Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #100: Bill Winke, Dr. Grant Woods and Lee Lakosky Answer The Deer Hunting World’s Most Debated Questions

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #100: Bill Winke, Dr. Grant Woods and Lee Lakosky Answer The Deer Hunting World’s Most Debated Questions · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode number one hundred,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: tay in the show. To celebrate this huge milestone, we're
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: bringing on an expert paneled guests to discuss some of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the deer hunting world's most debated questions. All right, welcome
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Sitka Gear. And today we are celebrating one hundred episodes
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of the Wired Hunt podcast, and we've got a really
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: terrific show for you. We have what I think is
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the most exciting lineup of guests we've ever had in
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a single show. We're going to be discussing some super
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: interesting hunting topics, and we're going to be giving away
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: some great prizes, which I'll announce at the end. So,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: like I said when Hunters episode, we're gonna do this
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: up big and very quickly. The plan for today's episode
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is to put some of the most discussed and debated
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: deer hunting questions to a panel of guests, including three
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of the country's most respected deer hunters and managers. Those
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: are Bill Winky, Dr. Grant Woods, and Lee Lakowski. Now
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we've had all three of this gentleman on the show before,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: but just in case you're not familiar. Bill Winky is
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: an outdoor writer and creator of Midwest white Tail dot
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Com and the Midwest white Tail TV show. Dr. Grant
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Woods is a wildlife biologist, consultant, writer and creator of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Growing Dear TV. And Lee Lakowski is the host of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the Outdoor Channels Crushed with Lee and Tiffany. So big
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: names exciting people to talk to here in a minute,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: but before we kick off our panel discussion, I just
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: want to take a second to thank you, to thank
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: all of you who have been listening back in two
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, two thousand and fifteen and now two thousand
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and sixteen. You've been with us for one hundred episodes,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and every one of these episodes has been between I
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: think somewhere between an hour or two. So you've spent
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: hundreds hundreds of hours with me and Dan, and I'm
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: surprised and amaze that you're still here with us, but
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I am certainly appreciative of it. Uh, I don't know
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: it's hard to put into words what this podcast has
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: kind of meant to me. And I think being able
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to have this opportunity to talk to you all every week,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to share my experiences, my ups and downs, and then
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: get to speak to all these different great guests, learn
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: from them and learn from them with you and from
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: each other. To that Ha's just been pretty special. So
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Dan, how do you feel about this?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: A hundred episodes down, that's a big number. I don't
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: even know if I've recounted that high before. But I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: can tell you one thing. Not only do I you know,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I love talking with the guests that we have on
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I really I really love just b essing
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: with you. And then the interaction apfter the shows are
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: over with listeners. I love emails from people, and as
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you do, and that any interaction on social media.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, I think what it what
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it comes down to is our love, the listeners, mind yours,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the love for the outdoors and hunting in general. Absolutely,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and I feel like this this podcast, in this community
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: is kind of just a great big party and celebration
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: before that love and for that shared passion we have
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: for doing all these things outdoors and chasing deer and
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: feeding our families with terrific wild organic venison. I mean,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: it doesn't get any better than that, and we are
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: super blessed to be able to sit here and talk
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: about every week. Um, and I hope I think you
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: know everyone's been enjoying it along the way too, and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: finding it as interesting and entertaining as I think you
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and me have. Because if no one is, at least
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: you and we have been having fun, that's for sure,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: right right. And we're fans, I mean we're not only
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: there's not really any difference between us and the listeners
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: other than we are the ones to ask the questions.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're just, you know, fans of hunting and
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: want to soak up this knowledge just like everybody else does. Yeah. Yeah,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: so true. And I think you know, on that note,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of information to soak up here
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: in today's episode, So I'm going to try to make
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  Speaker 1: our little introduction here as quick as possible so we
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: can get right into this panel discussion. Like I mentioned,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we've got some great guests. We're going to learn some
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: very interesting things, and hopefully we'll all toss some interesting
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: questions their way as well. So here's the plan. Then
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: we are going to take a very brief break for
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a word from our partners at SICA, and then we
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: will kick off our one episode panel discussion with Bill
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Winky Lilakowski and Dr Grant Woods. All right, so as mentioned,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: we need to pause briefly to thank our partners at
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Sick of Gear, and today we're going to be starting
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: our new Sick Stories series, and to kick us off,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: we have a story from Don Wilson on this day.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Back in two thousand twelve. Down was headed out for
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: mid October hunt with modest expectations. But little did he
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: know there were much bigger things in store. Okay, So
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, I go to a spot that I've
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: been hunting for years. It's actually public ground, it's actually
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: federal ground. So I hike in. The spot that I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: usually go to is about a mile and a half
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: back into the woods, um and it's a pretty rough
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: country for Ohio up and downhills. So I go in.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I hike in the morning and I'm running a little late.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I get back in there, it's already cracking daylight. So
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I climb into my climber get up in the tree.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: One thing that I always do, I use the climber
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: back in the woods like that, because I always take
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: my rattling horns and kind of make some cover up noise,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you know, right when I get settled. So I did
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that this morning and pull out my phone to text
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: my wife and tell her that I'm in the tree
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and everything's good, and look up and here it comes,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and here comes a buck. In fact, in the moment,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: he looks like a nice buck. So in just a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: matter of seconds, Don sees the buck and shoots him.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But when he walks up on the deer a little
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: bit later, he has another surprise coming. This is not
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: just a nice dear. This is not the kind of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: dear you expect to shoot while hunting public land on
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: a random mid October day. So he pulls out his
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: phone to share the news. And I called my dad
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and I tell my dad, um that I killed another
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: big one. And he says how many points is he?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And I said, well, I have accounting, So I started
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: counting and I get to twelve and my dad says, wow,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: twelve point. That's a great dear, And I said, Dad,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: that's on one side. You know, Dad says, holy crap,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: probably something else, you know. So I keep counting. I
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: get to twenty four, and you know, my Dad's like,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: do you want me to come down there and help you?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Being I'm like, Dad, A, by the time you get here,
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  Speaker 1: I'll have him out. And so I started dragging tied
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: into my belt, I have my climber, I have my
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: backpack full of gear, I had my bow, and I
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: had a two hund four in buck tied to my belt,
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  Speaker 1: hiking out a mile and a half back into state land. Now, that,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: my friends, is a hell of a story, a sicks
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: story in fact, as Don was wearing a sickst stratus
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  Speaker 1: jacket and pant on that unexpectedly fateful day. Now, let's
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: get back to the show and kick off our panel
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  Speaker 1: discussion alright with us on the line now is our
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  Speaker 1: entire distinguished panel of guests, Bill Winki, Lee Lakowski, and
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: doctor Grant Woods and Dan. I really appreciate it you
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: all join us today. And since we've got so many
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: things to cover, and since I already provide a brief
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: introduction to each of you before you got on the line,
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  Speaker 1: We're going to skip any small talk and instead just
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: get right into the meat and potatoes of our panel discussions. So, gentlemen,
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  Speaker 1: Dan and I have put together a list of some
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  Speaker 1: of the most commonly asked and debated dear any questions
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that we hear from our audience, and a few of
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: our own that we're curious about. And then what we're
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: gonna do is we're gonna pose each of these questions
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  Speaker 1: to you to discuss or debate or answering whatever way
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  Speaker 1: you see fit. So, given how many are on the line,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: we're going to direct the question to one of you
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: at the beginning, and then we can move from there
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to each additional person. Think of this just like any
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: other in person panel discussion you've seen before. So I'm
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: not going to beat around the bush. Let's get right
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  Speaker 1: into the good stuff. And I want to start with
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  Speaker 1: you Bill with this one that I'm sure you've heard before,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm sure you've all heard before, but we're gonna
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: go through it anyways to see how all three of
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  Speaker 1: you might differ or not. Is the October lull fact
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  Speaker 1: or fiction? I think that in my experience, at least,
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  Speaker 1: the general concept seems like it exists. Uh. Individual deer
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  Speaker 1: seems to exhibit so much difference in their personalities. If
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you want to call it that, that you'll have some
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  Speaker 1: box that moved during the daylight in the middle of October.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: But in general, what I've seen on my trail cameras
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  Speaker 1: is a is a definite movement towards nocturnal activity in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of October. And like I said, I mean
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  Speaker 1: that that's only been based on trail camera studies that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we've done, and not not even studies. I mean, we're
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: just trying to kill these things, and you know, when
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  Speaker 1: they're not moving during the daylight, that makes it pretty hard,
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  Speaker 1: and you run the cameras and you don't find them
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  Speaker 1: in daylight. So I'm gonna say there is something going
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  Speaker 1: on in the middle of October that seems to shut
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: down daylight activity. Okay, what do you think, Grant, Well,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I think Bill pretty spot on. We might dig a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: little deeper so Dear you have their winter coat on,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: but October tints can have a lot of warm days,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: so it's just really a metabolic thing. They don't want
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to move that much because it's hard for dear to
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  Speaker 1: get rid of heat body heat. They don't have sweat
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: lands like some other mammals do so so there and
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: they're also at that point in time switching to a
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: carbon herte hydrate diet. Where I lived there chasing acorns
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: where you know, maybe a couple of guys lived there
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: chasing cut corn or corn fields or something, and carves
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: put a lot of energy or body heat in the body.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: So it's a double whammy. Take a warmer day with
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a big fur coat on and a lot of energy,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you just feel like moving with cooler outside, which is nighttime.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Makes sense to me. Now, Lee, have you seen anything
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: different or do you feel differently about this at all? Now?
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Actually bought them you hit it in the head now,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: because I was gonna say, if you heard asked me first,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I would say that kind of depends on the weather,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: because I've had We've had years like in October we
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: had a really Cooltobers and it was phenomenal. I mean,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: not except running activity, but just deer out on their feet,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know, are our biggest bucks were out in clover
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: fields or winter wheat fields and just eating like they
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: had you in August and September, and you know it's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: always like on the shady side of the fields that
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: come out early, um, you know to start with, but
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: when it's we have warm weather, just like Grant was
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: talking about point and then just basically shut them down
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and that in the middle of October. And that's a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: good point that they're starting to get there. You know,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: their winter hides on it and you know they're basically
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: sticking to nighttime movement. But we've had octobers that have
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: been phenomenal. I mean that was it wasn't so many
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: years ago, gay like makes five or six years ago.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: We had just really cool October, and then it got
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: into November and it was warm, and our October was
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: way better than in our November. We were seeing more
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of our big bucks on their feet. Dre and then
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: says almost weather dependent basically from what I've seen. All right,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: next question and I'll start We'll go back to Bill again.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: If you could only hunt one week out of the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: entire season, what week would you pick? In Why I
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: must get that question on our website. I should. I
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: should have a button that I can push that just
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: plays back my It really is kind of a compositive
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: what we've already talked about in some sense. And if
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you tell me what the weather is going to be like,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you which week to hunt, but assuming that
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: we have a consistent weather patterns where you know, it's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: going to be equal temperatures from October until the November
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and it's all going to be you know, relatively cool
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and seasonal type weather. It just seems like November seven
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: through the years has produced the most big buck kills
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: for myself and my pro staffs. And you know, prior
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to that, you know, Guizz all my buddies, and it
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: obviously seemed like November seven the sort of the key day.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: So you know, if that's the key day, then pick
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you know, plus re mind us a couple of days
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: on either side, and and uh, you know, sending the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: correct weather, that would be your magic week. What about you, Graham? Yeah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: somewhere in there. You know, it kind of depends a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: little bit on latitude and where you are the guys
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and South Alabama are going. You know, we don't get
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: rolling here in February, and and I think a lot
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of people don't realize South Florida West South Florida deer
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: start breeding in early July, late August. Actually their season
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: is time for the Rudd hunt to be at that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: time who wants to hunt in that level of mosquitoes.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but but that's the factor. So but
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: throughout most of the whitetail's rain, somewhere in that early
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: part of November weather being equal. I think Bill stated
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that very well. A cold front is if if I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: had any magic I could ever pull out for deer hunting,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: it would be to get a cold front to occur
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: when I had time to hunt. Got you that narrows
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: it down? What about you? Uh? You know, I go
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: back to even like what Bill said, the seventh was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: like one of my favorite days. And I don't remember
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Bill that one of those first big ones that I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: shot with Lee Murphy and stut Down and I was
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: on the seventh. It came over year out to look
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: at it, you know, so nervous about the shot and anything,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: but I killed so many of them on the seventh.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: But now, with the farms that I that I have here,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: in the food that I have, if I can't took
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: one week, it would be late. It would be January. Uh,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the last week of the season fits through
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the town. And then when we get during the run here.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I mean it's always good. I mean it's always the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: funnest time to hunt. You know, a box of chasing
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and grunt and you can rattle and all that stuff.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: But my biggest box normally the ones that I'm looking for.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's way easier to to find them. I mean, if
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: it gets cold late seasons, they're out almost every night,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, just get to a better position to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: get a shot at one of them and turn to
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: run a lot of our biggest ones, you know, they
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: kind of just going to ground. You might have a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: couple of shots at them, you're right at the pre rust.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Once they get it dough, then they kind of going
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: to ground, you know, as you want to catch them
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: in between those when I get to late season, if
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I if I had to best, you know, if I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: got a big deer that I want to I want
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to hunt. If I don't, if I don't get him
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in those first few days of October, if I was
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a bettman, I'd said, my shoot him in January or
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: late September, you know, and we shoot him in the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: rut every year too. But I think my best chances
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: are if it gets cold here in late season and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: then I mean seeing more consistently than that world during
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the ruts finally had one week to hunt. Um, it's
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: probably the last my last seven days of the season
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: here like January to January towmpre to the temp or
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: something like that. This is bill agaan Leah that that's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: a good point because it sort of brings up the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: question of hunting one deer versus hunting you know, any
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: deer lass. Yeah, because um, we we do have trouble
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: with them. Uh here during the rut to we might
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: see more bucks of a certain age class on their feet.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: We might really struggle trying to find that specific one deer.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And the late season is a lot more consistent as
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: long as got the food in the weather. Yeah. At
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a great point though that if you're just hunting at buck,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: if you're going out of the stage or someplace just
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and just going hunting, you know you would pick that
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: week of the seven stay in the Midwest at least.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But for me personally, you know, or at least it
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: be of your own farm and your your have a
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: deer that you've been watching for several years and things
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: that you know you've got into the age. You want
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: you you know, you our best chance. We're gonna feel
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: most of our big deer late season when they when
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it gets cold. But if you're just going someplace, you know,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I definitely agree with the at least in the Midwest,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that's all we really hunted, don't really you know, hunt
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the South or things like that. That the seventh has
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: been you know, shot more deer on on the seventh
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and any other day. But if an she shot more
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: deer on December and any other day, so um, you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: just it kind of depends, like it feel sounds a
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: good point if you're just hunting deer, and definitely be
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the seventh for me. So so continue on this this
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: theme of you know, when to hunt. One of the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: popular theories out there related to the timing of the rut,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: which in turn relates to some of the things we've
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: been talking about about when the hunt, is that the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: moon in some cases some people believe might influence the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: timing of the rut or some things along that lines,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: whether it be the timing of the rut or any
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: other kind of movement lead do you think that the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: moon influences dear behavior? And if so, how well, yeah,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: you know it's you know, who had asked me. It's
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. I probably I said, I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: not really a bit. You know, great hunts on new
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: moons and a great hunts on full moons. But it
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: has been noticing over the years. You know, use all
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: these trail cameras and most people just take their pictures
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of their boxs and okay, we're trying to you know,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: patterns buck or something with a trail camera, and that's
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: hard to do unless you have a million trail cameras.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I mean hear hears on the feet during daylight every
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: day at some point for this are kind of more
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: look looking at just pictures, dear pictures. You know, Okay,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: where are the daylight pictures? When am I getting them?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Because it doesn't matter if it's a bunch of os,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I mean bucks, you know they're they're obviously the different,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: but they're still just deer. You know, when when are
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: all the deer moving? Um? And it seems to me
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I found like you know, coming up to the full
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: moon those ten days before, you know, if you get
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: right at the full moon, that they're just coming out
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: last like ten days before, they're coming out in an
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: hour before. Kind of almost time it that way. But
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: then after the full moon, those ten days after, it
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: seems like it switched over to the mornings. There are
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a lot better, you know, those ten days going away
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: from it. So that's something I've really seen basically looking
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: at my pictures. It's not so much you know, I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: don't see any you know, on one or the other
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: between like the ten days going up to it, you know,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the evenings, you know, I say ten days out, it
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: might be coming an hour and a half, you know,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: early before you know, before sunset. And as you get
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: right to the full moon, that coming out just right
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: at last light. And then when you get the days
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: after the full moon, like in the morning, you know,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the evening you don't seem to be as good as
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the mornings all of a sudden, you know, right after it,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: they're just coming out, you know, there's still they're still
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: moving a little bit um. Right after they get ten
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: days away from it, it seems like they're on their feet,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you know, for you know, a good hour after after sunrise.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: So that's you know, the only thing I've seen mostly
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: looking at trail camera pictures a lot and not paying
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: attention so much just the buck just looking at eight
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: time movements. You know, if all the dos are on
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: their teeth. Likely the bucks are on their feet too,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: because they're just deer as well as does are. Um.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Of course, it's different from like you said, when all
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the doves come out early. He pretty you know, you
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: pretty much compat Hey, the bucks are going to come
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: out early two. But if your first dough comes out
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: at two minutes before it's before it's dark, you know
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: your bucks are not going to make it out. I
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: really pay attention to, you know, a lot of our pictures.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But that's you know, that's as I've been seen over
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and it's probably more with
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: it time the moon rises and sets rather than if
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's full or not. But you know, I said that
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that great hunts on on on all kinds of moon phases,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and and they asked him to look at it a lot.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It seems like whether kind of trumps everything. If it's
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: old there they're gonna be moving. But that's that's what
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I've seen, and I had never really paid that much
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: attention to it in the past, you know. Um, So
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: i'd be interesting to see what what Bill and Grant
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: have to say about it, because he's just in a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: patch up a year that's I've been noticing that. And yeah,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: so right after the full monhammy be hunt in the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: morning and hit concert mornings more and before him on
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the evenings. That's that's pretty consistent with, um, with what
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Mark Dury has shared with us about the same topic
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to that that's kind of what he's been seeing as well.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Some curious bill, you hunt in a similar area to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to Lee and Mark relatively, are you seeing similar types
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of behavior? I mean, I I think, Um, I'm gonna
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: sort of hid this one over to Grant after I
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: say my piece because I haven't paid enough attention to it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I guess, um I haven't. I've never felt like it
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: made a difference, you know, anecdotally just looking back on
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: my hunting experiences, so in a keen time to really
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: start focusing in on my trail cameras, I didn't pay
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: enough attention to it there to see any trends either. So, uh,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I don't have a good answer for you on this one,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: fair enough, So Grant the pressures on you now. It's
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: confusing to me because I want to believe in the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: moon really bad. But there's guys over ten thousand deer
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: now to have been fitted with GPS collars, and some
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: people have looked specifically researchers at this moon question, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: others have just kind of as an afterthought, go back
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and reanalyze your data. But to a study, at least
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the ones that's been published, no one has found a
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: correlation of declination. That's degrees north and south, the equator
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the moon goes, or phase of the moon, or distance
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the Moon has a liftical orbit, so distance from the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: surface of the Moon to the surface of the Earth.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: All those factors have been studied pretty deeply and no
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: one can find a relationship. So some really good hunters
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that I respect, Mark to rub In one of them,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and Jerry Martin at Bass pro Boy, I mean they
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: you know, they pretty much sept their deer hunting calendar
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: by the moon. And and I'm not saying those guys
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: don't have something figured out that scientists don't, but from
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a scientific point of view, there is no relationship between
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: deer activity and the moon period. I know. I just
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: got a lot of hate mail after that. One even
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't Brian me grant because I mean, for so many
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: years it never it never seemed like it made that
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: much difference, Like for me, I was looking at all
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: my camera pictures, daylight pictures, and he starts seeing some
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of that before the full moon and after more day.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: But that, you know, you don't know if that's just
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: coincidence or what. Because we're hunting, Like Bill said, I mean,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I'm fortunate to be able to hunt most of the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: days anyways, they don't really care if it's a full
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: moon or not. And it just you know, I've had
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: great hunts on some days and you know, um full
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: moons and terrible ones. But it seems like the deer
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I not like you go out one day and there'll
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: be deer out everywhere around all I feel daylight on
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the road place, yet like the very next day saying
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: weather conditions en thing, there's not a deer out at all.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But they all know it, it seems like. But yeah,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I can't really figure out what that is. Yeah, I
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: mean I've been I've been trying to find that switch
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: for I mean, once in a while we think we
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: can nail it, especially during the late season. But gosh,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: it just seems like you have one day like like
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: at least said that it'll be wide open and the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: next day it will be just dead and yeah, I haven't. Yeah,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: y'all look your way bigger bucks than I do. So
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I obviously can't explain it, but I M I'm puzzled
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: by it, and I think a lot of researchers are,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: but unequivocally based on all this GPS and we're talking
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: now millions and millions of locations, Weather is a way
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: any way you slice it. Weather is a way bigger
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the determinant a factor in in timing of deer activity
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: than the moon. Yeah, and it would be so convenient
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: if it was the moon, because then we could, you know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: plan ahead and you know, use a calendar. But weather, like,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it's Turkey season here in Missouri, and I didn't hunt
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: this morning, so well it's gonna be raining and I'm
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: gonna work today, and it was a pretty nice morning.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: The weather man lied to me. Again, we can't get
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it right twenty four hours out figuring out what's gonna
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: do in November. So but I think weather is absolutely
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the key in in the moon. If there is any relationship,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it's a shallow secondary relationship. I don't want to hijack
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: your panel, Mark, but but Grant, do you think or
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: have you seen anything with barometric pressure with those data points.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody wants to talk about that now instead
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of the moon, it seems like, but uh, that might
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: be a correlation that it fits better. Yeah, I think
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: there is. Bill. The problem is, there's there's so many
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: weather factors. You know, we have wind speed and barometric pressure,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and some of them are related obviously with fronts moving through.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So the bottom line is we have deer with GPS
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: colors to where we used to And what we found
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: was what I think most hunters know, right before the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: front and right after the front, or the prime times
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to be out there, and and just personal observation, the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: most daylight movement I've ever seen in my life. I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: mean just to a point I still remembered. It was
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: just unreal. Was I happened to be doing research on
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the coast of South Carolina foolishly when Hurricane Hugo came in,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: being a Missouri boy, and you know, I didn't know
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: what a class for hurricane was, so I stayed there.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: The local guys I it would be like a bad thunderstorm,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So I stayed there in the field. It was a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: horrible mistake, and and uh, the day, the day and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a half before that hurricane come ashore, there was just
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: mature bucks in the daylight everywhere. I've never seen a
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: thing like it since. And and the braminter dropped really
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: really low, a record for that county as a matter
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of fact, and dropped really low. And then clearly the
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: deer and dogs and squirrels everything I was observing since
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: that storm coming in, and it had more sense than
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I did because they were preparing for it and I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: was just out major and deer rubs. But um so
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I think the more extream the front probably the more
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: daytime behavior you will see. Yeah, continuing like they're called
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: cold high pressure days like late seasons is always good.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But I think, like grand said, it's on the front
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: because you get that high pressure aptive. But then that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: if you have like five or six, seven, eight days
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: of high pressure and cold weather, seemed like the deer
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: activity gets less and then then you get that change again,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: come out, came out to do with low pressure and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: heavier humidity, and boom they move again. It is seems
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: like just on the on the changes like on the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: fronts on the beforehand after him is always the best.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I think the changes are more important during the late
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: season and they are earlier in the season because yeah,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: we've been on a warm front. Sometimes it's been really cold.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. So continuing down this path of what maybe
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: gets dear to move and maybe time of year will
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: come into this next question, but we'll start with Bill.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: When do you on your farms, when do you start
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to see scrapes open up? And how focused are you
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: on hunting fresh sign My situation is by a little
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: bit different than than some people, but I'm sure they
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: start popping up sometime in September, maybe mid September here
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: we start to see the first fear along the field edges.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But I've never been a big sign hunter, right. I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: tried it for a while and tried to make sense
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of all of it, and I always got more and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: more confused because the pieces didn't always add up to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: make sense to me. So I started trying to figure
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: out how to hunt travel corridors and be really kind
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: of focusing on the path at least resistance for the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: deer and funnels and train features and stuff like that
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: that seemed like they were a little bit more predictable
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and and that's more of a rut sort of hunting strategies,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I think the early season. In late seasons, you know,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I think sign becomes a bigger part of that, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: especially fresh signed because of deer, it tend to be
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit more patternable outside of the run. But
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I mean that's been kind of my thing. I'm not
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a huge sign hunter, never really was, but if I
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: was going to focus in on sign, it would be
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: really early and probably late. So Grant, is there any
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: scientific fact or data to show that dear start scraping
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: at a certain time of year? No, I mean, as
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: as velvet comes off and testosterone levels increase, number of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: scrapes or time spent scraping increases, and it and it
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: stays high until testosterone levels dropped a little a certain threshold,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: which also triggers handler fall. But deer will use scrapes
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: year round, just to a much lesser extent. As far
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: as hunting sign, I joke all the time by my buddies,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: you know, like all up and say, man, I just
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: found this place. It's just covered with scats and tracks
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and straight And I said, unless you're hunting with your
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Brinkman spotlight, does that really matter? Because we're star typically
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: gonna be under feet more during the nighttime in a
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: in a hunted area, in the pressured area, and where
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you find the maximum amount of sign is rarely where
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: dey are going to be during daylight hours. Uh So
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: hunting the maximum amount of sign may not be a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: good plan. You know, late winter you've got to cut cornfield.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: There's all kind of tracks and scat out there, and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: it's probably some daylight activity. But I want to hunt,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to travel corridors to all that sign. I want to hunt.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Uh two places they're seeing the maximum amount of sign?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing on your farm's lead? I've same
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: as both of them. I mean it's wheny you mentioned that,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: because it's like you know, grammaker point to make the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: use grapestyle times the year. But are just checking cameras
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: this morning. I let's sign out with me. He was
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: taking the naps and put him in the ranger with me.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: We're taking chaking cameras once turkeys right now. But you know,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: because we have some of them still up on scrape.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: There's there's one of the scrapes that just hits. It
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: rained last night, was I hit this morning? So you
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: see them scraping us of the stuff that you know,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: all the times of the year, but I don't really
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: use them too much either, And like Grants, a lot
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: of this stuff is at night, especially like in October.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Once teas in November. You know that you never see
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: any of our big ones and paying any attention to
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the scrapes unless maybe they're in between those and stead
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: were walking by one. But I cheuse him a lot
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in October, just mostly for cameras. Um And just like
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Bill and Grant said, I aren't really paid. I don't
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: like hunt over um or home and there's a new
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: scrape over there, rugs, I gotta go hunt over there.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like we have our field that
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: scrapes that are just kind of community scrapes that every
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: book that comes in there hit them. So I got
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: cameras on a lot of them, and mostly just take
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: inventory of deer, you know, all that same deer. Here
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: is any new showing up, and I figured hunt them,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, we've got to travel borders
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and you know places that over the years you learned,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you know, okay, this is to come out to this
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: feel this is the way they're usually coming in, and
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you kind of know how to cut them a hotport
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: before before they get there. In a lot of cases,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: they you know, it came out in good camera light
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and stuff. But I mostly use those scrapes stuff just
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: for camera to take inventory of. Here I was figure,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I know, I know how pretty good idea how to
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: kill them and where to hunt him at. I just
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: need an inventory of them. And it looks great for
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that because, like rants aid, a lot of them, especially
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Octobers at night. But at least it gives me a
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: good indication of what my inventory is for camera use.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I use them a lot as far as cameras, but
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: not so much for hunting. How are they at all
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: for hunting? Yeah, that's consistent with what I do as
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: well and what we've heard from from a lot of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: people really over the past couple of years on this podcast.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: There seems to be this movement from you know, I
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was a decade ago or fifteen
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: years ago when scrapes were like all the rage and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the hunting media, and then more studies start to come
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: out showing that most of that use was after dark,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and now I think you're seeing more people either using
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: them primarily as as trail camera locations or I think
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people talk about those last couple
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of days of October. There seems to be an uptick
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: maybe in daylight visits possibly, Um, but it seems like
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: this is this is pretty consistent with most of the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: things we've been hearing. Now, I want to take uh
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: kind of want to pivot to a totally different aspect
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of hunting. We've talked about some interesting tactic things here,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: but I want to ask a slightly different kind of question,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: kind of reset the tone here, and we'll start again
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: with Bill. Bill, why do you hunt? No boy? Um,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I've just always loved it.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I guess that when I was a boy growing up. Um,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: it just got in my blood. And I don't know
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: that there's a if there's a reason for it really
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: other than you know, some people would put on earth
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to do certain things, and I feel like I was
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: put here to hunt. There's a couple other things. Think
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that you know that that my nature pretty well. But UM,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I never was able to
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: put any kind of uh, you know, words to that
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to that question when people ask, It's just I was
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: born to do it, and I'm sure there's a lot
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: of people that feel that way. It just fit. When
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I'm outside hunting something, that's when I feel, you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the best. So I guess that's funny answer. I think
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of people can relate. Grant, What do you
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: think why do you hunt? Yeah, I don't know if
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I have good words either. I I am probably most
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: alive and alert in feeling the whole when I'm hunting,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: when I'm when I'm acting as a predator. I guess, um,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: my senses are tuned up and I'm probably running on
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: all eight cylinders there. And if you if I'm on
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: a couch watching golf, I'm I'm snapping half the time
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm not running on all eight cylinders. So
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: hunting hunting to me, and I enjoyed a meat. I
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: enjoyed a wild game. My family readily tracing the girls.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: We consume what we harvest, and I mean it's not like, well,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: you know, that's the ethical thing to do. So I
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: guess I break up there and skin this dough out,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: need it. I mean, we look forward to it. That's
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: that's what we primarily consume as wild game. So, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of it is my my father
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: was a hunter. It's just a culture that I feel
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: comfortable with. And the men I admired when I was
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: a young boy were hunters and outdoors men, and so again,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: if we bill it just fits me, I would I
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: would be uncomfortable if you said, Grants, you're you have
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to go down to the wine and play basketball all
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: November this year, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be very happy.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Hamstring and hls do I have in my body that
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: all becore? What about same thing? I think if you
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: ask anyone private the same thing, and I don't hear anything,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: it was nothing learned or anything like that. I remember
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: as a kid, as far back as I can remember,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I had my grandfather was going to go geer hunting. Yeah,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know if there's two three or whatever age
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you can remember remember just sitting by the window for
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: hours every day waiting for him to come back to
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: see if they if they had if they had shot
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: one of which is up in northern Minnesota, so they
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: rarely did. There were very few geer back then, ums
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: not so many now. But you know if somebody a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: shot one, I mean I was out there has a
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: toy gun and and I was shooting and hunting ever
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: since I can remember. I mean, all my sisters and
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: relative and a manic kid is nuts gets soon as
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I'd sleep in my uncle Mickey's room up and up
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: in northern Minnesota because it was it chased the east
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and seeing the until a man I had my baby gun.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I was always like my grandpa said, you can shoot
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: any of the birds you want and out the purple
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Martins because you like those. Then they still stacked purple
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Martins that cord with the kind of barns and up
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: feasing so he wouldn't see him. But I just just
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: ever as I can remember, just hunting. Something like Bill
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and Grant said, I mean, it's just where you feel
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: most alive. And you know, it's not something that you
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: learned or anything of that, it's just who you are. Um.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And I've always been that way. I always have, you know,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: like I always tell people, as man, I can't even
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: my sisters have five sisters and some of them hunting out,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: but then you know they never did when I was
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: growing up. And man, I just can't believe that all
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you ever think about is hunting. You know, every job
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that I had, the college I went to work classes
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that said everything just surrounded around hunting first, and then okay,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I'll take these classes. I can go in the morning
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and the evening, you know, and just worked everything around
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and in the job that I had when I was
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: a chemical engineer and took it because he would I
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: get on shift and I could have seven days off
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: every month, and I could line up my two weeks
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of vacation with my week off, and then they could
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: have the whole month in November off and in the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: first two days about of December. There's always about that.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: My sisters would always be a man. Yeah, as you
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: ever think about hunting, if you have a lot of
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: those started, you don't have something like that because I
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: could never be us. That can never be you know, unhappy.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I'm always thinking ahead, Okay, what this this season that's
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: coming up. You're always always excited about something, you know. Now,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you know, just shid hunting just kind of wrapped up
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: with shed hunting. But now you know, okay, now you
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: got turkey hunting. But you know, I'm still looking at
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: all the pictures, you know, the deer just starting to
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: get big tennis balls on their head. You started looking
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: by may you know, I know half the deer already
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: just from their browd times and stuff. So you're always
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: excited about you know, looking forward to it. And it's
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: it's just a way of life. I mean, it's it's
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: it's it's been the most important thing to me ever
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: since I was a kid, and not something we learned
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: or anything. It just it was to just happen that way. Yeah,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: same here. I I I don't know. It's hard for
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: me to tell my wife why I love hunting so
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: much because she's not a hunter. So I just have
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: to tell her trust me. Got just trust. So changing
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: changing gears back to maybe managing property or a way
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to keep um deer on the property that you hunt,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: grant in your opinion, what is the single best way
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: to keep a mature buck on a property that maybe
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: you control? Oh well, I failed at that. If you
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: watch the show, We've had several of our prime hitlist
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: bucks tagged by neighbors lately. So maybe a Bill and
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: League can tell me with this one. I'm not sure,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: but of course deer, you know, deer want food, cover, water,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and and and I think maybe there's some misunderstanding. The
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: biggest motivation for deer is not the rut or food.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: It's survival. So fear is our biggest motivator. And so
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I think sanctuaries are probably the easiest tool. You don't
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: really have to do anything, you know, just let a
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: pasture grow up or something get weedy, or you know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, or just just stay out of an area.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Just stay out of an area, and deer will adapt
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to that being a safety zone. And even if you're,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you know, a guy hunting eighty acres and it seems like,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: how could I possibly do that? But if if you
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: if you've got it in you, you know, flag off
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: twenty acres millions say we're just not going in there,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and hopefully you'd locate that twenty acres strategically. But you'll
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: be shocked at how deer will use that. And and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: I'll just share, not to borrow in the science, but
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: a brief thing to colleagues of mine do some work
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: down in Georgia and where coyotes are really a problem
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: right now, And they took four areas and put a
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: kyote proof fence around it, buried in the ground of
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: foot and up four ft tall, and it serminated all
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the coyotes that happened to be in those disclosures when
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: they finished them and had a bunch of GPS collar
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: deer in the area. And it was amazing even to me,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: how quickly dear since that was an area of safety,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: that that there were no deer, no coyotes in there,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and centered their home range and even lived the majority
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of time inside those hundred acre fences. And that's just
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: an illustration of how important it is security cover or
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the need to survive for deer. So I think a
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: lot of people hunt every acre their property, and if
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: they would carve off a couple of sancs wharies, they
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: could probably do a lot better and hunt the edges,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: sanctuaries or travel corridors coming out of them and see
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: some daylight activity just because deer feel secure. What do
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: you think about that one, Bill Well, I think that
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Grant hit the a really good point that I'll elaborate
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: on real quick. But if you have a big property,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you don't need sanctuaries as much as you do if
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: you have a small property, and the people who are
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the least likely to want to have one of the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: ones who need it the most. You know, if you
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: know the situation of somebody would stay a thousand acres
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and they hunt the whole season. There's probably parts of
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: that property that because the wind swirls or for one
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: reason or another, they just don't hunt there. It might
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: be twos or whatever it is. There's probably going to
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: be places that they rarely get to. Whereas if you've
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: got the guy with the smaller piece of property, he
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: feels like he has to have fans in every part
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of it or he's going to burn them. Each stand out.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: But it's by concentrating his energies into a smaller area
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: that that pushes the deer out. So it's just the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: opposite of what most people think. You're smaller, the property
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: is a more important. They aren't. What about you, Lee, Um, yeah,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I mean this this one is a little bit, a
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: little bit different. You know. I noticed that, Like we
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: have a feeder out at Linda's at Tookey's mom's house,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: right in front of her yard, in front of our
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: fifty yards from our from our front door, and you know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you know it's right away when we put it there.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: You get some deer out there in two in the morning,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: or somebody you walk by the window, you know, deal
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: with run and now it's just been five or six years.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: You know, you can she can drive in, we can
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: drive our cars and they in the bucks lane right
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: or yard by it. They don't pay attention to it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: You know, how many of them are out in daylight
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and we can let our dogs out and they know
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: gou cloth the bathroom. They know not to shape deer
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: deer don't you know, they move away from the feed
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: or other but then they come right back to it.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: It's amazing the difference that you've see. And it's no
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: different really than deer in suburbs or anything else. It's
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: not that they're they don't get any human intrusion. There's
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: humans all all the time time. I think it's just
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: more that they have, you know, human intrusion all the time,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and they never bothered them, so they get to be
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you know, they get to be used to it. And
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and we never never set up our farms
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: that way or anything. But I just started thinking about
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: it and I was like, I think that's why we
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: have uh so much success of like shooting a lot
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of our old deer, you know, in broad daylight, not
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: being right at the end, and a lot of them
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: right on our fields because at the grant's point are
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: it went to the view have a thing for and said, yeah,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: or timber, but like the only time I really go
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: in there is shed season, and then of course you've
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: got nine months of you know, not really being in
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: there um for him to settle back down from that.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: But on the on the flip side of that, I
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: mean our fields almost every day, you know, checking camera,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the checking the field, their plant numbers, seeing how they're
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: doing our springs whatever. And then a lot of people
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: can't do that right for us, and we live right
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: here in the twelve months of the year and then
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and then east one of our fields, you know, at
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: least twice a week, you know, whenever we're home them
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: checking cameras or checking the fields or doing whatever. And
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: then when we get their hunting season. For fortunate, you
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: know that we have you know, quite a few farms
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: that we hunt, so it's not like I have to
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: pound any one of them, so you kind of hunt
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: them in the same way, you know, like twice a
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: week you're in there, and so over a twelve months period,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: our deer just it never changes for them. And I
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: think that's why a lot of our success we have
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: in our fields. Um is that because even us going
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: in and going out, even though we can't get in
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: there and get out all the time, like with without
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: what I'm seeing you, they're used to us being in there,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: and they've run to the edge of the woods and
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: then they come right back out. And so to Grant's point,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: our our woods are basically are sanctuary. Not that we
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: don't have some We have, you know, quite a few
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: stands that are up step for rut and all that stuff,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: but a lot of when we get a new farm,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: they'll take me two or three years to figure out
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: where to get a stand in the timber, because it
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: just takes those years of shed hunting. Okay, where are
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the doughs bedding? Where can I get I don't want
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the dose to bed around on top of me. Then
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I can't get out. But every time you go in there,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: even if you don't see anything, it's like you're putting
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: your sent down there. Even if you didn't see a deer,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I think, Okay, I got in and I got out clean.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: But the next year that walks by that six hours
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: later knows you've been there. So you really can never
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: get in and out clean. So I said, not that
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: we don't go, you know, in there and during the
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: ruts and stuff, because we do, but ent of our
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: deer with shootings on the steel that people will be like, man,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: you shoot all you do on the edge of the field. Yep.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Because and part of that is dus is I have
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: a time to you can all catch them in those
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and not necessarily big fields, but we have so many
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: little food clots that we dozed in and stuff that
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: are in the middle of a timber that are secluded something.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: The deer feel comfortable in those. But I just said
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I would wait him out, you know, I'll get one
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: of our big ones in those fields. And we always do.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: But I think a lot of it is, you know,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: we used to write articles and he's talk about, hey,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: no pressure, keep that pressure off. But to me, it
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: seems like not necessarily less pressure, but more consistent pressure
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: throughout the entire year. The deer know me. I mean,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: they know my truck, they know my rangers, and I
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: go in there. It's the cameras chuck stuff. A lot
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: of times the deer runder the edge of the field
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: and they'll stand there and feed. They don't even run
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: out of the field while I'm there and then come back.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: And then a lot of times I'm putting out you know,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: minerals or from in the summertime. Here we can run
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: feeders and and I do, and not necessary not to
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: feed deer. I mean, all of my feeders are on
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: food plot, so there's plenty of food in them. But
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of times again just for cameras to get
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: an inventory of deer, like on a feedter, have some
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: corn up with some sugar, be crush or something in
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: there that you know that they really like. So they'll
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: come over seems like every night and they take a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: few bites of it before they go back on to
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the field. That that make me take good inventory of it.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: But even when I'm there, you know, I'm checking out,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: check this time, or make sure it works, and it's
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: it's a corner and stuff. So they you look at
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: your cameras and five minutes after you're gone, dere around
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: if you check, if you hit the button on it
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and spun the feeder or whatever, and you know, so
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: we're just around them all and they get used to
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: us being there in the fields. But now in the
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: timbers at least if they can run into the edge
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: of the timber. There'll just stay right there and come
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: back out because they're going into the timber, and then
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: they can start running out onto our neighbors. And they've
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: been very surprised. And over the years, I mean, we
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: lose very few deer to neighbors, and we've been losing
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of them the h D lately, but not
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: to neighbors. Sometimes you'll lose your two or three year
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: olds of this young once. Once we get them past
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: like the fourth they've become so much more homebodies here,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: you know, four and five, we hardly ever lose them.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And but we try to keep you know, lots of
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: food and lots of cover, and we just started working
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: on we've been working on that really a lot over
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the past few years of gains cutting and making sure
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I guess you know, stick stick timber and there, you know,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: lots of downfalls and tree tops and you get the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: sunlight in there and grow up the bottom where they've
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: got security covering there. But we just try to stay
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: out of it. All of our timber for the for
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the most part, and just the fields they're used to
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: us being there when we're going into hunt out hunt.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, they see you and they run off,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: but then they just come back out and it's not
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: like I like we used to, you know, going in
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the timber ok bag act have a perfect you know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: get in and get out scenario and was spooking anything
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: and walk the creek bottoms and all that kind of stuff.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: When I've spent all year in those fields, I don't
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: need to do that. So it's really become you know,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you see like on Linda's feeder, how you how you
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: notice that you know, at first deer would never come
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: in there, And now we we love going over. We
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: don't hunt anywhere around her house because we just love
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: seeing deer, say as much as we do hunting them.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: You just see a hundred and seventy and deer laying
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: in her yard. You can drive in with your car
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and they'll stay there, and you know, you can walk
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: in the house. They might get up and move a
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: little bit, but they're just just like you know, deer
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: in the suburbs that live in people's yards, and they're
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: bettered in their driveways and the things that you're used
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: to people being there. And I think that's really why
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: we've had a lot of success on our food bots
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: up that were in there a lot, and they're used
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: to us being in there, so even going in and out,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: it's not moving them onto your neighbors. But it's consistent
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: pressure over twelve months of the year. It's not like
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: you're totally out of there and you order Wisconsin. You know,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: when the gun season opens, day two is definitely different
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: than day one. That you bet you know, ten months
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of nobody in a lot of those places and all
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you've got a thousand people and that
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: they know something is different for our deer. I thank
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: you go in there in July. We're going there in November.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: The deer don't all the difference. It's always the same.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: So that's what what I've been seeing on our places
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: is that just our timber is basically are sanctuary and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: more not necessarily pressure, but more present during over the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: whole twelve month period where it never changes and it's
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: worth great for us. And that's I'm not sure if
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: that's exactly why, but that's my theory on why we're
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: getting these you know, five and six year old deer
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: out at three in the afternoon. You know, with you're
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: not someone just that last light like they used to,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: but they're used to us being there twelve months of
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the year, so it's not freaking them out when we're
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: going in out and hunting those fields. So yeah, that's
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: that's pretty It's very interesting and so unique compared to
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: what we hear in a lot of different instances. And
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I want to give you a fault question on that,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: but first I believe Bill, you did need to drop
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: off now right, I'm gonna drop in about five minutes,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: so I guess you've got one one more for me.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: I'll hit that and when i'm gonna, I'm gonna have
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: to get going perfect. Well, then I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: bring this to you because you know, Lee, the circumstances
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: you line you laid out there were really interesting, and
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that before when we talk to you a
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: year or so ago, and a lot of people like
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: questions about this, and they're wondering, you know, does this
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: work in other places? Could this work on my kind
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: of place? And I'm curious to to you, Bill, now
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: hearing you know what Lee described that works in his
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: type of situation. Have you seen anything like that happened
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: where you hunt? Could you see this working in other
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: situations too well. I think that, uh, I mean, we
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: do take advantage of the same type of behaviors slightly differently.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of houses around my hunting area, and
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: I think that I pulled it up on the map
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: one time and there's twelve houses that make contact with
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the property that I hunt from different corners and sides
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: and across the road, and you know, whatever the case
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: may be, there's a lot of human activity and that's
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: very typical, non threatening human activity that the deer used
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: to So I do take advantage of that, especially to
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and from my tree stands and trying to find places
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: to park. The the situation that we have is is,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: you know, on a still morning, let's say, and then
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: run a gravel road and you pull down that gravel
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: road and you park. I mean, every deer within a
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: quarter of a mile or maybe even further heard the
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: rocks trunching under your tires. They know you stopped. Um,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: they're just waiting for the next you know, foot to drop. Basically,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: they know something's up. But if you pull into somebody's driveway,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: even if the dog starts barking and you slam a
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: couple of doors. They don't even lift their heads up
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: and look because they're used to normal human activity there.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: So I do a lot of park in a lot
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of my neighbor's driveways. Um if they're out cutting firewood
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: or something like that, you know, I'll drive, you know,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: right back in there and make some noise and you know,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: do my scouting or whatever. I mean. I take full
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: advantage of the normal human activity because the deer are
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: used to that as being non threatening. Um. So that's
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: really identical to what least been seeing. Our deer aren't
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: probably quite as um um used to that throughout the year,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: is maybe what leads are because I'm not sure what
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I'm out on the farm, probably quite as much as
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: what he is. But the the other thing that I
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: will agree with him on is I'm a fringe hunter.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: And I get criticized by the people that come to
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: our website and watch our videos all the time about
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you know how call me out back in the timber
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: in the mornings and you know, and and I'll be
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: hunting a certain deer and they'll all have, you know,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of different reasons why I'm not killing him,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: but usually it centers around the fact that I'm not
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: being aggressive enough, and we could go on and on
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: about that, and I don't want to tie up your
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: whole your whole program with that topic. But um, when
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: it seems like I've learned the hard way is if
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: you stick to the fringes and you're consistent with that
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: style of hunting, you may not have those really awesome days,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: but you're not in there educating a bunch of deer either.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: And and uh, you know you're gonna have those rout
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: days back in the middle of the timber someplace where
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: it seems like every buck is on his feet running
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: past to you. And yeah, that's great, But for every
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: one of those, it seems like you have, you know,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: two or three days where you try to pull it
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: off and all you do is you you bust a
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: few deer, or like Li says, they pick up your
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: scent on the ground, and now there's two of us,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: you know, with the camera going in as well, so
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: now you've got twice as much spent on the ground. Um,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it's just really hard to get away with that type
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of hunting. But if you can hunt the fringes, you know,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: brush defence lines between two patches of timber and stuff
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: like that where it's kind of surgical you can get
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: in and out fairly clean. Um. I just feel like
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: you just put your time in, like Li said, and
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: over the courses of you know, a period of week,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: you know you end up being successful. But again, you know,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: we don't really hunt in the real world either. Um,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the guy that's got a weekend, you know, a couple
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: of weekends to hunt and maybe you know, four or
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: five days a vacation during the ruts, you know, it
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: might make more sense for him to dive right in
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: because you know the fact that he's right deer may
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: not be as big of a deal as what it
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: is for us, because you know, we can still hunt
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: that deer a week later where that guy is going
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: to be back at work or whatever. So anyway, that's
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: that's my thought. I don't have the deer condition quite
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: quite as well as as what Lee does, but I
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: do believe in what he's saying. Awesome, well, Bill, thank
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: you for joining us and for for making this work
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: with her schedule. Yeah, my my pleasure and good luck
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: guys with the rest of the session here. And I'd
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: love to be able to listen to what you have
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: to say, so when when, when this thing airs, I'll
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: pull up the rest of it and listen to it. Yeah,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: and these these are the softballs, Grant at least, so
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: now you guys get the tough stuff about so So,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: continuing on that question, though, I just want to get
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: your thoughts, Grant. You know you hunt, Bill and Lee
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: are both primarily hunting in Iowa. You're down in Missouri.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Do you think this idea of of consistently conditioning you're
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: dear to a certain level of pressure. Can that work
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: in other states other than kind of this this Iowa
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: slightly different microcosm than the rest of maybe the rest
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: of the country in the northeast or the south. Can
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: that happen there too? Or is that unique? I think
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: it can. I'm not sure it does. I mean, you know,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I'm in the southern os Arcs and we kind of
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: take it a step further. At least a lot of
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: my neighbors here, if it's brown, it's down, and they
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: add that year round part to it. So I think
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: my dear kind of condition to year round threats. It's
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: kind of like a war zone here literally. Uh so, uh,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: we're on the property, you know, I'm I love food plots,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: love joke cameras up dry fire. We're on the property
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: every single week, and and it's still after owning the
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: property for fourteen years. It's a pretty sizable property. So
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: you think we get some dear condition to it. And
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: if me or an employer or a wife or kids
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: see a deer on the property, I mean literally see
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: a deer, it's still conversation at supper. So our deer
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: are living fear and it's a good thing. I'm known
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: for management and food plots versus being a big buck
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: killer because I couldn't do it here. I killed a
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: five year old last year and it was the first
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: time I'd ever seen that dear stepping true camera pictures.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: I knew him well, but I've never seen him until
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: he made a mistake and stepped out. So I think conditioning.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: I think everyone's right here. It's just conditioning can go
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: two ways. It can be positive or negative, and you
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: can condition dear to you know, feeders it. Let's take
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: this one step further. Really recently, like three years ago, Georgia,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: State of Georgia legalized feeding in a big part of
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: the state, it being illegal before and they legalized it.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: So it was so modern that a lot of guys
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: were able to step some really good research and they
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: looked at harvest success per hour, how many hours it
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: took for the average unit to tag a buck before
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: legalized feeding, during the first year of legalized baiting or feeding,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: and then year two and three after legalized feeding baiting,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: and it was pretty predictable. So the first year of
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: legalized feed the deer hasn't been in conditioned to avoid them,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: and harvest rates went up. Everyone's like, oh, my guys,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: this is we finally can you know do all other
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: states doing? But year two and three, especially mature deer,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: they learned to associate those feed sites with danger if
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: you're hunting over them, and they absolutely start avoiding them
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: in daylight hours. So here I am. It's in Missouri.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: It's illegal to to have any kind of feed out
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: during deer season if you hunt the area. And several
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: of my neighbors quite candily have been busted for hunting
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: over bait and they can whip me. I can spend
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: my kids college at ocation on making food plots, and
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: my neighbor can buy five bags of corn and because
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: there's not enough baiting in the area for dear to
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: really associate that with danger. It's an extremely effective tool.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: And I have begged the state either start patrolling that
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: more or make it legal for everyone, make it a
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: level playing field, because any anybody can go, you know,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: right during season, go by a hundred dollars or less
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: of corn and literally slaughter deer because they're not conditioned
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: to avoid that during daylight. Don't don't have me fear
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: with it yet, because it's such a somewhat rare event
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: versus states that have legalized feeding those deer to get
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: pretty educated pretty quick. Boy, if I go there in daylight,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: I hear thunder really loud, Mama flops over, notne move anymore.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Not a good thing. So I think deer very conditional,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: and it just depends on what the circumstances are whether
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: it's a positive or negative for the hunters. So the
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: next question that I have is kind of in regards
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: to concentrating deer into a specific area. Now, a lot
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: of people there's kind of a trend for those people
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: who hunt on their own property and are able to
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: manage a specific piece of property. Um, you know, the
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: whole goal is to manage a property to hold a
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: healthy herd, and typically that means more numbers on a
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: per acre let's say, dear per acre than an unmanaged property.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna pass this to grant To to ask
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the question, do you feel that sickness or disease is
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: more likely to spread on a managed property solely based
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: off deer numbers. I've really been in some deep conversations
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: with some world leading epidemiologists or guys that stay disease lately.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: I think we're all kind of hitting around the edge
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: of c w D and what's gonna happen here and
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: have some great discussions, and you know, there's a pros
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: and the cons and I'm a thirty thousand foot view guys.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: So in so of these discussions, I've pointed out that
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: the largest known cases or places where we have the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: highest incident rate of CWD are in southern Wyomi with
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: mule deer, specifically mule deer, but mule deer and elk
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: On National Force, where for decades and decades it's been
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: illegal and culturally unacceptable to put out any type of
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: mental bait, and yet CWD is the most rampant there
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: may of fact in one mule deer heard it's decreasing
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: by nineteen percent a year. Then take a rocket scientist
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: to figure out that in our lifetime. Soon there'll be
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: no mule deer in that area. By the way, the
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: number one cause of death isn't actually the CTBD taken down,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: but as they become slightly showing external signs of CBD,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: mountain lions wipe them out. Predators are so keen at
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: picking up any sign that that deer is weak or
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: unable to avoid predation, and and these mountain lines are
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: tipping over mule deer out there like crazy, and you know,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: they find the carcass and do the testing and and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: they're almost a hundrecent positive CWD. So concentrating deer with
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: food plots or even feed or minerals to date has
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: not been positively shown to increase the spread of CTBD.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: It seems like it might, because you're just like, you know,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the kids with the dirty toy at kindergarten, and and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: you know, one kid sobbers on the fire truck and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Johnny picks up and then he gets sick too. So
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: it seems likely but hasn't been proven. On the other hand,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: that the biggest body weights and the healthiest deer and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the in the biggest antlers and the highest fond production.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Any way you want to maas your deer herd health
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: come off managed properties. Whether that's Southern, typically it's the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: dividing lines kind of a Southern Midwestern things. So if
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: it's Southern, somebody's managing it or playing food pots to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: prescribe for our weather, or if it's you know where
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Lee and Bill lived in the whole places of food pot.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Basically amainst Aggfield's commercial agg is feeding a deer herd,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: and those zeros certainly concentrated in those areas. So our
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: biggest body weights, the highest fond recruitment rates, the largest
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: and our development are coming from managed properties. It's pretty
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: hard to argue that that's bad. Is that a double
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: edged sword? Though? I mean, if if diseases, if disease
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: can be spread through higher herd numbers, but also at
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: the same time you can have a healthy herd, is
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: that kind of a double edged sword. Well, let's backed
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: up again if we're talking CTBD, because the only disease
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: that really matters is CWD e h D. Epics of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the Kimragi disease is certainly hurt some people. In two
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: thousand and twelve, we lost it. We do real intense
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: survey work here and we lost a third of our
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: deer herd. I got my wife is a huge shed hunter,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: and got the dog trained for sheds whatnot. And I
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: got so sick of her bringing in school so I
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: would that year I was just so tired of. Normally
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: I love it as she finds the occasional school and
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: certainly applaud all the shed antlers she finds. But that
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: year I got so tired of. You know, there's Bernie,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: there's Big Rack eight, there's whoever. She she drug in
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: a truckload of skulls that year, which is unfortunate. Uh,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: But that disease comes and goes. And we've known about
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: it for over five decades or some new strains out
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: there basically brought in from ticks off at xotic pets
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: carrying those carriers. So that's pretty trackable. CTBD is a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: big unknown. And and in Dakotas and in South Dakota,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: the deer herd state deer coordinator out there was a
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: meeting with him somewhat recently and he was talking about
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin having a goal of reducing deer down to thirty
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: deer per square mile, trying to slow to spread the CWD,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and he just overtly laughed in the meeting and says,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: guysh guys, in the western part of our state, we
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: dream of getting up to ten deer for square mile.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: That's our goal to finally build our population up to
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: ten deer square mile. And that's also currently where we
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: have the highest and fastest spread to c w D.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't look like it's very density dependent. Again,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: this is this is real world evidence, not you know,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: textbook stuff. This is where the rubber hits the road.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: So the bottom line is there's so many unknowns for
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: people to be making big claims about this right now.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Is just you know, I'll go on record saying this
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: is unfounded. We just don't know. There's so many unknowns
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: that it's unfounded and spooky. It's I live in the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: county that borders Arkansas, and two months ago Arkansas was
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: c w D free. Now I believe they've identified over
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: a one positive c WD deer and a relatively small area.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: They went from not on the radar to potentially a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: hotter spot than Wisconsin and so states that are going
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: around saying well, we don't have much promise D or
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: we don't know. I would challenge them to look at
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: their testing because if you don't test, you won't know,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: you won't find an intensity of testing has a huge,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: huge factor of of what you're gonna find out there.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Lead do you on the farms that you hunt, do
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: you have any experience with c w D or any
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: other sickness? Um not c w D. That's you know,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I think of just the last a couple of years
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: is like the first cases of c w D even
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: in Iowa that I've heard of, I think was just
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. And they haven't, you know,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: down in any drastic against it like they did in Wisconsin.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: They know this eradicate in the whole county. Who are
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: at the stuff in that I think, as I've been
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: turned to me, that didn't make a whole lot of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: stan um. I'm not sure that it's just like granted,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's high density areas or anything like
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: that that that cause it. So we're wiping out your
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: gear herds that you know because of a coup cases
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: of CWD just didn't make that much sense to me.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad we haven't done they haven't done that
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: here in Iowa. But you know, we've had h D
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: now in the past, you know, three of the last
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: four years, but you know that's kind of drought dependent,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: and those were you know, we had this situation. You know,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: last year. I thought it was gonna be great. We
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: had so much rain all early and into and into
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: the summer, and I thought, Okay, it's gonna be great,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, d h D again this year,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and then Elson stopped raining in July and and and
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: never rained again, almost fifty days all the way through.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: And there we had it again. I mean, with your
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: grant on the on the I'm just sitting outside now,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at the pile of skulls I have here
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: and there, and I don't even pick them up anymore.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: There's so many of them. I just I leave them
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: and I'm just say, well, maybe up the next year,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: because you know, I don't want to pick up in
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: the green skulls anyway. We have to get a Salvis
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: take and I do on some of them, you know,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: from our game ward and if they're you know, ones
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: that are specific deer that have been chasing or a
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: little big ones or somebody. Most of them. I don't
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: even bother him up any optics next year into it,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: but I'm literally hundreds. I mean, we we've lost a
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: lot of deer. D Like, if you were to ask
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: me five or seven years ago, how many five year
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: old plus tear do you think you have on your farms?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: It's probably fifty to seventy I mean all of our farms.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're getting too many because you know, you're
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: just you know, that's where I had a lot of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: my friends stuff coming in hunting, because we had like
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: a five six year old deer that was, you know,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: not a great genetic deer. So you know, you're hunting
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: other ones, and then just so many of them stack
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: and then they start pushing other good younger deer opposite.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: It's like, man, how do we even get rid of
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: these things? Pretty soon the farm is filled with you know,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: crappy genetic you know, old deer moving everything else off.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: So we had to start bringing everybody's in it, and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: they else. You shoot some of those. But now this year,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: I'll bet you I can count on one hand almore.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe a little more than that, but maybe
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: ten ten deer that I figure over five years old
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: this year. So I mean it's not them, it's not
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: the way down. You know, still a lot of deer.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: You know. I'll go out and you know that this
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: past winter and I see a hundred deer in the field,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: you know, big corn field that we had standing stale
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: or whatever. They'd still be thirty bucks out there, but
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: maybe one four year old and some threes and two
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: all young deer and our old ones are just gone. Um,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: so that h D is really taking this tool. But
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not an expert on it. Maybe Brant
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: can talk about it more. But my understanding it's from
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: a midge that you know, when they could they get
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: bitten by and especially when it's dry. You know, all
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: of our creek beds and our ponds lower way down
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and got that explode. We have muddy bottom creeks here,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: and it's my understanding that they lay in that mud
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: that makes some cool, you know, and the summer like that,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: and that's where that stagnant waters that when they thread
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: stop flowing, that's where you know the mostitos and midges
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: and everything like that. Hats, so they're just more susceptible
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: to it. But you know, we have had you know,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: three of the last four years have been drought years,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: at least into the late season when they get effect
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: good by it. So I'm assuming that's what it is,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: more weather dependence and deer numbers or anything like that,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: because our dear numbers still are still still a lot
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: of beer. But just it seems like our older bucks
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: and and you see them, that's not like it's affecting
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: older bucks. I'm assuming that that bucks are just staying
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: bachelor groups of one gets it, you know, like we
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: can wipe out all of them, but they're just such
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: a smaller percentage of all the deer. Like and if
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: you wiped out, okay, you can take fifty mature bucks
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: and fifty dolls. Now you don't even notice it in
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the dough numbers. So I think, maybe just notice it more.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: But maybe Grant can expand on that more because I'm still,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: you know, tending my head against the wall over here.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: What I can do about it. It doesn't seem there's
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: a lot you can do better than maybe spraying for
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: those midget or something. But then you've got two hundred
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: miles the creek bottoms on your farms, and how do
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: they do it? I think you're rightly. I agree with
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: everything you said. I'll add and I want to very
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: much clarify. I'll do it probably beginning middle new And
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: this is is a theory, warning theory, but several of
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: us scientists kind of agree with it. So this is
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: a minute. It doesn't go dear to deer. It has
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: to go through it actually a biting fly and the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: fly bites a deer. If you look at the microscope,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: it's like a horror Movie's got these giant teeth for
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: its body size, and you know, and it bites an
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: affected deer and then it bites another deer and some
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: of that infections on its teeth, so it gives it
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: an injection basically. So it's going dear to deer through
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: these boding flies and a drought deer going through the
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: limited water supplies. So that's where the flies are. They
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: lay their eggs in the mud. As the water level
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: goes down, there's more breeding habitat for these flies. And
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: you could spray, but no one can cover all the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: ponds and cow tracks everything else that's holding just a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: little bit of water. So that's people have tried that,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: and I've never heard of a success story scientifically or
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: otherwise about that. And but the theory is again warning,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: here's the theory. Do flies want to bite through a
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: thick hair of coat of hair because they want to
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: go to the blood. They want to blood meal they're getting.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: They bite the deer to get a blood meal. That's
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: why they bite them, or they want to go to
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: the really richest form of blood that time year, which
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: is a velvet antler, and a larger velvet antler is
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: a lot easier for flies to get to. And and
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: so when the original studies literally four decades ago on
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: E h D, there was no difference in gender of mortality.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: Males and females died at equal rates. I'm not aware
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: that that study has been repeated in modern times. But
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: when you know, we're now managing for these older age
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: structure of bucks and a lot of areas, and you've
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: got a lot more bucks with big antlers out there.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: And if I'm a fly and I'm trying to get
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: an easy blood meal, I'm certainly gonna go to a
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: big antler buck. It's a lot easier to bite through,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: you know, really short velvet than long deer hair, and
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: mature bucks maybe more vuln morble to e h D
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: than other younger bucks or does and last time, this
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: is theory. Warning, this is theory, but on a lot
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: of my clients land in northern Missouri and southern Iowa
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: were e h D is just but I mean, it's
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: just been horrible last few years. We're finding a disproportionate
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: amount of mature deer, mature bucks. That's the first I've
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: heard of that. But it's it makes a lot of
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: sense and some interesting implications from that. Uh if it
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: if it ever is proven, if that test, you know,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: if a test is redone and looked at, that's that's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: pretty fascinating. Um, that doesn't mean, let me stay up front,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean we don't manage for mature bucks because
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: mature bucks are gonna die. Lee knows. They're really rare anyway,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: that's why we all love them, crave I'm seeing them.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: They're really rare. And and we've kind of had a
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: string of odd weather. Doesn't mean it's going to continue. Uh,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: And and so it's not a reason for anyone not
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to manage for mature bucks. It just means that every
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: now and then we're gonna lose some. If in fact
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: that there is true, it may not even be true. Yeah,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: I mean if we find a lot of doughs and
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: and smaller bucks too, but you know, you don't really
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: pay too much attention to them. But it's sure funny,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: you know when we were just doing this, you know,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: when I was shed on this year driving and four
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: wheel around people woods and stuff complace that just know
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: that's talentting that man, there's like a bone yard out there,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: but anywhere you goose white bones everywhere that four years,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, it's some pretty devastating and
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of those aren't just ture bucks and a
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: lot of I mean there's a lot that's just there's
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of doughs out there too, and you know
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: some some smaller bucks too, But it seems like mostly
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: my bigger ones and then a lot of doughs and
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: and that it's just me. I'm just not finding a
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: lot of young group bucks. Um. I mean some here
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: and there, but not not as many as like my
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: bigger ones. I don't know the thy do that could
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: just be they might be just as many of them
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: dead too, that you just don't find all of them.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: They're not all on your property, you know, so you
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: know one could off your property. A lot of the
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: big ones just disappear and you used assume they're dead,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: but you know, maybe not. But you know they can
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: get off your property pretty easy too, and they don't have,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the option of going wherever I want to,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: so you know, I just find what's on it's on honors.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: But you know, I hope that whether straightens out. But
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: just like what has been crazier and crazier every year,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: some more extremes on droughts and rains and everything else,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: but hopefully get out of that weather pattern and keep
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: back into the wet, normal weather patterns, because it's has
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: devastated my older deer, that's for sure. And it's not
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: like hunting mature bucks isn't tough enough without disease issues.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: So so so on that topic, you know, related to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: the hunting of mature bucks, I think most of us,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if things speak for everybody, but most
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: of us. When we started deer hunting, we started just
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: trying to shoot any deer, and then once we were
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: able to shoot eight deer. Then it was once you
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: another few more dear and more dear, and then eventually
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: some of us decided that we wanted to start targeting
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: mature bucks. So my question, and I'm gonna send this
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: to you leave first, is whenever you decide to make
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: that switch to targeting mature bucks, what was your greatest
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: challenge related to that? And then what was the lesson
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: the greate lesson you learned to help you overcome that
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: when you're first starting to target mature bucks. Well, I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: think it's I don't know that it was necessarily a decision. Hey,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna target mature bucks. I think it's just
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: like anything you naturally get to the point, you know,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: if you're competitive at all, it's just like, Okay, now
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: I got one. That's a I got my first buck.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I named you my first buck till I was, you know,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: eighteen years old. I mean I hunted my whole life
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: up in northern Minnesota, and they just you know, with
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the wolves and the snow went about that, they just
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: weren't many deers. So I mean for twelve years that
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: I hunted, I didn't see twelve years, you know, So
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: I shot you know, a couple that was up there,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: you know, and stuff. So by the time you know,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: I even shot my first hope and young, I was
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: years old almost and I mean, I mean, just that's
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: a fanatic about Europe and kill them. But until I got,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: you know, with sixteen and my driver's license and was
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: able to go to other places, you know, places like
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: in the city limits around Minneapolis and stuff worth and
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: they were there, actually were some bigger's years and then
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: you know, you're just starting from scratch. My dad and
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: everybody the day had just held ben in the deer hunters. Basically,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: if you saw a dough and then you had a
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: dough license, you were shooting. And that was the way
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: you end up up there in northern Minnesota. So, I mean,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: you didn't had to learn everything on my own and
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: made so many mistakes and and everything. You know, you're
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: thinking now from the places that I had acted to
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: do that. Um, you know, I didn't take advantage of
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: start shooting anything good on me. If I knew it
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: back then, what I know now, it was been totally different.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: You're back when I first started boring hard, anybody both
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: hunted around Minneapolis, you know, are around the city limits
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: you live, What do you want to try to see
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: one with the boat? Go ahead? You know now you
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: would try to find a place there. I mean, they've
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: been hammered so much it's so hard to find. But
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: I think it's just natural progression. Once you shot once.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Once I shot my well, I can say once I
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: saw my first pope of young, that was it. I
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: mean I was hooked on here if they used to
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: know chasan On, deepth On, goose Sons, everything, just because
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: we didn't have many deer. But once I shot my
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: first one, by then everything else took second seat to it.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: Uh you know. And so I've just been that I've
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: been infatuated with him since I was a kid, but
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: until I started actually having the reality that I could
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: kill one. About when you know when I changed? But
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: I don't, you know, it seems more that it was
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: a natural progression. Okay, I shot a little one, a squarking,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: now I want to see a bigger one. And then
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: they want to shot my first poping young and it said, well,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I don't really care to see a smaller one anymore.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: I just want to shoot something that's hoping young or better.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: And now it's just age. All knows all about age.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't care if the deer, which which
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: they have, I've passed. I've passed two hundred inch dere
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: now since uh you know, since then that because they
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: were four years old. I want to you know, I
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: want to see him get to five and six. I
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: think that's a big part of the management is you know,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: I almost I could see it probably if anywhere hardly
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: even shoot any of them, because I just kind of
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: want to see what they get to know how big
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: they how big they'll get, you know, because some of
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: these there were like one nineties that's a deer last year,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: I've passed it. Piggoty be close to two hundred probably
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: maybe just under pre there a four year old deer,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: and I want to see you'll never get to fifty
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: if it's shoot him in a two hundreds, So you'd
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: like to see when they're what they'll get to forward to.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: After November, I never saw him again, so probably somebody
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: else shot him. So we you know, we lose lose
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: some of them that way too, but you know, some
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: of them disappear and they'll come back. But uh, you know,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: I think It's just a natural progression more than than anything.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: If you're really into unless you you know, some people
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: maybe don't. Don't look at hunting the way that I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: said that a lot of us do something, just find
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: some fun to do, go out on the weekend. Here.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: They're just the way that I'll go out to play
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: tennis or will play baseball or something. It's like, hey, yeah,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: I like doing it, but it's not a passion of mine.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: But want this is a passion of yours. You know.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: Then you always want to strive to get better and better.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: You know I say that the people like said, well
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just a meat hunter. Well we all kind of are.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: But you know you take like any sports, like Michael Jordan, Okay,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: you're just getting better and better. You make it to
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: the top is game. He probably doesn't have much desire
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: to go back and play with this high school team.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: You know what. You could just dominate him, you know so.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: But it's the same same thing for hunting. Once you
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: get to a point where okay, I've shot the pope
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: young that I want to shoot the bolder deer. I
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: probably care to shoot a younger deer. To me, it's
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: not much of a challenge, you know anymore? I want
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: to I want to challenge consistently now, I want to,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: I want I want to be as I want to
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: be as hard as possible. What's the you know, what's
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: the hardest animal in the world hunt? I mean, but
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: there isn't very many five or six year old bucks
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: face it, and when you do have one, trying to
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: get him out with daylight, it's another thing. So it's
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: just that much of a challenge. And I think that's
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: why I started she hunting and a lot of the
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: other things that are just such a such, so much
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: more of a challenge. So I don't know that's anything
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: that you really decided. It just kind of happens, you know,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: where you want something bigger and better than you had before,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: and just you just you want to challenge all the time. Now.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: Now that said, though, was there anything that you learned
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: as you made that transition that actually helped you succeed
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: in killing those bigger deer? You did you change a
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: tactic or did you did you see a deer do
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: something one day that all of a sudden made a
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: lightbulb click in your head that said, oh, this is
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: what I've been doing wrong. Was there any kind of
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: moment like that that just helped you have better success
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: killing those bigger, older deer. Um, you know what was
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: the biggest change or realization that increased your success rate?
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, okay from that right at the beginning, and
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: it was it wasn't so much of an a tactic.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: It was, hey, I got to get out of here
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: and go someplacelf like when I was an high school
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: and people going to party that at my five dollar
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: car and I was driving the Iowa in the Kansas
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: and and looking, you know, at deer because they had them,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: and it was like, okay, I gotta hunted my whole life.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: And I said, hey, man, I think I think I
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: do it. And right, you know, you read all the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: articles that done everything he tried to extend control, all
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: the wind and all this kind of stuff, and it's
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: still not shooting them. But then they started seeing when
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: I went and started going to Iowa and Kansas in
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: a place that just I spent my time looking for
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: a spot that had the big one had figgered deer
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: in it, and then ten percent of the time actually
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: hunting them. And then thought out said hey, I was
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: good enough hunter to kill these. I just wasn't hunting
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: in the right spot, so I did. The biggest thing
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: is just hey, if you don't have them making we
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: go out to you know, the Harrisburg Show and pent thing. Oh,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: we don't have anything, you're here, you know, we just
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: you know, if it's brown is bown around here and said, well,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: you gotta go someplace else. Hey, when I was I
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: was sixteen years old and didn't have a penny to
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: my name, I would still grounding up guests wanting to
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: go drive down to Iowa or wherever to's there find something.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: You may have to do that. But then the second
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: part is just really learning to no age structure of deer,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: to know to recognize the three year olds when you
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: see it, to recognize the four year old and see
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: it and stop shooting those, and just holding out for
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: bigger ones. And a lot of people say that to
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: me too when you go you go out east as well.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: You know, if I don't shoot, I have to shoot it.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: You know, if I if I see it at three yearld,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: I got to shoot because if I don't, my neighbor
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: will will look. You're that neighbor. You're the neighbor you're
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: talking about, he's saying the same thing about you. You
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: gotta just you put out into some place. We we
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: lose a lot of our three year olds as well,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: because three year olds they're the dumbest deer in the woods. Basically,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: they want to be, you know, prime breeder, but they're
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: they're anosis and pushed around by the older ones. You're
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: they're the ones when you're grunting and rattlings, they're the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: three year olds, the one they come running in that
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: they're to me, they're they're super easy to kill. And
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: there was a time, you know a lot of the
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: deer that my well now are just super genetic three
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: year olds, you know when we first got to the
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: ioland yeah, I was shooting them too, because they were
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty inches and two hundred seventy in
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: three year olds. That man, you know, you're really looking
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: at you know, score wise. But then when once they
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: moved down and you started doing that, you could keep
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: start managing the property, food cloths and do that, and
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: pretty soon you look at it. Well, I shout all
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: my three year old, good genetic geer, and I had
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: left all my you know, crappy genetic you know, eight
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: points and stuff that are four and five. By the
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: third year, our farm will just run by old crappy genetic.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Ay point, well, that was terrible management. He thought, you know,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be a deer manager in passing these deer.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: And by the third year, is like, that was that
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: much terrible deer manager. I gotta go up to eight
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: structure on the things. It's a students here that are
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: five and six, no matter how old they were, I mean,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: what matter, no matter what kind of racked the head
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: on them, and just being all those good genetic three
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: year olds that that came, you started to get them
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: through to five years old. So I mean that's you know,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing that I learned is that that makes
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: us more successful I scoring deer because now is letting
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: them go at three and four and sometimes even five
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: years olds. I mean this year we left several of
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: our five year olds that were you know, in the eighties,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: which you know you've normally obviously he's super happy with it,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: but it's just like we lost so many of the
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: e h D and those deer you made it through
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: all those years of e h D, So maybe they're
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: immune to it, um, you know, because they they they've
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: had cracked hoods and stuff in the path that they
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: are like trd to grant about maybe on the side
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: after the show. But you know, I've heard that, you know,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: someone gettn't lived through it, and I've seen I've seen that.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: I think that a lot of them lived through it,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: but then poses they're immune to it after. And I
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's true or not, but I've seen
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: like a big slipper feet on some of our bucks.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: They get this big long hoods and track hoods and stuff,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: and and one of our bucks in particular still limps
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: on that hook. But it's been two years and already
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: limps on that and it hasn't effected his rack. Andy,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: but he was like, you know, d close to you
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Nady this year, but he was he was five, and
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: I don't leave him another year because maybe he's immune
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: to that. Just got to have some older deer around,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: you know, to hunt in, you know, in future years.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: So um, you know that that's probably the biggest thing.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: It was going going to place that had good deer
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: and then learning how to aide jump, you know, to
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: know what a three year old and if you gotta pass,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: and that's hard to do if you don't have your
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: own property, because they normally will get shot by somebody else.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: And I think you make a make a really good
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: point there, and that you know whether you're targeting a
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: deer based on antler size or age structure. You know,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: if if you're setting your goals based on TV or
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: some other thing, you know you're never going to kill
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: a deer if it doesn't actually live. You know where
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: you hunt and so if your goal is to shoot,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: you know, a deer like you're talking about, well that
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: might not be possible in New England. So you either
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: need to adjust where you hunt or you need to
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: adjust your expectations. So I think that's you know, it's
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: an important thing, important thing to think about now. Grant
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: you're in a different situation, very different area than than
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: Lee is for you. When you were starting to go
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: for these either bigger or older deer, was there an
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: aha moment for you that helped you become more successful?
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: A little different from me. I was raised here in
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: the Missourio's art, so the same part was like lea guys,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: I think I was eighteen when I tagged my first
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: dear and it was a button buck, and I was
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: so proud of it and still them to today. And
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: I just thought it was great. And you know, grew
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: up in a family that pretty much we you know,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: if you could kill a deer, you just you were
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: a hero. I mean, people drove by the farm and
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: looked at it, touched it and talked about it. And
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: so those were great fun days for me, and I
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: wouldn't discourage anyone from from having those days. And as
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: I went off to school and even grad school, and
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: at that time, I'm dating myself at decades ago, we
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: started talking about I wonder why if you know, deer
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: got older blah blah blah, And I was just always
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: fascinated with with that idea. Once once I got explained
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: to me and I could kind of see it, touch
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: at feel it, and actually hundred some ranches and Texas
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: or older aged class bucks and it's got oh my gosh,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like this and rattling deer responding
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: and rattling ground castle. That just to me. I love
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: the dear biology and the dear behavior of older aged
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: class bucks and the challenge so no deer here, you know,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: a big deer where I lived, there's no agg in
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: the counties where I live and on land or zero AGG.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: So a giant deer here is one sixty. That's like
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: a two twenty in Iowa. That's the top of the
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: top of the top of the book. And so if
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: we can grow sixty consistently, I'm just as happy as
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: I can be and consider that a good accomplishment and
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: get to interact with them and see him on choke
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: cameras and maybe see him in person. And I think
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: what you just said is set your goals based on
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: where you live. And and I tell people all the time,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: if you know, if you want to set high goals,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: then go to Popeion, Buddha, Crockett, whichever group you want
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: to go to, and kind of see the top for
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: your neighborhood. And if you're setting your goals at that
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: level or higher, you better be prepared to eat tag
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: soup quite a bit because those are rare deer and
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: so I kind of use those, you know, scientists, I
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: got a major everything. But if you're in an area
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: that you know, a big deer, for example, and this
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: may shock some people, but in my land is split
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: by two counties, and in Missouri has pretty large counties.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: In both counties, there's been one hoping young ever recorded.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's more harvested, but it's all relative to
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: wherever you are, and never a single Boone and Crockett
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: ever horrible place for deer ball just to live from
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: that point of view, uh never. So you know, and I,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: you know, meet local guys at church or wherever, and
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: they're talking about I'm gonna come you one and seven
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: and said, no, you're not not in this county. I mean,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: it's just it's just not likely to happen. And if
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: you hold out for that, you're gonna eat tag soup
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: so long that you are gonna get bored and end
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: up being a golfer him or you know whatever, which
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: is not bad. But you're not going to be a
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: deer hunter because you're just you're just never gonna be satisfied.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: So setting realistic goals for where you hunt, and my
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: goals changed. I have a really good friend in Western
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: Kansas and I drop tags after every now and then,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: and my goals in Western Kansas are different one way.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for totally different animers, but I'm still looking
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: for a four or five year old animal. That's kind
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: of my harvest criteria. And but in some areas, if
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: a guy holds up for a four year old, he's
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: he's never gonna get it. It just doesn't live in
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: that neighborhood. I want to talk about food plots a
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: second for one reason, and that's because I'm getting ready
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: this summer to a plant my very first ever food
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: plot on a pizza property that I have access to.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: And I'll start with you grant from maybe a health
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: or an attractant type of standpoint, what would what would
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: your opinion be for the all around food plot option. Oh, guys,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: there's literally hundreds or thousands, I don't know. Uh, So
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: there's several factors. Some of them are talking about a lot.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: Uh you know. We if it's the first food plot,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: it's probably been a cow pasture or something. There's probably
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: a huge weed seed base there, and so you need
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: something you can control weeds in and and and round
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: up bray. Soybeans is a great first time plot. Soybeans
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: are pretty easy to grow actually and pretty drought resistant.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: There's a reason, you know, soybeans feed the world literally, Uh,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: they're easy to grow and and and productive. And of
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: course deer love them. If you're too small plot, they
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: could wipe them out pretty quick unless you use electric
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: fence or something. And if you're in an area where
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: deer don't know beans, again, Ryan, there's no acts. So
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: the first three years we planted soybeans here, I mean
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: it's literally, it's hard. It's hard for people to believe.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: For the first two years, I do not believe a
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: deer removed a single leaf off soybeans we planted here. Literally,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: they've never seen a soybean, never smelled a soybean. Abole
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: to walk through the soybeans and eat the BlackBerry on
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: the edge of the plot where to fertilize your truck
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit made me so mad. It's just like
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: people planting turn ups Nebraskas and areas where do you
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: haven't seen them for We always talked about learning curved.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: You're certainly have a learning curve. You can take apples
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: to Texas and put them on top of corn pile
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: and they're scratched, the apple out away and eat the corn.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: And you can go to New York where Pennsylvania where
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: apples grow naturally, and they're all over the place, and
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: you know, dear love apples and will readily go to them.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: So soybeans under the right conditions are a really easy
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: first time crop. Clovers an easy crop if if you're
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: in an area that doesn't get too hot and your
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: soul maintains moisture. Clover needs a lot of moisture in
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: it needs an awful lot of phosphorus. Most people starved
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: or clover to death. It's a two big killers of
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: clover or weeds which are not that easy to control,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: and clover and lack of phosphorus. And if you if
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: you control weeds and fosphors. I have clover stands literally
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: ten and eleven years old. It look fabulous, but you
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: gotta feed them and you gotta keep the weeds out
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: of them. And then your mission. What time of year
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: are are you planning this plot primarily as an attractive
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: to hunt over or is your goal nutrition during the summer?
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: There's you know, you kind of got to find your
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: crop based on what your mission is. I know I
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: didn't give you a direct answer, but that's just kind
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: of where I come from all the time. By people's
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: what's your mission and what's your resources? What do you
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: have to plant with and how wheedy is it going
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: to be? What do you have for a favorite? Lie? Well,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: I think you know I had all the time mine
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: go over. I mean I rereely grant on beans and
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: elfhi like here because we do have you know, not sandy.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: So we have good so we got good moisture as
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: we can grow go over. But even on the drought
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: years that plant mixed with alfalf and stuff celtic you forgot,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: you know, try again. I could had some malf helfon
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: that it'll grow. But I kind of always only do
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: one thing. It would get clovers because you know, people
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: at that seminar and like a you know clover acts
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: only the kids sit everywhere. It doesn't or something dotic
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: bean or something. But it's for me it's clover because
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: I mean I look for some to hunt over and
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: and to even greater sense. But is you know, dear health.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: So I look at if I had the clover fields out,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: you've got a good good high protein and it can
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: have small food pluck and you can feed a lot
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: of deer. It puts a lot of ton of jobs
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: on me. If I have one acre field, they can
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: hold you quite a few deer in there eating every day.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: If we've got good rain stuff and uh, you know
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: for us here's mostly grasses. I can hit it with
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: select mats, pro posts. I had to kill most the
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: grasses out of it too, pore DP if it's got
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: some other stuff in it, you know, some other broad
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: leave stuff, and so I can kind of keep it
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: pretty much weed free. And you know, most of the
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: clover fields they'll have for five seven years and they
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: start getting a rope stan or something, I'll take it
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: out and put something else in there and then go
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: back to go back to the clover, you know, the
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: year after that. But how just look at it for
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: hunting over Uh, you know, it's one of our first
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: things that green up here when the when the snow's
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: down and stuff, and the turkeys are in it and
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: deer it like crazy, and then you know it's got
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of good protein, a lot of contage through
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: it to the summer and then it's it's why I mean,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: I wish you so many of our deer off of
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: it too. So I mean something that can last all
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: year if they used you know, like like soy beans
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: and turnips and winter wet and those things you don't
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: have them for you know, the entire season basically, and
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: even our clover it's stay you know, green underneath the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: snow we had, you know, some snow, and even you
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: go on our field clover fields, man, they'd be digg
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: into the snow to get at it. So I think
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: if I could only plan one thing at least here
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: where I live, I can grow a good clover field,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: that would be it. If I'm going to do one thing,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: because it's it's good for the health and nutrition ev
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: plus it's good to hunt. Or I'd say, I'd say
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: that you guys just doomed Dan, because Dan, the pressure,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: the pressure is now on for you to get a
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: terrific food plot in there, because Lelakowski and Grant Woods
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: just gave you food plot advice. So don't screw this up.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to uh So, I want to touch on
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: a topic we haven't really talked about much yet, which
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: is wind. You know, when it comes to hunting mature bucks.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: Understanding wind is a huge thing for most of us,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people at least that I've talked
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: to as I progress as a deer hunter. One of
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: the things that I've shifted to paying more attention to
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: is how a specific buck might use wind. You know,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: when I first started hunting, it was I want to
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: make sure my wind isn't going to blow towards a
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: deer and spook a deer. But now I'm also thinking
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: about that as well as how is a buck going
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: to be using the wind to move through an area?
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: And then potentially I could use that to determine where
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to hunt. So with that kind of example
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: in mind, how do you believe, based on what you've seen,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: most often a mature buck will use the wind when traveling?
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: Are you? Are you seeing that he's most often going
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: to travel the wind in his face or most often
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: to his back or quartering. What's the most common situation
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: you've seen? Grant? What are you? What would you say
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: on that? I'm gonna say it's what and deal with
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: GPS collars deer much more unique than I used to believe,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: so you asked earlier on a different related question, you
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: know what's learned? Why you change? A big, big changing
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: point in my life was GPS color is getting inexpensive
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: enough to apply them to to deer for research, really
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: busting my bubble on a lot of things I believed,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: and one thing that really increased my knowledge on is
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: just how individual deer are. And some deer just have
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: a much larger in the same area, the same resources,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: the same area, much larger home range, some have much
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: smaller Some tend to be more active in daylight, the
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: same age glass and others. Some are bullies, literally they
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: try to roam around and beat here by up and
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: and and some are are are real loners, uh, And
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: I suspect the same is true watching movement patterns in
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: the same area, so you know, they're all facing the
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: same wind. And some deer tend to have a north
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: south burying, some deer tend to have an east west
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: burying and in the exact same location, So I think
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: it's more of an individual I think it goes back
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: to what Bill and Lee both said is they're not
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: hunting signed or hunting traveled areas or known areas, And
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: it takes two or three years or even longer to
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: learn a property, and and in that time frame they
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: may be chasing the same bug. They're probably you know,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: maybe I've harvested that buck and moved on to a
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: different book. You're hunting areas that you can uh that
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: you've learned that dear use that you can hunt without
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: being busted. I think it really bulls that boils down
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: to the bottom line. Okay, and Lee, have you seen
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: anything differently or do you have a different thought on that? Oh?
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: I agree with Grant because so many dear they're so individual,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: and I think that's what makes them so much fun
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: to hunt, because you can't say gear do this any
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: different thing. You say people do this. Everyone is different,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: but like like like, because I'm hunting gears basically they
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think they paid as close attention to it
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: is they used to think that they did. Um. You know,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: it's not like caribou where they sit there, notice the
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: wind and just wander. I mean, obviously our deer on
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: our farm every day, if they only walked in the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: wind in their days like they did, and that's two
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: hundred miles north by the time the end of the season.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: Because we get mostly north winds, and we used to
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: anyway when we had kind of cool weather patterns. It's
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: been so warm lately that you get at the south
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: and east more than we used to. For me, it's
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: it's mostly I like to say if I have one
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: of my favorite food flots or some deer, I know
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: where they generally bed a lot of times, I mean
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: for the most part, and you know where they're gonna
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: come in, and they normally I always do. I mean
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: not they all awesome boom come into the others. I
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: have a food flots up here there. But in general,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: you know, you kind of know where they bed most
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: of the time, even though they can bed anywhere. For
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer come in from the same places,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: so it's like it's more meat change in my you know,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: my strategy one, you just hunt the places where I
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: can get away with with the wind, because I set
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: them up mostly for northwest, but I always have you know,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: east stands and west ends and of it in because
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get all kinds of weather stuff each day.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: But it's like a lot of times the deer come
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: in the same place in the food puts, no matter
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: what the wind is, so they're not just putting the
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: wind in their nose. But once they're in there, you
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: know when the you know, you've got to make sure
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: where you're at it is going to be down one
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: from them, so you just don't hunt them on the days.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: But I said, I don't. I don't see that they're
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: using the wind so much themselves, because there seemed to
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: be they kind of do the same things, come from
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: the same places no matter what the wind is, just
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: what can you get away with? So we just don't
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: hunt them on the day to that the wind is wrong.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: And that's nice quite having lots of different setups, lots
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: of difference to ends. I mean, we have some little
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: food puts. I mean you're talking two acres that there's
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: literally like six or eight setups around it for every
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: different wind situation. And then you're finding things pots that
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: you think it is perfect, and you know you can
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: guess at all the time. It's just it's then had
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: to wind s whereising and other places that doesn't see
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: matter what the wind is, you know, if you kind
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: of learned where you know the structure of your land,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: it just the wind was up and over the top
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: of them. And some things about I don't all that
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: deer specifically use the wind as much as I want
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: to stack. And now that I get to look at
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: dear every single day and watching, you know, you know,
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: we love going at that's about the feeder at Lynda's
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: and movie. It's not just the feet of there. We've
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: got you know, help of fields and flower fields and
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: so it means and stuff all around her house where
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: we can see them from our house. So we like
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: going over there just to wat dear really to night.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: Even in our house. It's it's the right. They don't
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: have any food, puts any clothes. I don't want an
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: to hear upon our house, so we don't get a
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: chance seeing. But Linda's probos to go back in middle nowhere.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: But still it doesn't matter from the summer months that
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: the winter months. The deer come from the same places
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: all the time. Not that you can't see one duck
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: coming and play something there the next day or whatever.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: But for the most parts, the deer always come in
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: the same places. You kind of know where they're beat
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: and stuff. So obviously there's different winds every day, and
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: they're traveling from the same to and from all the time.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: So I think you know they're you know, there's nose
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: is good enough that you can get enough squirrels and
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: stuff that they can always but you know they're gonna
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: they're gonna spell stuff that's around, you know, in the timberance.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: If you see a lot different like out west, you know,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: whereas every time you watch it, you know, but you know,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: a mule there or something go lay down. Let me know,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: they're always going to have that wind at their back
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: and overlooking the you know what, you know, something open
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: in front of them, and it's like, man, okay, how
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get in on that thing. But I don't
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: see that white where we're at so much. Um, I
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: think they're I was using the same trail, doing the
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah. That's an interesting point too, in relation
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: to you know how you said you saw mule deer
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: doing a little bit differently in different locations. I wonder
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: if this is something that might be you know, uh,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: location dependent, pressure dependent as well. Maybe a buck in
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: Michigan might be acting differently than a buck there in
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: Iowa on a you know, well managed property. Um. It's
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: definitely one of those things that keeps me up at
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: night thinking about a lot, that's sure. So yeah, yeah,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: So we have kept you guys a long time here
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: and this has been terrific and we appreciate it so much.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: I want to ask one quick final question and then
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: let you guys get back to preparing for your turkey
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: hunts or whatever exciting stuff might be up next in
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: food plots. Yeah, So my question is this, and I'm
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: gonna send it to I Guess Grant first. What is
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: your greatest concern for the future of deer hunting? Mm hmm,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you. Cd w D would be up
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: there because there's so many unknowns. Uh. Access for a
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: bulk of hunters is way up there. But my biggest
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: concern overall, Number one is behavior of hunters. And I
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: look at this way, get on who's math in the
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: status you want to look at, and there's all what
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: different ways of calculating this. But hunters now are somewhere
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: around six of the population, so we're never we're going
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: to be a majority. We're never gonna be And it's
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: proven in our society that's some small but well organized,
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: vocal minorities can really have huge impacts. And I think
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: hunters have to maintain a clean act. We have to
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: prove that we are doing a service to society by
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: being good conservationists, not just by reducing deer in Minneapolis
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: and Phillies that are not on the airport runways and
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: in the streets but managing and conserving species by making
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: better habitat and and by by that behavior and really
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: cleaning up our ranks or maintaining clean ranks, is how
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: we preserve the right to hunt in America. It's not
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: a god given right. We've got to fight for it
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: and preserve it. And that's my number one fear, that
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: we police our own ranks and take care of ourselves
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: and promote this heritage of hunting. And I think that's
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: that's such a great point. I'm glad you mentioned that. Lee.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: What about for you, what's what is your greatest concern? Yeah,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: I mean just what exactly what Grant said. But and
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: again just um e h D here. So I see
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: that a lot. Well I don't see the c w D,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: but I okay, so I know all about it, all
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: about it, And that one really scares me, that, you know,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: because there it isn't like like a minature fly by
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: and them like like the h D wing gets dry.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: But two have concerns. You know, they're talking about global
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: warming and those kinds of things. And I don't know
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: you know that committed any scientific proof cure. There's some
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: scientists say there is, and there isn't what if there is.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: I just look at it like the weather patterns, because
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: it was to get fire and dryer and just start,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: you know, taking out beer like that. Um that's my
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: concerning right time, because that's what I see. I'm just
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: what if what if we start if it's dry all
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: the time, but um, you know there'll be any any
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: beer left. But you know, I think we were always
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: going to be able to find solutions the things if
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: they if they really start are going down. I mean
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: I think scientists people would come up with some solutions
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: to that. But like Grant said, I think that the
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: biggest thing is the people. Um uh, like you said,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: because that's U can always do things to help improve
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: the habitat and stuff the deer, but you always can
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: always do that for hunters. And I said, and just
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: like you said, six percent of the population, You've got
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: to make sure that you know, if we do any
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: right to maintain this para chase, I know how much
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: it's meant to me. Now I havn't a a young
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: son and stuff, and you want to see im there's
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: so many good things that come from it. Look at
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: me all to my high school years and college years,
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: other people maybe getting into drugs or drinking or anything
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: like that. It always just kept between. I didn't really
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: care about all that stuff at all. Was about hunting
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: and and even and even just spending time with my
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: with my family, with my uncle's and my my grandfa
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: and my dad and things. You get such a you know,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: it seemed like not don't want everybody's so busy and
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: both par working and bake its stuff, they feel them.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: But to me, the hunting thing at the time that
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: you spend with your with your kids and family members
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: and stuff. And you know, for me, when it wasn't
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: that my dad was gonna beat me if I did wrong,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: it was more they would be disappointed in me. And
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and I think the hunting part was it
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: was where that closeness came between. It's like me and
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: my dad and my brother and my grandpas and stuff
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: like that, and it's like those of the times that
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: we spent together the best, you know, the best times
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: the most we spend the most time with them. And
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: that's honestly, what's you know, you just want to be
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: able to share that with your kids and things that
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: they would just be devastating. I think for the whole
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: country if you know that went away, because a lot
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: of it's going away as it is, And that's I
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: think the hunting is people in the hunting family. You
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: see those kids and stuff out of their closeness that
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: they have with their with their dad or their daughters
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and I think it's I think it's a
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: big help. I think we really eat that today. Yeah,
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: so true, so true. I'm so glad that we're able
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: to finish this conversation talking about things as important as
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: getting our families and children out in the woods and
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: you know, being positive representatives of the hunting community, because
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: I think you know, as you guys both said, you know,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: all the tactics, all the great strategies, all the big
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: deer in the world. That's a lot of fun. But
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: if we can't actually, if we don't actually have the
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: right and the privilege and the ability to get out
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: and hunt and share these experiences with our family and friends,
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: none of that matters. So I think this is a
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: perfect place, perfect place to wrap it up. So Grant Lee,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: thank you both so much for taking the time to
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: do this. It has been a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: for the opportunity absolutely, and with that I let you
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: guys get back to your important tasks out in the woods.
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: So good luck turkey hunting, food plotting and everything that's
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: come upcoming season. Thank you. All Right, Well, that was
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: a lot to digest, but very very interesting and if
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: you want more of this kind of info, please be
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: sure to check out Lee, Bill and Grant's own respective
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: websites which can point to all the great things are
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: up to right now, and I've linked to each of
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: their websites on the blog post for this episode on
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: wire dunt dot com. Now, before we wrap things up, though,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: as promised at the top, we are giving out some
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: terrific prizes from our partners as a thank you to
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: all of you for being a part of the wire
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: dunk community and for joining us on this ride through
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: one hundred podcasts. So first, here's what's up for grabs.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: Our friends is Sick of Gear will be giving away
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: a full early season system that includes their Equinox jacket
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: and pant, their core lightweight longsleeve shirt and bottoms, hangar gloves,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: and a sick of ball cap that is an awesome setup.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: Ozonics are partners at Ozons will be giving away one
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: of their new dry washbags, which allows you to turn
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: your Ozons machine into essentially an ozone washer closet for
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: all of your gear. And a Kinetic backpack which is
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: an all purpose hunting pack which also is designed specifically
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: to allow you to use your Ozonics machine while you're
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: traveling to and from your tree stand. Our friends at
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: hunt Terra will be providing one of their are super
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: comfy branded T shirts and a fifty dollar gift card
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: to put towards your very own hunter A map, which
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: is a pretty sweet little prize there that you will
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: become quickly addicted to looking at. And our friends at
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: Carbon Express we're providing a package of their Maxima Red Arrows.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: So again we've got a full early season system from
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: Sit Up, We've got a dry washbag and a kinetic
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: backpack from Mosonics. We've got a T shirt and fifty
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: dollar gift card from Huntera, and we have a half
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: dozen Carbon Express Maxima Red Arrows. Some pretty sweet prizes there,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: and you guys are well deserving of them because I appreciate,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: we appreciate what you guys have done and being a
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: part of this community and tuning into this podcast every week.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: So We're going to do a random drawing to select
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: who will win each of these prizes, but you'll need
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: to do two easy things to be eligible for that drawing. First,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: you simply need to head over to the Wired to
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: Hunt Facebook page, which you can find at facebook dot
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: com slash wired Hunt, and find the post for this
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: podcast episode. Leave a comment on that post telling us
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: one thing you've enjoyed about the Wired Hunt podcast over
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: the first one hundred episodes, and then share that post
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: on your own timeline. And that's it. All you gotta
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: do is go to our Facebook page, comment on our
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: post for this podcast, and then share that podcast onto
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: your own timeline, and that's it. You'll be eligible to
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: be drawn as a winner. So with that said, to
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: wrap this up, big thank you to all of our
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: partners who have helped make this podcast possible. So thanks
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: to Sick of Gear, Trophy, Ridge, Bear Archery, Redneck, Blinds, huntera,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: maps Ozonics, Carbon Express, Maven Optics in the White Tailed
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: Institute of North America. And finally, thank you all for
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: joining us. As I said earlier, it has been an
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: absolute privilege and honor to be with you for these
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: past one hundred episodes. So thank you again. Here's to
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: a hundred more. Until next time, stay wired to hunt
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: and the bird to distant