Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #153: This Year’s Summer Deer Projects – What, Why & How

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #153: This Year’s Summer Deer Projects – What, Why & How · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyan. In this episode number one fifty
0:20
Speaker 1: three Tay in the show, Dan and I are discussing
0:22
Speaker 1: our planned summer deer projects in detail. We're examining what
0:26
Speaker 1: we need to get done, why we're prioritizing these projects,
0:29
Speaker 1: and how we're going to complete these tasks because we
0:31
Speaker 1: prepare for the upcoming deer hunting season. Welcome to the
0:48
Speaker 1: wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sitka Gear.
0:52
Speaker 1: And Today on the show, we're going to be covering
0:54
Speaker 1: a wide variety of topics related to the projects and
0:58
Speaker 1: tasks that we are taking on this summer in preparation
1:01
Speaker 1: for upcoming deer hunting season. And joining me today is
1:06
Speaker 1: a very special guest. He's a man of many words
1:10
Speaker 1: but few fingers. He's a man who has had he
1:13
Speaker 1: has had two kids, and he has also went number
1:16
Speaker 1: two while in a tree stand. My co host, the
1:20
Speaker 1: One the Only, Dan Johnson. Wow, you really built me
1:26
Speaker 1: up for failure. You make me sound like I'm some
1:29
Speaker 1: something that's just gonna blows people. You know, what he's
1:32
Speaker 1: going to tell you today is gonna, you know, change
1:34
Speaker 1: the way you think. But people are gonna leave this
1:37
Speaker 1: podcast and they're gonna say, holy sh it, I could
1:40
Speaker 1: do that job. Yep. Do you like that one? Oh?
1:47
Speaker 1: That was a good one. He has two kids, but
1:50
Speaker 1: goes number two in a tree stand. I like that.
1:52
Speaker 1: That's a T shirt right there, That is a T shirt.
1:56
Speaker 1: How you've been, man, I'm good. How are you? I'm
1:59
Speaker 1: doing well. I'm excited, excited to have a podcast just
2:02
Speaker 1: you and me to catch up a little bit, to
2:05
Speaker 1: talk about some of the stuff that's coming up. Um.
2:07
Speaker 1: I think there's lots and lots going on or will
2:10
Speaker 1: be soon in our in our deer hunting worlds. So
2:13
Speaker 1: it's gonna be good, right, kind of like a little mandate.
2:16
Speaker 1: This is our mandate. We need a mandate. Yep, we do.
2:19
Speaker 1: We need a mandate. I'm glad this is happening. So
2:23
Speaker 1: what's new with you? Like, I'm trying so hard. I'm
2:29
Speaker 1: trying so hard not to say something about my kids
2:32
Speaker 1: or my family to make the one or two people
2:34
Speaker 1: who don't like that, but I have to. So I
2:41
Speaker 1: don't know, just a funny story. So for and it's
2:42
Speaker 1: the first thing that came into my mind last night.
2:45
Speaker 1: I'm typically my son's real active in the bathtub, right,
2:49
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there giving my kids a bath, and
2:50
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, he stops what he's doing. He
2:52
Speaker 1: looks down, and he starts getting kind of weird, looking
2:56
Speaker 1: weird and daddy poop And for or anybody who's had
3:01
Speaker 1: to clean poop out of a full bathtub, it sucks, right, man.
3:06
Speaker 1: So I I quick grab him and I set him
3:09
Speaker 1: on the toilet, and you know, he's laughing this whole
3:12
Speaker 1: time because that's what he does. And so I so
3:14
Speaker 1: I have this naked, soaking, wet baby or toddler. I'm
3:18
Speaker 1: trying to hold him on the toilet that we don't
3:20
Speaker 1: have the training seat out yet. I'm saying, okay, poop, poop,
3:23
Speaker 1: poop because I don't want him to poop in the bathtub,
3:25
Speaker 1: and he's sitting there just laughing. I go, okay, poop,
3:29
Speaker 1: And every time he poopy would he would make this
3:31
Speaker 1: face like like he's growling, because he knows the face
3:35
Speaker 1: to make when you poop, but not perfect right, but
3:38
Speaker 1: not the function. So I held him there for like
3:42
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes or right, and maybe maybe ten minutes, and
3:45
Speaker 1: then I put him back in the bathtub and he
3:47
Speaker 1: never went he never went anything go in the bathtub.
3:51
Speaker 1: And then he didn't go in the bathtub. Well he
3:53
Speaker 1: could have been worse than I guess, right, right, right.
3:56
Speaker 1: So that's just like a short portion of how my
4:00
Speaker 1: day actually goes. Man, I'll tell you what the life
4:03
Speaker 1: and times of Dan Johnson. It's a while the world
4:05
Speaker 1: over there in Iowa. Yeah, however, man, I got I
4:10
Speaker 1: got my bow like set up. I need to get
4:13
Speaker 1: my arrows set up now. Oh I'm I'm I'm jack
4:16
Speaker 1: to start really start shooting this summer. Yeah, I'm doing
4:19
Speaker 1: the same thing. I've been out shooting a lot, and
4:21
Speaker 1: that is it's just it's nice to shoot any time
4:24
Speaker 1: of year, but especially once you get into these warm
4:27
Speaker 1: temperatures where it's comfortable. You can just stand out there
4:29
Speaker 1: and you know, I know where you live and where
4:31
Speaker 1: I live, both of us. We can see like the
4:32
Speaker 1: farm fields and stuff, and so when the crops start
4:35
Speaker 1: popping out, that's when I really start getting amped, like
4:38
Speaker 1: this is coming soon. We're gonna being a tree stand
4:40
Speaker 1: before you. Noah, the velvet rutt is coming, and it's
4:44
Speaker 1: just it's good to be out there sitting or standing
4:46
Speaker 1: and shooting and thinking about all that stuff. I'm I'm
4:50
Speaker 1: right there with you. So you how, let's see, you
4:54
Speaker 1: got your bow set up and ready to go? I do, well,
4:58
Speaker 1: did you take your bow on a barre hundred rifle?
5:01
Speaker 1: So I brought my bow with me out there, um
5:04
Speaker 1: to potentially bear hunt with and to potentially turkey hunt with.
5:08
Speaker 1: But I didn't end up using it for either. I
5:10
Speaker 1: didn't get to go turkey hunting at all. And then
5:12
Speaker 1: on the bear hunt we ended up using rifles. So
5:16
Speaker 1: we've not gotten to work out with a bow yet.
5:17
Speaker 1: And I've been out turkey hunting, but I actually haven't
5:20
Speaker 1: really chased. I've just been guiding so far. I went
5:22
Speaker 1: out twice with my nephew, like I told you last week,
5:25
Speaker 1: and then I went out this past week and a
5:27
Speaker 1: little bit with my friend and wanted him to get one,
5:30
Speaker 1: so he was out there and I didn't even bring
5:31
Speaker 1: my bow with me. Um. But probably in the next
5:35
Speaker 1: week I'm gonna get out by myself with the bow
5:37
Speaker 1: and try to try to tag one of these old gobblers.
5:41
Speaker 1: But they've been a little bit finicky over here. Yeah,
5:43
Speaker 1: so what what buddy did you go hunting with other? Josh? Oh,
5:47
Speaker 1: you mean further, yes, further, good memory. I know I'm
5:55
Speaker 1: gonna run that home until he probably gets piste at me.
5:59
Speaker 1: So he's such a nice guy that you almost feel
6:04
Speaker 1: you know, you know that nickname was a joke, but
6:07
Speaker 1: you almost feel bad calling him that name. I don't
6:10
Speaker 1: feel bad. Okay, then you know what some exciting news
6:14
Speaker 1: about Josh. Can't tell you this, this is this is public,
6:16
Speaker 1: so I think I can. I think it's fine that
6:18
Speaker 1: I say this. Um. So, Josh has been helping out
6:20
Speaker 1: with Wired Hunt for a while now, and he just
6:24
Speaker 1: recently accepted a position with the Quality Dear Management Association.
6:29
Speaker 1: He is now, Yeah, he's a regional I might get
6:32
Speaker 1: the title wrong, sorry, Josh. I think he's a regional
6:35
Speaker 1: director UM for the Great Lakes region, managing different things
6:40
Speaker 1: going on in the branches and the organization in Michigan,
6:42
Speaker 1: Ohio and Indiana. So, man, I'm super excited for him.
6:46
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be a great position and he's
6:48
Speaker 1: gonna do an awesome job. So if you're listening, now,
6:51
Speaker 1: here's my plug. If you're listening now, and you're not
6:54
Speaker 1: a member of the Quality Deer Management Association yet, especially
6:57
Speaker 1: if you're in Michigan, Ohio, or Indiana, join because Josh
7:01
Speaker 1: will be your fearless leader and that will be pretty cool. So,
7:05
Speaker 1: speaking of speaking of the qt MAY really quick another
7:08
Speaker 1: thing we haven't even talked about this dan at all. Um,
7:11
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna be speaking at the national convention for
7:15
Speaker 1: the Quality Dear Management Association, UM, and I'm going to
7:18
Speaker 1: record it as a podcast and publish it here for
7:21
Speaker 1: everyone to listen to in the future. But we're doing
7:24
Speaker 1: in front of a live audience and UM take questions
7:27
Speaker 1: and stuff. So if you've been on the fence about
7:29
Speaker 1: going to the KUTI MAY National Convention, you should definitely go.
7:34
Speaker 1: Be in the audience, ask me a stumper of a
7:36
Speaker 1: question and you could be on the podcast. So well,
7:38
Speaker 1: I tell you, so, you got me a room and
7:41
Speaker 1: you're paying for my room and board down there too,
7:44
Speaker 1: right as soon we're gonna share a bunk but bunk
7:47
Speaker 1: bed or a or a share a single ye pull
7:51
Speaker 1: out one pull out couch duh. So yeah, I gotta
7:57
Speaker 1: figure I gotta figure out all the details around that.
8:01
Speaker 1: But open with a joke open with a joke that's
8:04
Speaker 1: a good idea, a really dirty one perfect that's a
8:09
Speaker 1: that's called an attention get her. If you didn't know that,
8:12
Speaker 1: I literally was just watching a show last night. Um.
8:16
Speaker 1: You ever heard of the show Crashing. It's on HBO. UM.
8:19
Speaker 1: It's really funny. Basically, it's the story of this guy
8:22
Speaker 1: who wants to go in the stand up comedy and
8:24
Speaker 1: kind of his whole world is crashing down around him
8:26
Speaker 1: and he's trying to make it and he gets this job.
8:29
Speaker 1: He gets this job basically he's a warm up comedian
8:34
Speaker 1: for like a daytime talk show. Um. So he's the
8:38
Speaker 1: warm up for the Rachel Ray Show. So like in
8:40
Speaker 1: between takes or when they're not recording, he goes in
8:43
Speaker 1: front of the live studio audience and like tells him
8:45
Speaker 1: to clap and tells him a couple of jokes and stuff.
8:47
Speaker 1: So he does what you just said I should do.
8:50
Speaker 1: He goes out there and he somehow starts telling a
8:52
Speaker 1: dirty joke. But this is the Rachel Ray Show, you know,
8:55
Speaker 1: And he starts talking to get an elderly woman, she's
8:58
Speaker 1: probably like seventy years old, and he starts talking about
9:01
Speaker 1: like something pretty dirty, and she look looks she's like
9:04
Speaker 1: kind of looks at him shocked, and then he keeps
9:06
Speaker 1: going with it and pushing her and pushing her. And
9:08
Speaker 1: then when he gets done, he walks off stage and
9:11
Speaker 1: like the manager of the show grabs her and says,
9:13
Speaker 1: do you realize that was Rachel Ray's mom? So you
9:19
Speaker 1: just gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. So yeah,
9:25
Speaker 1: but awesome, Yeah, it'll be cool. Um gonna be The
9:30
Speaker 1: topic is expanding your deer hunting horizons, and so I'll
9:34
Speaker 1: be discussing some of the things I've learned myself and
9:37
Speaker 1: from some of our guests, talking about ways to to
9:41
Speaker 1: go beyond your backyard or beyond your back forty and
9:44
Speaker 1: trying one of these trips, trying to d i y
9:45
Speaker 1: trip on you know, like I've knocked on doors in
9:48
Speaker 1: Iowa or public land like it did in Montana, or
9:51
Speaker 1: some of the things I've got coming up. Um, so
9:55
Speaker 1: that's the tentative plan. So dot com check it out.
9:58
Speaker 1: How long is the speech gotta be? I think they've
10:01
Speaker 1: given me an hour. Oh wow, that's a big time frame,
10:05
Speaker 1: my man. Yeah, so we'll see how that goes. Basically,
10:10
Speaker 1: I'm just going to tell them embarrassing stories about you. Maybe,
10:13
Speaker 1: So that's all right whatever, I mean, it wouldn't be
10:16
Speaker 1: the first time. All they have to do is look
10:18
Speaker 1: back at the um black Hawk County newspaper. They'll know
10:24
Speaker 1: a whole bunch about me. There's some dirt in there
10:29
Speaker 1: somewhere around two thousand two and three. Yeah, don't give
10:32
Speaker 1: people ideas. They'll dig it up, man, I know they will.
10:35
Speaker 1: Speaking of totally well maybe not too unrelated, um, speaking
10:39
Speaker 1: of vomiting um. Last night, you know, two nights ago. Um,
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm home alone. My wife is on a work trip,
10:49
Speaker 1: and so you know, the wife's away. I thought I
10:52
Speaker 1: was gonna be a relaxed and do whatever. And my
10:55
Speaker 1: dog starts throwing up. And he ends up throwing up
10:58
Speaker 1: like I don't know three four different times, and like
11:02
Speaker 1: multiple big like pools of stuff all over the house
11:05
Speaker 1: late Monday night. And then yesterday morning. I was hoping
11:10
Speaker 1: he'd be fine because first of all his food and
11:13
Speaker 1: it was like grass and stuff, and I thought, okay,
11:14
Speaker 1: he just ate like a weird plant. Um. And then
11:17
Speaker 1: yesterday morning he started puking more. And then midday he
11:22
Speaker 1: like had continuing with the theme earlier number two, he
11:26
Speaker 1: had a he dropped a deuce that was like pure
11:29
Speaker 1: liquid sputtering. But I went to go look at it
11:33
Speaker 1: because I was concerned about his health a little bit.
11:36
Speaker 1: And I went to look at it and it was
11:37
Speaker 1: like red. It looked like strawberry chocolate milk kinda um.
11:42
Speaker 1: So then I got concerned and I had to so
11:43
Speaker 1: I called the vet and I was like, hey, my
11:45
Speaker 1: dog's vomiting NonStop and he just had like bloody poop.
11:49
Speaker 1: So I had like race into the vet and they
11:51
Speaker 1: had to do like X rays and all sorts of stuff,
11:54
Speaker 1: and he's got like some messed up and test and
11:56
Speaker 1: things going on. They didn't find any blockage, so that
11:59
Speaker 1: was good, but I guess like just some very very
12:02
Speaker 1: very serious irritation and lots of red blood cells and
12:05
Speaker 1: his what they call fecal matter. I had to watch
12:08
Speaker 1: a person stick a thermometer on my dog's butt, and
12:11
Speaker 1: that was very and uncomfortable. My dogs. My dog, he
12:15
Speaker 1: was just staring at my eyes while he had this thermometer.
12:18
Speaker 1: He's like dead, Why why is this happening to me? Dad?
12:21
Speaker 1: I had to do that to both my kids and
12:23
Speaker 1: they like that's weird too. Yeah, that might be more weird.
12:29
Speaker 1: So what they what did your dog do eat like
12:32
Speaker 1: rat poison or something? No idea, I don't know. Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: I think definitely not that I think that would have
12:38
Speaker 1: killed him. Um, but something he got into something which
12:41
Speaker 1: did not agree with him. So they did this thing.
12:43
Speaker 1: I've never seen this before. Um, they had and they
12:46
Speaker 1: had to give him fluids because of how the hydrated
12:48
Speaker 1: he was. So they put a needle in his back
12:50
Speaker 1: and they filled like a pocket in his skin full
12:54
Speaker 1: of fluids, like a like the size of a big softball,
12:57
Speaker 1: but just fluid. It was a bubble of fluid that
12:59
Speaker 1: was just sitting on top of his back inside his skin,
13:02
Speaker 1: like a camel hump or something. Um, and he just
13:05
Speaker 1: walked away. They just injected this thing, had this big
13:08
Speaker 1: old camel hump, and then he just had this bubble
13:11
Speaker 1: on top of his back for the rest of the night.
13:13
Speaker 1: It was. It was the weirdest thing. And then I
13:15
Speaker 1: guess it just just absorbed. It absorbs. Yeah. Um, so
13:18
Speaker 1: they gave him that and then I've got like three
13:20
Speaker 1: different medications he's on or something and it was a
13:24
Speaker 1: debacle yesterday. But well that's that's why we're recording here.
13:27
Speaker 1: A day later than usual, so well, hopefully it turns
13:30
Speaker 1: out all right. Man, Thanks dude, me too. Um anything
13:36
Speaker 1: else in your world, you know? I mean that's what
13:40
Speaker 1: this podcast is about, right, Should we talk about that then, dear, dear,
13:44
Speaker 1: dear stuff right? Yeah, real quick though, before we move on,
13:47
Speaker 1: let's pause briefly for our sick story today and what
13:51
Speaker 1: You're Hunt. Producer Spencer new Hearth spoke with Michigan deer
13:54
Speaker 1: hunter Don Vitash for this one. For this week's Sitka story,
13:59
Speaker 1: we're joined by Don Beds, who tells us about an
14:01
Speaker 1: eye opening encounter he had in southeastern Kansas. Well, Spencer,
14:10
Speaker 1: it's an interesting UH. The sickest stories have been intriguing
14:15
Speaker 1: to me. I have a follower podcast, and and I've
14:19
Speaker 1: had a couple uh defining moments in UH in my
14:25
Speaker 1: own career, and one really was an eye opener for me.
14:28
Speaker 1: I'm back in two thousand and fifteen. I had a
14:31
Speaker 1: particularly large buck that I was after in Kansas, probably
14:35
Speaker 1: the biggest one I had ever chased, and had a
14:38
Speaker 1: lot of camera pictures of him, and uh, I was
14:41
Speaker 1: really waiting him out and got down to Kansas just
14:44
Speaker 1: done a great cold front in November and I got
14:48
Speaker 1: into where I thought he would be and share enough,
14:52
Speaker 1: around eleven thirty am, he comes walking in, uh into
14:57
Speaker 1: the field I was. I was sitting in with a
15:00
Speaker 1: you doze and uh, I snort wheezed at him, just
15:05
Speaker 1: trying to get aggressive, and he took one look over
15:07
Speaker 1: at me and just came charging in like a ball.
15:10
Speaker 1: Uh stopped staring at me head on at ten yards
15:15
Speaker 1: eyeball to eyeballs. Is one of those moments where you
15:20
Speaker 1: know your camouflage really gets tested. And and right about
15:24
Speaker 1: then he looked away and took one step and and
15:27
Speaker 1: that that was one of his last And for me,
15:30
Speaker 1: that was really one of those moments where you wonder,
15:35
Speaker 1: you know, how things are working. And and I had
15:38
Speaker 1: the wind in my face, and I just knew at
15:40
Speaker 1: that time that, um, the camouflage was working for me. Uh.
15:46
Speaker 1: You know, as hunters, I think we always have questions,
15:49
Speaker 1: you know, is my wind good? Is? Is my is
15:51
Speaker 1: my setup good? Is? Is my equipment? Salad? And then
15:55
Speaker 1: that moment I knew that all that was clicking on
16:00
Speaker 1: Dahn's hunt, which was a bitterly cold sit He was
16:03
Speaker 1: wearing Sitka's phonetic system. If you'd like to create a
16:06
Speaker 1: Sitka story of your own, or to learn more about
16:09
Speaker 1: Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit sitka gear dot com. I
16:14
Speaker 1: want to I want to say one thing related deer
16:17
Speaker 1: before we dive into our main topic. UM. And I
16:20
Speaker 1: want to give another plug for a book that I
16:22
Speaker 1: just really really like. UM And I don't know if
16:25
Speaker 1: I've ever told her about this one or not. Um,
16:27
Speaker 1: but I decided to reread it, so I'm reading it
16:29
Speaker 1: get me for the third time. It's called Whitetail Access.
16:32
Speaker 1: You ever read that one? H? No? But I need
16:35
Speaker 1: to who who wrote it? Chris Eberhardt. Um, well, we
16:39
Speaker 1: had his dad on the podcast last summer, John eberhar
16:43
Speaker 1: speaking of which I don't really ever told you this,
16:45
Speaker 1: But John reached out to me after that. Do you
16:47
Speaker 1: remember John, I believe so. Yeah. So he talked about
16:50
Speaker 1: just how much more difficult it is to hunt in
16:52
Speaker 1: Michigan than Iowa, and he kind of gave you a
16:54
Speaker 1: hard time about it. Um. He emailed me later, like apologized,
16:59
Speaker 1: like he wanted to make sure you didn't feel bad
17:01
Speaker 1: about that, and like said, maybe he gave it to
17:03
Speaker 1: a little bit too hard. So I just want to
17:04
Speaker 1: pass that on. He didn Uh, I am very offended,
17:09
Speaker 1: and I am very mad. I miss your ebra heart
17:12
Speaker 1: and I will never talk to him again. I thought
17:14
Speaker 1: it was nice of him that he was concerned about that,
17:16
Speaker 1: because I sure wouldn't have cared if I offended. Oh yeah,
17:19
Speaker 1: I know you don't. But his son, So, his son
17:23
Speaker 1: wrote this book, White Tail Access, and man, it's it's
17:26
Speaker 1: like a fun read. It's not only informational, but it's
17:28
Speaker 1: also fun. Because what Chris did is he decided to, um,
17:32
Speaker 1: I don't know, this is a decade ago or maybe um,
17:34
Speaker 1: he decided to take a whole um hunting season and
17:39
Speaker 1: he had a flexible job. He was like at the time,
17:40
Speaker 1: I think he was a sales rep or I can
17:42
Speaker 1: I could have this totally wrong. Um. I don't remember
17:45
Speaker 1: what his second airy job, but he was like part
17:46
Speaker 1: time out to a writer. And then he had another
17:48
Speaker 1: job that he did, but he was able to have
17:49
Speaker 1: the flexibility to like cut out of it for three months,
17:52
Speaker 1: and he so he cut out of his main job
17:55
Speaker 1: for three months and took his van he has like
17:57
Speaker 1: a conversion van or like a minivan, and lived out
18:00
Speaker 1: of that and traveled the Midwest chasing deer and he
18:05
Speaker 1: wrote a book about it. Um. So we went to Wisconsin,
18:09
Speaker 1: North Dakota, Missouri, Michigan. Um, I don't remember if there's
18:15
Speaker 1: any else, those are the ones I remember. Um. But
18:19
Speaker 1: so he tells the story of those trips in those hunts.
18:21
Speaker 1: But then he also like goes into detail of how
18:24
Speaker 1: he scouts during the season, how he sets up on
18:26
Speaker 1: every hunt, what his thought process was. He has diagrams
18:28
Speaker 1: and there showing where he hung his stand in relation
18:31
Speaker 1: to the other habitat and stuff, and like it's a
18:33
Speaker 1: really good example filled um book. It was a good
18:37
Speaker 1: way to learn. So um I I really enjoyed that one.
18:39
Speaker 1: If you haven't checked it out yet, White Tail Access
18:41
Speaker 1: by Chrissy Berhardt, that's a that's a fun read. Yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: so that's kind of a good transition in a way
18:48
Speaker 1: because that's one thing that I really need to focus
18:50
Speaker 1: on for this upcoming season. Access. Yeah, I'm not talking
18:56
Speaker 1: about I'm not talking about gaining more farms. I'm talking
18:59
Speaker 1: about finding a way to the stand locations without you know,
19:05
Speaker 1: with the minimal with minimal amount of intrusion, right right.
19:08
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago.
19:10
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned you were having like an access
19:12
Speaker 1: day where you're just sitting and thinking about better access. Yeah.
19:15
Speaker 1: So so that's that's kind of what I want to
19:18
Speaker 1: talk about today, is Um, like you, I'm sure I
19:22
Speaker 1: have got a long list of like projects that I
19:25
Speaker 1: need to get done before the hunting season. Um. And
19:27
Speaker 1: I literally put together to do list on a Google
19:30
Speaker 1: doc so I can keep track of it. Um, because
19:32
Speaker 1: I was like getting overwhelmed, like, oh my gosh, We've
19:34
Speaker 1: got so much to do and I don't have all
19:35
Speaker 1: that much time to do it. Because I need to
19:37
Speaker 1: get this stuff done before I head out west again. Um,
19:41
Speaker 1: because when I get back from our next Western trip,
19:43
Speaker 1: that's going to be after you know, Um, I'm gonna
19:46
Speaker 1: be hunting out there. I'm not gonna get back here
19:48
Speaker 1: until mid September, and I don't want to be in
19:50
Speaker 1: the woods doing stuff a couple of weeks before our opener.
19:52
Speaker 1: So so you're going from July to in July to
19:57
Speaker 1: mid September, You're out there for a long time. Then, Yeah,
20:00
Speaker 1: think we're not going to go out now until mid
20:01
Speaker 1: July or maybe late July. Um, we're pushing it back
20:04
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um, just because like it feels like
20:07
Speaker 1: we haven't been home at all yet. So and also
20:10
Speaker 1: this is other news. I do not know if I
20:11
Speaker 1: want him do the Alaska trip now this this year. Yeah,
20:15
Speaker 1: just within logistics and kind of everything going on with
20:18
Speaker 1: our our summer travel plans and the money I've spent
20:21
Speaker 1: and everything, I'm starting to think it just might not
20:23
Speaker 1: be doable. So it's a big trip, Yeah, it really is.
20:28
Speaker 1: Um Hey, one thing, one thing real quick, sorry to
20:32
Speaker 1: cut you off. I'm going to send you a package
20:34
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to tell you what's in it,
20:36
Speaker 1: but you have to open it up while we record
20:40
Speaker 1: a podcast. Oh my gosh. That's like the most frightening
20:43
Speaker 1: thing I never imagined. Virtual pinky swear, Virtual pinky swear.
20:51
Speaker 1: I mean, you can addit it out if you want,
20:54
Speaker 1: but I think you're gonna like it. Oh man, I'm excited.
20:57
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I'm excited and terrified. But hopefully I
21:01
Speaker 1: get it to you in in June sometime. I'm gonna
21:05
Speaker 1: go pick it up in the next two weeks. Can
21:07
Speaker 1: you make me like a virtual pinky promise that's not
21:10
Speaker 1: going to be like a like a lunch bag full
21:12
Speaker 1: of dog crap. It's not gonna be profane or disgusting.
21:16
Speaker 1: All right, sweet you go, all right, I like it.
21:24
Speaker 1: If anyone is still listening to this show already today,
21:27
Speaker 1: just the stuff we've talked about, this is classic Wired
21:31
Speaker 1: hunt right here. Man. So, so to do list summer projects? Um,
21:40
Speaker 1: do you have anything new on the access front? You
21:42
Speaker 1: told us a little bit, you know, a couple weeks
21:44
Speaker 1: ago about that, but any progress there? Well? Yeah, I mean,
21:47
Speaker 1: so the two things I'm gonna be I'm gonna be
21:53
Speaker 1: in the next Can I can I interrupt? Yeah? Go ahead,
21:56
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but this is just so we don't lose
21:58
Speaker 1: our listeners. Yeah. The point of us walking through all
22:02
Speaker 1: these things, or at least what I'm thinking, is that
22:04
Speaker 1: I want to talk through all the different projects that
22:06
Speaker 1: we've got going on, so that you know, people might
22:09
Speaker 1: be able to get some ideas of different things they
22:11
Speaker 1: could be trying. And then I also want to be talking,
22:13
Speaker 1: you know, also explaining, you know, why are we doing
22:14
Speaker 1: these things and how we're doing these things? Um, because
22:17
Speaker 1: I think you know, all of us we can always
22:19
Speaker 1: be taking our preparation one step further, getting a little
22:22
Speaker 1: bit better every year. So my hope is that you
22:24
Speaker 1: know what you and me Dan can share here today
22:26
Speaker 1: that's hopefully going to get some ideas or some inspiration
22:29
Speaker 1: or motivation or some some different things people can try.
22:32
Speaker 1: So so that's the whole point of our episode today. Um,
22:35
Speaker 1: sorry for the interruption, Dan, go ahead, No, you're good. Okay.
22:38
Speaker 1: So I think that was good that you interrupted me
22:41
Speaker 1: because it gave me a second to actually think. And
22:43
Speaker 1: I want to take a couple of backwards steps here
22:46
Speaker 1: and talk about very high level the property that I'm
22:50
Speaker 1: I I need to talk about the the access. You
22:53
Speaker 1: know about access. This property is enclosed by cricks like
23:00
Speaker 1: a creek system, and by three other properties. Right for Mike,
23:07
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for my context. Can you tell me is
23:10
Speaker 1: this uh? Is this your main southern iwest? Okay, this
23:13
Speaker 1: is my main farm. So I have property owners to
23:18
Speaker 1: the south, to the west, um, to the northwest, and
23:24
Speaker 1: then a creek kind of surrounds the whole thing, uh
23:28
Speaker 1: in a way, or the west northwest and cuts kind
23:32
Speaker 1: of through the center, uh like the north part of it.
23:35
Speaker 1: The creek that I fell into. Uh right, yeah, well
23:39
Speaker 1: that creek, yeah, just down quite a ways the place
23:42
Speaker 1: that you fell in with a different property altogether, but um,
23:46
Speaker 1: but in that general area right. So so access for
23:50
Speaker 1: the most part is through the front of the farm
23:53
Speaker 1: from the east, and you have to go through egg
23:58
Speaker 1: to get to the timber. Right. So my theory is
24:03
Speaker 1: instantly by me driving in. You know, a vehicle may
24:06
Speaker 1: not necessarily quote unquote spook the deer, but it's gonna
24:09
Speaker 1: get them out of the fields early in the morning
24:11
Speaker 1: when you're on the meaning that they're not naturally moving
24:14
Speaker 1: back to their bedding areas, right, They've been forced a
24:17
Speaker 1: little bit definitely. So yeah, that access is great for
24:21
Speaker 1: an evening hunt for them coming to the food source,
24:24
Speaker 1: but for a morning hunt, I am ruining absolutely almost
24:30
Speaker 1: the entire farm, I feel, because they're they're being bumped
24:34
Speaker 1: into the timber. And then yeah, they may get back
24:35
Speaker 1: to a natural pattern, but they're ahead of me. When
24:39
Speaker 1: you walk in there, you're pushing them in further exactly,
24:42
Speaker 1: And I try to hug or hug the borders of
24:46
Speaker 1: this property. Now I've talked to landowners, uh to try
24:52
Speaker 1: to be able to access from the complete opposite direction
24:55
Speaker 1: so I can get into some of my tree stands
24:58
Speaker 1: locations and get that natural movement from the egg fields
25:03
Speaker 1: back into the bedding, into the pinch points. Now what
25:06
Speaker 1: what happens is, uh, they told me no, They said, yeah,
25:10
Speaker 1: we'd rather not because we hunt as well, and we
25:13
Speaker 1: just would rather not have you been walking through our properties. Okay,
25:16
Speaker 1: fair enough right here, I'm gonna get that. So now
25:20
Speaker 1: kind of getting to what I need to do this summer,
25:24
Speaker 1: as I have too other landowners that I need to
25:26
Speaker 1: talk with about walking. It's gonna be one hell of
25:29
Speaker 1: a long walk. But I feel that I'm just I'm
25:32
Speaker 1: ruining every everything when it um when it comes to
25:36
Speaker 1: entering this property. Right. So, I'm gonna be talking to
25:41
Speaker 1: two landowners hopefully within the next three or four weeks,
25:46
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be, you know, talk discussing with them like, hey, man,
25:49
Speaker 1: can I at least just park on your park, on
25:53
Speaker 1: your field drive and walk your fence line into the
25:57
Speaker 1: property that I hunt? And I feel that that would
26:00
Speaker 1: that would help me a little bit. It's through cattle pasture.
26:04
Speaker 1: The other yeah. The other thing, and this is this
26:07
Speaker 1: is where it's going to get difficult, is crick access
26:11
Speaker 1: to some of these backstand locations. And it would be
26:14
Speaker 1: we're talking like walking a mile but in a creek.
26:19
Speaker 1: Now that's great if the crick's low. But if the crick,
26:23
Speaker 1: you know, if there's big rain, that krip fills up
26:25
Speaker 1: and it could go above waist, could go above chest
26:29
Speaker 1: at times. I've seen it over you know, yeah, over
26:33
Speaker 1: the head at times. So you know, it would have
26:36
Speaker 1: to be the perfect condition to walk back all the
26:39
Speaker 1: way from the road back in there um and and
26:45
Speaker 1: use that crick, which I feel would be great on
26:47
Speaker 1: certain wind directions. However, this is kind of where the
26:51
Speaker 1: dilemma is. I need I need a certain wind which
26:56
Speaker 1: would benefit me accessing the accessing from where I normally do. Right,
27:03
Speaker 1: so when I get into my stand, then it's um,
27:06
Speaker 1: then it's it's good. But if I use the creek
27:10
Speaker 1: to access the stand on the wind that I need, um,
27:14
Speaker 1: my scent will be blowing into a betting area. So
27:17
Speaker 1: I'm kind of at a really I need to be
27:20
Speaker 1: air dropped into this property. But basically is what I'm
27:22
Speaker 1: getting in now. Can you hunt that as a morning
27:25
Speaker 1: set though, and be going through the creek with a
27:28
Speaker 1: bad wind before they're to their beds so that you
27:31
Speaker 1: get to you go through the area with a bad wind.
27:35
Speaker 1: But it's not bad because they're not there yet. And
27:36
Speaker 1: then by the time you get to the tree stand,
27:38
Speaker 1: you've got the good wind and you're past the area
27:40
Speaker 1: where the wind would mess you up by the time
27:42
Speaker 1: they get there. Uh yeah, kind of. However, you know
27:49
Speaker 1: these ruts, these ruts, you know, I spent most of
27:52
Speaker 1: my time in the timber the last week of October,
27:55
Speaker 1: the first two weeks of November, just like you do, right,
27:58
Speaker 1: and the those betting areas it seems like they're during
28:04
Speaker 1: those rut. During the rut, there's always deer in that
28:07
Speaker 1: betting area, whether it's dough, whether it's a mature buck,
28:10
Speaker 1: or whether it's just h you know, a smaller immature buck.
28:14
Speaker 1: Cruising at night, I'm in a spot where there's deer
28:19
Speaker 1: all there. You know, they're all the time, and that's
28:23
Speaker 1: that's what my trail camera so, you know, I put
28:25
Speaker 1: that info in deer lab and then I'm looking at
28:28
Speaker 1: him like there is literally a deer in this area
28:33
Speaker 1: from October to November, like every hour of every day. Awesome. Yeah,
28:44
Speaker 1: it's a great place, but glow without really easy. Yeah,
28:48
Speaker 1: I guess it all comes down to, like it's a
28:51
Speaker 1: numbers game, right, what's the chance of what's the risk,
28:55
Speaker 1: what's the reward? And when it balances one way or
28:57
Speaker 1: the other, than you gotta go for it right right,
28:59
Speaker 1: And I think I'm to the point now where Um,
29:02
Speaker 1: I got some stands that are pretty safe for access.
29:06
Speaker 1: I can get in there, like you know, by entering
29:08
Speaker 1: my normal way. But once the rut hits and I
29:11
Speaker 1: want to catch natural movement, um, I'm gonna have to
29:14
Speaker 1: have somebody drop me off on you know, on the
29:18
Speaker 1: road and walk some of these creeks in because I
29:20
Speaker 1: don't want to park my truck on the road, right, Um,
29:24
Speaker 1: I can ask. I'm gonna try to ask permission from
29:26
Speaker 1: a couple, you know, farmers. Hey, can I just park
29:29
Speaker 1: in your drive? I don't want to hunt your property.
29:30
Speaker 1: I just want to park in your drive. If not,
29:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to have somebody drop me off and walk,
29:35
Speaker 1: you know, roughly a mile through a creek to get
29:37
Speaker 1: back to you know, because the property that I hunt,
29:40
Speaker 1: you've seen it on a map, it's pretty big. Yeah.
29:43
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people say they have
29:45
Speaker 1: to walk a mile, but like when you really have
29:48
Speaker 1: to walk a mile, especially cric man, that is tough.
29:51
Speaker 1: I mean, you're trying to be slow and you're trying
29:53
Speaker 1: to be quiet, and you got a backpack and maybe
29:56
Speaker 1: a tree stand and a bow, and that's that is
29:59
Speaker 1: no easy feats. So I uh, I don't envy you.
30:02
Speaker 1: I but it's good. I mean, it's that's great access.
30:06
Speaker 1: And we talked about all the time. It's like being
30:09
Speaker 1: willing to do those tough things or do a bunch
30:11
Speaker 1: of little things that take a little bit longer than usual. Yeah,
30:15
Speaker 1: that's what makes the difference. So my goal is, you know,
30:18
Speaker 1: obviously I got my mineral already out. In the next
30:21
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, I'm gonna be setting my cameras out
30:23
Speaker 1: while I'm there. I'm gonna be putting a couple of
30:26
Speaker 1: tree stands in these like I'm gonna have them set
30:29
Speaker 1: already for some of these locations where I might only
30:34
Speaker 1: hunt one morning or one afternoon the entire season. Yeah.
30:38
Speaker 1: And what I want to I want to be low
30:40
Speaker 1: pro as possible. Yeah. So, speaking of trail cameras, what
30:45
Speaker 1: are you thinking? Um post your advice from Joe Um
30:50
Speaker 1: Joe el Singer on our podcast couple weeks ago when
30:53
Speaker 1: he when he encouraged you not to be checking your
30:55
Speaker 1: cameras throughout the season like you do are you going
30:58
Speaker 1: to take you gonna try that or you're gonna do
31:00
Speaker 1: your usual Nope, I'm some of these. I'm gonna be
31:04
Speaker 1: like getting thirty two gig cards, sixty four gig cards,
31:06
Speaker 1: putting them in and just letting them ride out the
31:09
Speaker 1: entire season and go back there because like he mentioned,
31:13
Speaker 1: and like kind of like I've seen what what what
31:17
Speaker 1: really kind of popped my interest and kind of you know,
31:22
Speaker 1: pulled that I had that aha moment is when I
31:25
Speaker 1: tagged out so early this upcoming year and then I
31:28
Speaker 1: let my trail cameras run the entire rest of the
31:32
Speaker 1: archery season until shotgun season. That's when I went and
31:34
Speaker 1: took him down. And what do you know, I had
31:39
Speaker 1: more dear on my trail cameras just which I feel
31:43
Speaker 1: is because it wasn't going and checking them on a
31:45
Speaker 1: regular basis throughout the run. And I have enough information
31:49
Speaker 1: and I feel that I have enough uh intel from
31:54
Speaker 1: you know, like from using deer lab and whatnot to say, Okay,
31:57
Speaker 1: I need to be in this stay end roughly at
32:01
Speaker 1: this time to catch deer movement on you know, these
32:06
Speaker 1: winds or these conditions from last year in the previous
32:09
Speaker 1: year's information. So did you end up getting so it
32:11
Speaker 1: sounds like you did um but others like some specific
32:14
Speaker 1: annual patterns that you've now identified that you saw happen
32:17
Speaker 1: last year that you're going to try to keen on
32:20
Speaker 1: this year. Mark Please don't say I told you so,
32:24
Speaker 1: but I am gonna have to do some all day
32:28
Speaker 1: Sits enough enough, bs. I need to do it because
32:33
Speaker 1: I have to stay in locations where I have the
32:36
Speaker 1: most so happy I know, I know the most big
32:40
Speaker 1: buck activity. And you know how you have has it
32:43
Speaker 1: broken down by uh like six am to ten am
32:47
Speaker 1: and then ten am to two pm, and then from
32:50
Speaker 1: two to six and from six to tanner what you
32:53
Speaker 1: know that circle? A majority of my big bucks are
32:59
Speaker 1: traveling and where these two particular standing locations are at
33:04
Speaker 1: are tray traveling from ten am to two pm. It
33:10
Speaker 1: sucks to know that, Like I don't know they're coming.
33:15
Speaker 1: What what they're doing is they're they're two pretty predominant
33:18
Speaker 1: pinch points too, or it's a pinch point slash travel
33:22
Speaker 1: corridor basically the same thing. And they're coming off I
33:27
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. They're coming off the egg fields.
33:29
Speaker 1: They're checking a couple betting areas, then they're hitting these
33:32
Speaker 1: pinch points mid day to transition to another other betting
33:38
Speaker 1: areas and other egg fields on a different part of
33:40
Speaker 1: the farm. That makes I mean that that sounds exactly
33:43
Speaker 1: what you would expect for that running time frame. What
33:46
Speaker 1: what specific time frame were these really happening the most, um,
33:52
Speaker 1: I think it was. You know, I had activity through
33:56
Speaker 1: those from mid October, but nothing daylie until um in
34:02
Speaker 1: that time frame ten am to two pm from October
34:10
Speaker 1: all the way until November six seven, you know when
34:15
Speaker 1: I when I ended up taking my trail cams down. Cool,
34:18
Speaker 1: that's good to know. I mean that that right there
34:20
Speaker 1: is proof positive of that rut midday movement. It's happens.
34:25
Speaker 1: So my debacle on one of these is And I'd
34:28
Speaker 1: love to hear what you have to say about this,
34:30
Speaker 1: because I've heard I've heard some guys talk about, hey man,
34:34
Speaker 1: you either go in extremely early, right so everything's calmed
34:39
Speaker 1: down because there's literally no movement on some of these
34:43
Speaker 1: trail cameras from midnight too, I don't know, six am sometimes,
34:52
Speaker 1: so there there's no deer in the area early on
34:55
Speaker 1: in the morning, and so if I get in there
34:58
Speaker 1: and I get in real early, or do I hang
35:02
Speaker 1: back and not go in until like nine o'clock in
35:04
Speaker 1: the morning or eight or nine. I think my thought
35:09
Speaker 1: would be to get even though you're probably not gonna
35:11
Speaker 1: have early morning movement like you might have allousy the
35:14
Speaker 1: first few hours of the day, I'd still want to
35:16
Speaker 1: get in there really early, so I'm not spooking anything. Um,
35:19
Speaker 1: I'd worry if you're going in at nine o'clock, maybe
35:22
Speaker 1: that is when the first one comes cruising through or whatever.
35:25
Speaker 1: UM I mean in this kind of scenario I have.
35:27
Speaker 1: I have had a scenario like where it made sense
35:30
Speaker 1: not to go in early, like a few I can't
35:33
Speaker 1: remember if we ever talked about this, but that year
35:36
Speaker 1: I hunted in Iowa that you also killed a buck.
35:38
Speaker 1: It was like two thousand and twelve, I think maybe.
35:41
Speaker 1: And um the spot I wanted to hunt. The only
35:44
Speaker 1: way I could get to it you had to cross
35:46
Speaker 1: an open crop field. There's no way to get through
35:49
Speaker 1: without crossing that crop field. UM. So I was worried
35:54
Speaker 1: though if I went in there. You know, I wanted
35:55
Speaker 1: to do an all day sait. But I thought, if
35:57
Speaker 1: I go in there before dark, I'm gonna spook here
35:59
Speaker 1: off that field. So instead of doing that, I waited
36:03
Speaker 1: until daylight until like glass the field and watched and
36:06
Speaker 1: made sure there was nothing on the field, and then
36:08
Speaker 1: I snuck in and got to my stand, you know,
36:11
Speaker 1: at like eight o'clock or whatever it was. Um. So
36:13
Speaker 1: that was a scenario where it made sense because it
36:15
Speaker 1: all came down to how do you get to that
36:17
Speaker 1: tree stand without spooking deer? Um. So I think in
36:20
Speaker 1: your scenario, if there's not activity early in the morning,
36:23
Speaker 1: I would use that to your benefit in my opinion, right,
36:26
Speaker 1: And it's probably what I need to do. It's just
36:29
Speaker 1: now I have to go in um when the next
36:31
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and that's where I'm going to go
36:34
Speaker 1: really look for the best possible tree I mean this.
36:39
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people say you got to
36:41
Speaker 1: grind it out right, It's it's that the the sucky part,
36:46
Speaker 1: if you want to say that, nothing really sucks about
36:48
Speaker 1: bow hunting in my opinion, But the frustrating part is
36:52
Speaker 1: knowing that in order for me to find the perfect
36:55
Speaker 1: tree stand location, I'm gonna literally have to set it
36:57
Speaker 1: up on a day that I feel I'm gonna be
37:01
Speaker 1: hunting that wind the most you know on a day
37:03
Speaker 1: that there's a mimicking wind. So let's say northwest, and
37:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to get in the tree, and I'm
37:08
Speaker 1: gonna have to start throwing some of those milk weeds
37:10
Speaker 1: or throwing something out of the tree to see where
37:12
Speaker 1: my wind is actually going, to see if it's not
37:14
Speaker 1: looping around in some of these pinch points, or to
37:16
Speaker 1: see if it's hugging another ridge. If I'm gonna be
37:18
Speaker 1: safe on a north northwest wind, and knowing that that
37:25
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of hard work involved physically
37:28
Speaker 1: setting up and tearing down maybe one or two tree
37:30
Speaker 1: stands before I find the right particular tree. Yeah, it's
37:34
Speaker 1: that brutal, brutal summer work, but it yeah, it all
37:38
Speaker 1: pays off in the end hopefully. Right. Well, yep, that's
37:41
Speaker 1: the goal. I mean, because you know, trying to accomplish goals,
37:47
Speaker 1: right if I wasn't so I have goals. You have goals,
37:51
Speaker 1: you know if I'm I'm not okay with shooting a
37:54
Speaker 1: three year old buck, right, So I'm gonna be very
37:56
Speaker 1: detail oriented and how I approach uh this this season. Yeah,
38:02
Speaker 1: well it sounds like I mean, it's cool what what's
38:05
Speaker 1: cooled in is that, UM, you know, just over the
38:08
Speaker 1: course of the last three years, I think we're going
38:12
Speaker 1: I think, I don't know, three years or four years
38:14
Speaker 1: or whatever it's been that we've been doing this podcast together. UM,
38:18
Speaker 1: just hearing how you know your strategy and your approach
38:22
Speaker 1: has shifted and evolved, UM, is really cool to see.
38:27
Speaker 1: And I think I'm sure mine mirrors that, like both
38:29
Speaker 1: of us personally have changed our approach so much and
38:32
Speaker 1: learned so much from hearing from our guests, from bouncing
38:37
Speaker 1: back our own ideas between each other. UM, I think
38:40
Speaker 1: you and me we've evolved a lot, and I think
38:42
Speaker 1: our hunting has improved because of that. And I hope
38:44
Speaker 1: that the people who are listening, I hope they've seen
38:46
Speaker 1: something similar happen for themselves, because I think I think,
38:50
Speaker 1: I mean, it's definitely it's definitely paying off, you know,
38:53
Speaker 1: having these discussions with people. It's making it's making us
38:56
Speaker 1: change things, which is changing our level success. I think, right,
39:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna add one more thing to this and and
39:04
Speaker 1: then I have some questions for you. Actually, But so
39:08
Speaker 1: my kid is due, My my third kid is going
39:11
Speaker 1: to be born sometime in mid to late September, right,
39:15
Speaker 1: which means that I'm not going to get a lot
39:18
Speaker 1: of time to hunt in October, right, So my I
39:24
Speaker 1: don't think I'm going to be able to get into
39:25
Speaker 1: the tree stand um too until maybe November, like the
39:31
Speaker 1: first to second week November, which, if you talk to
39:35
Speaker 1: some of our guests on this podcast, is an okay thing. Right.
39:40
Speaker 1: So I'm going to be forced by the hand of
39:43
Speaker 1: nature to not hunt as much as I normally do
39:48
Speaker 1: because and I'm going to use that as maybe a
39:51
Speaker 1: learning experience to see, Okay, is if by me laying
39:55
Speaker 1: off October, am I going to be able to have
39:59
Speaker 1: a better first time in rut experience to these stand
40:03
Speaker 1: locations that I haven't hunted close to or have not
40:06
Speaker 1: hunted period? Right? And I'm gonna see if that is
40:10
Speaker 1: going to convince me to lay off on some of
40:14
Speaker 1: my farms and maybe hunts you know, public land or
40:17
Speaker 1: scrap some of these other non um I don't know
40:21
Speaker 1: what the word is. I'm looking for the non high
40:23
Speaker 1: priority farms. You know. If I want to go kill
40:25
Speaker 1: a doe, I'll go to this farm. Right if that's
40:28
Speaker 1: gonna force me to say, Okay, you've taught this has
40:33
Speaker 1: taught me that I'm not going to go into my
40:36
Speaker 1: good farms where my hitless bucks are until the rut. Yeah,
40:40
Speaker 1: I mean think I gotta believe that you're gonna see that.
40:43
Speaker 1: I just think that if you look at the basic
40:46
Speaker 1: core elements here, you're especially given the fact that there's
40:50
Speaker 1: not like a bunch of other guys bow hunting that
40:51
Speaker 1: same property. So by the fact that you can get
40:54
Speaker 1: out of there and leave it pretty pressure free, relatively, um.
40:59
Speaker 1: And then when you show up during the rut, already
41:01
Speaker 1: deer movement's gonna be as best and now it hasn't
41:04
Speaker 1: been dampened by your previous activity check and trail cameras
41:07
Speaker 1: and or hunting. I mean, I think that's gonna make
41:09
Speaker 1: a huge difference. So it's a bummer you can't hunt
41:11
Speaker 1: in October. But I would not be surprised if, you know,
41:14
Speaker 1: assuming weather and all that kind of stuff lines up
41:17
Speaker 1: for you when you start your rutification stuff, I bet
41:20
Speaker 1: it's gonna be pretty gangbusters. Yeah. I have a question
41:23
Speaker 1: for you. Have you ever had to have a conversation
41:29
Speaker 1: with another person that you share hunting property with about Hey,
41:35
Speaker 1: your access is is not good or your um where
41:40
Speaker 1: your tree stands are are not good or anything like
41:43
Speaker 1: that to say, hey, man, if you laid off one
41:45
Speaker 1: or two extra weeks, I think we'd we'd see better
41:49
Speaker 1: deer on this property. Have you ever had to have
41:50
Speaker 1: a conversation like that, you know, I have not. Um.
41:55
Speaker 1: Usually whenever I have hunted of property, well, so, whenever
41:59
Speaker 1: I've hunt a property where I knew the other people
42:01
Speaker 1: that hunted it, um, it was always like, uh, we
42:04
Speaker 1: made our decisions kind of jointly, so we would decide like, hey,
42:08
Speaker 1: we should hunt stand A and B, and here's the
42:11
Speaker 1: best way to get to it. UM. I've not had
42:14
Speaker 1: to hunt a place with someone like not with a friend, UM,
42:17
Speaker 1: where like they're going rogue and doing their own thing,
42:19
Speaker 1: and it was like screwing everything up. UM. I have
42:23
Speaker 1: hunted properties where there was a bunch of other hunters
42:26
Speaker 1: that I just didn't you know, no, no, well, and
42:29
Speaker 1: I didn't you know, in those situations, I didn't feel
42:32
Speaker 1: like I was in a position where it could tell
42:33
Speaker 1: them what to do, recommend what they do. So and
42:37
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to to say that what they're doing
42:40
Speaker 1: is wrong or right, you know, I just feel from
42:44
Speaker 1: the information that I found out if you wait, you know,
42:49
Speaker 1: and in a way it would be beneficial to them
42:50
Speaker 1: as well. I'm not trying to make it all about me,
42:53
Speaker 1: because they have permission on some of these properties that
42:56
Speaker 1: I hunt the same as me, and they can literally
42:58
Speaker 1: if they want to hit every day morning to night,
43:00
Speaker 1: they can do that. They have the permission to do that. Um,
43:03
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you know, it would probably be beneficial
43:06
Speaker 1: to us both if we laid off the property until
43:12
Speaker 1: if you want to hunt, does man go hunt a
43:14
Speaker 1: dough on on a field edge somewhere, because they'll pop out,
43:17
Speaker 1: you know, an hour before dart. You know. The way
43:20
Speaker 1: to do that. What's that trail campis no? No? Say hey,
43:25
Speaker 1: uh so? And so I really think you should listen
43:28
Speaker 1: to episode number one and fifty three of the Wired
43:30
Speaker 1: dot podcast. Yeah. Right, then what they'll do is they'll
43:37
Speaker 1: listen to every one of the podcasts and probably locate
43:39
Speaker 1: my stand locations based off of the information that I've
43:42
Speaker 1: already shared. So no, thank you, Maybe that would backfire.
43:48
Speaker 1: I under totally understand what you're saying that. I mean,
43:50
Speaker 1: that is challenging. I mean, that's you know, that's the
43:54
Speaker 1: challenge of hunting land. You don't own the challenge of
43:56
Speaker 1: hunting public land. Um, it's like what you What you
44:00
Speaker 1: also have to do then is you can either try
44:03
Speaker 1: to influence them or try to understand what they're doing.
44:07
Speaker 1: So if you know they're going and they're mucking up
44:09
Speaker 1: a certain section, then you got to say, okay, so
44:11
Speaker 1: where are they doing that? Are they always hunting this
44:14
Speaker 1: little corner? And then use that to your advantage, so
44:16
Speaker 1: you can say, Okay, that is an area where there's
44:18
Speaker 1: been a lot of pressure. How's that going to changels
44:20
Speaker 1: of the property? Where are they going to push the
44:22
Speaker 1: deer too? And then maybe that can help you narrow
44:24
Speaker 1: down your options. Um, but not ideal, that's for sure. Yeah,
44:29
Speaker 1: it is what it is. And you know, just like
44:31
Speaker 1: guys who hunt in public ground, man, I gotta I
44:35
Speaker 1: gotta share of properties with other guys too. So now
44:38
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm doing some public land hunting in
44:41
Speaker 1: Michigan this year. Yes, why I think. I just want
44:48
Speaker 1: to try. I want to try. I've I've enjoyed the
44:50
Speaker 1: public stuff I've done in the past. You know, my
44:52
Speaker 1: tripped Montana was awesome. I really enjoy um hearing the
44:56
Speaker 1: stories of guys that are hunting public land and seeing
44:58
Speaker 1: how they're doing it, and just the just the challenge
45:00
Speaker 1: of it. So I kind of just want to see
45:02
Speaker 1: can I can I pull it off in Michigan? Um?
45:05
Speaker 1: Because I think it's about as tough as it gets
45:07
Speaker 1: um as far as public land hunting, trying to trying
45:10
Speaker 1: to do it in in southern Michigan is not easy. Um.
45:14
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a little trial for myself.
45:17
Speaker 1: Can at least put myself in a position to see
45:19
Speaker 1: a decent buck. I don't know if I'll kill one,
45:21
Speaker 1: but I want to get out there and see if
45:22
Speaker 1: I can figure it out. So question, Yeah, how many
45:26
Speaker 1: tags do you get in Michigan? You get two buck tags?
45:29
Speaker 1: You can get up to two buck tags. Okay, so
45:31
Speaker 1: you can get two buck tags. So so yeah, obviously
45:36
Speaker 1: in Michigan, holy Field is the number one the number
45:38
Speaker 1: one priority priority. Um. And are you deciding to hunt
45:42
Speaker 1: public ground because you want to stay off your property
45:45
Speaker 1: until the absolute right conditions? Exactly? Yeah, I want to
45:50
Speaker 1: In the past. You know, I always have a handful
45:52
Speaker 1: of properties that can hunt around Michigan. I've got the
45:54
Speaker 1: main spots and then there's a couple of kind of
45:57
Speaker 1: secondary places that can go. Um, but I wanted to
46:01
Speaker 1: add to that list a little bit more this year
46:03
Speaker 1: and public you know, on the days that are kind
46:05
Speaker 1: of not great days to be out hunting on one
46:07
Speaker 1: of my good spots. This will give me something to
46:10
Speaker 1: do to get in the woods and learn trying to
46:12
Speaker 1: stuff go in there, see what I see? Um. So
46:15
Speaker 1: I'm trying to try and give myself an opportunity to
46:18
Speaker 1: hunt more without screwing up the good stuff and force
46:21
Speaker 1: myself into learning situations. So questions for you, all right,
46:26
Speaker 1: I got some I'm sorry, I got some more questions
46:28
Speaker 1: about this. Yeah, and tell me if you want me
46:30
Speaker 1: to wait on this line of questionings until until we
46:33
Speaker 1: get to that point. But I have questions about how
46:37
Speaker 1: you're going to approach this, this holy Field thing. Let's well,
46:43
Speaker 1: let's all right. I want to talk about what I'm
46:45
Speaker 1: doing on the public land scouting so far. Okay, let's
46:48
Speaker 1: talk about that first. Okay, we'll do that, and then
46:49
Speaker 1: definitely we'll get to holy Field. Um. So with the
46:52
Speaker 1: public land stuff here in Michigan, Um, it is obviously
46:58
Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots lots of guys that hear
47:00
Speaker 1: and I've hunted public land in Michigan before, um, just
47:03
Speaker 1: not with any success yet. Um So, what I'm trying
47:08
Speaker 1: to do is I'm trying to find a number of
47:09
Speaker 1: places that are as far as possible from UH city centers.
47:15
Speaker 1: And it seemed like just hard to access, just like nasty,
47:19
Speaker 1: either wet or brushy or hilly or something that's just
47:23
Speaker 1: gonna make it a little tougher for people. So so
47:26
Speaker 1: I found one place in particular that I'm very encouraged by,
47:29
Speaker 1: and I went and scouted it last week, and um,
47:33
Speaker 1: excuse me. What I did was I, um, you know,
47:35
Speaker 1: first did a lot of scouting from online, looking at maps,
47:39
Speaker 1: figuring out where the property lines are, figuring out, you know,
47:42
Speaker 1: just the lay of the land. And I found a
47:44
Speaker 1: lot of areas that looked like there could be really
47:46
Speaker 1: good deer bedding that most hunters wouldn't be willing to
47:49
Speaker 1: go to because they were very far from access points
47:52
Speaker 1: and they're really wet. There's like some streams and some
47:54
Speaker 1: crooks and stuff that running through here, and lots of
47:57
Speaker 1: swampy cat tally type stuff. Um So my game plan
48:01
Speaker 1: for that first day was I located this one kind
48:04
Speaker 1: of general region. It looked really good it looked kind
48:06
Speaker 1: of like your your prototypical like swampy marshbuck bedding type stuff,
48:11
Speaker 1: where you've got the creek running through this area, you've
48:13
Speaker 1: got cat tails and swamp all around it, and then
48:15
Speaker 1: there's little points of high ground that kind of extend
48:18
Speaker 1: out into it. So my plan was to get out
48:21
Speaker 1: there and walk that edge and try to find where
48:24
Speaker 1: the deer were bedded along there in this kind of
48:26
Speaker 1: I don't know how. Maybe it's a forty acre section
48:28
Speaker 1: that's pretty far away from any roads, UM that's in
48:31
Speaker 1: the kind of core of this area. And it was
48:34
Speaker 1: just I mean, it's it's good looking stuff. Like long
48:37
Speaker 1: story short, I came out of it like very encouraged.
48:40
Speaker 1: I didn't see a lot of the tree stands. I
48:41
Speaker 1: did see a couple, but nothing right. Well, there was
48:44
Speaker 1: one really old one right in an area liked um.
48:47
Speaker 1: But otherwise it looks relatively unscathed um as much as
48:51
Speaker 1: it can be, and like just tough, like if anyone
48:54
Speaker 1: wanted to get here, they would have to just they
48:57
Speaker 1: have to be kind of crazy like me. UM. So
49:01
Speaker 1: the other thing that I like about it is that
49:03
Speaker 1: I think I can access it by doing exactly what
49:05
Speaker 1: you talked about I can either walk this stream in
49:08
Speaker 1: with waiters on, or take a canoe and canoe in
49:12
Speaker 1: and avoid bumping deer a lot of deer, I think,
49:15
Speaker 1: and actually canoe right to the back end of where
49:17
Speaker 1: I want to get into, hop out of the river,
49:19
Speaker 1: and then climb up into a tree with just a
49:21
Speaker 1: very short walk. So I tried to find places I'd
49:23
Speaker 1: be able to access with the water, and I tried
49:25
Speaker 1: to find these betting areas, and I ended up even
49:27
Speaker 1: though it was a little late. I wish I'd done
49:29
Speaker 1: this in like March or February, when you know, it
49:31
Speaker 1: wasn't all greened up, but it was gone. Um. So
49:35
Speaker 1: I was able to get and actually found some good
49:37
Speaker 1: betting areas, found like what definitely looked like some buckbeds.
49:40
Speaker 1: You know, it was cool because I enjoy you know,
49:43
Speaker 1: we hear so many people talk about trying to find
49:45
Speaker 1: buckbeds or trying to find betting areas, and that the
49:47
Speaker 1: places they should be. You know, the Dannon Fault. He
49:49
Speaker 1: was on the show recently, he's been on ours. Um
49:52
Speaker 1: so he talks about you know you're gonna find him
49:53
Speaker 1: on these little points to extend out into the swamp.
49:55
Speaker 1: Or you're gonna find him on the islands or stuff
49:57
Speaker 1: like that. UM. So i'd see these spots in the app,
50:00
Speaker 1: i'd see them in person. I like, all right, that
50:02
Speaker 1: there should be a bed there, And then I sneak
50:04
Speaker 1: out there and no ship there. It is there's a
50:06
Speaker 1: buck bed, or there's a there's an oval and there's
50:08
Speaker 1: some hair in it and there's a rub um. So
50:11
Speaker 1: it's great when you can confirm those things and apply
50:13
Speaker 1: it in the real world. So I got a handful
50:16
Speaker 1: of those spots kind of marked on my GPS. I
50:18
Speaker 1: picked out a couple of trees that I could potentially
50:20
Speaker 1: get into if I wanted to hunt there and um,
50:23
Speaker 1: and that was like step one. I thought that was great.
50:25
Speaker 1: I liked it. Did some wars general hiking just to
50:27
Speaker 1: kind of better understand the lay of the land. UM.
50:30
Speaker 1: But I had like a good idea, Okay, here's a
50:31
Speaker 1: few places I can get into be close to deer bedding, um,
50:35
Speaker 1: that I could sneak into and like mid October or
50:37
Speaker 1: something and observe and possibly be able to make a
50:40
Speaker 1: move if there is a somewhat mature buck in the area. Um.
50:44
Speaker 1: And then there's another section of the property I wanted
50:46
Speaker 1: to look at because it looked like it was another
50:49
Speaker 1: spot that was far from relatively far from the access points.
50:52
Speaker 1: So I go driving down this one road and uh,
50:56
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about this, right, I'm pretty sure we
50:58
Speaker 1: didn't talk about this. So um, I go driving down
51:02
Speaker 1: this one access road to get to this kind of
51:06
Speaker 1: far away section of the public out of the way.
51:09
Speaker 1: And I go driving down this road and I start
51:10
Speaker 1: seeing signs. Um, on the map, it looks like a
51:13
Speaker 1: regular road, but now I start seeing signs like the
51:15
Speaker 1: kind of thing like if you're reading this, you're in
51:17
Speaker 1: range or you know, be prepared to die, that kind
51:20
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I was like, oh, this doesn't look
51:23
Speaker 1: like the right place. And then I looked at my
51:26
Speaker 1: left and there's a guy sitting in like a golf
51:27
Speaker 1: cart staring at me. Oh my good boy. Um, but
51:32
Speaker 1: really nice guy. We end up striking up a conversation
51:34
Speaker 1: and I you know, it ends up that road is
51:36
Speaker 1: not a public road anymore as a private road, um,
51:39
Speaker 1: but it looked public for a while. So I apologize
51:43
Speaker 1: and we started talking and long story short, um, he
51:47
Speaker 1: ended up giving me tentative permission. This isn't like for
51:50
Speaker 1: sure yet but he sounds like this would be okay,
51:52
Speaker 1: um for me to hunt his private land. Who's got
51:55
Speaker 1: a little piece of private land adjacent to the public,
51:58
Speaker 1: and then um for me to able to access the
52:00
Speaker 1: public from there too, because nobody else is allowed to
52:02
Speaker 1: drive down that road or parked. Um. So with that,
52:06
Speaker 1: I can get to a portion of this public land
52:09
Speaker 1: that is almost one mile literally almost one mile away
52:13
Speaker 1: from the nearest other parking area or pull off or
52:15
Speaker 1: anything like that. So as far as public land, it
52:18
Speaker 1: could be really good. It could be really good. But
52:20
Speaker 1: I could be completely wrong. You know. We could get
52:22
Speaker 1: there in October and there could be guys everywhere, but
52:24
Speaker 1: I don't think it will so um. So I'm excited
52:28
Speaker 1: about that. I'm gonna do some more scouting in that
52:29
Speaker 1: new section now here in the next week probably, and
52:32
Speaker 1: then I just want to go into this season with
52:34
Speaker 1: a handful of good options that you know, in that
52:36
Speaker 1: mid October time frame, early in mid October, um, before
52:40
Speaker 1: I'm targeting holy Field, I've got somewhere to try some
52:44
Speaker 1: new things and let see what's going on. So that's
52:48
Speaker 1: that's all right, holy Field, That's that's beside the point, right,
52:53
Speaker 1: You're gonna be very cautious with that buck. You're gonna
52:57
Speaker 1: be planned to a t with that buck, wait for
53:01
Speaker 1: the right conditions. Now, is this whole public land thing
53:04
Speaker 1: that you're doing the scouting? Are you gonna going to
53:07
Speaker 1: be trying some more aggressive tactics on this piece of
53:12
Speaker 1: property because it's one of those things where it's like
53:16
Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna be well whether or not Holy
53:19
Speaker 1: Field is around yet or not? Right? We don't do
53:22
Speaker 1: you do you? Can you confirm that yet? I haven't
53:25
Speaker 1: seen him in a couple of months. Right, Okay, So
53:28
Speaker 1: are you gonna be more aggressive on this public land?
53:30
Speaker 1: You're gonna be diving in further and harder. Um, you know,
53:34
Speaker 1: get trying to get closer closer to betting areas on
53:37
Speaker 1: these uh, these public land hunts. Um, just to I guess,
53:41
Speaker 1: test out your skills or are you gonna be Um
53:44
Speaker 1: it's somewhat aggressively aggressively conservative if that makes sense. Yeah,
53:49
Speaker 1: So I am definitely going to be approaching the public
53:53
Speaker 1: land thing as UM. I'm not going to be afraid
53:57
Speaker 1: to screw things up because I've got I've got my
54:00
Speaker 1: other core things I'm gonna be hunting. Ohio, I might
54:03
Speaker 1: be hunting Iowa now still again, um so, and I
54:07
Speaker 1: obviously number one priority for the year's Holy Field in Michigan.
54:10
Speaker 1: So the public land stuff is going to be trying
54:13
Speaker 1: new things, swing for the fences, be aggressive and it's
54:17
Speaker 1: probably not gonna work out, but maybe it will or
54:20
Speaker 1: maybe I'll learn something, or maybe I'll see him and
54:23
Speaker 1: you know, be able to do the bump and dump
54:25
Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm gonna try stuff. Um, it's it's it's
54:28
Speaker 1: purely going to be a testing ground. Um that will
54:31
Speaker 1: be kind of cool. So so, yeah, I'm gonna be aggressive,
54:34
Speaker 1: it's gonna be all hanging hunt stuff. I'm gonna be
54:36
Speaker 1: pushing in close to betting areas. Um, I'm gonna be observing,
54:40
Speaker 1: changing things up the next time in and uh and
54:43
Speaker 1: just seeing what I can figure out. Awesome about that.
54:48
Speaker 1: I think that's uh gonna teach you a lot. Yeah,
54:51
Speaker 1: I think. So we're gonna learn from failure, are going
54:53
Speaker 1: to learn from I guess mission accomplished. And then I think,
54:56
Speaker 1: you know, I think anytime you do something like this,
54:58
Speaker 1: and we we've talked about this before, anytime you go
55:01
Speaker 1: outside of your typical comfort zone and try a new
55:04
Speaker 1: thing like this, either like you said, fail or succeed.
55:07
Speaker 1: You can take stuff from that that can then be
55:09
Speaker 1: applied to your main hunting. So I think I'll be
55:12
Speaker 1: able to take stuff from this public experience and apply
55:15
Speaker 1: that back to my main Michigan spots in some way
55:17
Speaker 1: or to what I do in Ohio or wherever. Um. Right,
55:21
Speaker 1: So I think, if nothing else, will have some good stories.
55:23
Speaker 1: Um probably me screwing things up. But well, since how
55:27
Speaker 1: you learned? Man? Yeah, I've see I think I said,
55:31
Speaker 1: you know, I've started. I started hunting what I would say,
55:35
Speaker 1: relatively hardcore right, putting the time and making a commitment
55:39
Speaker 1: to bow hunting in about two thousand and six, and
55:42
Speaker 1: I don't think it was until about two thousand and twelve,
55:48
Speaker 1: maybe maybe even a little before that or even a
55:51
Speaker 1: little after. But there's a range there for three years that,
55:54
Speaker 1: you know, six seven, eight years until I kind of
55:57
Speaker 1: figured out what I needed to be doing, right. So,
56:00
Speaker 1: and I still learned something new every year. Never stop learning, yep.
56:06
Speaker 1: So do you want to talk about Holyfield? Then I
56:09
Speaker 1: want to talk about holy Field? Man? Did you see what?
56:12
Speaker 1: Did you see the film? I saw? Um? I saw
56:15
Speaker 1: the teaser for it. I'm going to it's only eleven minutes.
56:21
Speaker 1: It's quick and easy. But yeah, finally got the story
56:24
Speaker 1: of holy Field to this point on video. Um, we
56:27
Speaker 1: just launched it this week, so it's it's on wire
56:29
Speaker 1: hunt dot com and our Facebook page and our YouTube channel. Okay, um,
56:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna watch it as soon as I'm
56:39
Speaker 1: done with this podcast to let me know you think yep, okay,
56:44
Speaker 1: but holy Field, holy Field. But before we get into
56:51
Speaker 1: holy Field, let's take our last pause of the day
56:53
Speaker 1: to thank our partners at White Tailed Properties and producer
56:57
Speaker 1: Spencer new Hearth is back with us today along with
56:59
Speaker 1: a White Help Properties land specialists to give us our
57:02
Speaker 1: weekly dose of white tail wisdom. This week with the
57:06
Speaker 1: White Tailed Properties, we are joined by Brad Ferris, a
57:09
Speaker 1: land specialist out of Central Mississippi. Bread is going to
57:12
Speaker 1: be telling us about some Midwest hunting techniques that don't
57:16
Speaker 1: apply to Southern white tails. The biggest difference in in
57:22
Speaker 1: hunting white tails in the South first as the Midwest,
57:25
Speaker 1: to me is it has to do more with climate
57:27
Speaker 1: than anything. You still want to be very respectful of
57:31
Speaker 1: the deer where they your sanctuary areas, you're quiet areas,
57:35
Speaker 1: I mean I mean, I treat that exactly the same.
57:39
Speaker 1: In the South. It's usually not as hilly in most places,
57:42
Speaker 1: so there's not as many natural pinch points as you
57:44
Speaker 1: find and kind of the rolling hills of the of
57:48
Speaker 1: the Midwest have found, and the deer, typically the mature
57:52
Speaker 1: deer don't move. They're not on their feet as much
57:55
Speaker 1: in the South until the rut gets here. I mean,
57:57
Speaker 1: I know that's common in the in the Midwest too,
57:59
Speaker 1: but the many times you won't see a deer in
58:02
Speaker 1: the daylight and tool you know that four or five
58:05
Speaker 1: rough pier and then once that's going, they're they're done.
58:07
Speaker 1: You don't see them again. So the one thing we
58:10
Speaker 1: don't have here that Midwest two hunters have is we
58:14
Speaker 1: don't have the bitter cold temperatures that we can really
58:17
Speaker 1: get deer on their feet in a food plot scenario,
58:20
Speaker 1: whether it be standing corn, standing beans, some type of
58:24
Speaker 1: crop that we put out there to leave for the
58:26
Speaker 1: deer in the in the frigid temperatures and they only
58:28
Speaker 1: feed early because it's cold. We don't we don't have
58:30
Speaker 1: that here. You do not have that opportunity. In many
58:33
Speaker 1: places they have brows you're around in the South because
58:37
Speaker 1: we just don't get that little temperatures cold stuff. So
58:40
Speaker 1: a lot of techniques for the same. You just have
58:42
Speaker 1: to adjust your thought process because deer do not move
58:46
Speaker 1: as much, so you've got to really focus on trying
58:48
Speaker 1: to get close to them in those tight spaces without
58:51
Speaker 1: spoken them because that's the hackle move off from them
58:54
Speaker 1: hardly ever in the South. If you'd like to learn
58:57
Speaker 1: more and to see the properties that Bread currently has
59:00
Speaker 1: is listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com.
59:04
Speaker 1: Backslash Ferris that's f A R R I s. Holy
59:10
Speaker 1: Field is like my shipwreck, right, yeah, except for much
59:14
Speaker 1: much smaller, well size that that size don't matter, right,
59:18
Speaker 1: So you think you're thinking about holy Field quite a bit.
59:21
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you think he's going to be a
59:22
Speaker 1: five year old this year, right, I believe? So okay,
59:26
Speaker 1: And you made the decision to not shoot him with
59:29
Speaker 1: a muzzleloader late season last year, right correct? All right,
59:33
Speaker 1: So any type of emotional breakdowns that you want to
59:36
Speaker 1: talk with us about before you decide not to shoot
59:38
Speaker 1: him this year, if there's no chance in the world
59:43
Speaker 1: that I will not shoot him this year, if if
59:45
Speaker 1: if I come to you in November, like Hemming and Han,
59:48
Speaker 1: you have permission to fly to Michigan and punch me
59:51
Speaker 1: in the face. All right, deal, there's no way. Like
59:57
Speaker 1: it was already like a crazy thing to do last year.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did it, but but this year, I mean,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: there's just no there's no chance this. I'm ready for
1:00:06
Speaker 1: this thing to I'm ready to wrap this this experience
1:00:11
Speaker 1: up and to try to go in for the final kill.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: And I feel like i feel like I've learned a
1:00:16
Speaker 1: lot and I've got a plan in place, and like
1:00:20
Speaker 1: I'm what's cool is that every year when I'm hunting
1:00:25
Speaker 1: my main Michigan spots, I'm always trying to tweak the situation,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: make it a little better, fix some things. And we
1:00:29
Speaker 1: talked about this all time, don't Ohio or different places
1:00:32
Speaker 1: that haunt. I'm always trying to hang the stands a
1:00:34
Speaker 1: little better, do this a little better. But I feel like,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: because I'm so like, I feel like I'm putting a
1:00:40
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of pressure on myself to make this one
1:00:42
Speaker 1: specific thing happen. Like I'm I'm making like massive changes
1:00:47
Speaker 1: or like every little thing I can think of that
1:00:48
Speaker 1: I would have liked to improve in past years, I
1:00:51
Speaker 1: would like maybe do a quarter of that would actually
1:00:54
Speaker 1: get done. Um. Now, it's like every tiny little thing
1:00:57
Speaker 1: I can possibly do, I want to try to do. Um.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: So it's forcing me to take extreme levels of detailed
1:01:05
Speaker 1: analysis or like just more work. It's just it's forcing
1:01:08
Speaker 1: me to do more, which is a good thing. It's
1:01:10
Speaker 1: forcing me to become a better hunter. Um. So there's
1:01:13
Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of little things I'm doing
1:01:15
Speaker 1: to try to just give myself a little bit better
1:01:18
Speaker 1: of odds. And I know there's you know, the odds
1:01:20
Speaker 1: are always gonna be stacked against me. Um. You know,
1:01:24
Speaker 1: probably not gonna kill him. But I was I was
1:01:26
Speaker 1: thinking about that the other night. Right. I feel that
1:01:32
Speaker 1: you were doing a lot right this last year to
1:01:36
Speaker 1: get on him, right. I mean you literally the day,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: I mean there was days you decided, Okay, maybe maybe
1:01:43
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be hunting this many days in a row.
1:01:45
Speaker 1: And what he came to He came in borderline daylight
1:01:49
Speaker 1: dark the day you decided not to hunt. Right, Yeah,
1:01:52
Speaker 1: that day I just said that that they had decided
1:01:54
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna shoot him. I saw him at sixty
1:01:56
Speaker 1: yards right now. But I'm talking about before that. What
1:02:00
Speaker 1: I was trying to kill him. Yeah, when you were
1:02:02
Speaker 1: with a bow during during I mean you were playing
1:02:04
Speaker 1: cat and mouse with him and fine tuning your set
1:02:07
Speaker 1: up throughout that entire month of you know, late October
1:02:12
Speaker 1: and November. You know, you were very close. So right,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: So my opinion is that don't overthink this upcoming year
1:02:28
Speaker 1: because what you did last year was right. It was
1:02:30
Speaker 1: just a matter of circumstance that he either decided not
1:02:35
Speaker 1: to show up that night or Um, the wind was,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: you know, a little too breezy for you, and the
1:02:40
Speaker 1: shot was too long. And I feel if you, if
1:02:45
Speaker 1: you micromanaged that too much, you're going to You're you're
1:02:50
Speaker 1: going to ruin it. I hear what you're saying, and
1:02:53
Speaker 1: that's that's a fair point. Um, I hope, I hope.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: I don't risk doing that. But let me tell you.
1:02:59
Speaker 1: Let me tell you you and you let me tell
1:03:01
Speaker 1: you the things I'm planning on doing or that I
1:03:03
Speaker 1: have been doing, and then you can tell me if
1:03:06
Speaker 1: you think I'm on the right path or if I'm
1:03:07
Speaker 1: going too far. How about that? Okay, So there's a
1:03:12
Speaker 1: couple of things going on my mind. Number One, I
1:03:14
Speaker 1: need to try to make this habitat as absolutely, as
1:03:18
Speaker 1: absolutely as attractive as possible for him during the hunting
1:03:23
Speaker 1: season to give me that, you know, one percent greater
1:03:25
Speaker 1: chance that he'll be on my property during daylight on
1:03:27
Speaker 1: one of the days of hunting. So it's a few
1:03:29
Speaker 1: changes I'm making. I did a little bit of improvement
1:03:31
Speaker 1: to some betting areas, um, to hopefully give me a
1:03:35
Speaker 1: little bit better chance that he might spend more time
1:03:37
Speaker 1: better on my property. Um. He does not seem to
1:03:41
Speaker 1: bet on my property ton. He usually seems to bed
1:03:44
Speaker 1: just next door adjacent to me, very close. Um. But
1:03:47
Speaker 1: that's and I think that is the reason why many
1:03:50
Speaker 1: of the encounters I had with him, he was just
1:03:52
Speaker 1: over on the other side of the property line in
1:03:53
Speaker 1: that good betting cover. Um. So I'm trying to improve
1:03:57
Speaker 1: in a couple of key spots on the farm a
1:03:59
Speaker 1: little bit better cover. That's one thing. Number two. I'm
1:04:04
Speaker 1: trying to improve what I've got going on my food
1:04:06
Speaker 1: plots just a little bit again to try to give
1:04:09
Speaker 1: me a little bit better chance he'll be out earlier
1:04:11
Speaker 1: in the daylight on that food. So one of those
1:04:14
Speaker 1: things is I'm going to do a better job of
1:04:15
Speaker 1: installing my food plot screens. Um. Last year I put
1:04:19
Speaker 1: a food plot screen around my main like front food plot,
1:04:23
Speaker 1: which is the spot where I can't full drawn him. Um.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: But I didn't plant thick enough, so it was really spotty.
1:04:30
Speaker 1: It didn't give nearly as good of a seclusion as
1:04:33
Speaker 1: it should have. UM. So this year, I'm going to
1:04:36
Speaker 1: plant a little bit earlier. I'm gonna plant thicker um,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: and so I'm really gonna hope it's going to be
1:04:42
Speaker 1: basically a wall that surrounds this whole plot so that
1:04:45
Speaker 1: it can't anything that goes in there, can't see the road,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: it can't see this big adjacent crop field next to it,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: and of course anything or anyone on the outside that
1:04:53
Speaker 1: won't be abill see in the plot. So that's one thing.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: Number two Again, this is all like how can I
1:04:59
Speaker 1: get him out or just a little bit earlier, or
1:05:01
Speaker 1: make him come over into the open where I can shoot, because,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: like I said, the one time I came to full
1:05:07
Speaker 1: draw him, it was just a little bit too dark.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: I just didn't feel comfortable touching off a forty yard
1:05:11
Speaker 1: shot at that light level. UM. So if I can
1:05:14
Speaker 1: get him to come out five minutes earlier or three
1:05:16
Speaker 1: minutes earlier. That could be the difference. Um So, another
1:05:19
Speaker 1: thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to shift this
1:05:21
Speaker 1: food plot over um about forty yards. So right now
1:05:26
Speaker 1: the food plot, the open you know, carpet of food
1:05:29
Speaker 1: starts almost right on, very near to a property line,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: and there's cover on the property line on the proper
1:05:36
Speaker 1: lend side, and then as soon as you go to
1:05:37
Speaker 1: where I can shoot, you're basically in the open um.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: So what happens though, is that these deer stand on
1:05:45
Speaker 1: the other side of the line in the cover for
1:05:47
Speaker 1: a little bit before they come into where I can shoot,
1:05:50
Speaker 1: because you know, they don't want to step out, and
1:05:51
Speaker 1: they open until late sometimes, or at least the mature
1:05:54
Speaker 1: box do occasionally. Um So, what I'm gonna do is
1:05:57
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shift this food plot four yards in two
1:06:01
Speaker 1: tighter into the core of mine and take what used
1:06:04
Speaker 1: to be open field and now have that forty yards
1:06:06
Speaker 1: swath become tall grass and brambles and weeds and stuff,
1:06:10
Speaker 1: something that hopefully they will feel comfortable standing and milling
1:06:13
Speaker 1: around in in daylight before they step on into the
1:06:16
Speaker 1: open of the food plot. So that might buy me
1:06:18
Speaker 1: two minutes on one night with Holy field, or maybe
1:06:21
Speaker 1: that will get him out there a couple of months earlier. Um,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: or maybe a dough will come in and then that's
1:06:27
Speaker 1: the doll ends up pulling whole fields across the line
1:06:29
Speaker 1: or whatever. So that's one small thing I'm gonna do. Um.
1:06:33
Speaker 1: Of course, I need to make sure the food plots
1:06:35
Speaker 1: coming really well because you know, like you talked about
1:06:38
Speaker 1: the property property again, it's it's it's covered deficient. It
1:06:43
Speaker 1: has some good cover, but mainly the best covers on
1:06:47
Speaker 1: the neighbors. So in order for me to really have
1:06:49
Speaker 1: a good chance of holy Field, I have to encourage
1:06:51
Speaker 1: him to come over to my side. And the only
1:06:53
Speaker 1: way I've been able to do that is with these
1:06:54
Speaker 1: food plots. So they've got to be in there, you know,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: They've got to come in well basically. So I've been
1:07:00
Speaker 1: trying to get them sprayed since I've been home, had
1:07:03
Speaker 1: all sorts of debacles. Um real quick. Two days ago,
1:07:06
Speaker 1: I went out to go spray the food plots. Finally
1:07:08
Speaker 1: stopped raining. I thought, okay, I can. It's been raining
1:07:10
Speaker 1: like over and over every day for a while now.
1:07:12
Speaker 1: So now the weeds are growing really tall on the
1:07:14
Speaker 1: food plots. I'm like, I gotta get out there and
1:07:15
Speaker 1: spray it. So I go out to get him a A
1:07:17
Speaker 1: A TV. The A t V is dead, so then
1:07:20
Speaker 1: I pushed the A t V out behind the house.
1:07:23
Speaker 1: I didn't have a jump pack, so I used my
1:07:25
Speaker 1: truck to jump the A TV. Get that going, fill
1:07:28
Speaker 1: up the sprayer with stuff, drive out to the food plot,
1:07:31
Speaker 1: get ready to go do all this stuff, and then
1:07:34
Speaker 1: the sprayer won't work. It's not like what in the world.
1:07:37
Speaker 1: And I'm all frustrated, like I'm never gonna get this
1:07:39
Speaker 1: stuff done. So I'm like, well, must be a bad
1:07:41
Speaker 1: connection between the clamps on the battery. Dumblow. So I
1:07:44
Speaker 1: gotta turn off the A t V to mess with
1:07:47
Speaker 1: the battery down beneath it. So I turn up the
1:07:48
Speaker 1: A t V. I messed with the connections for the sprayer,
1:07:51
Speaker 1: and then i'd go turn the A TV back on,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: and now the A TV won't start. So my forwarda
1:07:57
Speaker 1: didn't work. My sprayer didn't work. Um, and I was
1:08:00
Speaker 1: like stranding out there in the woods. So that was
1:08:02
Speaker 1: a real pain in the butt. I to walk back,
1:08:03
Speaker 1: go to the truck, drive to a store by jump pack,
1:08:06
Speaker 1: come back, um, and still a sprayer wouldn't work. So
1:08:09
Speaker 1: I ended up having a buddy come over yesterday who
1:08:11
Speaker 1: had one. He helped me spray stuff. So the plots
1:08:13
Speaker 1: are sprayed and now I just need to um probably
1:08:17
Speaker 1: hit him one more time with spray in like July
1:08:20
Speaker 1: to keep the weeds down. And then in August, I'm
1:08:24
Speaker 1: going to have a friend help me out and get
1:08:27
Speaker 1: those planet for me. Actually, since I'm not going to
1:08:29
Speaker 1: be I'm not gonna be around to plant this year,
1:08:32
Speaker 1: so I'm counting on a friend to to see it
1:08:34
Speaker 1: for me. But hopefully I'll have it all prepped and
1:08:36
Speaker 1: ready to go. Um. So that's what I'm doing from
1:08:38
Speaker 1: like a have a test standpoint, is that kind of stuff,
1:08:40
Speaker 1: making sure the plots are high quality, making sure the
1:08:43
Speaker 1: plots are secluded, and making sure that maybe there's a
1:08:47
Speaker 1: few tweaks I can make so that deer will come
1:08:49
Speaker 1: in during daylight a little bit earlier during those those
1:08:51
Speaker 1: key time periods. UM, got a question before you go
1:08:55
Speaker 1: any further, ye, is holy field crossing a fence that
1:09:00
Speaker 1: is not on your property from the timber to let's
1:09:03
Speaker 1: say an egg field walking a fence line and then
1:09:07
Speaker 1: crossing that additional fence line into your property, or is
1:09:12
Speaker 1: there a part of your border with the other property
1:09:16
Speaker 1: that is timber on like the your property butts right
1:09:20
Speaker 1: up against their timber. So they're saying, is that is
1:09:24
Speaker 1: it only timber to field or is there timber to
1:09:26
Speaker 1: timber every Yeah? Yeah, because your goal is to put
1:09:31
Speaker 1: a lot of cover on your property to where deer
1:09:34
Speaker 1: will feel comfortable coming out. And this is me, uh,
1:09:39
Speaker 1: playing devil's advocate. But if he is going to be
1:09:43
Speaker 1: jumping a fence into a already cultivated egg field, is
1:09:49
Speaker 1: that going to do any good? So? And that's just
1:09:54
Speaker 1: that's not me shipping on your idea. That's me you know,
1:09:57
Speaker 1: brainstorming going if the point is to to make more
1:10:00
Speaker 1: cover and have them feel comfortable if they have to
1:10:03
Speaker 1: expose themselves before they go back into cover with do
1:10:06
Speaker 1: you feel that's gonna work? So, so here's what I know.
1:10:10
Speaker 1: Um So, what I know is that he seems to
1:10:14
Speaker 1: bed the majority of his time in this adjacent section
1:10:19
Speaker 1: and he does have to go there, so there's crop
1:10:22
Speaker 1: fields kind of surrounding it on two or three sides.
1:10:26
Speaker 1: Um My little patch though, provides what I think is
1:10:32
Speaker 1: the best like safe ice cream opportunity he has before
1:10:35
Speaker 1: he goes to his main meal in the big fields,
1:10:37
Speaker 1: so he can go directly off that little bedding area
1:10:42
Speaker 1: and feeding like corner bean fields next to it. But
1:10:45
Speaker 1: there are some other hunters that you know, could deter
1:10:47
Speaker 1: him from doing that. Um. And then you also have
1:10:52
Speaker 1: to be out in the wide open Um. He usually
1:10:54
Speaker 1: tends to go the direction towards me, and it's just
1:10:59
Speaker 1: that he'll hang up. He'll be like staying in the
1:11:01
Speaker 1: cover before he comes out. Um or he I mean,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: he has come out into the open several times and
1:11:07
Speaker 1: I've seen him, but it's either when I'm not there,
1:11:10
Speaker 1: or it's you know, just at last light or um,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: you know it's in late season. Late season is a
1:11:16
Speaker 1: different game. I want to kill him before late in
1:11:19
Speaker 1: the late season, that'said completely different story. He's daylight active
1:11:23
Speaker 1: like crazy, and he's super killable. In the late season.
1:11:26
Speaker 1: On my little section, he he throws caution to the win.
1:11:30
Speaker 1: In the last two years in a row, he's done
1:11:31
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. UM. So if if for some
1:11:34
Speaker 1: reason I can't kill him early, and somehow he has
1:11:36
Speaker 1: there's a miracle, he makes it through gun season and
1:11:38
Speaker 1: he's alive in December. It's like he just he becomes
1:11:42
Speaker 1: a different deer, and he just hangs out in my
1:11:44
Speaker 1: food plots at noon or at two, and he's there
1:11:48
Speaker 1: like day after day after day. Um. And that's what
1:11:51
Speaker 1: I saw last year. You know, I hunted a couple
1:11:53
Speaker 1: of times and didn't see him, but he was at
1:11:54
Speaker 1: the other food plot. And then I hunted one time
1:11:57
Speaker 1: and he was there. That was the time, you know,
1:11:59
Speaker 1: that last day, and I said I was gonna shoot him.
1:12:01
Speaker 1: And then after that I stayed out and then I
1:12:03
Speaker 1: looked at cameras and he was there, you know, on
1:12:05
Speaker 1: the fifteenth at noon, the sixteenth at eleven, the seventeenth
1:12:08
Speaker 1: at four. I mean, so he does wonky things in December,
1:12:12
Speaker 1: but in October and November he sticks to that cover
1:12:16
Speaker 1: pretty closely, um, unless he's chasing the dough. So I
1:12:22
Speaker 1: just need him to to feel I need the doughs
1:12:24
Speaker 1: to feel comfort enough to come out by me. And
1:12:27
Speaker 1: I offer like the one unique thing in the air
1:12:28
Speaker 1: because there's corns and being corns and being everywhere, beans everywhere.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: My thought processes that by offering brassicas and oats, it's
1:12:36
Speaker 1: that variety. They want a little bit something different. And
1:12:38
Speaker 1: so what usually happens here is that these deer come
1:12:41
Speaker 1: out of the cover. They could go towards the corner
1:12:44
Speaker 1: bean fields, but they almost always hit my food plot
1:12:47
Speaker 1: first and then transition out to the main fields after that.
1:12:52
Speaker 1: So I just need holy Field to be part of
1:12:54
Speaker 1: that group of deer that hits my food plots first
1:12:56
Speaker 1: or the fouls of dough in um when I'm there.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: So so that's that's what I'm trying to do. I
1:13:02
Speaker 1: don't know if that answered your question, but yeah, so,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: I mean, hell, he could expose himself for a short
1:13:12
Speaker 1: period of time just to get into cover, and that
1:13:15
Speaker 1: would be a staging area before he actually comes into
1:13:17
Speaker 1: your food plot. On the neighbors are saying no on
1:13:21
Speaker 1: this because you're moving a food plot forty yards right,
1:13:24
Speaker 1: oh right, So I'm what I'm hoping. What I'm hoping
1:13:26
Speaker 1: is that, yeah, he might stage in that little forty
1:13:29
Speaker 1: year and it's not you know, I'm not thinking that's
1:13:31
Speaker 1: gonna buy me a lot of time. But maybe it's
1:13:34
Speaker 1: one night he comes out and he feels, you know,
1:13:37
Speaker 1: just a little bit more comfortable. So five minutes before
1:13:39
Speaker 1: the end of shooting light, he steps two steps into
1:13:42
Speaker 1: that tall grass, and maybe last year he wouldn't have.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: And this year he takes three steps over to my
1:13:46
Speaker 1: side or whatever, and I can get a shot. You know,
1:13:49
Speaker 1: it might not make a difference at all, but who knows,
1:13:51
Speaker 1: maybe it'll make that little tiny bit I need. Um.
1:13:56
Speaker 1: So I don't know. But but to your point, last year,
1:13:58
Speaker 1: it could have happened. You know, he was I was
1:14:00
Speaker 1: a full draw forty yards right at last light. But
1:14:03
Speaker 1: that was a situation where it would have helped um.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: But the next day he came out in broad daylight
1:14:08
Speaker 1: and was in the crop field, the wide open crop field,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: and was walking along there and something on the road
1:14:13
Speaker 1: spooked him. But if something, you know, if if a
1:14:16
Speaker 1: car hadn't driven by or whatever, if that hadn't happened,
1:14:18
Speaker 1: he was walking down the edge of the field straight
1:14:21
Speaker 1: to me. Um. You know, so maybe it's a little
1:14:23
Speaker 1: bit of bad luck there. You know, it could have
1:14:26
Speaker 1: been completely different. He might have walked right through, been
1:14:29
Speaker 1: in front of me, and with an hour and a
1:14:30
Speaker 1: half a daylight left, I could have shot him. You
1:14:32
Speaker 1: just never know. So maybe I'm going too far, Maybe
1:14:34
Speaker 1: I don't need to do this stuff, but I'm trying
1:14:37
Speaker 1: trying to have these different things, like all these um oh,
1:14:41
Speaker 1: what's the like redundancies? So like if A doesn't work,
1:14:45
Speaker 1: I've got B, C and D lined up that should
1:14:48
Speaker 1: help me a little bit. And um, so I'm trying
1:14:51
Speaker 1: to stack all these different things. Maybe I won't need
1:14:53
Speaker 1: to have done all these things, but if I've got
1:14:55
Speaker 1: all the different things in my favorite that might be
1:14:57
Speaker 1: just enough. Um. And you know, I'm I'm also of
1:15:00
Speaker 1: just battling. This is a small property. There's hunters all
1:15:02
Speaker 1: around it, and it's very easy that you know, someone
1:15:05
Speaker 1: else could shoot him. So I'm just trying to get
1:15:07
Speaker 1: every little tiny thing in my favor that he might
1:15:10
Speaker 1: prefer to spend that evening closer to me than not. Um. So,
1:15:17
Speaker 1: so that's that's that's what's going on there. So that's
1:15:20
Speaker 1: the habitat stuff. Um. You know, I'm tweaking some stands
1:15:24
Speaker 1: like I'm going and I'm proving the cover in a
1:15:26
Speaker 1: lot of my tree stands. Um, I'm gonna add like
1:15:29
Speaker 1: some fake limbs, some real limbs, and like zip tie
1:15:32
Speaker 1: some limbs, and some places where maybe I need more,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and get some fake Christmas tree limbs
1:15:36
Speaker 1: and put those up around the tree stands stuff like that. Um,
1:15:40
Speaker 1: just especially there's some spots that get really exposed and
1:15:42
Speaker 1: the leaves come down. So if I'm still hunting him
1:15:45
Speaker 1: in the late season, I found last year like I
1:15:48
Speaker 1: felt kind of hung out to dry in a couple
1:15:49
Speaker 1: of spots. Um, I'm gonna try and make sure that
1:15:52
Speaker 1: doesn't happen this year. UM. There was a location on
1:15:56
Speaker 1: one of those open fields where he did come out
1:15:58
Speaker 1: a couple of times during the rut where he chang
1:16:00
Speaker 1: sta dough popped out along that field and follow the
1:16:02
Speaker 1: edge down a little bit, which had surprised me. I
1:16:04
Speaker 1: didn't think he would do that, but he did, so
1:16:06
Speaker 1: I never had a stand over there. You might remember
1:16:08
Speaker 1: me talking about this last year, how there's that, And
1:16:11
Speaker 1: I ended up moving to stand and like did a
1:16:13
Speaker 1: hanging hunt there right in the edge and had foreman
1:16:16
Speaker 1: another one of the nice bucks um that I've been watching.
1:16:19
Speaker 1: He did come out. I could have shot him on
1:16:21
Speaker 1: the edge of that field. So this is a spot
1:16:24
Speaker 1: where I want to put a permanent set up. So
1:16:26
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hang a stand there. I'm going to improve
1:16:31
Speaker 1: a stand Last year, there's another betting air that's on
1:16:35
Speaker 1: the property. I hunt that. UM. I hunted a couple
1:16:39
Speaker 1: of times last year during the rut, and that's where
1:16:41
Speaker 1: I passed that bucket called Fraser, and I passed for him,
1:16:43
Speaker 1: and a couple of times I passed a bunch like nice,
1:16:46
Speaker 1: like nice, like two or three year olds from Michigan.
1:16:49
Speaker 1: Um that Holyfield didn't seem to use a lot. I didn't.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: I never saw him there. I got pictures of him
1:16:55
Speaker 1: there a couple of times, but nothing like the other places. Um.
1:16:58
Speaker 1: But still I want to try to improve of this
1:17:00
Speaker 1: because it's a great bedding air. I do know Buck's
1:17:02
Speaker 1: crews through there, so as a kind of secondary place,
1:17:05
Speaker 1: I want to improve that tree stands set up, get
1:17:07
Speaker 1: better cover there. I'm gonna add another stand about a
1:17:10
Speaker 1: hundred yards north of there, on the other side of
1:17:12
Speaker 1: the bedding air, so I can hunt it with a
1:17:13
Speaker 1: slightly different wind. Um. So it's all that kind of stuff.
1:17:17
Speaker 1: I want to fix. My scrape trees. I put in
1:17:20
Speaker 1: those fake scrape trees in the food plots last year. Um.
1:17:23
Speaker 1: One of them I didn't bury deep enough. So part
1:17:26
Speaker 1: with through the season it started like spinning in the wind,
1:17:29
Speaker 1: or like it would be angled at like a forty
1:17:31
Speaker 1: degree angle instead of straight up. So I'm just gonna
1:17:34
Speaker 1: try to get those in more solid. I bought some
1:17:38
Speaker 1: forty gallon like yeah, and I'm gonna put in some
1:17:42
Speaker 1: water holes again, like one tiny thing that maybe we'll
1:17:47
Speaker 1: get him to come within range. I'm gonna put these
1:17:49
Speaker 1: water holes near a couple of my best stand sites
1:17:52
Speaker 1: for him, so they'll be they'll be the hopefully nice, secluded,
1:17:55
Speaker 1: tasty food plot. There's gonna be a scrape tree that
1:17:58
Speaker 1: maybe he'll want to come and sniff at that, maybe
1:18:00
Speaker 1: he'll stop at and give me a shot. There's gonna
1:18:02
Speaker 1: be a little water hole that maybe he'll stop at.
1:18:04
Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to have all these little things
1:18:06
Speaker 1: like I'm just stacking every time any type of thing
1:18:09
Speaker 1: I can. Um, did you happen to change I know
1:18:13
Speaker 1: you change some of the locations of your food plots,
1:18:16
Speaker 1: but did you change any shapes of your food plots?
1:18:21
Speaker 1: So no, UM, one of them, I just I don't.
1:18:26
Speaker 1: It's it's planned a power line, so I don't have
1:18:28
Speaker 1: the ability to change it at all. And there's like
1:18:30
Speaker 1: there's there's like low watery spots on either side, so
1:18:33
Speaker 1: literally just a little patch of high ground in the
1:18:35
Speaker 1: power line. UM, and I can't like cut trees or anything.
1:18:40
Speaker 1: So that is stuck there, but it's in a decent spot.
1:18:43
Speaker 1: It's been good. Um. The other one I can change
1:18:46
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um, and then that's the one where
1:18:49
Speaker 1: I'm shifting it over forty yards and uh. And basically
1:18:53
Speaker 1: this food plot, I just posted a video actually kind
1:18:55
Speaker 1: of giving a tour of it. Basically, there's it was
1:18:59
Speaker 1: just like a short grassy field and then like four
1:19:01
Speaker 1: years ago I went in there and and carved out
1:19:03
Speaker 1: a little food plot in there and then non planting
1:19:05
Speaker 1: the screen around it. But basically it's kind of looks
1:19:08
Speaker 1: like a bow tie. I guess imagine there's a bow tie,
1:19:11
Speaker 1: and in the middle of that bow tie, you know,
1:19:13
Speaker 1: there's like that little circle in a bow tie. Um,
1:19:16
Speaker 1: there's a single oak tree right there, and I've got
1:19:18
Speaker 1: a tree standing that single oak tree, and on one
1:19:21
Speaker 1: side of the bow tie. See, you know, it's kind
1:19:22
Speaker 1: of like a pie piece of pie. Um, there's one
1:19:25
Speaker 1: piece of pie that sticks out to the north of
1:19:27
Speaker 1: that oak and that is where I plant my strips
1:19:30
Speaker 1: of Brassica's and oats. And then the south portion of
1:19:36
Speaker 1: that bow tie is a perennial clover plot and these
1:19:40
Speaker 1: deer come out from the east and feed out into
1:19:45
Speaker 1: either one of those, and typically they feed out to
1:19:47
Speaker 1: the north of me. So I hunt it with a
1:19:49
Speaker 1: with a north wind or a northwest wind or something
1:19:52
Speaker 1: that blows my scent out back into this little finger
1:19:54
Speaker 1: timber that doesn't really get used by dear it's kind
1:19:57
Speaker 1: of open um. So that's that's kind of a setup
1:20:01
Speaker 1: that I've got right now. Any uh, actual food plot change,
1:20:07
Speaker 1: like what you're planning, No, I'm just I just flip
1:20:10
Speaker 1: flop where the oats are and the brassicas so that
1:20:13
Speaker 1: I'm never planting the same thing in the in the
1:20:15
Speaker 1: same strip. Um. But basically it just it just works
1:20:18
Speaker 1: so well, Like they hit those oats earlier in the
1:20:20
Speaker 1: season really hard, and they nibble a little bit in
1:20:23
Speaker 1: the brassicas, and then by the time I get to
1:20:24
Speaker 1: late season, they're hitting the braska is really hard. So
1:20:28
Speaker 1: it gives me that full that full season attraction in
1:20:32
Speaker 1: the same place. Um. So I've just been really happy
1:20:35
Speaker 1: with that and going to stick to that. So that, Um,
1:20:40
Speaker 1: that's kind of the game plan on the Michigan farm,
1:20:42
Speaker 1: just improving tree stands, setups, adding some of these more
1:20:45
Speaker 1: little habitat manipulations. UM. Access is kind of kind of
1:20:53
Speaker 1: the same. I've got pretty good access. I just I
1:20:55
Speaker 1: can't hunt a lot of these places in the mornings,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: UM because I've got to go through fields of different
1:21:00
Speaker 1: things like that. I've I've carved some trails out through
1:21:02
Speaker 1: like little fence rows, like the little cover I do
1:21:04
Speaker 1: have to go through. UM. It's not a deal, but
1:21:07
Speaker 1: it's the best I can get for like the rut UM.
1:21:10
Speaker 1: But that's why in October I pretty much stay out.
1:21:12
Speaker 1: And so that kind of comes to my hunting plan.
1:21:14
Speaker 1: And I'm sure we'll talk about this more when we
1:21:16
Speaker 1: get to UM, when we get closer to the season,
1:21:19
Speaker 1: but right now, at least, my tentative hunting plan is
1:21:22
Speaker 1: to try to basically to do what I said I
1:21:24
Speaker 1: was gonna do last year but I didn't UM, which
1:21:28
Speaker 1: is hunting the first couple of nights of the season
1:21:31
Speaker 1: if conditions are good, and then stay out and not
1:21:36
Speaker 1: hunt it again until October whenever that weather hits. Because
1:21:41
Speaker 1: what's happened is and this is from looking at previously
1:21:44
Speaker 1: from my actual hunting sightings and trail cameras both years,
1:21:49
Speaker 1: he shows up on my farm in September, so he
1:21:52
Speaker 1: summers somewhere nearby, but not right there. In September, loses
1:21:55
Speaker 1: his velvet, he shows up on the farm. He's very
1:21:58
Speaker 1: active on trail camera, um, and he shows up a
1:22:01
Speaker 1: little bit, and he shows up in the daylight on
1:22:02
Speaker 1: these food plots and on trail camera in September and
1:22:06
Speaker 1: a little bit into early October, like I think, I, um,
1:22:10
Speaker 1: maybe not even October, like September. I saw him during
1:22:13
Speaker 1: daylight in two thousand fifteen, but once I started hunting there,
1:22:18
Speaker 1: I didn't get daylight pictures and I wasn't seeing him
1:22:20
Speaker 1: in the open. I saw him a couple of times,
1:22:21
Speaker 1: but it was back in the cover. UM. I didn't
1:22:25
Speaker 1: actually start seeing him during daylight and active on my
1:22:28
Speaker 1: side until October two and then two thousand and sixteen October.
1:22:35
Speaker 1: But both of those days he came into the food
1:22:36
Speaker 1: plot and I could have shot him two years in
1:22:38
Speaker 1: a row one day apart um. And then from that
1:22:41
Speaker 1: date on he was very active through the rut up
1:22:43
Speaker 1: until gun season. So it's like that was the time
1:22:46
Speaker 1: frame when he started, you know, showing up. So this year,
1:22:49
Speaker 1: if I don't kill him the first night or two,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: I'm just even if I get like a long range
1:22:54
Speaker 1: sighting or something off you know, in the cover, or
1:22:56
Speaker 1: even if I get one daylight picture of him, um,
1:23:00
Speaker 1: you know, if it's if it's like days and days
1:23:02
Speaker 1: of day the pictures or something really really compelling, then
1:23:04
Speaker 1: maybe I'll go in there. But otherwise I think that
1:23:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wait and not touch that property at all.
1:23:09
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna check trail cameras, I'm not
1:23:11
Speaker 1: gonna drive on it. I'm not gonna do anything from
1:23:13
Speaker 1: like October one or two until like the or whatever,
1:23:17
Speaker 1: and the first day the conditions are good, then I'm
1:23:19
Speaker 1: gonna go in and then I'm gonna hunt him hard
1:23:22
Speaker 1: from that period until early November, because the last two
1:23:25
Speaker 1: years he was very active during that like ten to
1:23:27
Speaker 1: twelve day window. So so are you going to have
1:23:34
Speaker 1: a wireless camera out there to determine if he's even
1:23:37
Speaker 1: showing up or not, or you're gonna okay, so you're
1:23:40
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna be able to basically you know, I
1:23:45
Speaker 1: have that intel saying okay, well he hasn't. It's it's uh,
1:23:49
Speaker 1: you know, October one or whenever your opening day is
1:23:52
Speaker 1: he he he's showing up at midnight for three days
1:23:56
Speaker 1: in a row. You're are you gonna go out there
1:23:58
Speaker 1: and hunt him or are you gonna layout off until
1:24:01
Speaker 1: he starts showing sign of closer to daylight activity. So okay.
1:24:06
Speaker 1: So the other thing to throw in here is that
1:24:08
Speaker 1: I can get up on a hill and observe this
1:24:11
Speaker 1: front food plot from a distance, from a long distance,
1:24:15
Speaker 1: from a safe place where dear, I'm gonna get spooped
1:24:16
Speaker 1: by me, So I will have I think I'm gonna
1:24:19
Speaker 1: buy another wireless trail camera and stuck it up and
1:24:21
Speaker 1: pay for the fee. UM. I don't like it, but
1:24:24
Speaker 1: they're super handing this kind of situation. So I'm gonna
1:24:27
Speaker 1: try to have two wireless cameras out there, two different spots,
1:24:30
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be monitoring those and then also for
1:24:33
Speaker 1: those days leading up to the season if I can
1:24:35
Speaker 1: do it, which I think it can. Um, for like
1:24:38
Speaker 1: the three days leading up to opening night, I'm going
1:24:40
Speaker 1: to be out on that hill watching this area and
1:24:44
Speaker 1: trying to see if he comes out, and if he
1:24:46
Speaker 1: doesn't come out for the three days leading up to
1:24:49
Speaker 1: the season and there's not like some massive weather change
1:24:51
Speaker 1: that I think will make him come out, and I'm
1:24:54
Speaker 1: not getting trail Cara, pictures of him close to daylight
1:24:56
Speaker 1: or something like that, then no, I'll scrap the early
1:24:59
Speaker 1: season hunt because I'm not gonna go in there if
1:25:00
Speaker 1: i don't think there's a chance. Um, But if I've
1:25:03
Speaker 1: got some pictures of him close to daylight, or if
1:25:05
Speaker 1: I see him once or twice in late September coming
1:25:08
Speaker 1: out to feed, are very close to it, then I'm
1:25:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna strike and kill him early. Hopefully kill him early.
1:25:16
Speaker 1: I'm cheering for you, man, Thank you, Thank you, buddy.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: I I hope it works out, and you know what,
1:25:22
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just trying to all I'm gonna I'm
1:25:25
Speaker 1: putting in a ton of work. I'm gonna put in
1:25:26
Speaker 1: a ton of works try to kill this dear. I
1:25:28
Speaker 1: really want to kill this dear. But I'm also at
1:25:30
Speaker 1: the same time setting my expectations, like I'm gonna do
1:25:35
Speaker 1: everything I can to succeed, but I'm also setting my
1:25:38
Speaker 1: expectations that it might not very well, probably won't happen,
1:25:42
Speaker 1: Like there's a good chance he's gonna get killed by
1:25:44
Speaker 1: someone else. There's a good chance something's gonna go wrong.
1:25:46
Speaker 1: Like I'm not gonna be devastated if this doesn't work.
1:25:49
Speaker 1: I'm just I don't want to like be miserable because
1:25:52
Speaker 1: someone else kills this dear. Um, Like, I'm gonna I'm
1:25:54
Speaker 1: gonna be very bummed. It's gonna it's gonna be super bummer.
1:25:59
Speaker 1: But I'm still gonna enjoy this hunting season no matter
1:26:01
Speaker 1: what happens. And it's been like such an incredible learning
1:26:04
Speaker 1: experience past couple of years, um that even if it
1:26:07
Speaker 1: doesn't end the way I wanted to, it's still been
1:26:09
Speaker 1: like one of the coolest hunts of my life. Um,
1:26:13
Speaker 1: So I'm trying that maybe I'm gonna say this and
1:26:16
Speaker 1: then when it all actually happens, I'm gonna be a
1:26:17
Speaker 1: crankyeer old cuss and I'm not going to actually follow
1:26:20
Speaker 1: throughout all this. But but hopefully I'm trying to set
1:26:23
Speaker 1: myself up mentally so I'm not a nut job come
1:26:25
Speaker 1: October or November. That's I mean, it's it's almost one
1:26:30
Speaker 1: of those things where if you work really hard in
1:26:36
Speaker 1: the off season, you don't even need to give yourself
1:26:39
Speaker 1: an expectation. You just need to follow continue following through
1:26:43
Speaker 1: with the plan you've already set, so you don't need
1:26:47
Speaker 1: to give yourself an expectation. What I mean by that
1:26:49
Speaker 1: is you you are You're just You're just following a
1:26:54
Speaker 1: plan at that point, and your plan is either going
1:26:56
Speaker 1: to succeed or it's going to fail. And whatever happens,
1:27:03
Speaker 1: you know, is is not because of anything that you
1:27:07
Speaker 1: did or didn't do preseason. It's because he decided not
1:27:10
Speaker 1: to come out, or the wind shifted or whatever. It's
1:27:14
Speaker 1: not on you, it's on you know, a roll of
1:27:17
Speaker 1: the dice at that point. Yeah, And there's and there's
1:27:19
Speaker 1: so much out of my hands, right, I mean, that's
1:27:20
Speaker 1: that's hunting. It's it's our hands. But what I hope,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: what I want to have is I want to enter
1:27:26
Speaker 1: this season knowing, regardless of the outcome, that like I
1:27:30
Speaker 1: did that this year more than any other year, I've
1:27:34
Speaker 1: done everything I possibly can do to make this happen.
1:27:38
Speaker 1: Like I have, I have so many things going in
1:27:40
Speaker 1: my favor as compared to pass hunting season. I have
1:27:43
Speaker 1: so much information, I have so many encounters. I've got
1:27:47
Speaker 1: so many lessons learned to apply to this year. I
1:27:50
Speaker 1: don't want to not take advantage of that. So I
1:27:53
Speaker 1: hope that I can at least sit here at the
1:27:56
Speaker 1: end of the season next year this year and say,
1:27:58
Speaker 1: dang it, it didn't go my way. But I feel
1:28:03
Speaker 1: comfortable the fact that I did everything I could. I
1:28:05
Speaker 1: put in all the work, I did all the things
1:28:06
Speaker 1: I said I should do, I followed through on it,
1:28:09
Speaker 1: and yeah, it just didn't work out, or yeah, the
1:28:11
Speaker 1: neighbor shot him and it is what it is. But
1:28:13
Speaker 1: at least I know like I did everything I could
1:28:15
Speaker 1: to try to set of that perfect hunt, and I
1:28:17
Speaker 1: think if I can do that, I'll still feel pretty
1:28:20
Speaker 1: pretty good because, um, like we're saying earlier, I mean,
1:28:23
Speaker 1: seeing where I am today compared to where I was
1:28:26
Speaker 1: ten years ago as a deer hunter, and the things
1:28:28
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the things I'm doing, Um, it's it's
1:28:32
Speaker 1: it's encouraging to me, like if I can pat myself
1:28:34
Speaker 1: on my back, on my own back, like, um, I'm
1:28:38
Speaker 1: proud that I've that I've evolved and in doing these
1:28:41
Speaker 1: things now and I'm hoping I can fall through on that.
1:28:44
Speaker 1: As I guess what I'm saying, you know, after all
1:28:48
Speaker 1: this conversation that we've just had, you're probably going to
1:28:51
Speaker 1: shoot him on the very first hunt of the entire season.
1:28:56
Speaker 1: And I would be so happy, is hey, if I
1:29:00
Speaker 1: shoot that buck. I mean, that's that's amazing. And then
1:29:04
Speaker 1: I still can hunt public land in Michigan. I have
1:29:08
Speaker 1: still got my spot in Ohio that has been kind
1:29:10
Speaker 1: of on the backburner because I've been so focused on
1:29:12
Speaker 1: Michigan lately. But that spot's great, ken Ken be great. Um,
1:29:17
Speaker 1: And I think I'm gonna apply for my Iowa tag
1:29:19
Speaker 1: now since I'm not going, assuming I'm not going to Alaska,
1:29:21
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna apply for my Iowa tag. I'll probably
1:29:23
Speaker 1: get that, and that's gonna be a whole another challenge
1:29:26
Speaker 1: because I still have permission on that same place and
1:29:28
Speaker 1: hunted two years ago. But and it was great, like
1:29:32
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of nice deer, but I also
1:29:33
Speaker 1: had like like two out of all every three hunts
1:29:36
Speaker 1: was messed up by another hunter. So my goal this
1:29:39
Speaker 1: year is how can I get away from that hunting
1:29:41
Speaker 1: pressure or like deal with that hunting pressure better. Um,
1:29:44
Speaker 1: I've got some ideas there that I've been when I went,
1:29:47
Speaker 1: I went shed hunting there and I scouted some more
1:29:49
Speaker 1: and I figured some stuff out. So I feel good
1:29:50
Speaker 1: about a couple of little secret spots I might have found.
1:29:52
Speaker 1: But unfortunately the honey Hoole I had their last time.
1:29:55
Speaker 1: The one spot I found last time that was away
1:29:57
Speaker 1: from the Hunters. It looks like the Hunters found it
1:29:59
Speaker 1: because there's like a bunch of tree stands all over it.
1:30:02
Speaker 1: So that'll be another challenge. And then uh, and then
1:30:06
Speaker 1: I'm going to do the whole early season Western trip again.
1:30:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do Montana and maybe hit North Dakota, Wyoming
1:30:12
Speaker 1: after that if I fill my Montana tag, so I
1:30:16
Speaker 1: got a full slate, and uh, what happens. Yeah, I'm excited.
1:30:22
Speaker 1: I'm just so pumped. Yeah, I'm pretty jacked for this
1:30:26
Speaker 1: season two. I uh, I don't know, I don't know.
1:30:31
Speaker 1: I guess I'm excited, but I'm not like right now,
1:30:36
Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited. I'm jacked off. I'm getting ready to
1:30:38
Speaker 1: put out trail cams and you know, velvet rut all
1:30:41
Speaker 1: that stuff. But it's not like up front as it
1:30:44
Speaker 1: has been in the past. It's it's kind of in
1:30:46
Speaker 1: the back burner still as far as my excitement levels
1:30:49
Speaker 1: the same, but I'm not thinking about it as much.
1:30:51
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Is that because of like family
1:30:54
Speaker 1: stuff or just just other things life. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
1:30:59
Speaker 1: my life is on overdrive right now and just trying
1:31:03
Speaker 1: to keep up and you know, maintain and I don't know,
1:31:08
Speaker 1: to enjoy, enjoy these time, enjoy right now, you know,
1:31:13
Speaker 1: and not you know, not not try to enjoy, you know,
1:31:17
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of a lot of times
1:31:20
Speaker 1: in the past, I've I've had one of these experiences
1:31:23
Speaker 1: where I put so much on the actual event of
1:31:27
Speaker 1: hunting that I don't enjoy everything else that is going on,
1:31:32
Speaker 1: you know, whether that's checking trail cameras, putting out mineral,
1:31:35
Speaker 1: setting tree stands, all that stuff is fun, but you know,
1:31:38
Speaker 1: it should be in my eyes, I feel it should
1:31:41
Speaker 1: kind of be equal. It should there shouldn't be. And
1:31:43
Speaker 1: then now that I have kids, and uh, they're awesome
1:31:47
Speaker 1: to hang out with. Their assholes at times, but they're
1:31:49
Speaker 1: awesome to hang out. They're awesome to hang out with
1:31:52
Speaker 1: and enjoy the time that I have with them as well.
1:31:54
Speaker 1: And then when the new kid comes, I'm gonna you know,
1:31:57
Speaker 1: be busy that first month and well for the rest
1:32:00
Speaker 1: of my life actually. But but you know what I mean,
1:32:03
Speaker 1: like enjoy the moment and not put so not put
1:32:06
Speaker 1: such high expectations on one particular part of of the
1:32:09
Speaker 1: of the year. If that makes sense. It totally makes sense.
1:32:12
Speaker 1: It's like, we have to enjoy the process because that's
1:32:15
Speaker 1: that's one of the really cool things about you know,
1:32:17
Speaker 1: being a serious deer hunter, serious mature buck hunter, is
1:32:21
Speaker 1: that there is stuff that we're doing all your I
1:32:23
Speaker 1: mean you and me literally come on this stupid podcast
1:32:26
Speaker 1: every week all darn year and talk about deer and
1:32:30
Speaker 1: there's something going on at that time of year related
1:32:32
Speaker 1: to deer. Like that's pretty darn cool. Um, So enjoy that.
1:32:36
Speaker 1: We got to enjoy the process. Enjoy the days when
1:32:38
Speaker 1: you're gonna be out there sweating, hanging a tree stands um,
1:32:42
Speaker 1: because you know, like you said, it's it's all part
1:32:46
Speaker 1: of it. And uh, to your point, I think every year,
1:32:49
Speaker 1: I think I'm getting better. I'm I'm pretty sure I'm
1:32:51
Speaker 1: getting better with this. I'm getting better at not letting
1:32:55
Speaker 1: my like mental state and enjoy enjoyment of hunting be
1:32:58
Speaker 1: dictated by like, am I killing a deer? Did I
1:33:01
Speaker 1: kill a deer? Um? You know, it's it's enjoying the process.
1:33:05
Speaker 1: And last year for a while with holy Field, like
1:33:08
Speaker 1: from October for the first month and a half of
1:33:11
Speaker 1: deer season, when I was chasing holy Field and like
1:33:14
Speaker 1: it just it was always just a little bit off
1:33:16
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like I I found myself occasionally getting frustrated,
1:33:19
Speaker 1: like another night didn't kill Hi, another night didn't kill him,
1:33:22
Speaker 1: And I got a little bit too caught up in it. Um.
1:33:25
Speaker 1: And then gun season happened. And I don't even know
1:33:29
Speaker 1: if I ever talked about this, but gun season happened,
1:33:32
Speaker 1: and you know, I thought we we talked about this part.
1:33:34
Speaker 1: I thought he got killed. I kind of started like
1:33:36
Speaker 1: giving up on the idea that he might be still around.
1:33:38
Speaker 1: But then also at that same time, late November, my
1:33:41
Speaker 1: wife kind of gave me an intervention, um, and she
1:33:45
Speaker 1: kind of like just kind of read me the riot
1:33:48
Speaker 1: act about how like I was not being present. Um.
1:33:52
Speaker 1: So I didn't travel as much to deer hunt last
1:33:55
Speaker 1: year during the season, Like I didn't go to Iowa
1:33:57
Speaker 1: or anything. I just I was hunting Michigan most of
1:33:59
Speaker 1: the hunting season. And then I just hunted Ohio for
1:34:01
Speaker 1: like five days, and then I filled my tag in
1:34:03
Speaker 1: Ohio and I was back. So I wasn't gone as
1:34:05
Speaker 1: much as I have been like two years ago or
1:34:07
Speaker 1: other years. So I was like, Kylie, I've been here
1:34:09
Speaker 1: like all the time. How can like, what's wrong. I've
1:34:11
Speaker 1: been hunting. I mean I've been here hunting this scheme
1:34:13
Speaker 1: about here, but she's like, yeah, you're you've been physically here,
1:34:16
Speaker 1: but like you're not like you're not mentally here, or
1:34:19
Speaker 1: you're not like you're not a part of this thing,
1:34:21
Speaker 1: like you're just kind of your bodies here, but you're
1:34:23
Speaker 1: constantly elsewhere thinking about the stuff where you're constantly doing
1:34:26
Speaker 1: these things. And that kind of like re grounded me
1:34:29
Speaker 1: a little bit, like I can't let this consume me.
1:34:31
Speaker 1: On um. It's a terrific activity, it's a great passion.
1:34:34
Speaker 1: It is how I make my living too, so of
1:34:36
Speaker 1: course it's gonna be a big part of my life.
1:34:37
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, you've got to
1:34:40
Speaker 1: make sure that you're present for everything else mentally, emotionally,
1:34:43
Speaker 1: physically of course to um. And that was kind of
1:34:46
Speaker 1: a good reset for me at the end of the
1:34:48
Speaker 1: year or the end of November, and then from then
1:34:50
Speaker 1: on and again this might have influenced my decision a
1:34:52
Speaker 1: little bit, how kind of kind of like it was like,
1:34:55
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, killing holy Field is not like going
1:34:58
Speaker 1: to make or break my life, Like if this hunt
1:35:01
Speaker 1: doesn't go the way I want it to that's okay. UM,
1:35:04
Speaker 1: And I need to like pull back. I need to.
1:35:07
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm always adjusting the volume on my
1:35:09
Speaker 1: hunting obsession or whatever, and it's it's always usually eleven,
1:35:12
Speaker 1: but sometimes, like I need to, sometimes you get to
1:35:15
Speaker 1: turn it down to ten every once in a while.
1:35:18
Speaker 1: Um or or maybe that's your expectations. Maybe that's how
1:35:21
Speaker 1: much time you spend in the woods. Maybe that's maybe
1:35:23
Speaker 1: that's whatever. Um. But I think and I hope that
1:35:28
Speaker 1: I'm in a place now this year where, yeah, I'm
1:35:30
Speaker 1: doing a ton, I'm gonna be spending a lot of
1:35:33
Speaker 1: time out there. I'm going to be very invested in it.
1:35:35
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm not going to forget
1:35:38
Speaker 1: the other really important things in my life. And um,
1:35:40
Speaker 1: you know, enjoy it all, enjoy the process, Enjoy family
1:35:44
Speaker 1: and friends and everything else that life has to give
1:35:47
Speaker 1: and m and hunting fits in there a lot better
1:35:51
Speaker 1: as as a as a compliment to all those things,
1:35:54
Speaker 1: not as like something that squashes everything else out right, right,
1:35:59
Speaker 1: It's a big I mean, it's a big part of
1:36:00
Speaker 1: who we are, but uh, it definitely has to take
1:36:04
Speaker 1: a backseat when it comes to like, for me, family,
1:36:07
Speaker 1: and my wife has to remind me every once in
1:36:09
Speaker 1: a while, you know, you know, because I always pulled
1:36:12
Speaker 1: this this act when it's time to start hunting. And
1:36:15
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I told you when we got married that, um,
1:36:19
Speaker 1: this is I'm gonna be hunting and I'm gonna be
1:36:21
Speaker 1: doing this and you know, and she's like, well, uh,
1:36:25
Speaker 1: you have children now and you have other responsibilities outside
1:36:29
Speaker 1: of you know, which I'll put it to you this way.
1:36:33
Speaker 1: If I wasn't doing the podcast on the nine Finger
1:36:36
Speaker 1: podcast or doing this podcast, I would get I would
1:36:39
Speaker 1: get less, dramatic, dramatically less hunting time than what I'm given.
1:36:45
Speaker 1: Uh you know now, so um no podcast. No, Like
1:36:51
Speaker 1: I probably only get like a week, to be honest
1:36:53
Speaker 1: with you, dude, Yeah, we maybe maybe too. But it's
1:36:57
Speaker 1: like a bell curve. But when I was single, I
1:37:00
Speaker 1: was hunting a lot when I and that goes down
1:37:03
Speaker 1: when you get married a little bit, and then you
1:37:04
Speaker 1: start having kids, and then like next year, in the
1:37:07
Speaker 1: year after, we'll probably be at an all time low.
1:37:10
Speaker 1: Then then as the kids start to grow up and
1:37:12
Speaker 1: they become independent and they need less supervision and and
1:37:15
Speaker 1: mom can do her thing without having to be you know,
1:37:18
Speaker 1: watch them twenty four hours a day. That's gonna go
1:37:21
Speaker 1: all the way up back up again. So like when
1:37:24
Speaker 1: I'm in my mid forties, you know, fifties, I can
1:37:27
Speaker 1: start going and hunting again because my kids won't need
1:37:30
Speaker 1: all that attention. There might be in some activities, but
1:37:32
Speaker 1: I'll be able to dedicate a lot. I won't need
1:37:36
Speaker 1: to help out in the father realm as much. You know,
1:37:39
Speaker 1: I'll be able to be away a little more, right right.
1:37:43
Speaker 1: I just hope that I just hope that your wife
1:37:45
Speaker 1: this year will lets you hunt more than once between
1:37:48
Speaker 1: November four and January. I'm gonna I'm just not gonna
1:37:54
Speaker 1: comment on any of that. I just think it's best.
1:37:57
Speaker 1: I'm just like, well, what happened? Yeah, I mean, have
1:38:01
Speaker 1: you ever thought about, like, um, like setting aside a
1:38:05
Speaker 1: little fund, like take twenty bucks out every one of
1:38:07
Speaker 1: your paychecks for the whole year and have a little
1:38:10
Speaker 1: babysitting fund that you save for like hunting season stuff,
1:38:13
Speaker 1: so that hey, honey, I am gonna hunt, you know,
1:38:16
Speaker 1: like to day or like hunt I do a long
1:38:18
Speaker 1: weekend this week and a long weekend that week or whatever,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: So you're gonna hunt throughout the season, But hey, I'm
1:38:22
Speaker 1: gonna pay for a babysitter one of those nights or
1:38:26
Speaker 1: full day for you because you need your time to honey, um,
1:38:30
Speaker 1: you know, and have something like that that might help
1:38:32
Speaker 1: her so that she feels more comfortable with you going
1:38:34
Speaker 1: occasionally in doing this stuff. Absolutely, and uh, I'll be
1:38:39
Speaker 1: completely honest with you. Uh, some of the money that
1:38:42
Speaker 1: you know, you make money from your you know, your partners.
1:38:45
Speaker 1: I make money from my partners on the podcast and whatnot,
1:38:48
Speaker 1: and some of that money is going to go to
1:38:51
Speaker 1: a babysitter during the rut and they're gonna come to
1:38:55
Speaker 1: the house and they're gonna play father. I guess I
1:39:00
Speaker 1: guess this This all brings a bell for me. Now
1:39:01
Speaker 1: we you and me did talk about this. I can't
1:39:03
Speaker 1: remember you if it was just us personally or on
1:39:05
Speaker 1: the podcast, but yeah, I think that's a great, great idea,
1:39:08
Speaker 1: and it's gonna I'm gonna pay him cash and I'm
1:39:10
Speaker 1: gonna make it an offer to where for two weeks
1:39:13
Speaker 1: instead of going to their part time job, they're gonna
1:39:15
Speaker 1: get paid cash with no taxes. It's gonna end up
1:39:18
Speaker 1: being more than they what they would get uh net
1:39:21
Speaker 1: from their other job, and I'm just gonna say, hey,
1:39:24
Speaker 1: show up, do some you know, do some laundry, help
1:39:27
Speaker 1: feed my kids, rock my baby. Maybe let my wife
1:39:30
Speaker 1: step out away from the house for a little bit. Um.
1:39:33
Speaker 1: But it's gonna give Let give her a little freedom,
1:39:37
Speaker 1: and then I'll pay you. I'll pay you handsomely because
1:39:40
Speaker 1: like for a college kid man, cash is king. They
1:39:42
Speaker 1: do anything for that. Yeah, I think it's a I
1:39:44
Speaker 1: think it's a good idea, UM, because I mean, you
1:39:49
Speaker 1: don't want to put her in a tough spot. But
1:39:50
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, you've got you have
1:39:53
Speaker 1: your thing, and I feel like I feel like with um.
1:39:57
Speaker 1: You know, for example, with Kylie, my wife, and she
1:40:00
Speaker 1: has a pretty good understanding. I'm very fortunately she's got
1:40:02
Speaker 1: a pretty good understanding of this, but she knows that
1:40:06
Speaker 1: this is a This is such an important thing in
1:40:08
Speaker 1: my life and a part of who I am. Like
1:40:10
Speaker 1: if I couldn't do this, and if I wasn't able
1:40:12
Speaker 1: to to to engage in these different things, I wouldn't
1:40:16
Speaker 1: be the husband and the person like she knows and
1:40:18
Speaker 1: loves UM, and I wouldn't be a happy person. I
1:40:20
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a fulfilled person. And I couldn't be a
1:40:23
Speaker 1: good husband or a good dad without this as part
1:40:26
Speaker 1: of my life too. Um, without some separate things, you know.
1:40:29
Speaker 1: So there's like there's us time, and then there's there's
1:40:30
Speaker 1: mark time, and there's marked things and there's us things,
1:40:33
Speaker 1: and um, you gotta have a balance between those two. Um.
1:40:37
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that there will be a refiguring of
1:40:39
Speaker 1: those balance when there's kids in the equation too. But um,
1:40:43
Speaker 1: it's it is a balance, that's fact, Jack. So well
1:40:50
Speaker 1: we have I think last I checked in to to the
1:40:53
Speaker 1: hundred nine days or a hundred thirty days till opening
1:40:56
Speaker 1: day of both season for you and Iowa and me
1:40:58
Speaker 1: in Michigan. Yeah, so we just discussed a lot of
1:41:03
Speaker 1: work we've got to do. I'm sure there's gonna be
1:41:05
Speaker 1: a lot many more things are gonna come up in
1:41:08
Speaker 1: between and then. But let's do the work, Dan, and
1:41:12
Speaker 1: let's enjoy the process and it's have a good hunting season.
1:41:16
Speaker 1: You gotta grind, man, That's what you gotta grind. Yeah,
1:41:20
Speaker 1: that's the truth. Especially you man, if you're doing all
1:41:22
Speaker 1: this this this year, you gotta grind it out. Bring
1:41:25
Speaker 1: some Bring some icy hot for your knees. Um icy hots.
1:41:32
Speaker 1: Floating around the timber. Yeah, and get like the big
1:41:35
Speaker 1: like sling seats or whatever, like the old man tree stands,
1:41:39
Speaker 1: so you can like lay back in the recliner. Um,
1:41:43
Speaker 1: do whatever it takes, Dan, whatever it takes. Okay, yeah, yeah, alright, man, Well,
1:41:50
Speaker 1: I think this is a good place for us to
1:41:52
Speaker 1: wrap it up and uh any final thoughts before we go?
1:41:56
Speaker 1: Um no, man, I guess from a from a conservation standpoint.
1:42:01
Speaker 1: Be sure too, you know you've mentioned this every once
1:42:04
Speaker 1: in a while. Uh, you know, sign up for sign
1:42:08
Speaker 1: up for a conservation group, whether that's the the q
1:42:11
Speaker 1: d m A or it's the uh UM National Deer Alliance.
1:42:14
Speaker 1: Make sure you guys are um being informed, uh getting
1:42:19
Speaker 1: educated on what it is that you actually love your passion.
1:42:23
Speaker 1: And I think that by doing so, you can be
1:42:25
Speaker 1: an active member of of your passion and help, you know,
1:42:30
Speaker 1: take part a little bit more than just saying I
1:42:32
Speaker 1: love deer hunting. I agree, we've got to give back
1:42:37
Speaker 1: and uh, man, there's there's always someone or something that's
1:42:42
Speaker 1: trying to take that opportunity away or damage the resource
1:42:47
Speaker 1: or the place and the landscape. And if if we
1:42:51
Speaker 1: don't stand up and protect these things in places no
1:42:54
Speaker 1: one else will. Alright, buddy, Well this has been fun
1:42:58
Speaker 1: and uh let's shut this one down, all right, And
1:43:01
Speaker 1: a couple quick updates before we go though. First off,
1:43:04
Speaker 1: like I mentioned earlier, the holy Field film is now online,
1:43:08
Speaker 1: so please go check that out and if you like it,
1:43:10
Speaker 1: share it with some of your hunting buddies. You can
1:43:12
Speaker 1: watch the film over at Wired two hunt dot com
1:43:16
Speaker 1: or the wired to Hunt Facebook page or the Wired
1:43:18
Speaker 1: to Hunt YouTube channel. And speaking of YouTube, if you
1:43:21
Speaker 1: could be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel because
1:43:24
Speaker 1: I'm getting some new episodes of our weekly video blog
1:43:26
Speaker 1: start over there again too, so you want to check
1:43:29
Speaker 1: those out. The film is called until next year holy Field,
1:43:32
Speaker 1: so if you can't find it online otherwise, you can
1:43:35
Speaker 1: at least search for that title somewhere. I also wanted
1:43:38
Speaker 1: to give another plug for all of you to connect
1:43:40
Speaker 1: with us via social media. By looking at the numbers,
1:43:43
Speaker 1: I know there are many of you listening to this
1:43:45
Speaker 1: episode that are not plugged in with us online through
1:43:47
Speaker 1: social yet, so we gotta change that. I think you're
1:43:49
Speaker 1: missing out if you don't, so get over to Instagram
1:43:53
Speaker 1: and follow me at wired to Hunt. You can search
1:43:56
Speaker 1: for wired Hunt on Facebook and like us there, and
1:43:59
Speaker 1: you can follow us at Wired to Hunt on Twitter
1:44:01
Speaker 1: as well. That's gonna allow you to see photos and
1:44:04
Speaker 1: blog posts and videos and more content related to the
1:44:08
Speaker 1: things we talked about here every week, so check us
1:44:11
Speaker 1: out there. And with that out of the way, I
1:44:12
Speaker 1: also want to give a big shout out to our
1:44:14
Speaker 1: partners who make this podcast possible. Big things to sit
1:44:17
Speaker 1: Gear Yetie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, White Tailed Institute
1:44:21
Speaker 1: of North America, Trophy Ridge, and hunt Terra Maps. These
1:44:25
Speaker 1: are some great companies that make products that I really
1:44:27
Speaker 1: enjoy and believe in, so check them out and finally,
1:44:31
Speaker 1: thank you all for listening. I hope you're as fired
1:44:34
Speaker 1: up designing to get working this summer prepping for deer season,
1:44:37
Speaker 1: and I hope you'll stay Wired to Hunt