Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 507: K.C. Smith - Planning the Perfect Over-The-Road Whitetail Hunt

Transcript

Ep. 507: K.C. Smith - Planning the Perfect Over-The-Road Whitetail Hunt · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
0:05
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:15
Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest
0:18
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking with public Land
0:21
Speaker 1: guru case C Smith. All right, folks, welcome to the
0:40
Speaker 1: Wire to Hunt podcast, which is brought to you by
0:41
Speaker 1: First Light. You might notice that this is not the
0:44
Speaker 1: voice of Mark Kenyon. He sent me a text last
0:47
Speaker 1: week and said that he picked up a new hobby
0:49
Speaker 1: called duck herding. When I asked him what that was,
0:53
Speaker 1: he said it's all in the name and that he
0:56
Speaker 1: had to go pick up his new flock. So I don't,
0:58
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know any more, guys. Anyway, today
1:02
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with Casey Smith from The Element. Casey is
1:05
Speaker 1: from Texas, but every year he heads out with his
1:07
Speaker 1: partner in crime, Tyler Jones, to hunt a bunch of
1:10
Speaker 1: different states, all on public Land. Both guys have been
1:13
Speaker 1: on an absolute tear in recent seasons, which is really
1:16
Speaker 1: cool to see. Throughout this show, Casey and I talked
1:20
Speaker 1: about why he chooses to research certain states, what he
1:24
Speaker 1: really factors in before deciding to buy a nonresident white
1:27
Speaker 1: tail tag in one state but not another. This episode
1:30
Speaker 1: is full of good advice if you're interested in taking
1:33
Speaker 1: your hunting on the road, and it's really kind of
1:36
Speaker 1: like a part one. Next week I'm sitting down with
1:38
Speaker 1: Andy May to dive deeper into this hunt planning topic.
1:41
Speaker 1: So we really kind of have a back to back
1:43
Speaker 1: breakdown of this issue for two weeks in a row.
1:47
Speaker 1: Really cool episodes. Casey, how are you doing? Brother? I'm
1:52
Speaker 1: good man. Just had a long not with the Toddler
1:56
Speaker 1: and ray to rock and roll. You know how this goes?
1:58
Speaker 1: You know, like it does it matter how much you sleep?
2:00
Speaker 1: And that's whatever. It's actually kind of uh keeps you
2:04
Speaker 1: in the hunting season mindset all the time, even when
2:07
Speaker 1: you're not on a trip. You know, wait, how does
2:11
Speaker 1: it do that? Well? Just lack of sleep and pure
2:14
Speaker 1: exhaustion all the time. You know, instead of uh being
2:18
Speaker 1: cyclical where you get to come home and rest, you
2:20
Speaker 1: might as well just spend all fall super tired. How
2:23
Speaker 1: how holds the little guy? Now? Uh, don't ask him months.
2:28
Speaker 1: He's pushing on too. He turns two in March, so yeah,
2:32
Speaker 1: he's uh, he's getting on up there, or we've reached
2:34
Speaker 1: that new stage where he winds a lot more than
2:36
Speaker 1: the east to because he understands like his way, you know.
2:39
Speaker 1: So uh, but that's the human condition. We all wanted
2:42
Speaker 1: our way. Yeah, definitely, Man, how has that changed? You know?
2:47
Speaker 1: How is having a little one changed your travel schedule
2:50
Speaker 1: or how you think about being on the road because you,
2:52
Speaker 1: you and Tyler travel a lot for for the element,
2:55
Speaker 1: and I know what it's like to go hunt four
2:58
Speaker 1: or five six states a year and have little kid
3:00
Speaker 1: is at home. It it makes things different. Man. Oh absolutely, Man,
3:03
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, you know, honestly, the change is emotional
3:08
Speaker 1: more than anything. Uh. I have a really understanding wife.
3:13
Speaker 1: Of course, we talk things out, you know, and she
3:15
Speaker 1: has a good job, so I'm able to go and
3:18
Speaker 1: be a bum, you know. And I I definitely you know,
3:21
Speaker 1: make my contributions income wise as well. But um, and
3:25
Speaker 1: a great family dynamic where I always have plenty of
3:27
Speaker 1: people to be babysitters and to hang out with him
3:29
Speaker 1: and stuff. But honestly, the missing the kid is the
3:33
Speaker 1: hardest part for me. It's it really is. And it's
3:35
Speaker 1: it's so strange because my wife isn't gonna listen to this,
3:38
Speaker 1: so I can say whatever I want, right, But like, um,
3:41
Speaker 1: I miss her, but in such a different way, Like
3:44
Speaker 1: we we spent a lot of time in our life,
3:46
Speaker 1: uh in a long distance relationship, so I can love
3:49
Speaker 1: her from Afar and be just fine. But it's like,
3:53
Speaker 1: you know, how fast they grow. It's like if you're
3:55
Speaker 1: gone for five days, you come back and it's slightly
3:57
Speaker 1: a different child, you know, and you're like, man, all
3:59
Speaker 1: this stuff on this. So I think that's the thing
4:01
Speaker 1: that's the toughest part for me, Like I just don't
4:04
Speaker 1: want to string together a bunch of like the month
4:06
Speaker 1: of November. I want to be gone a week or
4:09
Speaker 1: nine days and come home for you know, at least
4:12
Speaker 1: three or four days instead of just being a full
4:15
Speaker 1: on just travel guy. And it's that's not realistic for anybody, right,
4:18
Speaker 1: you know, Like just being gone for a month. It's
4:20
Speaker 1: just just tough, man. So that's that's what shan for me.
4:24
Speaker 1: I had. I had a conversation with Tom Miranda about
4:27
Speaker 1: this way back when my girls were born, and you know,
4:30
Speaker 1: I just kind of kind of said the same thing, like, man,
4:33
Speaker 1: I feel guilty traveling to do this, and you know,
4:37
Speaker 1: he was like, man, I've had so many people say
4:39
Speaker 1: stuff like that to me over the years, you know,
4:41
Speaker 1: and nobody's traveled to hunt more than that guy. I mean,
4:43
Speaker 1: he's he's been all over the world for thirty five years,
4:46
Speaker 1: you know. And he said he kind of framed it.
4:49
Speaker 1: He said, you know, if you were a businessman and
4:51
Speaker 1: you were traveling for meetings or whatever, nobody would bat nine.
4:55
Speaker 1: They would they would just be like, that's an acceptable
4:58
Speaker 1: thing to do for your rear. But when people look
5:02
Speaker 1: at it and like, oh, you're just off hunting, they don't.
5:05
Speaker 1: They're like, you're just being selfish. And you know, it
5:07
Speaker 1: sort of feels that way when you when your kids
5:10
Speaker 1: are little, because you know, you do enjoy parts of
5:13
Speaker 1: It's not like you're just flying out doing a bunch
5:15
Speaker 1: of meetings and trying to sell you know, vacuums or
5:17
Speaker 1: whatever the hell you could be doing. But it does
5:19
Speaker 1: it changes the game a lot. And I know for
5:22
Speaker 1: me with you know, when we had the girls, I
5:25
Speaker 1: was in heavy travel stage. Like that was when I
5:28
Speaker 1: was really trying to string together you know, two or
5:31
Speaker 1: three good bucks on public land every year and and
5:33
Speaker 1: really make it happen. And it was a weird motivator
5:37
Speaker 1: for me, like get this done, like, don't waste your time,
5:41
Speaker 1: like this is not lay around in your tent in
5:43
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, like make it happen and
5:45
Speaker 1: go home. And I remember, uh, just this this one
5:48
Speaker 1: time I was in South Dakota, probably in I think
5:51
Speaker 1: it was like and I was struggling and it was
5:56
Speaker 1: Halloween and I had this plan. I was like, I'm
5:59
Speaker 1: gonna go sit the pond. It was pretty warm. I'm like,
6:02
Speaker 1: I just want to get this done and get home
6:04
Speaker 1: because I'm doing the math. I'm like, if I shoot
6:06
Speaker 1: a buck this morning and get him out, I can
6:08
Speaker 1: make it home in time to take the girls trick
6:09
Speaker 1: or treating. And I just happened to, you know, nine
6:12
Speaker 1: ten in the morning, had two bucks come and chasing
6:14
Speaker 1: the dough and I thumped one, packed him out, made
6:16
Speaker 1: the drive home, and as I pulled into the driveway,
6:19
Speaker 1: I could hear my girls knocking on the neighbor's door.
6:22
Speaker 1: And it made me so happy because I'm like, I
6:24
Speaker 1: got it done, Like I killed the buck, I drove
6:26
Speaker 1: the six and a half hours home, and now I
6:27
Speaker 1: get to go walk around with him. And it's just
6:29
Speaker 1: it's weird, weird. It's weird how it changes your perspective
6:33
Speaker 1: on this travel game. Yeah. Absolutely, man, It's it's um
6:39
Speaker 1: It's so just last week I was in Oklahoma and
6:43
Speaker 1: uh honestly caught myself making some like quick decisions that
6:49
Speaker 1: I wouldn't make otherwise trying to kill a deer. And
6:52
Speaker 1: I'm I kind of have this um way of approaching
6:57
Speaker 1: watchail hunting where I try to be knowledgeably aggressive, is
7:01
Speaker 1: what I say. Uh, Tyler and I talked about it
7:03
Speaker 1: a lot, where you make the most aggressive move you
7:07
Speaker 1: can get away with and it's still be a smart move.
7:10
Speaker 1: And I breached to that ceiling a couple of times
7:13
Speaker 1: where I did things that we're kind of dumb, but
7:17
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a hail Mary type thing
7:18
Speaker 1: like this might work, you know, and retrospectively, if I'd
7:23
Speaker 1: have played it safer, uh might have actually came out
7:28
Speaker 1: with a better outcome where I did kill it deer
7:30
Speaker 1: sooner as opposed to trying to make it happen in
7:33
Speaker 1: the next two minutes, you know what I mean. Yeah,
7:36
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff I think. I think when
7:39
Speaker 1: you talk to people who really really get it done
7:42
Speaker 1: in a bunch of different states and you know, have
7:44
Speaker 1: a pretty good track record of you know, filled tags
7:47
Speaker 1: in in wildly different environments. You just you get this
7:51
Speaker 1: sense of sort of this equilibrium between that super cavalier
7:56
Speaker 1: and you know, go get it done versus Okay, I
7:59
Speaker 1: gotta let this breathe you and let this situation bring
8:02
Speaker 1: the deer to me. And you just kind of get
8:04
Speaker 1: this feel of like that that gut instinct like okay.
8:08
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes it is that you look at it and go, look,
8:11
Speaker 1: I know I could blow this deer out, but I
8:13
Speaker 1: could also crawl up to the edge of this draw
8:15
Speaker 1: and shoot him, you know, instead of being paralyzed, you know.
8:18
Speaker 1: Or I could go move right in there. But I
8:21
Speaker 1: got faith in this little pinch point, and so I'm
8:23
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna let them play around over there for
8:24
Speaker 1: a little bit because somebody's gonna make it my way.
8:26
Speaker 1: And that comes from a lot of experience traveling, but
8:30
Speaker 1: you hear that kind of vibe come from a lot
8:32
Speaker 1: of people who are at least a lot of people
8:34
Speaker 1: who I really respect as white tail hunters. Yeah, it's
8:37
Speaker 1: a it's a weird deal, and you have to kind
8:39
Speaker 1: of judge the environment to you know, especially you start
8:42
Speaker 1: looking at like that, I'm thinking of specific dear, we
8:45
Speaker 1: were crawling around in some pretty monotonous habitat. I just
8:48
Speaker 1: kind of that, I don't know, river bottomsk top stuff
8:52
Speaker 1: where it's just a bunch of elms and hack berries
8:55
Speaker 1: and sayers, you know, just so there's not a great
8:58
Speaker 1: pinch point. There's not a great um food source either.
9:02
Speaker 1: And so you put eyes on a deer, you glass
9:04
Speaker 1: of deer up at a hundred ten yards and you're like, oh,
9:08
Speaker 1: also the winds blowing, like thirty five is the day
9:11
Speaker 1: that front rolled in and you've probably seen this, but
9:14
Speaker 1: a lot of times in one of those super windy days,
9:16
Speaker 1: those deer will be on their feet, but they'll just
9:19
Speaker 1: stay in stationary for an hour or two, you know.
9:22
Speaker 1: And that was kind of my thought in that specific scenarios, like, Okay,
9:25
Speaker 1: there's no way for me to really set up on
9:27
Speaker 1: this deer, and um feel good about him walking by,
9:32
Speaker 1: so I might as well go for it. And got
9:34
Speaker 1: to forty yards, just didn't have the shot, and then
9:36
Speaker 1: he ended up, uh, you know, doing stuff with the
9:39
Speaker 1: cameras a lot different than not, you know, and I
9:41
Speaker 1: had a camera guy. When the eric is great, you know,
9:43
Speaker 1: he's feeling just do a ton of stuff this year,
9:45
Speaker 1: and he's awesome at it. But just in general, uh,
9:48
Speaker 1: two big fat humans walking is a lot louder than one.
9:51
Speaker 1: So you know, who knows what happened, but you know,
9:54
Speaker 1: blew them out and but at the same time learn
9:56
Speaker 1: some stuff from it, you know. And I think that
9:58
Speaker 1: that's any time you met us up and don't learn,
10:02
Speaker 1: it sounds so cliche. I hate to talking cliches, man,
10:04
Speaker 1: I really do. But if you mess up, you've gotta learn,
10:07
Speaker 1: because if you mess up and don't learn, it's complete waste,
10:10
Speaker 1: you know. And from that went in the next morning
10:14
Speaker 1: and UH had an opportunity on two more bucks because
10:16
Speaker 1: we learned some stuff there. So well your point about
10:20
Speaker 1: you know, high winds, frontal conditions and watching those dear
10:24
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that it's so fun
10:28
Speaker 1: to go hunt, you know, maybe Kansas or you know,
10:31
Speaker 1: some parts of Nebraska, the Dakotas, is because you get
10:34
Speaker 1: to watch actual dear behavior, like mature buck behavior sometimes
10:38
Speaker 1: in those conditions. And if you pick most of the
10:41
Speaker 1: white tails range, you don't watch that stuff. I mean
10:44
Speaker 1: when you think when when you think about all the
10:46
Speaker 1: people I shouldn't say all the people you think about
10:49
Speaker 1: the Dan Infall type of guys who are talking buck
10:51
Speaker 1: betting a ton and they're they're piecing together dear behavior
10:57
Speaker 1: by looking at sign and then you know, hunting and
11:00
Speaker 1: seeing what happens. But a lot of it is like
11:02
Speaker 1: I gotta fill in the blanks because you don't watch
11:04
Speaker 1: those dear bed in the swamps a lot of time,
11:06
Speaker 1: right like you're in timber. But when you get out
11:09
Speaker 1: to some of those playing states, you can actually see,
11:11
Speaker 1: you can you can sit there and get the spot
11:14
Speaker 1: or on him or your binos on him, and go,
11:15
Speaker 1: I know what that buck does in these conditions, or
11:18
Speaker 1: at least I know what he did. That stuff so valuable, Yeah, absolutely,
11:23
Speaker 1: I love it. We actually just recorded a podcast yesterday
11:27
Speaker 1: talking about this stuff. We kind of did like the um,
11:30
Speaker 1: you know what we learned through runt and the rut
11:32
Speaker 1: this year and that sort of thing. And um, we
11:35
Speaker 1: were in Kansas. I was in Kansas nine days, tallers
11:39
Speaker 1: in Kansas eleven days sequentially, right, So we got to
11:42
Speaker 1: see from November one to November eleven how things ramped
11:46
Speaker 1: up and got to observe bucks interacting with those at
11:50
Speaker 1: long and short range. So it's exactly what you're saying, where, man,
11:55
Speaker 1: I've gotten to the point where, uh, I really enjoy
12:00
Speaker 1: way hunting the more open stuff because of that, because
12:03
Speaker 1: you you just get to observe dear. And don't get
12:07
Speaker 1: me wrong, next year, I plan on being in Iowa
12:10
Speaker 1: about November five, you know, but I'm gonna hunt it hard.
12:13
Speaker 1: But it's just so much I don't just hate to
12:18
Speaker 1: say easy. Were better to be able to look at
12:21
Speaker 1: him and see him. You know. I watched I stalked
12:22
Speaker 1: a buck for um, I don't know, four or five
12:25
Speaker 1: days before I shot my dear that was on public,
12:32
Speaker 1: you know, pushing those real high numbers. I'm not gonna
12:34
Speaker 1: are too much out there, but he was big, the
12:36
Speaker 1: biggest dear I've ever been on, and I was on
12:38
Speaker 1: even hard, had him at twenty yards one day, and
12:41
Speaker 1: uh I got to see him go from, Hey, I
12:45
Speaker 1: don't like your decoy. I'm leaving my does here too.
12:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to kill this other buck that's
12:52
Speaker 1: within a hundred yards of my doughs. My doughs, you know,
12:55
Speaker 1: And it's it's neat to see it ramp up that
12:58
Speaker 1: way and see their changes. And one of the things
13:01
Speaker 1: I realized is that this uh rut activity window that
13:05
Speaker 1: we all like to hunt, you know with the bucks
13:06
Speaker 1: or you know, you can start with them in from
13:08
Speaker 1: a hundred or whatever. That's a lot smaller, at least
13:12
Speaker 1: in my observations. You know, I'm I'm mid thirties, right,
13:14
Speaker 1: so i haven't hunted a whole lifetime, and I've hunted
13:17
Speaker 1: a lot, and uh, the time here that you have
13:21
Speaker 1: on a specific deer that he's just going insane and
13:24
Speaker 1: ready to just whoop, the world is pretty pretty small,
13:27
Speaker 1: you know. And that's something I really realized, and so
13:30
Speaker 1: it kind of changed my perspective on how I hunt
13:33
Speaker 1: deer in the rut um at least for the moment,
13:36
Speaker 1: because I I really like that aggressive stuff. I like calling, rattling,
13:41
Speaker 1: doing all that stuff you have texting, you know, like
13:44
Speaker 1: it's just kind of it's kind of a way we are,
13:46
Speaker 1: you know. But the the concept of those deer, like
13:52
Speaker 1: that buck was the master of the planes, Okay, like
13:55
Speaker 1: he was the guy had a harem of six to
13:58
Speaker 1: nine does every day. And on November two, uh, we
14:03
Speaker 1: showed him a two dimensional decoy at eighty yards, and
14:06
Speaker 1: he decided that he wanted to leave as opposed to
14:08
Speaker 1: five and just leave those does with us. And you
14:11
Speaker 1: think about that and you're like, man, I would have
14:13
Speaker 1: thought that that guy was just you know, he was
14:15
Speaker 1: just a brawler, you know, just because he's so big
14:17
Speaker 1: and old, and it was in the case. Um, I
14:22
Speaker 1: think I totally agree with you that there's those The
14:25
Speaker 1: windows are a lot tighter than we think. And I
14:27
Speaker 1: also but I also think there's more of them than
14:31
Speaker 1: we think. And a lot of them happened in October,
14:33
Speaker 1: and I know, I mean I've snort weased in Bucks
14:36
Speaker 1: and killed him in October when you shouldn't. You're not
14:39
Speaker 1: supposed to be able to not only Bucks that shouldn't
14:42
Speaker 1: probably be responding to that because they're not the king
14:45
Speaker 1: right and also a time period. But you know how
14:48
Speaker 1: it is when you see I don't know, you you
14:50
Speaker 1: watch these deer and you can see their body language
14:54
Speaker 1: and go, this is probably gonna work or not. And
14:57
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes when you're sitting there and they're just
15:00
Speaker 1: they're going point A to B. They're not they're not
15:02
Speaker 1: messing around. You know, they've got a destination in mind
15:04
Speaker 1: that that deer. A lot of times it's like uncallable.
15:07
Speaker 1: You know, you'll get his attention, but getting him fired
15:09
Speaker 1: up and turned around. Different story. But if you get
15:11
Speaker 1: that buck that's kind of meandering and he's you know,
15:14
Speaker 1: nipping some buds here and there, and he's kind of
15:16
Speaker 1: looking around and he's just like he's waiting for some action.
15:19
Speaker 1: Like they just look like there's something going on, and
15:22
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty subtle a lot of times. But man,
15:25
Speaker 1: there's a big difference on calling to those two kinds
15:28
Speaker 1: of deer. Oh absolutely, Man, you've seen this and it's
15:32
Speaker 1: like we're in a plain state. I see a deer
15:36
Speaker 1: a hundred yards is November two or whatever, and you're
15:39
Speaker 1: like hitt him with a grunt, and he's acting like
15:42
Speaker 1: he doesn't even hear it, and you know, the winds
15:44
Speaker 1: eight to twelve. You know, it's like, I know he
15:46
Speaker 1: can hear this thing, and he just doesn't care because
15:49
Speaker 1: he is focused on whatever he's got going on. And
15:52
Speaker 1: I think that, Um, I used to think this was
15:55
Speaker 1: kind of I don't I don't want to be read proud,
15:59
Speaker 1: but I used to not really believe that much in
16:01
Speaker 1: the whole uh Druries in their thirteen phases or whatever.
16:05
Speaker 1: And I don't know, uh for sure, how that all
16:08
Speaker 1: plays out biologically, but I am truly convinced that, Um,
16:12
Speaker 1: it's not as much by calendar, but it's per animal
16:14
Speaker 1: that there is much more than pre rut rutting post rut.
16:18
Speaker 1: There's so much more than that going on. And I
16:21
Speaker 1: think that I wouldn't have those revelations if it wasn't
16:25
Speaker 1: for hunting places where you can't observed. Dear. Yeah, And
16:29
Speaker 1: I mean you can get a little bit of a
16:30
Speaker 1: glimpse on trail cameras, but it's like not even oh man, yes,
16:37
Speaker 1: you know, we've when we were in trail cameras quite
16:39
Speaker 1: a bit, especially for guys who end up not hunting
16:42
Speaker 1: anywhere near a trail cameras a lot, you know, because
16:44
Speaker 1: we like, you know, like to add that observation. And
16:47
Speaker 1: I have a little property here in these Texas that
16:50
Speaker 1: run a camera on a lot over food. And UM,
16:55
Speaker 1: I was thinking that I was just having a terrible
16:57
Speaker 1: year because we we've been on the road quite a bit.
16:58
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not seeing do anything on camera. I
17:01
Speaker 1: got quite a few pigs, you know, and just dealing
17:03
Speaker 1: with that, and then UM, out decide after we get
17:07
Speaker 1: back from Kansas one day, I'm like, I'm gonna go
17:09
Speaker 1: hunt it. You know, why not I can hunt from
17:11
Speaker 1: a wife least for work, and uh see like two
17:15
Speaker 1: mature bugs, but they just weren't on camera, and then
17:17
Speaker 1: proceed to have the best five six days worth of
17:21
Speaker 1: hunting I've had in East Texas in a long time
17:23
Speaker 1: because I didn't pay just attention to the camera, but
17:27
Speaker 1: the cameras were showing does right, and you know like
17:30
Speaker 1: if you got does, you're gonna have a buck scenario later.
17:32
Speaker 1: And that's that's what I saw, you know, pass some
17:35
Speaker 1: some pretty good deer uh here in East Texas, which
17:38
Speaker 1: is something I've never really got to do. Uh, let's talk.
17:42
Speaker 1: You mentioned a little bit ago that you're gonna draw
17:44
Speaker 1: Iowa next year, uh or you know this season. I
17:47
Speaker 1: should say, um, what's what's the planning process? Because I
17:52
Speaker 1: know Tyler was texting me does he have the same
17:53
Speaker 1: points as you? Now we're kind of on opposite points schedule,
17:57
Speaker 1: so he drew and not nineteen Um, and we're gonna
18:01
Speaker 1: we always kind of swing for the fences for I
18:03
Speaker 1: We want to hunt, you know, the which I don't
18:06
Speaker 1: know if there's a bad unit, but we try to
18:07
Speaker 1: hunt the really good stuff. Um that we we know
18:10
Speaker 1: a little bit better and it's a little bit more obtainable. Um.
18:13
Speaker 1: But anyways, we're on opposite schedule. So he hunted and nineteen,
18:17
Speaker 1: all hunt in twenty two and then he'll probably hunt
18:22
Speaker 1: four or something like that. Yeah, depending on where the points,
18:25
Speaker 1: you know, depending on what it takes to draw. So
18:40
Speaker 1: you you guys live in Texas, you hunt public land
18:43
Speaker 1: all over, uh, you know, kind of the western fringe
18:46
Speaker 1: where a lot of people go. But you also get
18:48
Speaker 1: into the Midwest obviously, what's the planning process for you? Like,
18:51
Speaker 1: how do you sit there this time of year in
18:55
Speaker 1: the winter and go, Okay, I want to hit you know,
18:58
Speaker 1: if you know you're gonna draw i we that's to
19:00
Speaker 1: take precedence, right, But you're gonna You're not only going
19:02
Speaker 1: to Iowa. So how do you figure out? Like, man,
19:05
Speaker 1: this is a state I really want to try. This
19:07
Speaker 1: is an area of a state I really want to try.
19:08
Speaker 1: How do you how do you go about that? Uh?
19:11
Speaker 1: So I don't think about trophic potential too much except
19:15
Speaker 1: for top tier stuff, right. So Iowa of course is awesome.
19:20
Speaker 1: Uh and that's where world class bucks are. But I
19:22
Speaker 1: don't really think about going to Iowa and killing a
19:24
Speaker 1: two d if one walks by, that'd be great, But realistically,
19:28
Speaker 1: I want to go up there and have a good
19:29
Speaker 1: hunt and kill, you know, a really respectable deer in
19:33
Speaker 1: public It's what I'm gonna do. Um And not because
19:37
Speaker 1: solely because I think public land is cool. But I
19:39
Speaker 1: also just not the guy with the finances to pay
19:42
Speaker 1: for an outfitted hunt if I if I had that,
19:43
Speaker 1: I might do that because I'd really like to kill
19:47
Speaker 1: a really big deer sometime too, you know, But I
19:50
Speaker 1: like to be realistic with my expectations probably the first thing, right,
19:53
Speaker 1: and and think about what can you actually get out
19:57
Speaker 1: of a hunt and how can you be the most
19:58
Speaker 1: efficient um, I guess um, you know. On a more
20:04
Speaker 1: broader spectrum, I think about population densities and how that
20:07
Speaker 1: plays into, uh, the amount of public land. You know,
20:11
Speaker 1: you have states they have pretty low population densities, but
20:14
Speaker 1: if they have a decent amount of public access, you
20:17
Speaker 1: can define in pockets of deer that you feel like
20:20
Speaker 1: you're you know, I don't know, and you know, central
20:23
Speaker 1: Illinois on a green field, you know what I mean?
20:25
Speaker 1: Like it's um. Population densities are a little weird sometimes
20:30
Speaker 1: because they don't account for the um micro habitat pockets,
20:36
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So that stuff pollock for
20:39
Speaker 1: And of course all this relates back to map scouting
20:41
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to be more bullet pointed, but that's
20:43
Speaker 1: not how my brain works. I hop around a hundred
20:45
Speaker 1: million places. So yeah, sorry, But you know, I think
20:49
Speaker 1: about how population densities relate to, uh, what the habitat
20:55
Speaker 1: looks like on a map. And if I look at
20:57
Speaker 1: a state and I see, like, say, for instance, um,
21:01
Speaker 1: I want to hunt Illinois next year. You look at
21:03
Speaker 1: northern Illinois. Um, pretty good population density, but there's a
21:07
Speaker 1: ton of agriculture and they're not a lot of a
21:10
Speaker 1: lot a lot of temper up there. And you think about, Okay,
21:13
Speaker 1: if I go up there after the crops are out, like,
21:16
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of deer in these little pockets.
21:18
Speaker 1: And that's even that's kind of exponential because it's kind
21:20
Speaker 1: of the best of both worlds. So I think about
21:23
Speaker 1: that stuff a lot. Don't pay too much of attention
21:25
Speaker 1: to approach tough trophy potential. We all pretty much know that,
21:30
Speaker 1: you know, hoping young top deer can be killed about
21:32
Speaker 1: here anywhere. Um, So think about that, think about the
21:38
Speaker 1: availability of tags. I like to hunt it over the
21:40
Speaker 1: counter states, really do, because uh, you just know you
21:44
Speaker 1: can go, you know, and and I don't. I would
21:47
Speaker 1: rather spend my time scouting, map scouting, boot scouting, whatever
21:52
Speaker 1: you wanna call it on over the counter states and
21:55
Speaker 1: figuring something good out then spending a ton of time
21:58
Speaker 1: thinking about point and how to draw and all this stuff.
22:02
Speaker 1: That's just I don't really crave that too much. Yeah,
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm kind of the same way. I do play the
22:09
Speaker 1: points game, and you know, in Iowa and I played
22:11
Speaker 1: out Western a few states just because just because I
22:14
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna have, you know, maybe one or two
22:17
Speaker 1: really cool oltcons in my life or you know, you
22:19
Speaker 1: deer hunt or something. So I but I'm the same way.
22:22
Speaker 1: I love a state that will just sell me a
22:23
Speaker 1: tag because I know I can do a bunch of
22:26
Speaker 1: research and I can go there this year, Yes, exactly.
22:30
Speaker 1: And that that's the thing, man, I don't. I live
22:34
Speaker 1: my life a little bit scatter brained, and I am
22:36
Speaker 1: not the most organized person either, so points don't go
22:41
Speaker 1: well with that. You know. It's like, wait, did I
22:43
Speaker 1: buy my point this year? I don't remember some states
22:46
Speaker 1: if you missed two years, they penalize you. You lose
22:48
Speaker 1: them like that that made you want to cry, you
22:51
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And so like, it's just it
22:54
Speaker 1: doesn't play well for me. I'm much rather just concentrate
22:57
Speaker 1: on the season at hand pretty much kind of like
22:59
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and you know, it feels good to know.
23:01
Speaker 1: And the other thing is to like, um, some of
23:04
Speaker 1: these places have public access that's rotating. It might be
23:08
Speaker 1: in this year and out next year, and and YadA YadA,
23:10
Speaker 1: crops changed and you know this and that it's the
23:14
Speaker 1: m r I stuff. Most recent information is what you
23:16
Speaker 1: got to work with. And um, I like being and
23:19
Speaker 1: I do like to go say, I know I'm gonna
23:22
Speaker 1: draw this state or I'm not gonna go hunt this
23:23
Speaker 1: state this year. Let's go spend some time in the
23:26
Speaker 1: summer or uh, you know, in the early spring, and
23:30
Speaker 1: put some boots on the ground there and then hunt
23:33
Speaker 1: it just fall. I think that that same year scouting
23:37
Speaker 1: is super valuable. Oh me too. You said something about
23:41
Speaker 1: Iowa that I think we should dive into a little
23:43
Speaker 1: bit because when you talk about habitat and population densities,
23:47
Speaker 1: this is something something that drives me absolutely nuts. I
23:50
Speaker 1: hear people like I see it on hunting forums, and
23:53
Speaker 1: you know, somebody will be like, hey, I'm thinking about
23:55
Speaker 1: going to Nebraska this year. Anybody have just just general recommendations,
23:59
Speaker 1: I don't want your spot. You know. It's kind of
24:01
Speaker 1: like a it's like a cliche at this point, but
24:05
Speaker 1: the responses will always be Nebraska's only two public there's
24:08
Speaker 1: no public left to get shot out or you know,
24:10
Speaker 1: name a state, right, and I'm always like, listen, we're
24:14
Speaker 1: talking about white tails here. And so when you think,
24:16
Speaker 1: like take Iowa, for example, when you take Iowa and
24:20
Speaker 1: you go, okay, I was I don't know what percentage
24:22
Speaker 1: of public land Iowa is. It's not super high, but
24:26
Speaker 1: the public land it is in Iowa probably isn't tillable,
24:30
Speaker 1: so it's probably really good cover for Iowa. And so
24:33
Speaker 1: even if only two percent of the land mass of
24:35
Speaker 1: Iowa is public, it could be the best ground around.
24:40
Speaker 1: It could be the best timber, it could be the
24:42
Speaker 1: best river bottoms, and there's like a pretty high likelihood
24:45
Speaker 1: it's gonna tilt that way. And so when you look
24:48
Speaker 1: at this stuff, you go, Okay, well maybe this state
24:51
Speaker 1: isn't uh, you know, like a typical Western state where
24:55
Speaker 1: half of its public and I can go anywhere and
24:57
Speaker 1: there's BLM and National Forest and all this stuff. But
24:59
Speaker 1: some of these white tails states that don't advertise like
25:02
Speaker 1: a ton of public land. The public land is really
25:06
Speaker 1: good for white tails, or you know, theoretically it should
25:09
Speaker 1: because it's gonna be the best cover. And I think
25:11
Speaker 1: people kind of get hung up on that and they think, well,
25:14
Speaker 1: you know, if there's only only a little bit of
25:16
Speaker 1: public land here, you know, patchwork there, it's probably not
25:19
Speaker 1: worth going. And it's like, man, I don't know, you
25:21
Speaker 1: got to think about what's the core area of a
25:23
Speaker 1: white tail. And you know, when you look at Iowa,
25:26
Speaker 1: it's like, not only do you have pretty pretty dense
25:30
Speaker 1: population in some of those places, you know you're not
25:32
Speaker 1: gonna be dealing with winter kill almost almost a guarantee. Yeah,
25:36
Speaker 1: they're dealing with some coyotes and maybe some bobcats and
25:38
Speaker 1: some of the parts of the state, but you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: low hunter population compared to other states. So you start
25:43
Speaker 1: factoring all this stuff in and going like, man, even
25:45
Speaker 1: though I might only have a smaller amount of public
25:49
Speaker 1: land to work with, there should be a really good
25:51
Speaker 1: population a deer there. And I know, you guys have
25:54
Speaker 1: seen this traveling, Like I see that in places where
25:56
Speaker 1: I'm like, people will complain and be like, oh that
25:59
Speaker 1: you know, the deer huntings sucks here And I go
26:00
Speaker 1: there and I'm like, there's freaking deer everywhere. Like this
26:03
Speaker 1: is like Oklahoma that you were just in. Every time
26:05
Speaker 1: I go to Oklahoma, I'm like, this place is just
26:10
Speaker 1: fun because I know I'm around a ton of deer.
26:13
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, absolutely, man, you can see it whenever
26:17
Speaker 1: you dry to drive around. I was driving around the
26:19
Speaker 1: place the other day in Oklahoma scouting, and uh, it
26:23
Speaker 1: was kind of neat because I was using uh this
26:25
Speaker 1: layer on X where you can see crop data and
26:27
Speaker 1: stuff like that, you know, and there was like a
26:31
Speaker 1: bunch of wheat there last year, but this year there's
26:35
Speaker 1: only one eight acre pocket that they kind of no
26:39
Speaker 1: tilled in, but it's not doing great. But it looks like,
26:44
Speaker 1: I mean tunnels through the fence, you know where, because
26:48
Speaker 1: I get I would assume that in that situation, it's
26:51
Speaker 1: a big creek bottom right with with a decent amount
26:53
Speaker 1: of cover around. Um, but deer have been depending on
26:58
Speaker 1: you know, three or four out acres wheat there for
27:01
Speaker 1: a couple of years at least, and there's been a
27:02
Speaker 1: decent population build up. Well now they just all concentrated
27:05
Speaker 1: on this one tiny field because it's the only thing
27:06
Speaker 1: that got planned with wheat. And man, there's a lot
27:10
Speaker 1: of deer around, just like you're saying, you know, and
27:12
Speaker 1: things like that. That's where like being on the ground
27:15
Speaker 1: is just kind of invaluable, you know, because it can't
27:17
Speaker 1: map scout that you can't figure that out from just
27:20
Speaker 1: looking at the map. But but yeah, man, I think
27:22
Speaker 1: that people super underrate the amount of public land that
27:26
Speaker 1: there is. I'm from Texas, right, and that's also kind
27:29
Speaker 1: of cliche. Everybody knows Texas at him with public land,
27:31
Speaker 1: but there's some we hunt it, you know, um, and
27:34
Speaker 1: it's not bad hunting. The thing you're gonna deal with
27:38
Speaker 1: in these states that have low amounts of public land
27:41
Speaker 1: if they are over the counter low relative, right, um,
27:45
Speaker 1: is uh, lack of age class usually because deer get shot.
27:49
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're willing to accept that and
27:51
Speaker 1: be happy to go shoot a three year old somewhere, yeah,
27:54
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's cool. And you know, I was
27:56
Speaker 1: different because it's pretty tough to draw and fairly expensive
27:59
Speaker 1: to get into, so you get kind of the best
28:01
Speaker 1: of both worlds. But um, the people who say like, oh,
28:05
Speaker 1: there's not much public land, I feel like that's a
28:08
Speaker 1: very Western perspective, you know, like if you're from the east,
28:11
Speaker 1: and you know put that in air quotes, right, pretty
28:13
Speaker 1: much anything east of the Rockies, Um, I guess east
28:17
Speaker 1: of the Plane States you're kind of used to that.
28:19
Speaker 1: You know, Like shoot, man, you start thinking about it,
28:21
Speaker 1: Texas is uh two point six percent huntable public land,
28:27
Speaker 1: and of that you can hunt deer like one point
28:31
Speaker 1: four ur or less. So it's just you know, the percentage.
28:35
Speaker 1: It sounds just you know, abysmally, it sounds terrible. But um,
28:39
Speaker 1: you start looking at a state that's you know, the
28:42
Speaker 1: size of Poland and then you realize, oh, that's still
28:46
Speaker 1: a decent amount of acreage, you know, so there's there's
28:49
Speaker 1: some ground to hunt, you know, and like you're saying, uh,
28:52
Speaker 1: we don't have as good a crops, but you know,
28:55
Speaker 1: a lot of the flat grounds and cattle production or
28:57
Speaker 1: hat production, so um, all the stuff that ended up
29:01
Speaker 1: in core engineers or whatever is all kind of bottom lands.
29:03
Speaker 1: And you know you got your habitat Yeah, well a
29:07
Speaker 1: couple of things there. So when you talk about, you know,
29:10
Speaker 1: maybe not the best age class on public land, like
29:13
Speaker 1: that's a that's a very common complaint, but it's also
29:17
Speaker 1: the reality that most of us, if we're traveling out
29:19
Speaker 1: of state, we want to go we'll have a good hunt.
29:21
Speaker 1: You throw a dart on the map, man, if it
29:23
Speaker 1: lands near some woods or some cover, there's a buck
29:25
Speaker 1: that probably uses that that all of us would be
29:27
Speaker 1: happy with. And so a lot of people plan their
29:30
Speaker 1: hunts around you know, I really want a one forty
29:34
Speaker 1: or one fifty plus or something, and that's kind of
29:38
Speaker 1: a scary thing to focus on. Instead you should be
29:41
Speaker 1: looking at just like where can I go to have
29:43
Speaker 1: have a badass hunt? And I really would caution people
29:48
Speaker 1: there's there's such a we're in a weird place with
29:50
Speaker 1: public land right right now, because it's it's freaking busy,
29:54
Speaker 1: and it's busy across the spectrum right like, doesn't matter
29:57
Speaker 1: what you're hunting, but there's still great opportunity is out there.
30:00
Speaker 1: But there's also a lot of loud voices that are
30:03
Speaker 1: bitching about it about all of this pressure. And if
30:07
Speaker 1: you if you're interested in traveling out of state, you
30:10
Speaker 1: might you might visit a bunch of different sites that
30:14
Speaker 1: are dedicated to traveling to hunt or you know, these
30:17
Speaker 1: forums or whatever, and you you're gonna hear a ton
30:20
Speaker 1: of negative stuff and like, but I I almost think
30:25
Speaker 1: you should not use any of that stuff. And and
30:28
Speaker 1: I know it's like it's a dangerous blanket statement, but
30:31
Speaker 1: you don't know who you're getting advice from, Like, you
30:34
Speaker 1: don't know what their motivations are. You have no idea
30:37
Speaker 1: if they know how to hunt. And so you might
30:39
Speaker 1: have somebody telling you not to come there because all
30:41
Speaker 1: the dear Diety h D or the rifle hunters shoot
30:43
Speaker 1: them all. This person might not have killed a buck
30:45
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years. They might just be a
30:46
Speaker 1: keyboard warrior, right, And so I think, really, and I'm
30:51
Speaker 1: curious if you guys do this, But when when you
30:53
Speaker 1: go hunt a bunch of different states on public land
30:55
Speaker 1: and your camping and you're doing your thing, you just
30:56
Speaker 1: realize how much BS is out there, and how how
31:01
Speaker 1: what we think and we say we know and what
31:03
Speaker 1: we believe. When you go out there, you just realize, like, Nope,
31:06
Speaker 1: it's totally different. There's there's quality to be had, there's action,
31:10
Speaker 1: packed hunts to be had. There's just fun, enjoyable hunting,
31:14
Speaker 1: and it's not easy, Like it's not gonna be easy,
31:17
Speaker 1: but it's always worth it. And so you kind of
31:20
Speaker 1: got to close those browser windows, stop listening to those people,
31:23
Speaker 1: and just go, I would love to hunt Missouri, or
31:27
Speaker 1: I would love to hunt whatever. I'm just gonna do
31:29
Speaker 1: it and start really doing that that maps coding that
31:33
Speaker 1: you're talking about and the research for yourself and just go.
31:35
Speaker 1: Just acknowledge that there's gonna be enough deer there for you,
31:38
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be deer. They're gonna make you happy
31:40
Speaker 1: right off the bat. Yeah. Absolutely, And I think that
31:44
Speaker 1: you need to model yourself as the top of person
31:47
Speaker 1: who can be happy, because if you just have a
31:52
Speaker 1: mentality where you're just not very happy, you're not gonna
31:55
Speaker 1: be happy with the hunt. You get what I'm saying,
31:57
Speaker 1: Like it takes a value to be a tra aveling
32:00
Speaker 1: public plan hunter. You have to, uh, you have to
32:05
Speaker 1: be able to appreciate what you're doing, appreciate the landscape
32:08
Speaker 1: here and appreciate the animals and and like it. You know,
32:11
Speaker 1: not to be too hippie, right, but I can't. I
32:13
Speaker 1: am a little bit of a hippie. So like you,
32:16
Speaker 1: you need to know like how to be happy. You
32:19
Speaker 1: need to figure that out, and then you can be
32:21
Speaker 1: happy with the type of deer that you shoot, right,
32:24
Speaker 1: And I think for sure we run into that a ton.
32:26
Speaker 1: And then I used to just just be all over
32:30
Speaker 1: the hunting forms and stuff, you know, just listening, trying
32:32
Speaker 1: to pick up on little things and taking notes and
32:34
Speaker 1: all that. And now I just realized that, man, it's
32:38
Speaker 1: an inverse bill curve um, you know, and there's gonna
32:41
Speaker 1: be a whole bunch of people on each side. There's
32:43
Speaker 1: gonna be guys that are that you and this. These
32:45
Speaker 1: guys usually the people you talk to in a camp
32:47
Speaker 1: or something like that. Oh yeah, man, there's been three
32:50
Speaker 1: one seventies killed here, you know, like those guys, and
32:53
Speaker 1: then and uh, there's the other guys like, oh man,
32:56
Speaker 1: it's terrible. There's hunters everywhere, and uh, you know, e
33:00
Speaker 1: h D is just it's been killing us. And it's like,
33:03
Speaker 1: you know, what, if you just go show up at
33:06
Speaker 1: you know, said state on a piece of public ground,
33:08
Speaker 1: spend three days, you'll figure something out and probably find
33:11
Speaker 1: some deer. You know, it might not be withmany but
33:13
Speaker 1: you'll see something which is kind of on the middle
33:15
Speaker 1: of all that. Yeah, and what what's cool about it
33:18
Speaker 1: is at least with white tails now. And this is
33:21
Speaker 1: this is why I know people get mad when you
33:24
Speaker 1: encourage people to go hunt public land, But really we've
33:28
Speaker 1: just got good opportunities right now, and I don't I'm
33:30
Speaker 1: not confident they're going to be here in the future
33:33
Speaker 1: as far as like over the counter tags and places
33:35
Speaker 1: you can just buy your tag online and go show
33:37
Speaker 1: up and hunt and have a great hunt. And so
33:40
Speaker 1: I'm like, take advantage of that now because we don't
33:41
Speaker 1: know where that's going. But you know, there's there's also
33:44
Speaker 1: the reality of doing this where it's like and you
33:49
Speaker 1: kind of alluded to this. You know, if you if
33:51
Speaker 1: you hunt at home and you've got your lease or
33:53
Speaker 1: your grandma's farm or whatever, and you're you know, go
33:55
Speaker 1: to the same tree stands over and over and you're like, man,
33:57
Speaker 1: I'd like to go saddle up and be mobile, Like
34:00
Speaker 1: find a state, find a find a situation that's gonna
34:02
Speaker 1: allow you to do that, or like you mentioned earlier,
34:05
Speaker 1: if if the if you're kind of squirreling, you got
34:07
Speaker 1: a bunch of a d h D going on in
34:09
Speaker 1: your brain and you want to go try to find
34:11
Speaker 1: deer and stock them. There's states they're going to sell
34:14
Speaker 1: you a tag where you can do that. Like there's
34:15
Speaker 1: there's opportunities to expand your worldview of white tales. That's
34:18
Speaker 1: what's so cool about it. Like it's not just go
34:21
Speaker 1: you know, Like the Iowa thing is a perfect example.
34:24
Speaker 1: Everybody says, I want to go to Iowa because I
34:26
Speaker 1: want to kill a big one. Man. I drew Iowa
34:29
Speaker 1: last year, and I had more fun hunting there than
34:32
Speaker 1: anywhere because I saw so many deer. Like I knew
34:36
Speaker 1: I was going to go in and I could get
34:37
Speaker 1: I could get a layer back from the other guys
34:39
Speaker 1: who were hunting this public that I was on and
34:42
Speaker 1: I was I wasn't gonna blink. And you know how
34:44
Speaker 1: it is like when you hunt a state like that,
34:46
Speaker 1: you see enough deer, one of them is going to
34:48
Speaker 1: be freaking awesome, or a couple of them are, and
34:51
Speaker 1: it's just it's so fun to hunt that way and
34:54
Speaker 1: have that and you and I've seen that in states.
34:56
Speaker 1: You know, it's not just Iowa, right, Like some of
34:58
Speaker 1: these states where people just really don't know how good
35:01
Speaker 1: they have it. You can go and have see a
35:03
Speaker 1: ton of deer and have an awesome hunt and it's
35:06
Speaker 1: freaking over the coner man, it's amazing. Yeah, absolutely, And
35:10
Speaker 1: I think that when you start planning and think about
35:12
Speaker 1: your hunts, you look at these states that everyone knows
35:14
Speaker 1: is amazing and uh, hunt the fringes of those. Man.
35:17
Speaker 1: You know, if if you want to go and have
35:19
Speaker 1: a good hunt, you can do it anywhere. But if
35:21
Speaker 1: you're trying to find a place to start and you
35:22
Speaker 1: don't really know how to do that, like you zone
35:25
Speaker 1: in on whatever state, I hate to put a spot out,
35:29
Speaker 1: but you know, you find one of those states that
35:30
Speaker 1: everybody knows, great state to hunt. Oh yeah, man, it's awesome. Well,
35:34
Speaker 1: you know what, there's there's state boundaries right there pretty
35:37
Speaker 1: close to that that you can probably have a pretty
35:38
Speaker 1: good hunt on too. You know, it's not it's not
35:40
Speaker 1: super hard to figure out. And you know, I've I've
35:43
Speaker 1: done some of that and guess what, the quality of
35:45
Speaker 1: bucks on that side of that imaginary line are about
35:47
Speaker 1: the same as over here. Uh. You know, there might
35:49
Speaker 1: be a little bit increased hunting pressure depending on what's
35:52
Speaker 1: going on or whatever, but um, it's but there are
35:55
Speaker 1: so many arbitrary, imaginary lines that we place on ourselves
36:00
Speaker 1: that animals don't give a hoot about. Um. And you
36:04
Speaker 1: can take this back to uh, we've been talking a
36:06
Speaker 1: lot about this, like Rhodes man, and I know we're
36:09
Speaker 1: talking on a big scale, but um, dude, dear, don't
36:12
Speaker 1: give a hoot about roads, not even major interstates. Man.
36:16
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, of course they they're going to consider
36:19
Speaker 1: it when they cross one because there's a bunch of
36:21
Speaker 1: cars and stuff. But um, we were hunting somewhere this
36:24
Speaker 1: year and there were deer crossing the interstate every day,
36:27
Speaker 1: just not like, hey, it's the rut. I'm gonna do
36:30
Speaker 1: something weird, just like how they lived, you know. And
36:33
Speaker 1: you take that and then you apply to white rock
36:35
Speaker 1: that you find in Iowa, Missouri or whatever, like they
36:38
Speaker 1: don't care at all, you know, it does not matter
36:41
Speaker 1: one bit. And we think about like, oh, I don't
36:43
Speaker 1: know if I want to hunt next to that road,
36:45
Speaker 1: you know whatever? Tywa, Tywa? What am I saying? Tyler
36:49
Speaker 1: kild in Iowa. That's how fast I talked sometimes, Man,
36:51
Speaker 1: I just come fitnesses into one word. Tyler kildan, Iowa.
36:55
Speaker 1: On a place that we mask at it. That was
36:57
Speaker 1: eighty yards from a road, you know, on public ground,
37:00
Speaker 1: and it's just like, yeah, I probably wouldn't hunt right
37:03
Speaker 1: next to the parking area because that's kind of a
37:06
Speaker 1: foreign thing to do, you know, like, oh, you know,
37:08
Speaker 1: I could have run there. But dear, don't care about
37:11
Speaker 1: this stuff that we make up, you know, they just don't.
37:13
Speaker 1: They don't care. And it goes back to the rut
37:15
Speaker 1: schedule all that stuff. We saw. Deer in Kansas also
37:18
Speaker 1: locked down on Doze um, you know on November five,
37:23
Speaker 1: you know, and it's not there's not a specific There
37:26
Speaker 1: might be uh in other states. And I'm not gonna
37:29
Speaker 1: uh down anybody who has a ton more knowledge than me,
37:32
Speaker 1: like say Bill Winky friends, since I love Bill Winky.
37:34
Speaker 1: Bill Wink is so smart and he's such a good
37:36
Speaker 1: deer hunter, such a nice guy. Um, he believes in
37:39
Speaker 1: specific lock down dates, right, and very well could be
37:43
Speaker 1: that on the places he's hunted inn Iowa, having hunted
37:46
Speaker 1: those places. But I don't see that, you know, hardly
37:49
Speaker 1: at all. I think that in any point in time
37:51
Speaker 1: the month of November, you can have a buck who's
37:54
Speaker 1: wanting to hang out with buddies, you can have a
37:56
Speaker 1: buck that's running around being crazy zombie mode chasing those,
37:59
Speaker 1: and you can have a buck that's hanging out with
38:01
Speaker 1: this girl. He's gonna make sure he is within five
38:03
Speaker 1: feet of her all day long, you know. And that's
38:05
Speaker 1: just that's what I've seen. So that's completely the other
38:10
Speaker 1: direction of what we were just talking about. But yeah,
38:14
Speaker 1: there's kind of bring it back out. Like for people
38:17
Speaker 1: who are planning hunts and thinking about going on places,
38:20
Speaker 1: don't let human boundaries affect your deer hunting right in
38:24
Speaker 1: in every sense of the word boundary except for property lines,
38:28
Speaker 1: because you probably don't want to cross on a private
38:29
Speaker 1: property unless you have permission. That I think I find
38:34
Speaker 1: myself when I when I think about this stuff, I
38:37
Speaker 1: find myself having to what kind of default to the negatives?
38:41
Speaker 1: Right Like we we say, okay, there's gonna be too
38:44
Speaker 1: many people or you know that interstates right there, so
38:46
Speaker 1: I don't want to hunt by that. We we we
38:49
Speaker 1: go negative a lot. But the positive thing about white
38:53
Speaker 1: tails is they're going to tell you where they are.
38:56
Speaker 1: They leave a lot of sign and so you know
38:59
Speaker 1: your example of you know, Tyler killing right by an interstate.
39:02
Speaker 1: I mean I I scouted a spot in Iowa. I
39:04
Speaker 1: didn't hunt it, but I scouted a spot right along
39:06
Speaker 1: the interstate where I'm positive you could have killed a
39:10
Speaker 1: big one fifty yards from that interstate. Like I found
39:14
Speaker 1: spots where I was like, holy sh it, like they're
39:16
Speaker 1: they're cruising right along this, they're crossing it. I found
39:19
Speaker 1: places where they were crossing it, and it's like you
39:22
Speaker 1: would look at that and go, that's probably not where
39:25
Speaker 1: I want to hunt, or there's not gonna be deer there.
39:27
Speaker 1: Then you walk in and they tell you like they
39:30
Speaker 1: let you know, and it's the same thing, like you're
39:32
Speaker 1: you're anecdote about the parking lots and you know everybody
39:36
Speaker 1: you know it was get seven miles back in the
39:38
Speaker 1: back country for white tails, it was get a mile
39:40
Speaker 1: or two back. Now it's like, you know everybody's doing that,
39:44
Speaker 1: so you can kill one right by the parking lot.
39:46
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, there's a little from column A,
39:48
Speaker 1: a little from column B. But the reality is they're
39:50
Speaker 1: just gonna show you. And I know I've had times
39:54
Speaker 1: in my life where I felt like I had to
39:56
Speaker 1: get back so far where you just you're like they
39:59
Speaker 1: are pushed act. A couple of layers deep. And there's
40:03
Speaker 1: times where you're walking back there to those spots and
40:05
Speaker 1: you run across tons of sign right by the parking area.
40:09
Speaker 1: I mean I've killed I've killed a couple of bucks
40:10
Speaker 1: in different states where I could see my truck like
40:13
Speaker 1: two minute drags back there, and you're not a public land.
40:16
Speaker 1: You're like, this is stupid, but you just look and go,
40:18
Speaker 1: this is where they are. And so it's a matter.
40:21
Speaker 1: You know, people people when they're planning these hunts or
40:25
Speaker 1: they're like, i'd like to go try that. You get
40:28
Speaker 1: you fall in love with these ideas that you're east scouting,
40:30
Speaker 1: and and east scouting is super important, like I fully
40:34
Speaker 1: believe that. But it's like a foundation and then you
40:38
Speaker 1: get there and you gotta go, Okay, well, I love
40:41
Speaker 1: this spot. I dropped a pin here, I love this
40:42
Speaker 1: body dropped a pin here. Pay attention what you see
40:45
Speaker 1: on the way in and the way out, and pay
40:47
Speaker 1: attention to whether you were right or wrong, because you
40:49
Speaker 1: get that stuff wrong all the time. But somewhere in
40:52
Speaker 1: that process, if you have that kind of rough plan
40:55
Speaker 1: but you're open to freelancing in a little bit, you're
40:57
Speaker 1: gonna run across that concentration assigned somewhere. Even if you're
41:00
Speaker 1: in the big woods, eventually you're gonna run across something,
41:03
Speaker 1: even if it's just one community scrape or whatever that
41:06
Speaker 1: speaks to you. It's out there, and it's just it's
41:10
Speaker 1: so freaking fun to show up where you don't know
41:12
Speaker 1: where that's gonna be, and then when you find it
41:14
Speaker 1: in that place is just humming. It's so cool. Yeah, absolutely, man.
41:19
Speaker 1: You know something else that you talk about, the walk
41:21
Speaker 1: in and that kind of stuff and finding stuff in
41:23
Speaker 1: the way and something else that people don't like to do.
41:26
Speaker 1: Um that can really benefit you when it comes to
41:29
Speaker 1: like actually going in hunting is uh, guys are down
41:33
Speaker 1: with the walk in far thing nowadays, right, But a
41:36
Speaker 1: lot of times I feel that people don't want to
41:39
Speaker 1: walk in through junk, like just terrible places to go
41:43
Speaker 1: get to that stuff. Like you and it's kind of
41:45
Speaker 1: like the scenic thing almost where it's like, well, I'll
41:49
Speaker 1: walcome mile in, but I kind of want to go,
41:51
Speaker 1: you know, through this creek crossing and look, walk through
41:53
Speaker 1: some timber and get there. Whereas in Oklahoma, at the
41:55
Speaker 1: best spot we found the other day, you had to
41:57
Speaker 1: walk through three quarters of a mile of gray east
42:00
Speaker 1: to two inches just nasty just across the hay meta
42:05
Speaker 1: right to get to this spot, and um, it's just
42:08
Speaker 1: not very scenic, right, it's not very enjoyable, especially when
42:11
Speaker 1: it's thirty five and windy to just walk out across
42:14
Speaker 1: there and get blasted. And I think that, Um, and
42:18
Speaker 1: you have to decide what you want, right, If you
42:20
Speaker 1: want to go in and kill a deer, then you've
42:22
Speaker 1: got to be able willing to do that. If you
42:24
Speaker 1: want to have, um, a pretty walk in, then you
42:29
Speaker 1: don't do that, you know. But but I think that's
42:32
Speaker 1: something else that kind of stems off of what you're
42:33
Speaker 1: talking about. It's like, uh, don't, um, you know, fall
42:37
Speaker 1: love of the spot because the whole area looks great. Man,
42:39
Speaker 1: you only need, like you just needed Buck to be
42:43
Speaker 1: in one spot to kill him, right, he needs he
42:46
Speaker 1: needs to be twenty yards from you one time. That's all.
42:49
Speaker 1: That's all you need. Like you don't have to have
42:51
Speaker 1: this place that's just beautiful or whatever that you walk into,
42:54
Speaker 1: you know, right, like hunting next to the interstate stuff. Man,
42:57
Speaker 1: that drives me crazy. Only did it one time this
42:59
Speaker 1: year because I just it handle that concept. And it's
43:02
Speaker 1: because that's not what I wanted out of the hunt. Um.
43:05
Speaker 1: It also probably helped that I didn't see a booner
43:08
Speaker 1: in there that day, but if I did, I probably
43:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't hunted there a lot, you know, So, uh it
43:12
Speaker 1: makes a big difference. And still even on stuff stuff
43:16
Speaker 1: like that, you can learn on the way in and
43:18
Speaker 1: figure out, hey, this isn't where I need to be
43:20
Speaker 1: because you know what, on that same hunt we went in,
43:23
Speaker 1: I already told you about putting that stalk from that
43:24
Speaker 1: deer that was a failed stalk, but realized you can
43:27
Speaker 1: glass from that position, and then realized how much the
43:30
Speaker 1: deer we're still using that bald, nasty hay meta. Early
43:35
Speaker 1: in the morning, right there was like a grove of
43:37
Speaker 1: trees out there that uh, I think they were soap berries.
43:41
Speaker 1: And in the summertime they folly just so thick that
43:44
Speaker 1: it blocks out the sun. Well the winter, there was
43:46
Speaker 1: a ton of green grass growing up underneath there, and
43:49
Speaker 1: you know sometimes once it gets to December, it's dirt
43:52
Speaker 1: and green grass. That's all they got to eat, you know.
43:54
Speaker 1: And there's these little even as little food pockets. Says,
43:57
Speaker 1: you don't even realize you're there, you know, And it
43:58
Speaker 1: takes that nation stuff, that learning that you do on
44:02
Speaker 1: the fly out there to realize that stuff. We've been
44:17
Speaker 1: really conditioned to fall in love with the aesthetics of
44:21
Speaker 1: certain places. The turkey hunters do this all the time,
44:23
Speaker 1: right Like if you if you public land, turkey hunt
44:25
Speaker 1: a lot that kind of dreamy pastured woods that you know,
44:30
Speaker 1: with the cornfield in the corner like that, that kind
44:33
Speaker 1: of place that would be so awesome to run and
44:35
Speaker 1: gun on private land, that that place will be worthless
44:39
Speaker 1: on public land for turkeys. And turkeys figure it out.
44:42
Speaker 1: And so when you think about white tails, they just
44:45
Speaker 1: are where they are. And a lot of times it's
44:47
Speaker 1: not the nice places we want to hunt, you know.
44:50
Speaker 1: I know a lot of states have you know, state
44:54
Speaker 1: planet planted food plots or you know, the the lease
44:57
Speaker 1: out some ground and you know it looks amazing, right Like,
45:00
Speaker 1: it looks like the kind of place if you showed
45:01
Speaker 1: up on a private chunk, he'd be like, I'm setting
45:03
Speaker 1: up on the edge of this. But when you get
45:05
Speaker 1: there on public you just go, this is this is
45:08
Speaker 1: just a place everybody's gonna be and you start you
45:11
Speaker 1: start figuring out that what I like to look at
45:14
Speaker 1: and what I'd kind of like to sit and hunt
45:16
Speaker 1: in is probably not where these deer going to be,
45:18
Speaker 1: because we're all kind of wired to do that. And
45:21
Speaker 1: you get these moments when you do these kind of
45:23
Speaker 1: hunts where you figure out that those deer, even though
45:26
Speaker 1: you know, like a prime example where I've killed a
45:30
Speaker 1: bunch of bucks in South Dakota, there's egg mixed in.
45:33
Speaker 1: There's a lot of walk in area stuff, so it's
45:35
Speaker 1: it's working ranches, looks amazing, and you can you can
45:39
Speaker 1: find good bucks on that stuff. But a lot of
45:42
Speaker 1: times I find those deer back in these meadows and
45:46
Speaker 1: back in these places, on these benches where they're browsing,
45:49
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they're ending up on that egg at
45:50
Speaker 1: some point and starting there in the morning. But where
45:53
Speaker 1: they're killable are the places that just don't look as deery,
45:57
Speaker 1: but that's where they're at, and it so consistent, and
46:01
Speaker 1: so you kind of have to reframe your thought process.
46:04
Speaker 1: If you're if you're planning on going on an out
46:07
Speaker 1: of state white tail trip and you've only ever hunted
46:10
Speaker 1: you know, private land in your home state, permission base, whatever,
46:14
Speaker 1: you sort of have to go, Okay, this is going
46:15
Speaker 1: to be a different thing probably, like this is where
46:18
Speaker 1: the deer are going to be in that state I
46:20
Speaker 1: want to go to, and how they're going to use
46:22
Speaker 1: the land is going to be somewhat different probably than
46:25
Speaker 1: what I'm used to. And I think a lot of
46:27
Speaker 1: people struggle with that. The same thing with you know,
46:30
Speaker 1: trail cameras. If you if you take a bunch of
46:33
Speaker 1: trail cameras with you on a trip and you've got
46:35
Speaker 1: five or six days, like that's probably not a great
46:38
Speaker 1: idea for most hunts because you're you're working backwards on
46:41
Speaker 1: that and you need to be in the moment more
46:44
Speaker 1: and so you have to think, like, Okay, this this
46:45
Speaker 1: trip that I'm planning, this is a different thing than
46:48
Speaker 1: what I do all year at home. And I think
46:50
Speaker 1: I think people until you really expose yourself to that,
46:53
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to understand and hard to get
46:55
Speaker 1: into that different mode. But it's pretty necessary. Yeah, that's
46:59
Speaker 1: a that's a thing that outdoor TV has sold somewhat
47:02
Speaker 1: of the we're gonna show up and put truck camera
47:04
Speaker 1: out and see you know, and and uh, you know,
47:07
Speaker 1: not to be rude to those guys or whatever. You know,
47:09
Speaker 1: all those guys are pioneers, but that just isn't very
47:12
Speaker 1: um applicable for a five to seven day out of
47:15
Speaker 1: state hunt. There are a few things. One thing that
47:16
Speaker 1: we do, uh, in this specific situation you're talking about,
47:20
Speaker 1: we use some multi sale camps, right and and will
47:24
Speaker 1: uh find a piece of you know, maybe state planet
47:27
Speaker 1: Baggs stuff or whatever on some public ground, hang that
47:30
Speaker 1: camera on a obvious trail that you know it's gonna
47:34
Speaker 1: be nighttime. But you can somewhat plan if you if
47:38
Speaker 1: you're good at scouting, you can say, Okay, that buck
47:42
Speaker 1: was there at ten PM. I know which direction of
47:45
Speaker 1: travel is. Let's go back and find that sucker and
47:47
Speaker 1: killing a half mile from the camera, right and Uh,
47:50
Speaker 1: that's something I've seen. Another thing I've learned from you is, um,
47:54
Speaker 1: I think you know, when we first started talking about stuff,
47:57
Speaker 1: probably you knowen something like that. Um, you're big on
48:01
Speaker 1: October and hunting deer then, and I think that when
48:05
Speaker 1: you start talking about going to public land and finding
48:08
Speaker 1: these places that look really good, be like, man, every
48:11
Speaker 1: other guy is gonna be in there. Well that he
48:14
Speaker 1: is true, But you can actually hunt at times when
48:17
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot less people than others you know,
48:20
Speaker 1: uh Tyler planning to his Iowall hunt in twenty nineteen,
48:23
Speaker 1: kind of on the front and back end of the
48:27
Speaker 1: vacation toyp hunts. You can then, you know, think about
48:30
Speaker 1: the same thing. We go to UM South Dakota for
48:33
Speaker 1: October one archery opener and hardly ever see another person
48:37
Speaker 1: that's hunting white tails because you know, there's uh if
48:41
Speaker 1: you hunt private ground in South Dakota, you can start
48:43
Speaker 1: in September and then after that a lot of people
48:47
Speaker 1: are trying to hunt Mulei's anyways, and then every everybody
48:49
Speaker 1: else is kind of waste in the run rut. You
48:51
Speaker 1: can go up there in October when there's hardly anybody
48:54
Speaker 1: around and sit on this you know, picturesque spot and
48:57
Speaker 1: shoot a deer because it wants a hunt dere on
49:00
Speaker 1: October four. You know, that's at least that's kind of
49:02
Speaker 1: the what it seems people have the opinion of. So
49:06
Speaker 1: I think that that's kind of a thing that you
49:08
Speaker 1: can also figure in if you're trying to hunt out
49:10
Speaker 1: of state, especially on the early on the front end
49:13
Speaker 1: of that UM you know, push for pressure in November
49:16
Speaker 1: October is a pretty cool spot, especially if you want
49:19
Speaker 1: to go try something new. Um, you can still make
49:22
Speaker 1: it home or wherever your traditional rut hunts body is,
49:25
Speaker 1: go tr October somewhere else, you know, especially if you're
49:28
Speaker 1: kind of from the south, you can go further north
49:30
Speaker 1: a little big, get some cooler weather, and see some
49:33
Speaker 1: pretty good deer man. Well, you know, my thing with
49:37
Speaker 1: October came from growing up in a state with a
49:39
Speaker 1: super early gun season and just you know, not never
49:44
Speaker 1: so many years in my life I never relied on
49:47
Speaker 1: the rut at all because it wasn't an option, and
49:49
Speaker 1: so it just hunted when I could, which was I
49:53
Speaker 1: hunted every chance I could. Let me put it this
49:55
Speaker 1: way for years and years and years, and you just realize, like, Okay,
49:58
Speaker 1: these guys are telling me middle October sucks, but I'm
50:01
Speaker 1: going out here and I'm having fun hunts, Like what's
50:04
Speaker 1: going on? Here's a disconnect here. And then when you
50:08
Speaker 1: when you see there's trends in the hunting population, and
50:12
Speaker 1: you see these things we just internalized so much, and
50:16
Speaker 1: I'm a contrarian. I'm like, I don't want to be
50:19
Speaker 1: I don't want to be there when everybody else is there.
50:22
Speaker 1: I would rather theoretically have harder hunting quote unquote in
50:25
Speaker 1: the middle October and have fewer people to deal with
50:28
Speaker 1: than just show up during the rut. And I think
50:31
Speaker 1: a lot of people make a planning mistake around this.
50:34
Speaker 1: They go, I gotta be in Nebraska in September one
50:37
Speaker 1: because I want a velvet buck. Well, yeah, you and
50:41
Speaker 1: other guys are thinking the same thing. Or you know
50:44
Speaker 1: that the rut is even more popular probably in most
50:47
Speaker 1: of these states, and you go, I gotta be there
50:49
Speaker 1: on November seven, that's the date, And listen, you can
50:53
Speaker 1: have amazing rut hunts on public land. You can. But
50:57
Speaker 1: you're you're saying, I'm I'm gonna play this in a
51:01
Speaker 1: way where I hope the deer out of their minds
51:03
Speaker 1: and they're running everywhere. But I also know there's gonna
51:06
Speaker 1: be more pressure in the woods with me, more competition
51:09
Speaker 1: than any other point of this season except maybe opening weekend.
51:14
Speaker 1: And then you've got all this space between there, and
51:17
Speaker 1: you go, listen, do I do I want to just
51:20
Speaker 1: try to work the deer, or do I want to
51:23
Speaker 1: have to factor in, like heavily factor in the pressure.
51:26
Speaker 1: And for me, I'm like, I want to compete against
51:29
Speaker 1: the deer. They're they're a hell of a lot easier
51:32
Speaker 1: to work with than you know, when the parking lots
51:35
Speaker 1: start filling up and people are everywhere, and this is
51:37
Speaker 1: a this is a message people like I think they
51:40
Speaker 1: don't believe it, almost like because we've heard it so much.
51:44
Speaker 1: But go spend some time doing this. And I say this,
51:47
Speaker 1: so a great way to plan your first hunt is
51:51
Speaker 1: pick a state like Oklahoma or some state that's gonna
51:53
Speaker 1: be a target rich environment probably, And but you know,
51:58
Speaker 1: you maybe aren't necessary really going their dream in a
52:01
Speaker 1: one sixties, right, You're like, I just want to go
52:03
Speaker 1: have a good hunt. Maybe kill a couple of doughs,
52:04
Speaker 1: maybe run into a decent buck, whatever, maybe a pig.
52:07
Speaker 1: Just go to have a fun hunt. Do it in
52:09
Speaker 1: a time where you're like, I'm not gonna feel guilty
52:11
Speaker 1: because I'm missing a rut hunt, right Like, I'm not
52:14
Speaker 1: gonna feel guilty because I should be here there wherever,
52:18
Speaker 1: and go experience that, you know, like go go spend
52:21
Speaker 1: that time, go camp for a few days, and go
52:23
Speaker 1: hunt during those off times when you have lower expectations.
52:27
Speaker 1: You have less into it than maybe waiting that three
52:29
Speaker 1: or four or five years for the Iowa tag and
52:31
Speaker 1: see what you can come up with, because you're going
52:33
Speaker 1: to have a hell of a lot of fun. I
52:34
Speaker 1: bet yeah, absolutely. And the thing that Tyler and I
52:37
Speaker 1: talked about a lot is go hunt places that, um
52:41
Speaker 1: you have to find sign as opposed to interpret sign.
52:44
Speaker 1: Like I can't imagine showing up to Iowa after waiting
52:48
Speaker 1: five years and just being like, what do I do
52:51
Speaker 1: because there's this isn't the truth, but it feels like
52:55
Speaker 1: there's a scrape in a rub almost every tree and
52:58
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, and you're like, oh, I'll
53:00
Speaker 1: just go right here. You know. But if you go
53:03
Speaker 1: to some of these states and you you learn a
53:05
Speaker 1: little bit more about traveling and hunting, interpreting sign and
53:08
Speaker 1: doing that, you'll be way more prepared for when you
53:11
Speaker 1: do draw that good tag. You know, like if you
53:13
Speaker 1: have to go and figure out how to kill a
53:15
Speaker 1: deer in say North Dakota, then whenever you do draw Iowa,
53:21
Speaker 1: you it's not your first time trying to figure out
53:24
Speaker 1: how to kill a deer on public ground, you know.
53:26
Speaker 1: And you've seen the difference in nighttime sign that's laid
53:30
Speaker 1: down in daytime signus laid down, and you've hunted, say
53:33
Speaker 1: you know, if you're wanting to plan hunts and thinking
53:35
Speaker 1: about drawing up a hunt like Iowa or something else,
53:38
Speaker 1: go hunt some hill country somewhere else, assuming depending on
53:41
Speaker 1: what you you're gonna hunt, you know, but go practice
53:44
Speaker 1: in a state that's easier to draw or you know,
53:47
Speaker 1: over the counter that's similar habitat, and learn how the
53:50
Speaker 1: deer interact and act there. It's not gonna be too
53:54
Speaker 1: different in Iowa or you know, wherever you go. I
53:59
Speaker 1: hate to keep saying out, but it's it's just what's
54:01
Speaker 1: relative to me, right, Um, Like you'll you'll know what
54:05
Speaker 1: to do there. You know, you'll know, oh, hey, they
54:07
Speaker 1: run the tops of the ridges whenever they're you know,
54:09
Speaker 1: trying to smell does or whatever it might be. Right,
54:12
Speaker 1: It's it's all about accumulating knowledge, and the way you
54:15
Speaker 1: do that is experience. I mean, dude, I would take
54:19
Speaker 1: three days in the woods over a year's worth of
54:22
Speaker 1: reading form comments, you know what I mean. Like, it's
54:26
Speaker 1: you can you can learn from both, but it's you know,
54:30
Speaker 1: it's the difference in practice and playing, you know what
54:32
Speaker 1: I mean. It's it's just it's just so much different. Well, yeah,
54:35
Speaker 1: and you know there's a there's a good point to
54:37
Speaker 1: acknowledge there too. On so much of the hunting advice
54:42
Speaker 1: that's doled out from from everyone. Everyone who does this
54:46
Speaker 1: is big Bucks, big Bucks, big Bucks. Here's how you
54:49
Speaker 1: find big Bucks. Here's how you kill big Bucks. Here's
54:51
Speaker 1: how you set up, here's how you call them. But
54:53
Speaker 1: when you start traveling and you go, I'm gonna I'm
54:56
Speaker 1: gonna burn seven days a vacation, I'm gonna go hunt
54:57
Speaker 1: this date because I've always wanted to. What you realize
55:02
Speaker 1: is your first job, whether you kind of even acknowledge
55:05
Speaker 1: it or not, Like it's intuitively, you know, I have
55:07
Speaker 1: to find a dear concentration first, like I have to
55:10
Speaker 1: I have to figure out you know, I know, I
55:12
Speaker 1: have a square mile or five square miles of land here.
55:14
Speaker 1: I gotta find some pockets of deer. Then start whittling
55:19
Speaker 1: it down and we we kind of go in and go, oh,
55:22
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's night sign or this is only
55:24
Speaker 1: where does live or whatever. But really, when you start
55:28
Speaker 1: finding where deer concentrate, you're going to have one that
55:32
Speaker 1: you want to shoot there. And it's like a I mean,
55:36
Speaker 1: I know I said this earlier, but I'm always so
55:38
Speaker 1: surprised on you know, I'll put in so much ea
55:42
Speaker 1: scouting time and sometimes just nail it. Like sometimes I'm like,
55:46
Speaker 1: holy crap, I did a good job here. But a
55:48
Speaker 1: lot of times I show up and I go, this
55:50
Speaker 1: is not It's not what I expected. And so you go, Okay, Well,
55:54
Speaker 1: I gotta kind of go back to the drawing board.
55:56
Speaker 1: And I did this in Iowa. Uh last year when
55:59
Speaker 1: I drew. I mean I had freaking way points. I
56:03
Speaker 1: mean I had put in a stupid amount of time.
56:05
Speaker 1: I had been down there turkey hunt and look around.
56:08
Speaker 1: And I got down there opening day and I just
56:11
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, I don't really have a plan,
56:13
Speaker 1: like I have I have these spots. And so I
56:16
Speaker 1: hunted the first night and that and after that night,
56:18
Speaker 1: I was like, I gotta go fine deer, Like even
56:21
Speaker 1: all this work I've done, like I still don't feel
56:23
Speaker 1: like I'm on a concentration. And so I sand backed
56:27
Speaker 1: the morning and I went and hiked around and I
56:28
Speaker 1: found three spots where I was like, I'm on a
56:31
Speaker 1: concentration of deer and there's bucks here, and every one
56:34
Speaker 1: of them proved to be freaking awesome. But it was
56:36
Speaker 1: like it was like kind of humbling right to be, Like, dude,
56:40
Speaker 1: you've spent so many hours East scouting and so many
56:43
Speaker 1: hours thinking about this and you still got it wrong
56:47
Speaker 1: and had to just get there on October two or
56:50
Speaker 1: whatever it was and just walk around and go, Okay,
56:52
Speaker 1: this trails pounded their scrapes there, there's rubs there, there's
56:55
Speaker 1: obvious fresh sign. Now I have these three different little
56:59
Speaker 1: areas that I can start really you know, diving into
57:03
Speaker 1: and start observing, start figuring things out. And it's like, man,
57:07
Speaker 1: it's just the whole process has to be there, and
57:11
Speaker 1: we kind of like the idea of just you know,
57:13
Speaker 1: getting some insider information or you know, finding this pinch
57:16
Speaker 1: point on east scouting, it's gonna be good enough. It's like, no,
57:19
Speaker 1: all that could be great, it doesn't mean anything until
57:22
Speaker 1: you get out there and you're really ground truth this stuff.
57:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely there's a number of things that could be wrong
57:29
Speaker 1: with this. Last time, for instance, I went to Oklahoma.
57:32
Speaker 1: I've been to Oklahoma twice this uh you know, mid
57:36
Speaker 1: to late November and then once in December, and uh
57:39
Speaker 1: got up there, had to rework my spots the first
57:44
Speaker 1: time because they weren't as good as I hoped because
57:46
Speaker 1: the egg was different than I expected to be found
57:48
Speaker 1: something out, learned something on about day three and had
57:52
Speaker 1: to come home on day five, right, and had some
57:54
Speaker 1: good encounters with some bucks, just didn't get shoot one um.
57:58
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, okay, ready to go. The next
58:00
Speaker 1: time I go up there, I know exactly the place
58:02
Speaker 1: to be, go in there, and there's a hundred cows
58:05
Speaker 1: in the place. All of a sudden, it's like, oh gosh,
58:07
Speaker 1: you know, and you have to relearn all this stuff
58:09
Speaker 1: all over again, and being able to adapt and learn
58:12
Speaker 1: and change is super important. You cannot fall in love
58:15
Speaker 1: with a place like a specific spot, because honestly, it's
58:20
Speaker 1: not that you love that and you think that it's
58:22
Speaker 1: a great place to kill a deer. It's that you're
58:24
Speaker 1: prideful and you think that you were smarter than the
58:30
Speaker 1: environment around you, or however you want to phrase that, right,
58:33
Speaker 1: And you gotta put away the pride and just do
58:36
Speaker 1: what it takes to maybe find a deer and have
58:39
Speaker 1: to be able to look yourself in the eye in
58:41
Speaker 1: the mirror and say, you know what, I gotta scratch
58:44
Speaker 1: that whole last week of information that I got that
58:47
Speaker 1: I learned and start over and that's the way it has.
58:50
Speaker 1: You know, you just have to be able to accept
58:52
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And it's hard for me to
58:54
Speaker 1: do that, it really is. I do my um, I
58:58
Speaker 1: have a conviction to be as humble as I can.
59:02
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's so hard to make
59:05
Speaker 1: yourself humble, right, other things make you humble. You are humbled.
59:08
Speaker 1: You do not humble yourself, right. Uh So, uh the
59:14
Speaker 1: more I hunt, I can see it happening a little bit.
59:17
Speaker 1: I'm not good at it yet, but being able to
59:20
Speaker 1: not waste days on a bad spot because you're telling you, oh,
59:23
Speaker 1: it's good, it's gonna be good, it's gonna be good.
59:26
Speaker 1: Because I mean, realistically, for guys, not a lot of
59:28
Speaker 1: guys can go to Kansas and spend nine days like
59:30
Speaker 1: I did this year. I realized that, you know, I'm
59:32
Speaker 1: blessed in that aspect. I'm just thankful for for the opportunities, right,
59:37
Speaker 1: But I mean, most guys take off Thursday and Friday
59:41
Speaker 1: and make a long weekend of it whenever they get
59:43
Speaker 1: to go on a hunt, you know, and um man,
59:46
Speaker 1: if you or in that boat and still I feel
59:49
Speaker 1: this way on a nine day hunt, I have a
59:52
Speaker 1: morning that I feel like it's completely wasted and I
59:54
Speaker 1: didn't learn anything. I'm just like down in the dumps
59:57
Speaker 1: about it, you know, because you're just you. There's twelve
1:00:00
Speaker 1: hours of your life you'll never get back on a
1:00:02
Speaker 1: hunt that might be seventy two hours left, and you're like,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: holy you know, I have to do the same thing
1:00:07
Speaker 1: over again to night and try to put something together
1:00:10
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't work out, you know, And I
1:00:11
Speaker 1: think that's it's it's huge, a huge thing for us
1:00:14
Speaker 1: to learn is that you need to just put any
1:00:18
Speaker 1: ego or whatever you have aside and just do what
1:00:22
Speaker 1: it takes to kill a deer. And it sounds so cliche,
1:00:24
Speaker 1: but it's not the I'm gonna work hard or be stronger,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: be faster, be a better shot, all that stuff. It's
1:00:32
Speaker 1: it's the hey, I'm gonna take what I'm giving and
1:00:35
Speaker 1: do the best with it. You know. You approach, it's
1:00:37
Speaker 1: a different direction. I think that's that's what helps kill deer,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: you know well, And you know on that note, I mean,
1:00:43
Speaker 1: one of the things I preach about all the time
1:00:45
Speaker 1: that I firmly believe in is give yourself options. And
1:00:50
Speaker 1: so when you're if you're planning a hunt and you're like,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: I'm going here and I'm gonna hunt this property. You
1:00:55
Speaker 1: better have a backup, even if that property is ten acres.
1:00:58
Speaker 1: I mean, just you know you in Oklahoma as an example,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: the only time, the worst time of my life as
1:01:06
Speaker 1: far as like this this scenario. I went down my
1:01:09
Speaker 1: buddy and I drove down there, and you know, it's
1:01:11
Speaker 1: like fourteen hours. I did a pile of research. I'm like,
1:01:15
Speaker 1: we're going to be covered in deer in this spot.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: It was different from the area that I had gone
1:01:19
Speaker 1: to previously. We showed up camp there was there were
1:01:23
Speaker 1: a lot of people there, but we had a lot
1:01:25
Speaker 1: of ground to work with. I couldn't find a freaking deer.
1:01:28
Speaker 1: I mean I was like, I'm like I don't know
1:01:31
Speaker 1: what to do. I'm setting up to observe. I had
1:01:34
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours east scouting into it, and
1:01:37
Speaker 1: I was I mean it literally couldn't see a deer.
1:01:39
Speaker 1: I finally saw a dough on two fawns the last
1:01:42
Speaker 1: morning where my buddy and I the night before we're
1:01:45
Speaker 1: like we're not on anything, Like We're like not on anything,
1:01:49
Speaker 1: like no deer, and I was like, maybe we got
1:01:52
Speaker 1: to pull the plug on this and go calling audible
1:01:55
Speaker 1: and we ended up doing that and just we kind
1:01:58
Speaker 1: of realized that the area we wanted was probably not
1:02:02
Speaker 1: a great choice for us as far as like our
1:02:04
Speaker 1: strong suits, right. It just it was more of a
1:02:07
Speaker 1: It almost felt more like a Texas hunt would be.
1:02:10
Speaker 1: To me, like if I showed up in Texas, like,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: I gotta have to reframe how I think about a
1:02:13
Speaker 1: lot of stuff because it's just such different habitat. And
1:02:17
Speaker 1: this was kind of like that. I'm like, we need
1:02:19
Speaker 1: to go north, we need to get closer to the
1:02:21
Speaker 1: kind of trees I'm used to, and we need to
1:02:23
Speaker 1: go just sort of reset. And my flaw in that
1:02:26
Speaker 1: that trip planning was I became so cocky. I was like,
1:02:30
Speaker 1: this is it. We don't we have thousands of acres
1:02:33
Speaker 1: to work with. There's gonna be tons of deer here.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: We don't need a backup, and we we needed a
1:02:38
Speaker 1: backup bad And we ended up getting lucky and picking
1:02:40
Speaker 1: a spot where we went to and had a great
1:02:42
Speaker 1: hunt and saved the last couple of days of our hunt.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: But that was like like a card in a rule
1:02:47
Speaker 1: for mine is like, don't go in with just a
1:02:49
Speaker 1: spot don't go in with just an idea that this
1:02:52
Speaker 1: is it. And when you plan these hunts, a lot
1:02:55
Speaker 1: of times we'll go, Okay, well there's a chunk of
1:02:57
Speaker 1: public on this side of the road, no chunk of
1:02:59
Speaker 1: public on that side of the road, So that's good enough.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: And I'm talking maybe give yourself an entire quarter of
1:03:05
Speaker 1: a state, like maybe you know, if you show up
1:03:07
Speaker 1: and it is not working, instead of just kind of
1:03:10
Speaker 1: like pushing a dead program, you might have to drive
1:03:12
Speaker 1: a couple hours to a new area and sort of reset.
1:03:16
Speaker 1: But like in in the grand scheme of that kind
1:03:19
Speaker 1: of hunt, in the investment you put in pulling up,
1:03:21
Speaker 1: repacking your tent and your camping gear or whatever and
1:03:24
Speaker 1: moving three hours down the road, it's not that big
1:03:26
Speaker 1: of a deal. And it might change the entire course
1:03:30
Speaker 1: of your hunt. Oh absolutely. And that's something that I've
1:03:34
Speaker 1: learned as well, man, And I've learned it more from
1:03:36
Speaker 1: the elk hunt than I have deer hunt. And tell
1:03:38
Speaker 1: you the truth, and uh, you know, I've talked about
1:03:40
Speaker 1: this before, but the things that you learned doing X
1:03:44
Speaker 1: hunt help you so much with a completely different type
1:03:46
Speaker 1: of hunt. It's crazy, right, And I won't go too
1:03:49
Speaker 1: far into that. But um, the driving you do and
1:03:54
Speaker 1: going to bed at midnight as opposed to getting your
1:03:56
Speaker 1: eight thirty like normally those three hours you lose or
1:03:59
Speaker 1: three and a half f is so worth it sometimes,
1:04:02
Speaker 1: you know, and you know what, we can all function
1:04:04
Speaker 1: on four hours of sleep. Uh if one night, you know,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: and grabbing the day in the afternoon, you know, like
1:04:09
Speaker 1: it works, you can you can do it. If it
1:04:11
Speaker 1: makes it gives you an opportunity to hunt good deer
1:04:14
Speaker 1: or hunt a good spot, then it's worth doing. And uh,
1:04:18
Speaker 1: when it comes to hunt planning, that's kind of a
1:04:21
Speaker 1: huge thing to Like, it's good to be able to
1:04:24
Speaker 1: go find states that allow you to hunt the whole
1:04:27
Speaker 1: state because then you have that option. Uh. One of
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the things that I actually dislike about Iowa is the zones.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: You know, you have you have to stay within this
1:04:36
Speaker 1: certain union. It's pretty big, you know, and you know
1:04:39
Speaker 1: that before you go into it, right, But like, um,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm kind of a vagabond, right or
1:04:45
Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it. Like I like to just
1:04:47
Speaker 1: well hit the road sometimes and go see something new,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: and having that option is really nice. And uh, if
1:04:54
Speaker 1: you do have that option, though, something I've found that
1:04:56
Speaker 1: really helps me is setting a deadline for that. So say,
1:05:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give myself three days here. If i am
1:05:04
Speaker 1: not on a good dear or if I'm not on
1:05:06
Speaker 1: a good pattern or feel like something's going on, I'm
1:05:11
Speaker 1: gonna pull the plug right then. And forcing yourself to
1:05:13
Speaker 1: do it right now. Also, it takes some a little
1:05:16
Speaker 1: bit of h I don't know what you would call
1:05:19
Speaker 1: it. It It takes a little bit of gusto to tell yourself, Nope,
1:05:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna live and die here because I've seen this
1:05:25
Speaker 1: one deer or whatever like. You have to you have
1:05:27
Speaker 1: to have a certain uh constitution about you to be
1:05:31
Speaker 1: able to do that, right. But it's good to have that,
1:05:35
Speaker 1: um I guess ticker in the back of your head.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: I work pretty good under pressure too, so it kind
1:05:39
Speaker 1: of helps me to have a ticker. Um. I noticed
1:05:43
Speaker 1: in Kansas, um that when I had nine days, I
1:05:46
Speaker 1: killed on the eighth day. And you know, maybe if
1:05:48
Speaker 1: I only had four days, I would have killed on
1:05:51
Speaker 1: the third day. You know, you know what I mean. So, um,
1:05:54
Speaker 1: I think it's it's super helpful to scout that stuff.
1:05:58
Speaker 1: Um Ea scout. And then also I think that I'm
1:06:03
Speaker 1: gonna not only plan for a plan B, We're gonna
1:06:06
Speaker 1: make sure plan B looks different than what Plan A
1:06:09
Speaker 1: is because just like you're saying, certain people have strong suits. Um,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: if you're not used to hunting big timber, heavy cover
1:06:17
Speaker 1: with a ton of acorns, acorns for yeah, exactly, Uh, like,
1:06:26
Speaker 1: it could be tough because that do you only have
1:06:28
Speaker 1: to walk fifty yards to eat and hundred yards to drink,
1:06:31
Speaker 1: So um, if you're not used to that, but you
1:06:34
Speaker 1: want to go, try it. Find you something else that's
1:06:37
Speaker 1: near wheat fields and cotton woods or whatever it might be,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: that that's your backup, not a backup that's similar habitat,
1:06:43
Speaker 1: but just a different spot because really that's no no
1:06:47
Speaker 1: difference and bouncing across the street, right because it's the
1:06:52
Speaker 1: same thing pretty much. Yeah, and something on you know
1:06:55
Speaker 1: what you said about you know, giving yourself a deadline
1:06:57
Speaker 1: and being like, you know, if three days in this sucks,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: I'm out. One of the things I think that people
1:07:02
Speaker 1: make a huge mistake on with hunt planning is going
1:07:06
Speaker 1: with too many people are the wrong people because that
1:07:08
Speaker 1: situation where if you get there and you're like you personally,
1:07:11
Speaker 1: you're like I don't like this, and I'm ready to
1:07:13
Speaker 1: go if you have somebody. You know, the more people
1:07:16
Speaker 1: you have in camp, the more people you have invested
1:07:18
Speaker 1: in that hunt, the harder it is to just pull
1:07:21
Speaker 1: up stakes and move. And it just I know that
1:07:24
Speaker 1: people don't like to hear this because we like to
1:07:26
Speaker 1: travel with our buddies, But man, if you can keep
1:07:29
Speaker 1: it smaller, go solo, you will probably have a way
1:07:32
Speaker 1: better hunt. And it's I know, I know it costs
1:07:35
Speaker 1: a little bit more, and I know there's a different
1:07:37
Speaker 1: you know, safety aspect and stuff like that. But when
1:07:39
Speaker 1: you're when you're operating on your own schedule, or you've
1:07:42
Speaker 1: got like one trusted buddy who's like going to do
1:07:45
Speaker 1: the work and is kind of on the same wavelength
1:07:47
Speaker 1: as you, it's so much easier to have a good hunt,
1:07:51
Speaker 1: to enjoy yourself, to to to make better decisions. And
1:07:56
Speaker 1: the more you get random people involved, and the more
1:07:58
Speaker 1: you get people who aren't they have different objectives, different
1:08:01
Speaker 1: work ethics. It's it sucks, man, Yeah, it does. And
1:08:06
Speaker 1: then a lot of times, uh, when you have those
1:08:09
Speaker 1: people involved that maybe hunting differently, you're have a different
1:08:12
Speaker 1: work ethic of YadA YadA um you end up hunting
1:08:15
Speaker 1: close to each other because you have one or two vehicles,
1:08:17
Speaker 1: and then, um, it can cause a little uh split
1:08:23
Speaker 1: in the friendship or whatever you wanna call it, because
1:08:25
Speaker 1: you just have different expectations of what the other is
1:08:27
Speaker 1: gonna do. Whereas as we did this in South Dakota, right, No,
1:08:32
Speaker 1: no lost friendships at all. But we we had six
1:08:34
Speaker 1: guys in camp, three vehicles, so there's always a pair
1:08:38
Speaker 1: going out, um, and some of those guys running camera
1:08:42
Speaker 1: and this and that. But a lot of us end
1:08:43
Speaker 1: up punting near each other because they drop offs in
1:08:45
Speaker 1: that situation. Um, one guy has a stigmatism, can't see
1:08:50
Speaker 1: in the evening at all, like he he he, and
1:08:52
Speaker 1: he is gonna usually get down out of his tree
1:08:55
Speaker 1: before uh most of us would. And no fault of
1:08:59
Speaker 1: his own. I don't even think he can tell. Like
1:09:00
Speaker 1: when actual you know, into shooting, a lot of is
1:09:03
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And so we had to
1:09:05
Speaker 1: learn to kind of work around that, and then uh,
1:09:08
Speaker 1: you know, just different hunting stalls and that that sort
1:09:10
Speaker 1: of thing. One of the things that I find invaluable
1:09:13
Speaker 1: is just having your own vehicle, you know, just be
1:09:15
Speaker 1: able to be your mantel Island, you know, Durrell Reeva style.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: You know, just out there doing your thing, making your
1:09:22
Speaker 1: own decisions, living, living, and by dying by what you do.
1:09:26
Speaker 1: That way, you don't have anybody to be upset with,
1:09:29
Speaker 1: the scept yourself. You know, you can have six guys account,
1:09:32
Speaker 1: but having six vehicles and everybody able to go one direction,
1:09:34
Speaker 1: it's not very green friendly, right. I mean, I guess
1:09:37
Speaker 1: you can drop Tesla's and make it work and be fine,
1:09:39
Speaker 1: but but you know, uh, just being able to go
1:09:42
Speaker 1: and make your own choices, I think that's a that's
1:09:44
Speaker 1: a huge thing, man. And that's why Tyler and I
1:09:46
Speaker 1: love hunting together so much now. It's because, um, we've
1:09:50
Speaker 1: definitely changed somewhat to uh mould ourselves to one another
1:09:55
Speaker 1: as far as hunting partners go. But we worked so
1:09:58
Speaker 1: well together now because is it's that situation where we've
1:10:01
Speaker 1: hunted together enough that, um, instead of getting each other's way,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: we can't go to different states without calling each other
1:10:09
Speaker 1: twice a day. That can convey information, just because we
1:10:14
Speaker 1: trust each other so much to make good choices, and
1:10:17
Speaker 1: we just play shoot holes in the boat every time
1:10:19
Speaker 1: we talk. You know, just like what can be wrong
1:10:22
Speaker 1: with this spot, What can we do different? What what
1:10:24
Speaker 1: could be done different? And when you find that person
1:10:26
Speaker 1: you can trust that much. Man, you talk about being
1:10:28
Speaker 1: able to kill some deer, you know, because it's like
1:10:31
Speaker 1: you have, uh, the cumulative experiences of two experienced hunters
1:10:41
Speaker 1: working together at once without um pride getting in the way,
1:10:45
Speaker 1: without um another guy who thinks similar to you can
1:10:53
Speaker 1: circumvent your pride way faster than you ever thought. You know, like, oh, man,
1:10:57
Speaker 1: I figured the spot out. It's good. And he's like, um,
1:11:00
Speaker 1: are you sure you can hunt that on the southwest wind?
1:11:01
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, what a dummy? So stupid? You know,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: I having that person is pretty huge for my success
1:11:08
Speaker 1: at least. I know some people, um you know the
1:11:11
Speaker 1: whole lone wolf things, the way to go, you know,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: because they like that and that's fun to you. But
1:11:16
Speaker 1: I really do find value in that one good solid
1:11:19
Speaker 1: hunting partner. You know. It's a it's a difference maker.
1:11:22
Speaker 1: And you know something that you you kind of alluded
1:11:25
Speaker 1: to this, you know, something that happens when you go
1:11:27
Speaker 1: do a trip like this is you find out, you know,
1:11:30
Speaker 1: like how greedy you are for white tails, how greedy
1:11:33
Speaker 1: your buddies are and it can change the dynamic if
1:11:37
Speaker 1: you're not working together, and it's I mean, it's a
1:11:39
Speaker 1: it's a little dance man. But I remember there were
1:11:42
Speaker 1: four of us we hunted South Dakota maybe somewhere around there,
1:11:47
Speaker 1: and we got there, did some scouting, uh and the
1:11:51
Speaker 1: night before the season opened, a couple of us were
1:11:54
Speaker 1: driving back to camp and we saw two good bucks
1:11:58
Speaker 1: on public land right off the road going through this
1:12:01
Speaker 1: one field, and it was like pin drop quiet in
1:12:04
Speaker 1: the truck because everybody wanted to go after him, like
1:12:06
Speaker 1: everybody's like, I want to hunt that deer tomorrow, those
1:12:09
Speaker 1: deer tomorrow. And finally my buddy Eric said something like,
1:12:13
Speaker 1: well I would go in and you know, like he
1:12:15
Speaker 1: broke the ice right, and we're like, okay, well I
1:12:17
Speaker 1: guess go in there. And he went in there and
1:12:18
Speaker 1: killed that buck. But right away when we saw him,
1:12:22
Speaker 1: everybody thought the same thing, like I want to kill
1:12:24
Speaker 1: that ten pointer, like everybody and you know, like now
1:12:27
Speaker 1: you're like ship, like how do I play this? And
1:12:30
Speaker 1: you know it worked out for him. But later in
1:12:33
Speaker 1: that hunt, one of the guys there, so we had
1:12:35
Speaker 1: one one chunk of public that had a nice bean
1:12:39
Speaker 1: field you could hunt and the deer were using it.
1:12:41
Speaker 1: It was it was good and so but it's an
1:12:44
Speaker 1: evening thing, right, Like if you walk in there in
1:12:46
Speaker 1: the morning, it's no bueno. And so we were kind
1:12:48
Speaker 1: of hunting different stuff in the mornings and then trying
1:12:51
Speaker 1: to kind of gang hunt this this particular property in
1:12:54
Speaker 1: the evening. Why went out, like third fourth morning of
1:12:57
Speaker 1: the hunt, shot a buck And when I went out
1:13:00
Speaker 1: look for my arrow, Um, I see this dude driving
1:13:03
Speaker 1: back from that ranch, and I'm like, man, he went
1:13:07
Speaker 1: over there and tried to spot in stock one in
1:13:09
Speaker 1: there and didn't tell anybody, you know what I mean.
1:13:12
Speaker 1: And so we were we were all kind of playing
1:13:14
Speaker 1: by the same rules, like let's save that because of
1:13:16
Speaker 1: how good it's going to be. This guy just thought
1:13:18
Speaker 1: he was going to get away with it, and he
1:13:20
Speaker 1: would have if I hadn't just randomly shot a buck
1:13:23
Speaker 1: and been able to see the road from where I
1:13:25
Speaker 1: got out, and that ship happens, man, And you know
1:13:29
Speaker 1: it's like, dear, you know that that nonresident license price
1:13:32
Speaker 1: and that trip away from home and and big deer
1:13:34
Speaker 1: they do stuff to us. It's not good. And you
1:13:36
Speaker 1: you really learn if you do this enough, like who
1:13:39
Speaker 1: you can trust and who you can't, and who who
1:13:41
Speaker 1: you're really going to have a good hunt with. And
1:13:45
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the reason why some people
1:13:47
Speaker 1: do function better on a solo trip. Like it's like
1:13:50
Speaker 1: that's on you, man, Like you find a big one,
1:13:52
Speaker 1: go after it. You you make these decisions and that
1:13:54
Speaker 1: and you kind of got to learn about yourself and
1:13:56
Speaker 1: your buddies that way. M hm yeah, yeah, think, Uh,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: for us, there's a lot of things that help us
1:14:03
Speaker 1: to navigate around that. Um. One of the big ones
1:14:07
Speaker 1: those that you know, just to be frank, you know,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: we're trying to do this someone as a business, right
1:14:13
Speaker 1: and not even some white you know, we're trying to
1:14:15
Speaker 1: build a lifestyle and build a business round until we
1:14:17
Speaker 1: love doing and um it's uh micro communism. As much
1:14:21
Speaker 1: as it pains me to say it, right, but it's like, uh,
1:14:24
Speaker 1: if Tyler kills a dude, it's great for me too.
1:14:27
Speaker 1: You know, Like we're just all trying to have success.
1:14:29
Speaker 1: And it's not just because of the business, right, but
1:14:31
Speaker 1: you you just want them to succeed to It helps
1:14:34
Speaker 1: a bunch, right If I can't imagine being one of
1:14:37
Speaker 1: these guys that, um, it's like Hey, I'm you know,
1:14:41
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about drawing out of this year on on
1:14:43
Speaker 1: the forum. You know, it's like anybody who else is
1:14:45
Speaker 1: gonna draw this, you know, let's let's seam up and go.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, that's that's very nice of you.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: But dude, like it's been a lot of trust in
1:14:52
Speaker 1: somebody you don't know very good, you know. And like
1:14:55
Speaker 1: once you build a hardcore friendship with somebody, it's like, yeah, dude,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: you go kill that buck. Let's go pack that thing
1:15:01
Speaker 1: out and take some pictures together, you know, And I
1:15:04
Speaker 1: think that, um uh, it's definitely not a keep your
1:15:07
Speaker 1: friends close to keep your enemies closer. It's definitely only
1:15:10
Speaker 1: keep your friends real close when it comes to going
1:15:13
Speaker 1: on a hunt like this for me at least, right like, um,
1:15:17
Speaker 1: it's you just want to if you're gonna do this
1:15:19
Speaker 1: with somebody, you want to do it with somebody that
1:15:20
Speaker 1: you care enough about that it would be cool to
1:15:22
Speaker 1: see them kill a big deer too. And then and
1:15:25
Speaker 1: it all boils back to just setting your pride a side. Man.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: It's it's so hard, um for every human to do this.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: So then you take a bunch of guys who fancy
1:15:35
Speaker 1: themselves as alpha's who like to kill stuff, you know,
1:15:38
Speaker 1: and and like it's real hard to put pride aside,
1:15:43
Speaker 1: you know, and I truly believe that that, Uh, the
1:15:48
Speaker 1: thing that will help you do that overb near anything
1:15:51
Speaker 1: that you know, humans can at least do, is that
1:15:54
Speaker 1: you have to have compassion and care about the people
1:15:56
Speaker 1: you're with. Otherwise you're gonna be making priful decisions. You're
1:15:59
Speaker 1: gonna be making so decisions. And that's it's pretty hard
1:16:02
Speaker 1: to get around time, man, I know you gotta you
1:16:04
Speaker 1: got a hard out here, So we gotta we gotta
1:16:06
Speaker 1: wrap this sucker up, Casey, Where can everybody find the videos,
1:16:10
Speaker 1: the podcast all that stuff? Yeah, cool man, thanks for
1:16:13
Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk about that stuff. So the Element
1:16:17
Speaker 1: YouTube channel starts the Element Hunting or just public Planing Hunting. Well,
1:16:20
Speaker 1: we'll pop up pretty quick, I think. Um. But actually, uh,
1:16:25
Speaker 1: Tyler Andiz Kansas books just released in the past couple
1:16:30
Speaker 1: of weeks, and so if if I can, I'd love
1:16:34
Speaker 1: to tell you all to go check out those hunts
1:16:35
Speaker 1: because they were really fun. I mean a lot to
1:16:37
Speaker 1: him and I both. I killed the biggest public land
1:16:41
Speaker 1: dear that either of us have shot and then two
1:16:43
Speaker 1: days later Tyler blewed out of the water with it is,
1:16:45
Speaker 1: so we had it. We were so blessed this year man,
1:16:50
Speaker 1: and uh it was it was really really cool, So
1:16:52
Speaker 1: I'd appreciate that. And then of course our socials are
1:16:56
Speaker 1: at the Element wild because um, if you just search
1:17:00
Speaker 1: the Element on social you'll come with a skater brand
1:17:02
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, that's that's what we got
1:17:05
Speaker 1: going on. So you know, thanks for the opportunity for that.
1:17:07
Speaker 1: And the podcast is the on the podcast, so um yeah,
1:17:10
Speaker 1: search all that stuff on all the platforms that you
1:17:12
Speaker 1: know of and we'll pop up. Thanks, brother, I really
1:17:15
Speaker 1: appreciate it, man, absolutely, dude, I hope you uh are excited.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: Are you done killing pheasants? Are you still got pheasants
1:17:23
Speaker 1: going right now? Pretty much pretty much done, man, But
1:17:27
Speaker 1: you know there's still a few states that are open,
1:17:29
Speaker 1: so there's there's still a chance. It was a good year.
1:17:32
Speaker 1: It was a good good deal man. That's awesome. We
1:17:35
Speaker 1: still a few more dear to kill, hopefully, so we'll
1:17:38
Speaker 1: wrap it out strong man. So thanks for the opportunity
1:17:40
Speaker 1: to Tony and true good talking to you. Thanks buddy.
1:17:44
Speaker 1: That's it for this week. Folks, be sure to tune
1:17:46
Speaker 1: in next week if you want some more white tailed goodness.
1:17:49
Speaker 1: This has been weird to hunt, and I'm your guest host,
1:17:51
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so much for listening.
1:17:54
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for more white tail content, head
1:17:56
Speaker 1: on over to the meat eator dot com slash weird
1:18:00
Speaker 1: and you'll see a pile of new articles by Mark
1:18:02
Speaker 1: myself in a bunch of white tail addicts. Head on
1:18:05
Speaker 1: over to our YouTube channel check out our our how
1:18:08
Speaker 1: to videos that we put up every week, or if
1:18:10
Speaker 1: you're if you're feeling sad and you're missing the rut,
1:18:12
Speaker 1: head on over to meat Eaters YouTube channel and check
1:18:15
Speaker 1: out our One Week in November series that we dropped
1:18:18
Speaker 1: all of November and December