2: during the rut and see nothing? Yeap, do you what
58:00
Speaker 2: do you do? What do you do in that scenario?
58:02
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing is if you go three full
58:04
Speaker 3: days and see nothing, it's your problem. You're screwing it up.
58:07
Speaker 3: It's me. It's my entrance, my exit where I'm parking.
58:12
Speaker 3: Something from where I park to get there, to get
58:16
Speaker 3: in the tree is burgery, ruining everything. There's something in
58:21
Speaker 3: my game plan that's wrong. If you don't see anything
58:25
Speaker 3: for three full days after consistency. Now, if it was
58:29
Speaker 3: one day mark, that could be And I do need
58:32
Speaker 3: to add this in unless a pack of wolves or
58:35
Speaker 3: a mountain lion comes in. So I do have to
58:38
Speaker 3: add that in. And sometimes that happens to me because
58:42
Speaker 3: I don't always get the predators on camera. My location
58:46
Speaker 3: just goes dead. But when I have snow almost always
58:50
Speaker 3: marked that time of year, all I have to do
58:52
Speaker 3: is go in there and like everything's dead, nothing is right,
58:57
Speaker 3: the tracks aren't there in the snow. I'll go for
58:59
Speaker 3: a little walk. If it isn't right, I'll get out
59:02
Speaker 3: of that stand or get out of that tree or
59:03
Speaker 3: wherever I hunt. You know, sometimes I'm going in hanging
59:05
Speaker 3: to set and this just isn't right. I don't see
59:08
Speaker 3: the sign. Let's say it was a cell camera and
59:11
Speaker 3: it turned off, or excuse me, the sign and the
59:14
Speaker 3: turned off. I got to go find if a predator's
59:17
Speaker 3: been there, and usually that's the case for me. Usually
59:20
Speaker 3: usually it's wolves or lions that run all my stuff
59:24
Speaker 3: away for up to a week or two. But back
59:27
Speaker 3: to the original question, it's my issue. I am doing
59:32
Speaker 3: something wrong. If I go sit three days on a
59:36
Speaker 3: freaking cell camera that's been proving to me all the
59:40
Speaker 3: deer want to be there until I get there, that's
59:42
Speaker 3: on me. So then I got to break down, what
59:44
Speaker 3: are you doing wrong? How are these deer identifying that
59:47
Speaker 3: they don't want to be here when you're here. Usually
59:50
Speaker 3: it's going to be wind, it could be sighted, it
59:52
Speaker 3: could be both, it could be sound, it could be
59:54
Speaker 3: all three. So I just play off of their senses
59:57
Speaker 3: and ask myself where am I making mistakes? To circle
1:00:03
Speaker 3: back to that deer we just talked about that I
1:00:05
Speaker 3: killed two weeks prior to me killing him, he tracked
1:00:12
Speaker 3: me in the snow down to my pickup. One of
1:00:14
Speaker 3: the first days I hunted ed. He tracked me all
1:00:16
Speaker 3: the way down to my pickup at night. After I
1:00:19
Speaker 3: hunted him really early in November, and because I came
1:00:24
Speaker 3: back to hunt him and saw his tracks all the
1:00:28
Speaker 3: way down to my truck in my tracks, and then
1:00:30
Speaker 3: he walked down the ridge further, I started packing or
1:00:34
Speaker 3: parking an extra half a mile back instantly because I
1:00:38
Speaker 3: knew he I knew that he bird dogged me. He
1:00:42
Speaker 3: picked up my scent, my ground scent, tracked me. That
1:00:45
Speaker 3: was the first time I hunted that deer. I just
1:00:47
Speaker 3: talked about that I killed. Then I parked way back,
1:00:52
Speaker 3: walked in a little bit of a different route, and
1:00:54
Speaker 3: then I had him, you know, with the doe that
1:00:57
Speaker 3: one day, and then killed him a week later because
1:00:59
Speaker 3: I made a change instantly because of his tracks in
1:01:02
Speaker 3: my tracks, in my foot tracks.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: Fascinating the things that they do. They are survival machines.
1:01:10
Speaker 3: He literally walked down my entrance trail in the snow
1:01:12
Speaker 3: to where my truck was parked and literally walked in
1:01:15
Speaker 3: my pickup tracks in the snow, then veered off and
1:01:18
Speaker 3: went down a ridge off the road. Yep.
1:01:22
Speaker 2: Wow, here's one that I hate to throw out at
1:01:27
Speaker 2: you because it's something we never want to have to consider.
1:01:30
Speaker 2: But I'm curious just how you handle these moments. I'm
1:01:33
Speaker 2: assuming maybe you've been in this at least once most
1:01:36
Speaker 2: of us have. You're hunting one of these spots, your
1:01:40
Speaker 2: big old target buck comes in just like you wrote
1:01:43
Speaker 2: it up on the script, gives you that beautiful twenty
1:01:46
Speaker 2: yard shot that you want, and God forbids, something goes
1:01:49
Speaker 2: wrong and you clean miss that deer. Yep, it's nine am.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: It's November first, nine am. Clean miss. He runs off,
1:01:58
Speaker 2: He's out of there. You're sick in there at nine ten?
1:02:03
Speaker 2: And what's going through your head? What do you do next?
1:02:06
Speaker 2: What is your what is your process post miss for
1:02:12
Speaker 2: the rest of the day, for the next couple of days,
1:02:14
Speaker 2: for how you deal with.
1:02:15
Speaker 3: That that happened to me four years ago? I had
1:02:18
Speaker 3: not I had not missed a white tail buck in
1:02:21
Speaker 3: a couple of decades. Yeah, because three years ago I
1:02:25
Speaker 3: killed the one we just talked about. The year before that,
1:02:27
Speaker 3: I was hunting a tremendous dare that a buddy of
1:02:29
Speaker 3: mine ended up killing, so I got to you know,
1:02:32
Speaker 3: I know what the deer, I me. He and I
1:02:33
Speaker 3: both knew the deer, and we always were very respectful
1:02:38
Speaker 3: each other and where we were hunting, so we never bothered.
1:02:40
Speaker 3: We never messed each other up, and I was glad
1:02:42
Speaker 3: he killed it. But anyway, long story short, I did
1:02:45
Speaker 3: shoot right over that buck, and it did happen to me,
1:02:50
Speaker 3: and I ended up killing another great buck there. And
1:02:54
Speaker 3: this was what I'm getting at. If I shoot right
1:02:57
Speaker 3: over a buck, clean miss, that is not disturbing the
1:03:02
Speaker 3: woods very much. If I have another potential shooter in
1:03:06
Speaker 3: the area, or if it's rut and I just think
1:03:11
Speaker 3: a big trespasser could show up, clean Miss, I'm not
1:03:17
Speaker 3: getting down and tracking a shitty shot. I'm not disturbing anything.
1:03:21
Speaker 3: The only two entities in those mountains that heard me
1:03:25
Speaker 3: miss him or he and I. He might even come
1:03:29
Speaker 3: back later if he doesn't know what it was and
1:03:31
Speaker 3: doesn't smell me. If he doesn't smell me, see me,
1:03:36
Speaker 3: or know quite what that bow was going off and
1:03:40
Speaker 3: just get spooked. What time of the day did you
1:03:43
Speaker 3: say it was? When I'm sitting all day, I am leaving,
1:03:48
Speaker 3: especially if I'm in a great you're talking ruddy time right,
1:03:52
Speaker 3: November time. I am not leaving, especially if I feel
1:03:55
Speaker 3: super confident about the the bucks that are in the area,
1:03:58
Speaker 3: even if it's not him. So I'm not leaving. I'm
1:04:02
Speaker 3: just getting quiet again, probably laughing at myself and texting
1:04:07
Speaker 3: my son and I just effing missed freaking one of
1:04:10
Speaker 3: the biggest deer in my life, which I did, and
1:04:15
Speaker 3: I'm I'm one hundred percent eating humble pie, and I'm
1:04:20
Speaker 3: probably talking to God a little bit about all right,
1:04:22
Speaker 3: what do I need to clean up in my life
1:04:23
Speaker 3: because that you're telling me some Yeah, you know, I'm
1:04:27
Speaker 3: probably I'm probably going through the whole scenario of laughing
1:04:31
Speaker 3: at myself in my mind, but staying, staying in the game,
1:04:36
Speaker 3: knowing that it is good to be humbled, and it
1:04:39
Speaker 3: actually is. And then I'm also evaluating me in my mind,
1:04:43
Speaker 3: like what did you do wrong? Why did you miss?
1:04:47
Speaker 3: Have you even shot your bow the last couple of
1:04:49
Speaker 3: days because you're hiking up through this brush? See all
1:04:52
Speaker 3: that went through my mind when I missed that big
1:04:54
Speaker 3: deer four years ago. Sure enough, Mark, I went home,
1:04:57
Speaker 3: shot my bowl in the dark at my else that night,
1:05:00
Speaker 3: and I was eight inches high.
1:05:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had.
1:05:05
Speaker 3: I had had one of my microadjusts on my site
1:05:09
Speaker 3: completely come loose. That's on me. That's on me, that's
1:05:15
Speaker 3: you know. And I did talk about it in some podcasts.
1:05:18
Speaker 3: But no, I'm not leaving Mark. I stayed where I'll
1:05:20
Speaker 3: stay right in there. I actually went back to kill
1:05:23
Speaker 3: that deer and had what I thought was a trespasser
1:05:27
Speaker 3: that I later realized I did have him on camera
1:05:29
Speaker 3: a tiny bit, but not enough to say I had him.
1:05:31
Speaker 3: I ended up killing a different buck on that spot
1:05:33
Speaker 3: that same year.
1:05:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, not not a situation you ever want
1:05:40
Speaker 2: to find yourself in. But usually what matters the most
1:05:44
Speaker 2: is what you do in the coming hours and days
1:05:46
Speaker 2: when you have to make or break. What are you
1:05:48
Speaker 2: gonna do next?
1:05:50
Speaker 3: I will say this, since that miss, the last three
1:05:54
Speaker 3: big boys I've killed back last three years since him,
1:05:57
Speaker 3: have been very well hit, very well hit. Like get
1:06:01
Speaker 3: my shit wired tight wired to hunt, you gotta have
1:06:04
Speaker 3: your fit wired tight, especially especially when we're you know,
1:06:09
Speaker 3: you start hunting August, You're going so hard. It is
1:06:15
Speaker 3: so easy to not go shoot that bowl. When you're
1:06:19
Speaker 3: wore out, you're tired, you're getting home after dark. You'd
1:06:22
Speaker 3: leave them before daylight. Shoot it under your street light
1:06:26
Speaker 3: if you have to at twenty yards to make sure
1:06:27
Speaker 3: it's on. That's all I would have had to do.
1:06:30
Speaker 3: I had no idea. I literally, I was literally was
1:06:32
Speaker 3: eight inches high. It was stupid. My whole sight was
1:06:35
Speaker 3: just crazy off. And yeah, and it's it's my I mean,
1:06:40
Speaker 3: I'm sure I busted at loose walking through the brush
1:06:43
Speaker 3: to get up in there, because I had to. You know,
1:06:45
Speaker 3: there's spots in there where i'd get to I'd hold
1:06:47
Speaker 3: my bow above my head to get through the brush,
1:06:49
Speaker 3: and I'm sure I snagged it, busted it loose and
1:06:51
Speaker 3: didn't realize it.
1:06:54
Speaker 2: Okay, this is the last this is the last phase
1:06:58
Speaker 2: of the gauntlet. We're just going to do a quick
1:06:59
Speaker 2: set of rapid fire questions. It's four or five questions here,
1:07:03
Speaker 2: one word answer. I'm going to tell you like this
1:07:05
Speaker 2: or this, and you've got to pick. We'll go through
1:07:06
Speaker 2: that very quickly, and I've got one last funky question
1:07:09
Speaker 2: for you to really expand on, and we'll let you
1:07:11
Speaker 2: get off to the rest of your day. Right, one word, right,
1:07:15
Speaker 2: one word for this first set of questions here, Okay, okay,
1:07:20
Speaker 2: does the moon matter to deer movement? Yes or no?
1:07:24
Speaker 3: Yes?
1:07:25
Speaker 2: Would you take a fifty yard shot at a white
1:07:27
Speaker 2: tail with your bow? Yes or no?
1:07:30
Speaker 3: Don't need too No.
1:07:32
Speaker 2: If you had to pick one of these two and
1:07:35
Speaker 2: it would be the only tool you get to use
1:07:37
Speaker 2: for the rest of your hunting days, would you choose
1:07:40
Speaker 2: the rattling antlers or the grunt tube grunt expandable or
1:07:44
Speaker 2: fixed blade broad heads fixed? Should you stop a buck
1:07:49
Speaker 2: that's walking with some kind of sound before shooting with
1:07:52
Speaker 2: your bow? Yes?
1:07:53
Speaker 3: Or no? Situational?
1:07:59
Speaker 2: Fair enough? All right, and this one you can expand on.
1:08:03
Speaker 2: You can paint as big of a picture as you want. Here.
1:08:06
Speaker 2: Imagine that I am in control of your hunting privileges
1:08:10
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna take away your hunting license for the
1:08:12
Speaker 2: rest of your life unless you can kill a five
1:08:16
Speaker 2: year old buck this year. Gotta kill a five year
1:08:19
Speaker 2: old buck. Okay, you have to do it in one
1:08:23
Speaker 2: day from one location. So you get to pick the
1:08:27
Speaker 2: date and you get to pick the location where you
1:08:29
Speaker 2: are gonna kill this very high stakes five year old
1:08:33
Speaker 2: or older buck. Tell me what date you're gonna pick,
1:08:36
Speaker 2: and then paint for me. Is as detailed of a
1:08:39
Speaker 2: picture as you can of that best possible stand site
1:08:42
Speaker 2: on that best possible day.
1:08:50
Speaker 3: For that scenario, only that it costs me my life
1:08:54
Speaker 3: to hunting opening day Mountain butted up against alfalfa up
1:09:02
Speaker 3: in the timber, a little closer to his betting, I'll
1:09:05
Speaker 3: kill him coming to the alfalfa had a scrape opening
1:09:12
Speaker 3: day August thirtieth, if I have to do it, but
1:09:14
Speaker 3: I have to have a destination food source like alfalfa
1:09:18
Speaker 3: for it for me to pick that. If not, if not,
1:09:22
Speaker 3: mark it's community scrape middle of November. Any day in
1:09:30
Speaker 3: one of my community scrapes that are really hard to
1:09:33
Speaker 3: get to that I get daylight every day of old bucks,
1:09:36
Speaker 3: and I would make sure because you didn't say one
1:09:39
Speaker 3: buck he just has to be five years old, Yep,
1:09:42
Speaker 3: I would hunt. I would hunt my roster that had
1:09:46
Speaker 3: the most five year old bucks at that best community
1:09:48
Speaker 3: scrape in mid November.
1:09:50
Speaker 2: Yep. Makes sense. A quick file up on that early
1:09:54
Speaker 2: season hunt though a scrape back off of the alfalfa.
1:09:59
Speaker 2: If you had to pick the usual distance, how far
1:10:04
Speaker 2: back off that field would you want to be? Ideally,
1:10:07
Speaker 2: give me a window there are we talking one hundred yards,
1:10:09
Speaker 2: five hundred yards fifty?
1:10:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, out here in these mountains. Of course, it'd be
1:10:13
Speaker 3: the laking branch that I would have, that unbelievable destination
1:10:19
Speaker 3: food source that he is so drawn to. And there's
1:10:24
Speaker 3: the biggest white tail I've ever killed my life. That's
1:10:27
Speaker 3: how I killed him September first. But I killed him
1:10:29
Speaker 3: on top of the mountain that led down his main
1:10:33
Speaker 3: trail to the alfalfa in the bottom. So I was
1:10:36
Speaker 3: four hundred yards from the alfalfa because that's where I
1:10:40
Speaker 3: got him daylighting on a liking branch in a saddle.
1:10:46
Speaker 3: That's why I brought that up. And he was to
1:10:49
Speaker 3: this day mark and I still see it to this
1:10:52
Speaker 3: day when I have alfalfa in the basins of mountains,
1:10:55
Speaker 3: and I do have some places I hunt like that
1:10:57
Speaker 3: where I'm on a mountain but great feet below, and
1:11:00
Speaker 3: alfalfa is such a great draw as the Canadians, you
1:11:07
Speaker 3: get them those old bucks, especially when they like this
1:11:10
Speaker 3: buck was eight years old. That was his life and
1:11:14
Speaker 3: that was his happiness was getting eat that alfalfa when
1:11:17
Speaker 3: he was older and he had no idea somebody was
1:11:20
Speaker 3: going to hunt him. August thirtieth. I killed him September
1:11:23
Speaker 3: first because I had the right wind. But My point
1:11:27
Speaker 3: is the dude was doing it every day, and I
1:11:30
Speaker 3: watched him do it in the glass from the middle
1:11:32
Speaker 3: of July on literally almost almost every day that I
1:11:37
Speaker 3: scouted him from a long ways away with the binoculars.
1:11:42
Speaker 3: It was his routine. So his routine was just phenomenal
1:11:47
Speaker 3: for a mountain white tail, and it was because there
1:11:50
Speaker 3: was destination incredible food below, That's why. But I had
1:11:53
Speaker 3: to hunt him way high. I had to get up
1:11:55
Speaker 3: where he was. He would never get to the alfalfa
1:11:57
Speaker 3: in the daylight, not even close. So I did a
1:12:00
Speaker 3: hunting probably four hundred yards up on the mountain in
1:12:03
Speaker 3: a saddle. But I could glass, So I had glass.
1:12:06
Speaker 3: I had glass evidence I'll mean before trail cameras.
1:12:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting this, Uh, this is exactly what I was
1:12:16
Speaker 2: hoping to be Troy. I've thoroughly enjoyed this chat. I
1:12:19
Speaker 2: love the thought process you put into the stuff, how
1:12:22
Speaker 2: you think through it, and I communicate very very helpful, Troy,
1:12:26
Speaker 2: So thank you for that. If folks want to see
1:12:29
Speaker 2: some of your past hunts or see some future stuff,
1:12:32
Speaker 2: you know, where can people do this? What should they
1:12:34
Speaker 2: keep an eye for moving forward?
1:12:36
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, Mark, I want to thank you
1:12:38
Speaker 3: for giving me the privilege to be on your show.
1:12:41
Speaker 3: You do an amazing job. Thankyle to like it. I
1:12:45
Speaker 3: also like that we have a little bit of Idaho
1:12:46
Speaker 3: in common with each other.
1:12:48
Speaker 2: Yes for cool anyway state.
1:12:50
Speaker 3: People can find me the easiest for anything Hunt related.
1:12:56
Speaker 3: Just on my Instagram MTN Underscore Man, Mountain Man thirty three.
1:13:01
Speaker 3: I try to answer anybody that asked me a question. Always,
1:13:05
Speaker 3: try to give back always. And then I worked for
1:13:09
Speaker 3: the Quisto family, Long Wolf, Lone Wolf Custom Gear, a
1:13:15
Speaker 3: team leader on the addictions show, and then you know,
1:13:17
Speaker 3: work with sponsorships and things like that for addictions. So
1:13:21
Speaker 3: we have our white Tail Addiction show on YouTube. Our
1:13:23
Speaker 3: first episode just aired this week with Andre, so please
1:13:27
Speaker 3: people go out and watch that episode. It just came out.
1:13:30
Speaker 3: Andre's just been an amazing guy to my family and
1:13:34
Speaker 3: to me over the years. Yeah. So just the Addictions,
1:13:38
Speaker 3: Lone Wolf Custom Gear, White Tail Addictions, and then my
1:13:41
Speaker 3: Instagram and I try to keep it real simple and
1:13:43
Speaker 3: in those in those lanes of where people can find
1:13:47
Speaker 3: me and talk to me. And I got an episode
1:13:49
Speaker 3: coming out this year. I don't know when my episode
1:13:51
Speaker 3: will roll out, but it'll be on that big Mountain
1:13:53
Speaker 3: Buck I killed last year at almost five thousand feet
1:13:56
Speaker 3: elevation up in the high mountains. Awesome.
1:13:59
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to that one, Troy, and looking forward
1:14:01
Speaker 2: to following how this season goes for you. I'm sure
1:14:04
Speaker 2: you've got sure you've got a good one or two
1:14:06
Speaker 2: that's in big trouble this year. So best of luck
1:14:09
Speaker 2: and thank you again.
1:14:10
Speaker 3: Thanks Mark. I've been working hard at it, and this
1:14:13
Speaker 3: year is the first year in either fifteen or sixteen years,
1:14:18
Speaker 3: I do not have a son having a football season.
1:14:21
Speaker 3: My son, Tyson, has graduated from Montana State, and we
1:14:26
Speaker 3: are going to really have some time on our side
1:14:28
Speaker 3: this year, and I get a hunt with Tie again,
1:14:30
Speaker 3: so it's going to be a blast.
1:14:31
Speaker 2: That's so cool. Good for you guys. Well, have a
1:14:34
Speaker 2: lot of fun with your boys. That's the most important,
1:14:36
Speaker 2: the best thing of all.
1:14:37
Speaker 3: Right there, hey man, Thanks Mark.
1:14:42
Speaker 2: All Right, that's a wrap. Thank you for joining me,
1:14:45
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully you learned a lot from
1:14:47
Speaker 2: this one, and stay tuned. We've got another great episode,
1:14:51
Speaker 2: a conclusion to our what would You Do? Series coming
1:14:54
Speaker 2: next week, so stay tuned until then, stay wired to
1:14:59
Speaker 2: Hunt