Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1065: What Would Mike Rex Do?

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Ep. 1065: What Would Mike Rex Do? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods. Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle, or blind. First Light,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: go farther, stay longer. And now, your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: This week on the show, we are running Ohio Big
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Buck Hunter Mike Rex through our what would you do
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: gauntlet to see how exactly he would handle some of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: the trickiest deer hunting scenarios I can throw at him.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast
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  Speaker 2: brought to you by Moultrie. Today we've got another one
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: of our what would you do episodes. The idea for
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: these is to take a serious deer hunter, an experienced
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  Speaker 2: deer hunter, and present him with a series of difficult tricky, challenging,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: hypothetical deer hunting scenarios, and then see exactly how he
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: would handle them, what they would do, why they would
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: do it, what the thought process would be. That is
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the game plan here today. And my guest is Mike Rex.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: He is a diehard deer hunter from Southern Ohio. By
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: some tallies I've seen, he's killed more than 60 record
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  Speaker 2: buck bucks. He is doing it down in the big woods,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: big hilly country of Southern Ohio. And in addition to that,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: he's also doing some great work when it comes to
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: actual deer hunting conservation and policy as he's the chairman
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  Speaker 2: of the Ohio, what is it called? The Ohio Wildlife Council.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: He's a part of this eight member governor appointed panel
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  Speaker 2: that reviews all of the different proposed rules and regulations
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  Speaker 2: from Ohio's division of wildlife. So he's doing important work
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  Speaker 2: in addition to being a great deer hunter too. So
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  Speaker 2: the game plan today is to walk him through these
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: tough scenarios and see what he would do and how
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: he would do it. It's going to be a great
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: opportunity for all of us to learn from a serious
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: DIY deer hunter and a great communicator. So I'm looking
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: forward to this one. Quick heads up before you go.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Before we get to that interview, we have just recently
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: launched a new Q & A article series over on
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the MeatEater website. So if you have a deer hunting
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  Speaker 2: question that you would like us to answer, myself or
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Tony Peterson or any one of the other deer hunters
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: over on the meat eater staff or across our crew
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: of people, you can send that question. You can send
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: your challenge or your tricky hypothetical hunting scenario to this
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  Speaker 2: email address. It is wired to hunt, all words, wired
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: to hunt at themeateater.com. Send in your questions. And then
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  Speaker 2: every week, we're going to try to have somebody writing
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: a response to your question over on the MeatEater website.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So you can check it out at TheMeatEater.com. The first
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  Speaker 2: one of those that I've seen is Tony Peterson tackling
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: someone's question about the age-old debate between fixed blades and
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: mechanical blade broadheads. So check that out at the MeatEater website.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Send your questions to WiredHunt at TheMeatEater.com. And now without
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: any further ado, my chat with Mike Rexx.
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  Speaker 3: Enjoy.
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  Speaker 4: All right.
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  Speaker 2: With me now on the line is Mike Rex. Welcome
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: to the show, Mike.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate you being here for this. I know you've
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: got a lot on your hands these days. You are...
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Working on important Ohio deer hunting policy and various things
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: with your role there, with the state helping out. It's
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: great that you're doing that. I appreciate you doing that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: But I want to pull you away from conservation, deer
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: hunting policy, regulations, all that kind of stuff, and force
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: you into the tough task. Of talking deer hunting scenarios
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  Speaker 2: and tactics. Are you game for that?
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  Speaker 3: I'm up. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: So I kind of prepared you for this. You sort
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: of know what you're getting yourself into. But I'm about
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: to throw you into the what would you do gauntlet.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: And so in short, again, I'm going to kind of
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: paint a picture for you. of a hypothetical deer hunting scenario.
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  Speaker 2: And these are scenarios that I think would fit your
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: world of hunting things you've encountered before things you've thought
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: about before. And I'm going to ask you to explain,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: you know, what would you do? How would you do it?
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  Speaker 2: Why would you do it? And then we'll kind of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: go from there with each one of these. Some, some
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: of these are like really tricky, nasty ones. Some of
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  Speaker 2: these are just common challenges that every one of us
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  Speaker 2: have faced. And we sat in our tree stand thinking,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Oh God, what should I do right now? And we
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: are paralyzed by it. Um, Everything like that is game
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  Speaker 2: and on the table. So are you prepared to set
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: off on that path?
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  Speaker 4: As prepared as I'll ever be.
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  Speaker 2: All right. Well, then we're just going to get started
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  Speaker 2: right out the gate with a preseason scenario. Okay.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: I'm curious about two different scenarios of how you might
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: scout out a situation and prepare for a hunting scenario.
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  Speaker 2: I know I've heard you in the past talk about
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: how you've had some evolution in how you think about
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: bedding areas versus food sources and the importance of that
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: in developing your strategy. So first, a bedding-related scenario. Imagine
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: you are walking the woods. It is late winter, early spring, right?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: So green-up has not happened yet. The snow, if there
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: was any, has melted. You can see the woods beautifully.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: You're in that kind of hilly rolling timber ground. That's
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: so common there in Southern Ohio. And as you are walking,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: we're going to say over Creek crossing, you catch a
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  Speaker 2: big set of tracks in the mud and you're able
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: to follow those tracks a little ways up the hillside.
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  Speaker 2: And you see, there's this kind of faint trail that
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  Speaker 2: leads to a knob. And on that knob is the,
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  Speaker 2: is the, there's the dream scenario. There's a match set
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: of sheds. It looks like it's just sitting in a bed.
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  Speaker 2: match set of giant antlers. This is a buck that
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: would right away put them at the top of your list.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: And I know you're the kind of guy who likes
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: to know the buck you're after. So imagine this is
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: all just happened. You found the match set of a
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: buck that's sure to be right at the top.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: What do you do over the next hour? Now that
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: you have found this bed, the spring bed, you found
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: these antlers, you've learned some very important stuff. What do
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: you do over the next hour to to learn more
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: or to take advantage of what has just happened?
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  Speaker 3: So the first thing that I would consider is that
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: it's been my experience that deer, especially mature deer, have
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: in this part of the country, not all, but a
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: lot of them have specific ranges. So where they are
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: in March is not necessarily where they're going to be
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: in September.
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  Speaker 4: I had one deer in particular that.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: I killed on some public property in 2018 that literally
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: had the same pattern for three years in a row.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: We would get trail camera photos of him in an
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: area that I personally wasn't allowed to hunt, but one
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: of my best friends hunted and this guy works a
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: lot and I do a lot of things to help him.
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  Speaker 3: And so I would run his trail cameras for him
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  Speaker 3: and we would get pictures of this deer in September
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and October in the area that he was hunting. Then
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Later on in the season, in the fall, November, even
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: into December, we'd get pictures of him in.
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  Speaker 4: Another area about a mile away.
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  Speaker 3: And then my son actually found sheds off of him in,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: excuse me, in February, another mile south of there. And
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  Speaker 3: so this deer, I mean, I don't want to say migrated, but,
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  Speaker 3: and this deer also interesting when I killed him, I
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: was talking to another friend of mine who owns some ground,
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  Speaker 3: like in a straight line, 4.9 miles from where I
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  Speaker 3: killed the deer. And I'm talking to this friend of
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  Speaker 3: mine and I'm like, hey, you see any good deer
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  Speaker 3: this year? Oh man, I had this great deer on
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  Speaker 3: my property. He was there in the middle of October,
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  Speaker 3: got him for like a week and then he was gone.
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  Speaker 3: We haven't seen him since. It was the same buck
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  Speaker 3: I killed. And he was 4.9 miles away. So what
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  Speaker 3: the deer are doing in February, March, and April is
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  Speaker 3: not necessarily what they're doing. And food sources change, cover changes,
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  Speaker 3: just all kinds of different reasons. They seem to have
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  Speaker 3: like a, a spring-summer pattern, and they seem to have
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  Speaker 3: like a fall-winter pattern.
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  Speaker 4: Not all deer, but a lot of them do.
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  Speaker 3: And so finding those sheds would be awfully exciting because, hey,
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  Speaker 3: I know, hey, good chance there's going to be a
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  Speaker 3: really good deer somewhere in this area next year. But
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  Speaker 3: as far as what that bed and those sheds mean
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  Speaker 3: to me, not much unless I was going to hunt
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  Speaker 3: him next March, which, you know what I'm saying, really
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  Speaker 3: wouldn't apply.
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  Speaker 2: All right. That makes a lot of sense. Would this
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  Speaker 2: be any different then? If I were to say that
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  Speaker 2: we were not finding a set of antlers or bedding area,
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  Speaker 2: but instead we just found a habitat feature that seemed
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  Speaker 2: very interesting to you. So let's talk about, again, same
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  Speaker 2: time of year. You're out scouting a new area and
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  Speaker 2: you come across a thicket, a thick, nasty, I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to imagine maybe this is possible down by you.
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  Speaker 2: Let's say there's like an old ground. old, old cutover
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  Speaker 2: and it's still relatively young. And there's actually some like
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  Speaker 2: natural crab apple trees or some kind of mass producing
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  Speaker 2: tree that's, that's popping up in there and producing some
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  Speaker 2: kind of fruit, some kind of mass there. Okay. So
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  Speaker 2: you find this, this cluster of thick, nasty stuff up
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  Speaker 2: on a ridge top and there's mast and you can
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  Speaker 2: see that last year it likely produced a lot. You
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  Speaker 2: can see where deer have been kicking up the ground
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  Speaker 2: underneath it, and you're hoping, oh, man, this fall, hopefully
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  Speaker 2: this is going to produce fruit again. This could be
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: a great food source. Now tell me about how you
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: spend the next hour. Is this at all different?
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  Speaker 3: Okay. Uh, yeah, a little bit, but let me, let
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: me kind of go back a second and talk about, uh,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: thick cover. So I started bow hunting 1978. Um, I
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: started deer hunting 1978 and in those days, and even
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: through the eighties in this part of the country, when you,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: where you would find deer was in reverting pasture, old
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: farms that were growing back and the thickest stuff, rabbit cover.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: We called it grouse cover back then. We used to
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: have grouse in this area. We don't have many anymore.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: I have seen a change in where our deer bed
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: and how they use cover. So in the 70s and
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: the 80s, when I first started hunting, we were the
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: apex predator. We were the only thing they really had
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: to worry about were humans. Today, we are inundated with
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: coyotes and bobcats. We are no longer the apex predator.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: We are just one of a handful of apex predators.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: And we're only in the woods for a short period
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: of time. Coyotes and bobcats are badgering them 24-7 year round.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: And so one of the things I've discovered recently, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: this was an epiphany for lack of a better word,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: is that our deer do not bed, especially our mature deer,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: do not bed in the thickest cover available. I used
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: to think that way. My strategy for years was, okay,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I can figure out where they're feeding pretty easily, but
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: it's difficult to figure out where they're coming from, especially.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: If you're hunting big woods.
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  Speaker 3: And I could get off topic here too, but people
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: like to talk about, well, I didn't hunt there today
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: because the wind was wrong.
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  Speaker 4: This is in big woods country, big hill.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Country, okay? Well, how do you know which direction the
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: deer is coming from? How do you know where he's
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: at to know that it was a bad wind? If
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: I was hunting an agricultural area where there was a
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: five acre woodlot surrounded by a thousand acres of soybeans, yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: he's coming out of that woodlot or he's coming out
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: of that drainage ditch or whatever. But when you're hunting
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: big expanses of habitat, you have no idea where he's
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: coming from. So to say it's a good wind or
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: a bad wind, you can, don't get me wrong, you
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: can use wind to your advantage, especially up on the
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: ridge caps. It's very difficult to do down in the
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: hollows because the wind swirls so bad. But I'm not
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: saying you can't use wind to your advantage, but as
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: far as saying, well, you know, this is, I'm not
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: gonna hunt this stand today because the wind's bad. How
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: do you know where he's coming from? Or you can
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: figure out where he's going to, but how do you
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: know where he's coming from? and getting back to the
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: habitat and the cover. So it's been my experience in
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  Speaker 3: the last few years, since I've really started paying attention,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: that our deer, especially our older deer, tend to bed
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: up high. Now, all things being equal, if it's wide
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: open up high and it's, you know what I mean,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: not wide open down in the bottom, they're going to
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: bed in the bottom. But if everything's the same, they
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: tend to bed high up on the ridges. They tend
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: to bed close to features like fallen tree, treetop, bush,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: something that provides a little bit of cover, but yet
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: they can see approaching danger, they can hear approaching danger,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: and then hopefully they can smell approaching danger. So just
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: the cover or thick cover isn't as attractive to deer
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: as it maybe used to be or as I once
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: thought it was. But to get back to your point
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: about finding great sign in an area, Yeah, obviously, if
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: I found something like that, a bunch of buck sign,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: lots of rubs, lots of scrapes, where it looks like
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: two or three bucks of a similar age class were
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: inhabiting that area and they were vying for dominance. Because
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: when you see, when you find lots of buck sign
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: in an area, that's almost always a sign of competition.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: That's bucks trying to make statements to each other. Hey,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I'm here. You know, they're leaving lots of sign. And
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: so that's always an encouraging sign. Obviously, there's no way
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: of knowing if those bucks survived the hunting season or not.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: But I've also found that when you find places like that,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: deer tend to rub and scrape in the same areas
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: year after year after year. I mean, it's, I don't
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: know why it's the topography, it's the way the wind blows,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: the thermal currents, it's all, there's probably a lot of
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: things that factor into it. But I don't know if
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: you're a turkey hunter, but turkeys are the same way.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Our turkeys tend to roost in the same areas year
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: after year after year. something to do with the trees,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: the wind, you know, they like pine boughs. A lot
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: of times pine grows, the pine branches come straight out,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: give them some security and whatever, and deer the same way.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: So they tend to rub and scrape and leave lots
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: of sign and inhabit the same areas. Now it changes
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: from year to year, but a lot of times it's
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: very similar. I've seen this pattern over, you know, 40,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: 46 years of doing this stuff. So anyway, I would
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: take notes of that area and I would absolutely... you know,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: consider it next year and say, Hey, there were a
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: couple of bucks in this area last year that, you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: that looked like they were, you know, they were, they
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: were trying to compete with each other and hopefully a
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: few of them survive.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Does that, I don't know if that answers your question
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: or not.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that, that does. Let me, let me position it
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: just a little bit differently. Now let's say that you
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: were actually in season hunting now. All right.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: And so for whatever reason, this is a new property.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: It's a new permission or a new lease you picked
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: up or whatever it might be. And you have not
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: actually been able to see all of it. And on
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: this particular day, you're working your way to go hunt
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: in this region and you pass through this new terrain
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: that we just described. And so for whatever reason, you
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: hadn't seen this before. This is the first time you
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: spotted this stuff. It's in season. It's October. We'll say
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: early October. And you've got, you know, you either have
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: a stand with you or you could go out there
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: and hunt, you know, later that day, let's say. Now,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: How do you kind of analyze the situation and take
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: advantage of it based on what we discussed?
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: So my strategy in this hill country and these unglaciated hills,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: I'm a big proponent of hunting saddles, especially in the
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: fall of the year. A lot of our bucks aren't
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: necessarily paralleling the ridges. They're going up and over, up
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: and over. They're trying to cross as many doe trails
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: as they possibly can. And so saddles usually are the
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: easiest path of resistance. It's the easiest form to get
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: from point A to point B. So if I would
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: find something like that, the first thing I would look for,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: especially if I was going to set up and hunt
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: that afternoon, I'd try to get as high up on
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: the ridge as I possibly can.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: Because again, down.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: In the valleys, so for example, if ridges run east
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: and west and north and south, and they go all
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: different directions, a west wind comes over top of them,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: hits the top of the ridge, and it's like a tornado.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I think I used to write for North American whitetail magazine.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: The very first article I published in 1993 was entitled,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: whichever way the wind blows.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: And I talked about that very fact in that the.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: First thing you do to prove it to yourself is
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: build a, build a campfire in a hollow and tell
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: me how many times you got to move because the
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: smoke's in your eyes because the wind is just constantly changing.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: And the same thing with thermal currents. So warm air
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: rises and cool air sinks. So you say, okay, uh,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: It's cool. It's usually coolest. Let's say for a morning hunt,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: it's usually coolest right at dawn. So cool air is
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: sinking down in the bottom. Then all of a sudden
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: the sun comes up. It's the forest floor. Temperature starts
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: to rise. Thermal currents change 180 degrees. What are you
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: going to do? You're going to get down and go
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: get it? I mean, so... That's what makes it fun.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: And the deer, especially the older deer, they figure this out.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: And so they move with those advantages. They move usually
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: with some type of wind in their face, at least
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: partially right for them.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Not always.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, if they only had a favorable wind and
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: that's the only way they move, they'd have to circumvent
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: the globe.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: They'd never be able to go backwards. But they absolutely,
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: whenever possible, will use that. And so to your point,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: what I would do is I would try to, I
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: would seek out a saddle or point coming off of
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: a ridge. A lot of times they like to do that.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: They'll go up and then they'll go out off a
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: point and drop down. A place where I can see better,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: or I mean, at least from my vantage point. Also,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I'm a real big proponent of the right tree. So,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm not a big climbing tree stand guy. One,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: because you can't, can only climb straight trunk trees. And
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: especially I'm, because I'm mostly a bow hunter. And so
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: You know, to get, you got to get really high
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: in a climbing tree stand to have any kind of
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: cover whatsoever. I'm a very big proponent of hang on
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: tree stands, which they make them today, which you can
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: hang them just about as fast as you can climb
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: in a tree. But I like to break up my
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: human outline as much as possible. So I'm, first thing
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do is I'm going to look around
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: for the right tree or, or excuse me, I'm going
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: to identify where I think the most logical place for
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: me to encounter that deer is, which again is usually
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: a saddle or something like a saddle.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: And I'm going to find the right tree.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to find the right tree that's necessarily
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: right on top of where I think these deer are
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: going to come, but where I can see approaching. Now,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: if I only have one day to hunt, I might
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: go in a little closer. But if I've got the
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: whole rest of the season to hunt, I may go
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: pick out a tree that just allows me to observe,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: just to kick back and watch. And a lot of
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: times you can learn a lot about how the deer
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: are using the topography, how they're using the land by
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: just watching.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: You don't necessarily... you.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Know, kill them on the first time you kill them
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: by kind of sitting back and seeing exactly how these
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: deer are using this terrain.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: How do they get from here to there?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So I've been in this scenario a number of times
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: where I come across something, you know, maybe, maybe it's
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: just like this. Sometimes it's a little bit different, but you're,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: you're considering you know how do i set up on
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: this spot and we'll we'll call the spot the x
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: right that saddle just looks dynamite and then you're trying
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: to find that tree right and and you mentioned there's
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different things you're looking for right you
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: you want some good cover you would like to be
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: within range of that x uh you also would like
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: hopefully to be positioned well so the wind is going
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to work to your advantage um maybe you want to
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: have those sight lines like you mentioned to see and
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: learn more. Oftentimes, you never get the perfect combination of
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: all those things, right? And so you're stuck debating, okay,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: do I take tree A, which has good cover? I'm
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: just going to make this up as we go. Okay,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: tree A has good cover, and it is rock solid
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: from a wind perspective. There's no way anything's going to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: wind you. But it is just perfect. barely out of range,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: like at the very farthest extent of your bow range.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know what that is for you, but let's
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: just say it's at that farthest extent where you're like, gosh,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I really don't want to take this shot at this range,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: but maybe I could, or maybe I have to grunt
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: him in an extra five yards or something. So that's
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: tree A. Tree B is picture perfect, 20 yards from
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: the X, beautiful shooting lanes right to it. If a
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: deer comes to the X, he is dead nuts on
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: the ground. but it's, you know, slightly sketchier from a
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: wind perspective. Like maybe deer could wind you one time
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: out of four and it doesn't have as much cover.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Do you take tree a that's bulletproof, but a hard
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: shot or tree B, which is a little sketchy, but
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: perfect for the X. What do you do?
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I take tree C and tree C is tree C
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: is out of the way. So I don't take tree
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: a because, and I, I have three sons that like
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: to hunt as much as I do. And one of
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: the lessons that I really tried to instill in them
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: as they were growing up as deer hunters is you
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: would much rather have that deer walk off and have
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to hunt him tomorrow than you would just
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: get an arrow going in his direction and hope that
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: it hits where you want it to hit. So many people,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: they see a good deer or any deer, they see
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: something they want and they just got to get a
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: bullet or an arrow going in that direction. And had
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: they waited 30 seconds, the ideal shot may have materialized.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: It might not have materialized to the deer could have
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: turned and walk the other direction, but you'd rather have
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: the deer turn and walk the other direction. Then you
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: would make a bad hit on the deer and can't
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: find it. So tree is out of the question because
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: if I can't guarantee a clean kill, you know, a
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: good shot, I'm going to let it go. And I've
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: done that many, many times. I have let lots of
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: deer walk that I think some other people would have tried. Uh,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: but I don't do that. And I, and I really
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: was very, uh, stirring with my kids about that growing
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: up that, Hey, we don't do that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: We'd rather hunt them tomorrow.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Now the tree B and I, you got to refresh
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: my memory here real quick, but tree B is the
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: one that's not necessarily in the right spot.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: And what are the other issues with tree B?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Tree B has a great shot to the X. You're
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: only 20 yards from the X, but it is not
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: as much cover and maybe 25% of the deer passing
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: through could wind you.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: So that's the other issue.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: So Tree B can make the hill steeper for you
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: because if that deer busts you coming there because conditions
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: were wrong or you didn't put yourself in the best
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: possible spot to shoot him, then your chances of encountering
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: him there again go way down. So I would rather
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: hunt tree C way off in the distance and just
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: observe and figure out some other option than I would
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: hunt a tree that is going to give me the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: best chance of a really good shot. or at a
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: tree that's going to take a chance, not a chance,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: they all have a chance, but has a higher probability
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: of spooking him. Because if you spook him, then the
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: hill just got really steep. Because the older deer, especially,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, the deer that I like to hunt, they
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: don't get to be that way by making mistakes.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, a lot of the ones that made the
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: mistakes are dead.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: And so when a buck gets to be four, five, six,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: seven years old, man, they become like a different kind
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: of creature. And it's something else I've learned about bucks
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: that age. So I hunted a deer years ago. I
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: just talked about this on another podcast not long ago,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: so I won't go deep into this story, but I
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: hunted a deer that was eight and a half years
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: old that I had a pinch point, a funnel that
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: was just, you couldn't draw it out any better. And
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: over the years, we killed a pile, I say we,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: my sons and I, killed a room full of really
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: nice bucks in this funnel because it was perfect. It
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: was an inside corner, it was a corner of a field,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: and the inside corner pointed had a steep drainage. So
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: he had a real steep ravine in the woods and
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: an inside corner and about a 70 yard wide gap
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: in between the two with two perfect trees on either side. So,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: and it faced north and south. So anything with an
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: N in it, you hunted at the S. Anything with
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: an S in it, you hunted the N. And any
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: deer that was over here that wanted to go there
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: and any deer that was over there wanted to go here.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: It's just perfect, right?
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: This buck, this particular buck, I had two encounters with
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: him there in the fall of 2013, the year that
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I killed him. And he would not pass through that
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: cut if he could not smell what was out in
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: front of him. He just wouldn't do it. And so
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: he just knew. I mean, he would walk all the
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: way around it, way out of his way. So I
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: don't know if you've ever trapped before, but when you trap,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: you don't want to force an animal to step right
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: on your pan. You don't want to force him to
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: step right here. You want to suggest that he steps.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: You want to make it easier for him to step there.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: But if you make him step there, he'll walk around it.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Big bucks are the same way. If they got to
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: go through there and conditions are not right for them
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: to know that it's safe to pass through there, I'm
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: not saying they're not superhuman or not super whatever you
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: want to call them, but a lot of them just
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: won't do it. And they won't do it because they've
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: learned through trial and error that I'm not making any
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: moves unless I'm sure that it's safe to go that way.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: And that buck that I wound up killing him on
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: November the 16th and it was blind lock, what happened
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: was a doe... came under my stand with her tail
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: up and he followed her under the tree and it
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: cost him his life, which women often do.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: But, uh, but he, uh, it's great.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: It's great when they do that for the deer though.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: But it was, I mean, that was the only way
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: he was going to pass through there without perfect conditions.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: And so, um, I would, I would, from, from your scenario,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I would get somewhere where I could observe that area.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: And then I would, from there, I would start maybe
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: going out the spokes and I'd start trying to figure out, Hey,
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: what's the best way to encounter these deer in a
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: better scenario that to the best of my ability, it's
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: as good as it gets. Now, don't get me wrong.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: If I'm out of state and it's two days left
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: in the season, I'm going to roll the dice on
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: tree B if I only have a day or two
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: to hunt. But if I've got four and a half
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: months to hunt, I'm not going to make that hill
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: any steeper for me. I'm a very conservative bow hunter.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Some guys are real aggressive and they can make that work.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: That's not worked well for me. What's worked well for
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: me is being patient, being conservative. All right.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: So I want to build off that a little bit
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: because you mentioned something that reminded me of another one
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: of my kind of PTSD deer hunting moments, um, where you,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: you set up in a spot that you believe is
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: rock solid as you described. Uh, and you believe that
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: you're in this dynamite location, the bucks gotta come through. Um,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: but let's say it's a morning hunt, October 31st, we'll say. So,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: you know, that pre-rut action is really ramping up. Beautiful
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: cold morning. You moved into a spot you felt really
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: good about. And now like an hour and a half
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: after daylight, your wind like starts getting wonky and it
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: starts getting worse and worse. And maybe like a third
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: of the time it's blowing in a spot you do
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: not want it to blow. And, you know, you have
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: probably had that creeping sense of dread and, as the
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: wind starts getting worse and worse, like, oh gosh, please
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: don't do that. Let that be a one-time thing. And
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: then five minutes later, it does it again. And five
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: minutes later, it does it again. Yeah. This happens. It's
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: an hour and a half after daylight now. Like I mentioned,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: about a third of the time, it's blowing where you
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: do not want it to go.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: What do you do in that situation? Do you stick
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: it out and roll the dice and say, ah, you know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: hope for the best? Or do you bail?
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: No, I bail. I bail every time.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: And let me tell you, we were talking about how
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: do I pass the time in a tree stand earlier today. So,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: My favorite thing to do in a tree stand is
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I grab like milkweed pods or the tuft of a
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: cattail and I sit in stands and I watch. I
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: turn those floaters loose and I watch. And it's really
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: fascinating to see what they do and what they do
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: on their way down.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, they're going this way, they're going this way.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden they're going back that way.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: And it's, I mean, it changes in between where we
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: are and the ground and it's constantly changing. So the
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: scenario you just described is most hunts, I mean, that's
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: most of the time. And so again, I'm very conservative. I, I'm,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm semi-retired even before I was semi-retired. I
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: can hunt every day of the season if I want to.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: So I have a really huge advantage over a lot
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: of guys. Um, but I'm, I earned that right by retiring.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I worked for a long time at a
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: very hard job, but anyway, so I, uh, uh, I'm
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: real conservative. And if the wind looks bad or if
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: deer are winding me, you know, if a doe's winding
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: me off in the distance, I almost always get down.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Because again, it just makes that hill steeper for me.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: It makes my chances of killing that buck two days
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: from now exponentially harder. So because my, now again, if
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: I was traveling, I'm out of state, I got four days,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: I might stick it out.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: It's peak rut, deer moving. You know, when that doe leaves,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of times... If you ever watch
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: big bucks or mature bucks out in the field, a
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: doe will snort and run off and a big buck
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: will just stand there where every other deer will scatter,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: but he'll just stand there and he does that because
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: he really only trusts his nose and his eyes and
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: his ears he he doesn't put a lot of stock
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: in i mean not that he thought that he ignores
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: other deer but he's way more concerned about you know
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: he's not going to take off running in a direction
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: arbitrarily and not know that that's the direction of the
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: of the problem you know i'm saying so A lot
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: of times, if I'm hunting around here and I've got
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: lots of time, when it starts doing that wonky thing
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: that you're talking about, I get down.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: How would you get down? Do you wait until a
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: certain time when you think things are going to slow
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: down a little bit, or do you get down immediately?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Do you wait a certain number of minutes after seeing
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the last deer pass through? And then one last one.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Do you do, do you do like the slow creeping,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: like trying to be very quiet, trying to be slow,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: not spook anything to get down, but knowing that will
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: take you longer? Or do you do the, I'm going
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: to rip the bandaid off and just get this sucker out,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: or I'm going to get off the tree and get
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to a new spot as fast as I possibly can,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: even though it may make some noise, I want to
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: get somewhere quickly.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: No, my, my philosophy or strategy there is I try
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: to get down when everything's gone. The last thing I
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: want to do is have any deer watch me climb
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: down out of the tree. Because if you get busted,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: and this has happened to me a million times, you
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: get busted by an old doe two or three hunts
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: in a row, she becomes a squirrel hunter. She comes in,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: she's like, you know, where's the, he was there yesterday,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you know, that kind of stuff. So I don't, I'm
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: not a big proponent of hunting right over food sources,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: like food plots, apple trees, I don't care, feed or
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: whatever you want to say. I'm not a big proponent
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: of hunting right over it. And the reason I'm not
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: a big proponent of hunting right now is because deer
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: come and they stay.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: They're not passing through.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I like to be in areas where deer are just
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: passing through so I can get down. If you hunt
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: over a food source very consistently, especially in the evening,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: it's almost impossible to get out of there without spooking
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: everything because the deer come, when do they come to feed?
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: They come to feed right about the time you're going
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: to get down. And so you only get to do
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: that a handful of times. And then, then every, you know,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: you've tipped every deer in the neighborhood of what you're doing.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: And so I've had people say to me before, as
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: far as food sources go, what kind of food? I
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: look for it. It's important, but I use it more
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: to figure out where they're traveling to, and then I
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: try to get in between or away from that, basically.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Okay. Let's pivot a little bit here. We've kind of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: gone down this line quite a bit. Let's shift to
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: something a little bit different. I've heard you say once
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: that possibly the greatest hindrance— to you would be if
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: somebody would ever take away your trail cameras.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Trail cameras have become a huge part of your hunting strategy.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So imagine, imagine we're talking today on August 18th. Imagine
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: that I told you today that from this point forward
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: this year, you may not use any of your cell cameras.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: You may not use any trail cameras at all.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: What would you do between now and the season opener
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: to re-prepare yourself given this new fact of life, which
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: is no cameras this year. So pre-season is what I'm
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: interested in first over the next, you know, month. And then,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: and then after that, I'd like to hear what would
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: be different in season.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I would do nothing different to prepare other than
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: what I've already done. I mean, I've already, I rented
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: a bulldozer back in June and I opened up 10.3
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: acres of secondary growth timber into food plots. I mean,
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I've done a lot. I mean, it's a year round
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: process for me. So I'm involved in it all year.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I would do nothing different to prepare. I live in
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: an area, there's not a lot of agriculture and there's
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: not a lot of feed or not a feed, not
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of fields. And so the reason that trail
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: cameras are so important to me is they've enabled me
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: to find deer that I'm interested in. And then on
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: top of that, they, as I've gotten older, and again,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I've been doing this since 78.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: So what's it 48 years.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: They've enabled me to have a level of confidence to
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: sit comfortably longer. If I'm, if I'm confident that, Hey,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: I know there's a deer inhabiting this area that I'm
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: interested in. It doesn't have to be the biggest buck
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: in the woods. It's just one that I'm interested in hunting.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: I can sit there longer if I'm not sure, like,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: like I used to hunt. So a little bit of
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: history about me, you may or may not know this,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: but I, I, I killed my first Pope and young
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: in like 89, I think, 88, 89. I killed my
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: first Buckeye Big Buck in 91. And I killed another
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: one in 97. Then I killed another one in 99.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: And then from 99 through just a few years ago,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: I killed one every year. And the only thing that
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: really changed was these cameras, these cell cameras, my ability
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: to find them.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Before I would go.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Into an area, find a lot of sign like we
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: were just talking about, find scrapes. I, hey, this area
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: last year was really good. The first week in November,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: they use it this way. I'll go sit there. And
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: don't get me wrong, that was fun. And there's something
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: to be said for that surprise factor. You know what
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: I'm saying? And I'll be honest also, as a hunter,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I'm 62 years old. I'm kind of really coming full circle.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: I've got a good friend of mine, Eddie Salter. He's
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: a big turkey hunting and deer hunting buddy of mine.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: He told me a few years ago, he said, Rex,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: he said, you've lost the blood in your eye. And
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: what he means is I... I'm okay with eating a tag.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I'm more, way more interested in the process today than
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I used to be. You know, when I was a
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: younger man, I really wanted to, my goals were, you know, this,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: I'm interested in this deer. I'm interested in this class
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: of buck or whatever.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Today, I'm more interested in the process. So that being said.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: If trail cameras were taken away from me, because I
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: don't have a lot of agricultural places to glass, I'm
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: not going to go sit in a tree and invade
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: the woods because that's too intrusive.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying? I'm not going to do
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: that either.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: I would probably go back, not probably, I would absolutely
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: go back to history. I would say, okay, you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: I know that certain times of year, these deer use
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: this area a lot. They have since 1984. I know that.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: And I know this, and I know this is a
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: good tree, and this has historically been a good tree.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: But my My consistency killing really what most people consider
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: decent bucks would suffer.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: There's no question it would suffer.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: That's the one tool that would, and I'm not saying
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: that's bad. That's a bad thing, but I wouldn't have
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: as much consistent success.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: It's hard to. hard to blame you for that. They
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: are a great tool. Uh, so get, so given that fact,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be kind to you and I'm going
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: to give you back some cameras.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Okay. All right.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to give you four cell cameras back
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: to use, but because I'm a little bit of a,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: a conniver, I'm going to say you can't hunt your
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: old properties. You have to hunt a new place.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Got it. Got it.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: So you get your four cameras back, but you have
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: to hunt a new farm. To make it simple, I'm
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: going to say it's 100-acre square, and I'm going to
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: imagine something similar to what you might hunt, which would
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: be the rolling hills, mostly timber, and maybe a couple
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: of these small openings that could be a food plot,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So 100 acres, let's say there's
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: a couple acres worth of scattered small fields, otherwise timber,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: some creek bottoms, stuff like that. You have four cell cameras.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Walk me through how you would deploy four cell cameras
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: on a property such as this to try to either
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: figure out the property or figure out a deer or
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: whatever your goal would be with these cameras. Talk to
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: me how you would set them up between now, August 18th,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: and then how you might or might not change that
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: as the season progresses.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, so the first thing I would go look for
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: are preferred food. I would go, are there oaks? Are
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: there white oaks? Did the white oaks produce this year?
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: That's the first thing I would look for. I'd look
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: for obviously well-worn trails or heavily used areas or areas
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: that have signed from last year, that kind of stuff.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: I would go in and scout it.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: I would take those four cameras and I would put
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: them in the four areas that seem to have or
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: have had the most deer activity, which by the way,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: is not necessarily the best place to kill a big buck.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: but it's the best place to initially learn how the
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: deer are using the property and how they travel from
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: point A to point B, that kind of stuff. So
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: that would be the very first thing I do. Then
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: if I got a picture of something I was interested in,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: then I would hone in on that spot or that area.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: And especially if it was a food source, if it
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: was an old fence line oak that was dry and old,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: because You know, an older oak tree produces not necessarily
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: a sweeter nut, but a nut that's usually more palatable
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: to a deer than a younger oak tree. And so
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: if it were a grove of old mature white oaks
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: and they're dropping pretty good, I wouldn't hunt right there
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: in those oaks, but I would hunt out the spokes
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: leading to those oaks. I would figure out how the
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: deer are getting to them. That way, when they get there,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: they congregate. If I don't kill that buck on the
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: first night, I can slip out. I have I have
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: several friends or a couple of buddies that are, that
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: are really just sold on. They, they hunt, they're very
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: mobile and their, their philosophy is one guy in particular,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: his philosophy is that the very first time that you
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: hunt a stand is statistically your best chance of, killing
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: whatever you're interested in, statistically. So he's always in a
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: different tree. I argue that, but how do you know
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: that deer don't do the same thing every day? So
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: how do you know that three days from now he
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: didn't come by that tree? So I kind of disagree
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: with that. But statistically, if you're just going to play
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: the odds, it is a smart thing to do. But
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: what I would do is I would, if I got
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: a picture of something I'm interested in, then I would
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: go to that camera, And I'd take those other three
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: cameras and I'd get away from it.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: And I'd try to get a.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Picture of him somewhere else. And then it would start
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: to connect the dots. And I'd say, okay, well, he's
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: coming here to feed. And I got a picture of
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: him over here. So not every day, but he's probably
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: coming from somewhere over there. Then I would pick a
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: logical spot to hang a stand. Okay.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: A follow-up. Let's imagine this has happened. You've kind of
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: zeroed in. You've found a buck. Yeah. kind of tightened
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: the web around him. And now you've set a stand
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: and you start hunting. You've put together a plan. The
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: season's rolling on. Let's say, you know, I know you
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: guys usually open the end of September down there in Ohio.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: So let's say we're in that end of September, early
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: October time period. And let's say you finally got, you
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: got the conditions you really wanted for this time of year.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: So we're going to say maybe a little bit of
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: a cool front moving through. You've got the right wind
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: to hunt one of these locations that you really like.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: And it's the morning of, okay? And you're going to
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: hunt that evening. The morning of, you pull up your
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: cell phone app, your camera app of choice, and you
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: see that that target buck that you were interested in
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: actually daylighted last night right at the end of daylight.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: In a totally different place, not the location you wanted
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: to hunt, not the place that you thought was like
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: the spot to be an unexpected place. What do you
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: do on your hunt tonight? Do you go hunt the
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: spot that you had said, oh, this is the place
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: that I should hunt because of A, B and C,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: or do you chase that cell phone picture of where
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: he was last night?
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. Um, you know, I've never thought
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: of it, but, but trying to put myself in that scenario.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: I think I would go to plan A, the spot
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: that I intended to. And I think I would sit
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: there all day. I'm a big proponent of all day
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: sits when times are right. Less intrusion coming and going.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: I've encountered big bucks in the middle of the day before.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: It's grueling.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: And as I've gotten older, it's harder to do.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: But I've done it. I've done it for weeks on
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: end before. Just go into a spot that I feel
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: confident in. And just get in there. And now I'm
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: not a big proponent of going in in the dark
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: because I want to see what I'm spooking.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: A lot of guys like to get an hour before daylight.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: And sometimes if, like if I'm hunting public ground and
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: I need to get, you know, somewhere off the beaten
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: path for whatever reason, I'll leave real early.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: I'll, you know, go out in the dark way before daylight.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: But if it's a place that I feel pretty secure in,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: it's just me hunting or me and my friends or whatever,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: my kids, I'll wait till it starts to crack daylight
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: to go to that stand. Because I want to be
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: able to, I mean, every deer sounds like a Boone
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: and Crockett running off in the dark.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: But you don't know. It could have been three does,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to say what it is. And so,
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: so I like to slip in at first light and
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: then I like to sit there as long as I
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: possibly can. I'll bring a backpack and I'll pack a
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: sandwich and some food and whatever. And I might get
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: down for, 10 or 15 minutes in the middle of
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: the day because I'm a 62-year-old guy and I got to,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: but I will sit there as long as I can
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: through the day. And I think I would go with
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: that plan unless that daylight picture was like way far away,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: you know, and the chances of him getting back to
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: the other area are slim. But if the first place
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: looked like the best place to kill him, I probably
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: would go there anyway. And I just sit there the
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: entire day and hope to catch him, you know, sometime
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: in daylight coming or going.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And so you would do that even in the early
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: season you will do all day sits outside of the
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: rut oh no.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: No no no i should i i apologize i didn't
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: mean to say that no no i would not do
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: that in the early season in the early season it's
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: almost exclusively an afternoon hunt although i killed the biggest
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: buck of my life behind me here on a morning
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: hunt but uh It's a whole lot easier to figure
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: out in the early season where they're feeding than it
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: is where they're bedding. And so I like to get
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: there long before they go to feed. But in the
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: early season, I pretty much only hunt in the afternoon.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying I wouldn't. Again, if I'm out of state,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: I only got four or five days to hunt. Every
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: hour is better than no hour. But because I have
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: so much time, my strategy is usually in the early season,
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: afternoon hunt, rut. any dime all day, post rut, late season,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: afternoon hunt again, because easier to figure out where they're
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: feeding in the early season and the late season. And
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: then during the rut, they're just traveling. They're just moving around.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of how I would do that.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: You mentioned that you prefer heading in during daylight for
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: a morning sit. I remember hearing you say that somewhere
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: else too. And I wanted to ask you about that.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Let's imagine that you are heading in for a morning
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: hunt We'll say it's during this general rut time frame
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: when you're going to do those morning hunts. It's at
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: that gray hour, you're walking in and you come around
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: a corner and bam, there he is. The buck that
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: you're after standing 50 yards away, sees you, spins around,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: bounds away. You're relatively close to where you were planning
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: hunting that day and you're going to hunt let's say
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: that like amazing pinch point you talked about earlier, right?
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: This place that man, they're going to come through, but
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: now you just bumped in. You're kind of close to
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: that spot. What do you do in that scenario?
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, so I'm going to tell you a
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: real world, uh, event and I would not have done this, but.
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you how it worked out.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: So, so, so, so several years ago, uh, a good
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: friend of mine owns some property here close by had
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: some friends of his come from out of state, come
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: from North Carolina to hunt on his property. These are
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: buddies of his. And it was their first time on
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: his property. So this friend of mine was out in
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: the Dakotas hunting pheasants when these guys showed up.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: So he called me, he said, hey, Mike, can you
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: go out to my.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Place and show these guys, just show them the boundaries and,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: you know, where they can, and maybe give them some
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: pointers of, you know, this place, that place or whatever.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: And I said, oh, absolutely.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: So I met these guys out there, two real nice
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: fellows from North Carolina. And as a matter of fact,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: if you'd like, I'll send you a picture of this.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: You can put this picture up on the podcast. So
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: the one guy goes out this big Oak flat and
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: with a climbing tree stand, cause there are a couple
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: of scrapes out there that we saw when we were
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: walking around when I was showing them the, the, the property.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: And he climbs up a tree, a straight trunk tree.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: And I don't know how far into the hunt, but
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: it went long into the hunt. Two bucks meet out
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: in front of him or they're coming at each other
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: and they're both giants. I mean, well, the one he
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: winds up killing is a Miss Boone and Crockett by
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: an eighth of an inch.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: Great big buck. And then both of them are really
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: big bucks.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: And this guy had, I think the condition is called
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: IBS or some kind of intestinal deal where when it
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: hits him, he's got, you know, they're just, so anyway,
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: this happens out in front of him. And he, and he,
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: he told me, he said, Mike, I had to make
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: a decision. And he said, I just made the decision then.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: And I think some people might've just went in their pan,
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: but he's like, ah, so he click, click, click. He
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: comes down out of the tree and He spooks the deer.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: They run off in opposite directions. He runs 30 yards
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: from his tree, takes care of his business. Now, if
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: that's you or me or most other people, we grab
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: our climbing tree stand and we walk down the ridge
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: a ways, right?
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: He goes right back to the same tree. Click, click, click, click, click,
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: goes back up.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: And about, I don't know, half hour, hour later, one
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: of the giant bucks comes back from the direction it
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: had run off, walks over top of the toilet paper,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: passes in front of him and he kills it at
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: like 20 yards. I mean, that's an example. I don't
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: know if you believe in God or not, but when
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: the good Lord wants it to happen, you can't stop it.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: You take that miracle and run.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it. That's it.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: So that's a real life situation. I have had the
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: scenario happen that you described. I have spooked my target
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: buck on my way to my stand before, and I
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: have turned around and walked out. I have said, you
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: know what? I've already encountered him here. My chances of
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: encountering him later in this area are not good. And
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: so let's just let it cool down and, and maybe
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: hunt him, you know, in a week or three days,
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: five days, whatever.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: Wait for condition.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Here's the other thing. I think just because you spook
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: a deer in an area, they do not vacate that area.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, they, they encounter predators every day, all day.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: If they, if they didn't go every place that a
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: coyote or bobcat spooked, they got no place to go.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: So they're not they're not like I'm never going back
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: there again because I encountered this guy. But if there's
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of human scent there and it's consistent in
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: the same.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: Spot every day, every day, I think that they they
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: learn that, hey.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: That sense only here, usually in the daylight and safer
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: to pass through here after dark and all that stuff.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Well, here's another variation on something like that. Instead of
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: spooking him while walking into your stand, let's say you're
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: in the stand. And it's November 10th and it's, it's pumping.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Like there's deer all over the place. Bucks are running.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: It's one of those special mornings when everything's going the
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: way you want to happen. And you just have that
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: feeling like he could show up any second. Today's the day.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: And sure enough. I don't know, 9.30 in the morning,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: here comes a doe trotting down through the pipe, you know,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: right down the pipe the way you want her to
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: come in, and then there he is, bird-dogging her right
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: behind her, you know, the steam coming out of his nose,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: the whole thing.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: It's what we all dream about, yeah.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: It's what we all dream about, except... When he rolls
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: through at 28 yards, you send an arrow and it's
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: a clean miss. Clean miss and that buck boogers out
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: of there so fast and hard. You would have thought
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: that a bomb went off, but he's gone. Now you're
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: sitting there in the wake of that. The woods are
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: now silent. There's not a living creature seemingly in miles.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Except for you cussing.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, except for you. What do you do now?
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I have a real life scenario or real
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: life situation where that happened to me. So, and I
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: think I told, I'm kind of running out of material here.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I keep telling the same stories, but anyway, but this, this,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: this was, so in my career, whatever life as a
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: bow hunter, I've seen two deer from a tree stand
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: that were exceptional. And when I say exceptional, one of
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: them's this one over my shoulder here. And the other
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: one was, and I'm, Yeah, but anyway, it was in
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: October of 1998. And this buck was, he was the
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: biggest typical buck I've ever seen from a tree stand.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: And one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen anywhere,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: even in a pen. I mean, this thing was just tremendous.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: Really, really, really big buck.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I had him, this was before range finders.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: I had him at a scrape that I had stepped
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: off that was 21 yards from the base of my tree.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: Perfect scenario.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: I saw him coming from a ways off and I
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: like to shoot, when I could, I like to shoot
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: sitting down, you know, bend at the waist and all
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: that stuff. But if I don't have to stand up,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: I don't like it. It's just more movement. This deer
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: was so big. I saw him coming from a distance
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: that I just, and he got about 75 yards out
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: and I stood up. I don't know why. I think
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: I just, you know, I just was irrational because he
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: was so big. And I stood up very slowly, but
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: I had lacrosse boots on with my pants tucked down
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: in a lacrosse boot. I was in an API baby
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: grand twister tree stand. And when I got three quarters standing,
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: the lip of my boot caught that seat and it
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: just went kapink. And he's 75 yards out, all of
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: a sudden kapink. And man, he starts looking up and scanning. I'm,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: pardon my French, but I'm shaking like a dog passing bones.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? I'm just, this is a
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: really good deer.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: Biggest buck I.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: Had ever seen in my life up to that point.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: And he looked around and all of a sudden, nothing.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: He didn't see anything. He wagged his tail. He walked
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: right down to that scrape. And his head was in
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: the licking branch. He was doing that stuff with their
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: forehead glands. And he was standing perfectly. I mean, you
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: could not have scripted it any better. I had one
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: pin on my bow out to 30 yards. I drew back.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: I think in the way my memory replays it, I
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: centered that pin.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: In the middle of the boiler room. I touched my release.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: He mule kicked, which is what you like to see,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: and he ran off with his tail down, which they
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: rarely do unless they're.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: Hit, right?
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: I remember thinking, I just killed the biggest typical buck
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: anybody's ever seen a picture of. And I've made the
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: cover of North American Whitetail Magazine. I'm going to, you know,
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: all this, this is unbelievable. I mean, and I was
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: so confident in my shot. And I got down out
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: of the tree and I walked over to where he
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: was standing and my arrow was in the ground, clean
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: as a whistle. I never, I was, the only thing
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I can tell you is, is that I was so
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: excited for lack of a better word that I don't
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: say I blacked out, but I'm going to say that
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know what happened because everything I thought happened
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: was perfect and I missed him. And I can't tell
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: you if I shot over him or under him. And
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: why did he run off with his tail down? You know?
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: So The scenario applies to your question is, I remember thinking, man,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna stay out of there for two weeks.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: And he saw it. And then I thought, wait a minute.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: He didn't see me. He heard something.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Hell, tree branch could have fell, right? He heard something.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: He didn't feel anything. He just got out of dodge.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: And so I went right back to that stand the
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: next night. And actually two nights later, I saw him.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: He didn't come down to that's great, but there was
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: a flat, like slightly above me and off to my left.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: And I watched him go down that flat and freshen scrapes.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: So he had passed through there again just two days
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: later after being shot at, now shot at with a bow,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: but still. So to answer your question, if that happened
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: to me, all bets are off during the rut. That buck,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know how much he was paying attention to
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: where he was anyway. He was bird-dogging that doe. Now,
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: if it would have been early season, first week of
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: the season, and he comes through real cautious and I
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: spook him, But if he was bird, dog, and a doe,
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: I think I'd go right back there tomorrow.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Now, what about when you get home that night after
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: the hunt? How do you process missing that opportunity? How
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: do you analyze? How do you try to make sure,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. Do you try to make
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: sure it was you or the bow, or do you
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: shoot your bow a bunch? What about that part of this?
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: Real quick, you've spent a lot of time doing this,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: haven't you, thinking about this?
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: Because I can tell some of this stuff's happened to you, right?
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: So, yeah.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Too many of these things happen. Yeah, exactly. This one included.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're speaking from experience, I can tell.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: So you said you're a turkey hunter. I tell people
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: this all the time. I'm a really avid turkey hunter.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: I turkey hunt every day of the season. I don't
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: shoot turkey. I mean, I've killed a handful of turkeys,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: but I just like to go with people. I love
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: to hear them gobble. I love to be a part
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: of the process. So I hunt every day. I never
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: run out of tags because I'm not shooting them. But
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: I'm out there every day chasing them. So you're calling
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: it turkey hunting. and you miss it or you screw
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: it up or whatever. That's okay, let's go over two
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: ridges that way and get on another one. If you
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: have one encounter a year with a buck that you
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: really want, you've had a good year, just one encounter.
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: So a really big buck, a buck of a lifetime,
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: that's life altering. You may never get that opportunity again.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: So how do you process that? It's hard.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: You try to learn.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: So I think what separates really, above average hunters, what
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: I call above average, a person that consistently gets, you know,
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: what he's after year after year after year that doesn't cheat.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: I think what separates those people from a lot of
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: other people is they learn from their mistakes. You know,
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: they don't, boy, I'll never do that again. You know,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: and so, and there's no shortcut for that. A lot
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: of times you just got to get out there and
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: do it and make that mistake and see what happened
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: and learn from your mistakes. So the people that consistently,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: you know, are on good deer year after year after year,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: most of them are also students of the game, you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: they pay attention to what they did wrong. So to
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: answer your question, that's, I know it's a long answer.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: To answer your question, if I go back and process,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: I would think about, you know, what went wrong? How
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: did I miss? What caused me to miss? And what
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: would I do differently next time? Or is there a
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: better tree? Is there, you know, what, you know, what
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: could I do differently? Or what could I have done
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: differently to have a better outcome? I think that's what
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: I do. And then I'd also be sick to my
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: stomach all night and probably the next two days.
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: You know, I mean, it's just, it's just life altering.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. I, uh, no, all too well. I have not, uh,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: I'm sure missed a buck quite of the caliber you described, but, um,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: every one of them felt life altering to me in
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: the moment.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, so real quick, getting back to something you
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: said earlier, we were talking about earlier about taking good shots.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: So I am, I'm not a world-class Archer.
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think I'm okay.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: Cause I've been shooting for a long time, but I'm not,
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: I know, I know guys that shoot circles around me
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: at the range and I'm not, you know, the most
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: gifted athlete.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: I'm not doing everything else.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: But one thing, I have a really good track record
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: and I should, there's wood, don't attack some wood, but
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: I have a really good track record of not wounding deer.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: And my kids do for the most part too. Now,
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: when they were younger, they wounded some deer, but for
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: the most part, because we only take chip shots. So
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: when you're, especially if you're a bow hunter like me,
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: and I've killed deer with a gun, but I'm primarily
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: a bow hunter. Deer have cat-like reflexes and the speed
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: of sound is three times faster than the arrow. And
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: so I did a lot of video work for years
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: and years and years. I was a camera guy for
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: HS Outdoors and I filmed for a lot of different
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: TV shows and I filmed a lot of deer jumping
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: the string. I mean, like they hunker down. I've also
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: filmed a lot of deer that never flinched. And so
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: the farther away a deer gets from you, when you're
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: shooting an arrow, either a crossbow, bow, whatever, you're shooting
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: an arrow at them. All kinds of bad things can happen.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: This is not really the case with a gun. The
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: bullet gets there before the sound does. But when you're
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: shooting an arrow or a crossbow bolt at deer, you
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: start getting out at 30, 40 yards, 50, 60 yards.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of people that can make that shot
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: all day, every day. But what they can't anticipate is,
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: is the deer going to move or not? I said
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: this in another podcast here recently about people say, well, Rex,
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: you got to learn how to read the mood of
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: a deer. I can't read the mood of my wife.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know what that joke's been told before. But anyway,
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: you can't read them. So for me, we've had great
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: success with being able to recover deer that we shoot at.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Because we would rather let them walk off and hunt
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: them again tomorrow than we would, again, so many people,
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: and myself included early in my hunting career, you see
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: a big buck or any buck or any deer, any
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: animal that you want, you get in a hurry because,
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, he could be leaving me. He could
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: be leaving me. I just, I got to get an
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: arrow going in that direction. And if you'd have just waited, yeah,
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: he just waited, he might've walked off. But if you'd
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: have just waited, he might've given you that 18-yard quartering
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: away shot that Stevie Wonder could make. And so that's
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: kind of my philosophy on that.
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: So sorry about getting off track there.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: I think it's such a great point, though. And it's
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: a similar epiphany I had a handful of years ago.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I came to the same conclusion. It was that I
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: would rather have fewer shot opportunities because I've shrunk in
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: my range, but also fewer bad things happen. I would
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: much rather reduce the negative than increase maybe a few
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: more shots at animals, but then increasing the chances of
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: those things going wrong. Couldn't agree with you more. I'm
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: right there with you. So let's jump to another scenario
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: that's kind of tied to this in a certain way.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: These scenarios where you feel like your moment, your chance
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: is fleeting and it's here and it's about to go
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: out the window. So again, let's put us in that
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: early November time period. Again, because a lot of us
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: are out there that time period that we look at
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: that as the Super Bowl of our season. And your
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: buck shows up. you're in this spot. Uh, we're going
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: to say we're back in the timber. Um, it's one
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: of your better locations. It's an evening hunt and there
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: he is, but he's out of range and he's not
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: seemingly coming towards you. He's kind of paralleling you, um,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: moving kind of off and away in a scenario like that.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier, you talked about, you know, not wanting
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: to educate him for next time around. Um, But is
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: there a scenario like this where you would do something
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: like call, rattle, anything to try to pull them in
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: and paint me that picture of how you would do that?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Okay. So. I'm personally not a big proponent of rattling.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying it doesn't work. I have a buddy
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: of mine, it's a rattlesnake. I mean, he kills all
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: kinds of big deer rattling, but sometimes I tell him,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: how do you know deer wasn't just coming anyway?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Because he rattles so much.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: But me personally, my experience, a couple of things about rattling.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: So I'm almost always hunting from a tree and I
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: don't think it's natural for deer to be fighting up
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: in a tree.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: And so- Haven't seen it yet.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I also don't have, I mean, I got to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: wear glasses when I hunt. Again, I'm 60 years, I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: worked around loud machinery most of my life. I listened
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: to ACDC, you know, I got really bad hearing. So
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: I don't hear well and I don't see well compared
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: to some people. And so when I rattle, I have
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: rattled in deer before, but they almost always see me
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: before I see them. I almost always rattle them in
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: and they're looking at me. And so I pretty much
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: abandoned rattling. Now grunting, I don't carry a grunt tube
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: with me, but I will try to like doe bleat
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: with my natural voice.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: You got nothing to lose, right?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: And I have occasionally, I have turned deer, I've had
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: deer that are leaving me that I didn't get a
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: good look at, I wanted a better look at, that
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: I've doe-bleeded at with my natural voice, got them to,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: I always do it if I need them to stop,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: if they're walking and I want them to stop, you know,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: I'll use a map, you know, do something to get
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: them to, what was that? You know what I mean?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: And that's, and you got to be at full draw
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: or whatever, you got to be ready to go. But
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: you've got nothing to lose if the deer is walking
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: away from you.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: You're probably not going to spook him. I would not
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: hit like a guttural grunt because I learned this years ago.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Some deer are lovers. Some deer are fighters. Some deer,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: just because he's got a big set of antlers doesn't
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: mean he's aggressive. And so you hit him with a
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: real guttural grunt that he may be intimidated by. So
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: it'll just cause him to go faster in the opposite direction.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: I've never seen a deer get offended by a doe bleed,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: you know, or not offended, but I've never seen him
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: get alarmed or, or, or, or in any way turned
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: off by a doe bleed. So you've got nothing to lose.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I would absolutely do that. If a deer
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: was leaving me for sure.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: I hate to put you on the spot here, but,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: but what is the doe bleed? Can you, can you
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: share with us this doe bleed? What would that sound like?
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: It's instead of a, a buck grunt is more of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: a real deep. Okay. A doe bleed is just a meh, meh.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Almost sounds like a lamb kind of meh. If you
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: ever listen to does when they're with their, their yearling
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: map map, it's kind of a real short little step.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: It's not real loud and it's just, it's not intimidating
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: at all. But if you've heard bucks grunt, you know,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: during the fall, when they come by you, they sound,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: you know, it's real guttural for lack of a better word,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: deep and guttural. So it's more of a higher pitch short,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: just a map, map, something like that.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: Nothing to lose.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: So speaking of nothing to lose one last scenario here
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: before we're going to get into this little rapid fire
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: set of final questions for you.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Gotcha.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Imagine that this is the last evening of the Ohio
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: archery season for gun season opens up.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. And you still have not killed your target
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: buck and your target buck on this given year happens
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, could rival your biggest ever. So
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: this isn't just like any target buck. This is like
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: maybe the buck of your life.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Gotcha.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: The night before gun season, you know, any of us
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: that have hunted any amount of time, we know what
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: happens on the opening day of gun season. Do you
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: have anything unique that you would do on that last
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: hunt before gun season? Do you have a mindset of, well,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: you know, might as well try it because tomorrow everything
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: goes to hell in a handbasket or not? What would
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: you do in that scenario?
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: You know, I think I would be conservative in that
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to do anything to help get him
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: killed the next morning. I would kind of bet on
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: the deer. So most of the deer that my sons
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: and I are interested in are older deer.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: Which means they're veterans. You know what I mean?
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: They've made it through multiple gun seasons to get to
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: So a lot of times you got to bet on
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: the deer. You know, you got to bet.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: He made it this far. He made it five years,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: six years, whatever. He can do three more days. You know,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: now I understand there is that dread, you know, that fear.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: But I think that I would be conservative and I
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: would do everything in my power. I mean, if there
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: was a good scenario where I thought I could, you know,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: get within, excuse me, range of him, I would absolutely
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: hunt him. But if it was, uh, I would not
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: get like aggressive. I would not try to do something
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: that I wouldn't have done earlier. Just like a hail Mary.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying? Because I'm not able to
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: bump him out of the area where he's relatively safe
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: and get him killed. So I'm going to give you
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: an example of where something like that costs me a deer.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: So I told you, as I've gotten older, I've gotten
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: more into the experience. So three years ago, and I'll
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: send you pictures of this deer also in the sheds.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: And so I got into, uh, it got to be
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: a little more important to me as to where I
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: killed the deer as opposed to, you know, weapon and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: all that stuff. And so I got on a good
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: deer on public property on the Wayne National Forest. I
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: got on this deer the day before gun season. I
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: just threw up some cameras. What it was, my sons
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: owned some ground that bordered National Forest. And I went
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: to that property and I threw up some cameras and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: I got a picture of this deer. And he wasn't
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: the best deer I've ever hunted, but he was a
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: good deer.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: He was a 150 class deer.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: You know, public land deer, which is a really nice
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: deer for anywhere in the country.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: Didn't hunt him during the gun season, but I continued
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: to put out more cameras, got more pictures of him.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: He made it through gun week that I started hunting him.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: My sons helped me. I had three different tree stands
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: hung in three different scenarios. And I hunted that deer
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: the last, there were 40, the last 49 days of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: the season, the last seven weeks of the season, I
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: hunted him 48 evenings, not from the same place, but
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: different places. And I encountered him one time in 48
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: sets and I was on February the 4th and it
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: was out, he was out at about 80 yards and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: it took him 20 minutes to go 20 yards. You
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: know what I mean? He'd take a step, he'd look around.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: So anyway, fast forward to the next year. So now
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: I'm like, This deer is, you know, really what I really,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: really want to hunt this. I'd never hunted him in
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: early season before because I didn't know about him. Didn't
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: know how old he was, but I can tell you
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: he was old. I'll send you some pictures of him.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: We were able to identify him because he had actually
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: been shot. He had a wound up high, like in
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: the mystery zone up, you know, up above the vitals there.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: And it didn't kill him, obviously. But he had a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: big white patch where you could see. And even after
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: he shed, we could identify him by that white patch.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: And so the next year... Uh, I started immediately. I mean, I,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: I did some different things to try to, cause I
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: knew more about the ground, how the deer were using
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: the grounds. I sat there 48 evenings. So I had
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: a really good idea of how the deer were using this,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: this topography, right? And that's, you know, I'm 60 year
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: old guy sitting up in 20 mile an hour winds
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: and it's two, you know, 10 degrees out. I mean,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: I was really, really, this deer energized me because I thought, man,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: if I can kill this deer late season on public ground,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: that's a trophy.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: You know, that's, that's, that's a trophy. It's not the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: biggest antlers, but that's a trophy.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: So anyway, the next year, man, I was ready to.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: Go and I had stuff, I had cameras up everywhere
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: and I was getting his picture and he was still
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: there and everything was great, but he became real sporadic.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: Like the year before I would get his picture fairly regularly.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, I would see more mountain bikers and hikers
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: and stuff in this public ground than I saw deer,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: but he was still relatively consistent in a fairly, not
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: a small area, but within a square mile or so,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: he was pretty regular in that area. And so the
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: next year, There were a couple other bucks that I
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: had seen the year before that were three-year-olds that became,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: it's not a public crop, that became four-year-olds. And those four-year-olds,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: you know, they got the great big chest and their
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: necks went up. And all of a sudden this buck
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: that I was hunting got real sporadic. Like instead of
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: getting his picture every three, four days, it was every seven,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: eight days, 10 days and real sporadic. And of course,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: the hunting pressure was pretty intense because it's National Forest.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: And so the night before gun season comes in on
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: a Monday, Sunday night, middle of the night, 2.30 in
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: the morning, I get up to use the bathroom. I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: look at a trail camera, poof, he just walked by
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: one of my trail cameras.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: And I got the idea. I said, hey, you know what?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: What I'm doing is not working because I've been hunting
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: this deer now for a lot of weeks and weeks
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: and weeks, and I've encountered him one time. So.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: let's mix it up.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: Let's, let's go get in that stand. That's in that
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: area where, where I know he is. And maybe one
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: of the pumpkin people, one of the orange army will
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: push him to me, force movement, right? So the stand
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: that I walked to was six tenths of a mile uphill,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: almost every step to get there through wide open hardwoods
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: to get up in this saddle.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: So I immediately took a shower.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: In the middle of the night and I got, because
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: about a half hour drive from my house, I got there,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: Well before, like at least an hour before daylight, maybe
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: long before that. And it was real calm and it
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: was real cold.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: And I got.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: Halfway back to the stand and it's like I was
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: walking on a bed of potato chips. It was just crispy, cold,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: below freezing, real calm, real still.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: And I said, Mike, this is a bad idea.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: This is bad. You're going to bump this deer and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: you're going to get him killed.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: But then the other shoulder, you know, that's angel and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: a devil on the other shoulder said, yeah.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: But you know what?
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: You haven't encountered him at all this season. And you know,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: so what you're doing. And so I kept walking and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: I got in the dang stand and I climbed up
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: and I got settled in. And as it started to
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: crack daylight, it sounded like the Tet offensive. I mean,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is 10,000 acres of public property. You
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: know what I'm saying? Yeah. Oh man, that doesn't sound good.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: And right out the ridge for me, I heard right.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, maybe a half hour after daylight. Man, I
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: really didn't like that. later that afternoon, a guy, as
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: I was leaving down in the bottom, a guy from
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: Vermont wound up killing the deer. And I'm not saying
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: that I pushed the deer to him, but I may
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: have pushed the deer to him. So I, you know,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: I rolled the dice and I lost. And you know,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: that guy from Vermont, I just tipped my hat. You know,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: I said, look, I had a lot invested in him.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: He had nothing invested in him, but that doesn't mean anything.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: He had just as much right to be there as
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: I did. And you know, sometimes being lucky is better
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: than being good. And so he just, you know, I mean,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: I was happy for him. I was disappointed, though, I
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: will tell you that. But it was a situation where
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: I took a chance, I got aggressive, and it cost me.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I can relate so much to those two
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: voices going back and forth and back and forth in
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: your mind. And the tough thing about that, though, is
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: it just as well could have gone the other way, right?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, yeah.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Taking that risk certainly could have worked. I mean, maybe
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: you spooked him, but maybe you didn't. Maybe he was
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: just unlucky that day. That's right. It's so hard to
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: live with those.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: It was a different tactic.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: I just tried something else.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: So another funny story about this, and I'll send you
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: this picture also if you want to put it up.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: So that deer shed the year before on March the 9th.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: And the reason I know that was he walked in
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: front of one camera right at dark, had both sides
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: of the antlers, and 600 yards away at 10 o'clock
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: at night, he walked by another camera and he'd shed.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: So my sons and I, we're avid shedders. My oldest
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: sons are really good. really good shed. I mean, you know,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: some people have a knack for finding them and we're
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: all pretty good at it. My oldest son's really good
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: at it. So we're like, this is going to be
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: the easiest thing we've ever done because it's wide open hardwoods.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: And he was there at six o'clock and he was
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: there at 10 o'clock, you know, or whatever, midnight or whatever.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: So this is going to be simple. The sheds have
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: to be somewhere in between here and here. So we
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: meet out there, my three boys and I, the next morning,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: my one son's got a dog.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: He brought his dog.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: It's not a great shed dog, but it is a
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: somewhat shed dog. And we start walking and we walk
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: and we walk and we walk and we find a laundry,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: over a two week period, we find a laundry basket
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: full of sheds and dead heads and deer I've never
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: seen before and all kinds of old sheds, new sheds,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: because we're scouring these woods and we can't find them.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, this is the craziest thing ever. They've
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: got to be right here. So long story short, I
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: got to know this lady who has one of the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: top point scoring shed dogs in the country. And if
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: you've never seen a good shed dog work, it's a
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: thing of beauty. I mean, it's awesome to watch a
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: really good shed dog. And I'll send you this picture also.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: And she invited her friend who also has one of
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: these dogs offspring. That's one of the top shed dogs
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: in the country. And those dogs found those sheds in
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: like 20 minutes. It was the most humbling thing. Yeah.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: So what happened was, About a hundred yards from the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: back camera, there was a fallen tree and the deer
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: had jumped over the trunk of the tree and his
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: antlers went pink right into the treetops. So the antlers
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: were in like where the treetops.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: Went like that.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: The antlers were laying like five feet apart right there.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: I had walked by them 15 times, but they were
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: in those treetops and we couldn't see them. But the dogs,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: of course, they work off their nose and their eyes
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: and If you've ever had the opportunity to watch a
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: good shed dog work, it's a thing of beauty.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: It's awesome.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. I tried to have a good shed dog.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: I raised a dog and tried to train him on
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: my own to become a shed dog. He became more
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: of a deer turd eater dog than anything. He was
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: a black lab.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, these dogs were labs.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: I'll send you the pictures.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: I'd love to see that.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: All right, Mike. I thoroughly enjoyed you talking us through this. Really,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: really interesting and helpful. I want to run you through
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: a handful of what we call just like a quick
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: rapid fire question. So just give me the first thought
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: that comes to your mind after I give you these
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: two options. Like a one word answer. We're going to
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: go through these really quick and then I have one
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: last diabolical question for you and then I'll let you
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: go on with your day.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: No problem. Gotcha.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: All right. Here we go. Does the moon Matter or
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: deer movement? Yes or no?
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: Would you take a 50-yard shot at a whitetail with
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: a bow? Yes or no?
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: Absolutely not. With a bow, no.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. This next one, I kind of already know your answer,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: but we'll see what you say anyways. If you could
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: only have one of these for the rest of your hunts,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: and you mentioned you usually don't use either one of these,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: but if it would be rattling antlers or grunt tube,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: and you had to pick one, which one would you take?
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: Grunt tube.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Expandable or fixed blade broadheads?
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: It depends.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: If I was shooting a crossbow, expandable. If I'm shooting
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: a vertical bow, fixed blade.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: Okay. Should you stop a moving buck before shooting with
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: a bow? Yes or no?
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: Every time. Sure want to try to, yep.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: And sometimes it spooks them, but I try not to
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: take shots at moving targets if I can avoid it.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: You can only scout... one of these seasons throughout the year.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: You can scout in that winter-spring time period, you can
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: scout dead of the summer, or you can scout in-season.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: Which do you pick?
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: In-season.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to be diabolical. I am going to
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: do the horrible, horrible thing of taking away your privilege
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: to hunt. You can no longer hunt in the state
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: of Ohio or any other state in America. Unless... Unless
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: you kill a five-year-old or older buck this season. All right.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: So my life depends on it.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: Got it.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Your life depends on killing a five-year-old or
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: older buck.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: The bummer though, is that I'm only going to give
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: you one day to do this.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: Oh man.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. Diabolical. Like I said. So what I
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: would like you to do for me is pick the date.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: What day of the year are you going to pick
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: for this very important hunt? And then describe for me
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: the location that you will sit. This can either be
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: like an actual place that you know of, or you
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: can paint the picture of the perfect setup for this date.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: Either one will do. But I'd like to hear what
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: date and why you're picking this day of the year.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: And then what kind of setup and help us understand
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: and understand why this is so good and why it
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: would be perfect for that day on this very high
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: stakes hunt.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: So before I answer that question, I want to go
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: back to the very first question you asked me about
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: moon phase. I don't mean that moon phase is totally irrelevant,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: but I said it was. But what I really mean
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: is I don't pay attention to it because there's so
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: many other more important variables. So nature doesn't leave anything
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: to chance. And so if you look at the data
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: of when deer move and don't move, I'm way more
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: concerned about, you know, temperature, which I know they got
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: to braid and they got to, you know, they have
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: short window dozer and heat.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: It can be 80 degrees. They're still going to move around.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: But I think they move around more at night when
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: it's hot like that. but I pay attention more closely
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: to other things. So I don't mean to say that
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: people pay attention to the moon are crazy. I just,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: it's not something I plan my hunt around. I don't
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: plan my hunt around moon phase. And I know some
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: people do, but I don't. And again, because I'm so
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: flexible hunting here close to my home, I pick the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: best days based on weather and all the other variables
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: that go into it. Now, getting back to your scenario,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: five and a half year old deer. So a five
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: and a half year old deer isn't necessarily a high
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: scoring buck, but he's five and a half years old.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: So there's two reasons that in this area that deer
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: get to be five and a half years old. One,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: they wouldn't make 120 on their best year. And so
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: people will give them a pass.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: They just will.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: When he's four and a half years old, they want
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: that three and a half year old 150. So they'll
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: let that four and a half year old 115 go.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: And so those deer are pretty huntable because they've made mistakes,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: but they've gotten a pass. But a five year old 170,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: Or you know what I mean? Or that's a different
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: animal because everybody, everybody, nobody's letting him walk. No one
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: has let him walk. So he's a different animal. So
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: you've described two different animals. You've got the five-year-old great
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: big rack. And then you got the five-year-old bully buck
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: that wants to fight his own shadow and makes mistakes,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: but he's alive because, you know, he busted off half
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: of his antlers or who knows what. So let's kind
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: of narrow it down to that. You got to kill
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: that five and a half year old giant buck. So
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: if I nail it down to that, okay, so I've
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: been the secretary of the Buckeye Big Buck Club for
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: almost 25 years. So all the score sheets come to
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: me and I look when these giants are being killed
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: and there's a pattern to it when they're being killed.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: They're being killed real early in the season on summer
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: food patterns. They're getting killed some during the rut and
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: then they're getting killed, some of them are getting killed
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: late on food patterns again. But the majority of the
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: 140 150 class bucks that make the Buckeye Big Buck
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: Club typicals or 160 non-typicals are three and four year
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: old bucks. They do the majority of the breeding. They're
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: also the ones that run out in front of cars
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: and you know what I mean? Because they're just rut crazed.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: When a deer gets to be five, six, seven, eight
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: years old, he's more concerned about survival than he is procreation.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: And so he wants to breed does, but he's more
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: concerned about living to see tomorrow. And so a lot
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: of those deer get killed after the peak of the rut.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: And I can't say this for sure. I mean, I
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: can't say this matter of factly, but I believe that
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: it has something to do with when people hunt. Most
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: of the hunters take vacation the first week of November,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: first 10 days of November. Then all of a sudden,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: this foreign predator that hasn't been there all year, but
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: it's there for 10 days, two weeks, whatever the heck,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: it's gone. And I think they learn pretty quickly that, hey,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: it's safer to move. You know, it's safer to move
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: now from the 15th of November to the opening day
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: of gun week, which is always the Monday after Thanksgiving
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: here in Ohio. So if I had to pick first
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: of November, first half, last half, I picked the last half.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: That's the first thing I narrow it down to. Second
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: half of November, less pressure. Now, in theory, some of
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: those giant bucks have already been killed, right? So some
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: of them are going to make mistakes earlier, whatever. So
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: the longer you wait in the season, the fewer giant
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: bucks there are on the landscape. But I personally, if
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: I had to pick one or the other, I would
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: pick the second half of November. And if you had
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: to pick the perfect place, it would be in an
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: area that obviously didn't get a lot of hunting pressure,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: no matter what that is. I mean, it just, and
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: of course, if you're hunting public land, that's nowhere. But
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: if you're hunting private land or hunting private ground, I
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: would look for an unpressured area or a lesser pressured
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: area that I believe harbored a buck. I have somewhere,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: I got a picture of them or some, sometime over
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: the course of the year, I got a picture of
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: a deer that I was interested there and I would
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: hunt him the second half of November and I would
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: hunt him. I wouldn't do necessarily all, all day sets,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: but I do a lot of all day sets because
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: I think he, he might be most likely to make
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: a mistake at 10 o'clock in the morning, 11 o'clock
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: in the morning, versus, you know, first light and last
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: light when deer are historically most active. So I don't know,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: did that narrow it down or do you need me
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: to get even farther into the weeds?
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to make you do one more thing, which
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: is describe the tree you're going to sit in. Describe
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: the perfect tree for one of the, you know, like
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: November 20th or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: So the perfect tree was the tree I was sitting
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: in the day that I missed that giant buck in 1998.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: It's a wolf. So when you go into a big
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: hardwoods in this part of the state, so these unglaciated
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: hills were almost all bald 100 years ago. People made
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: their living off this land. And so they farmed with
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: horses and plows. And so when the tractor came on
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: the scene in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, it became
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: only profitable to farm flat ground. So then the bottoms,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: and then the hillsides reverted back. And so a lot
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: of times in a woods, you'll find what I call
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: a wolf oak or whatever. You'll find an oak tree, which-
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: It's 150 years old. And it was an old shade
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: tree back when there was cows in there when they were,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: or it was a fence line tree, you know, the
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: divided two properties or whatever. And then you'll look and
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of the veneer oaks, the straight trunk trees
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: will grow up around that because they all grew at
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: the same time as those acorns dropped, those trees were
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: all competing for sunlight. So they grew fast, tall to
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: try to get ahead of each other. And they all
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: grew at about the same rate. So those stick straight
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: veneer trees, which have no cover that you got to
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: get 35 feet up in to get out of their
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: site plane. And then the higher you get up in
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: the air, you know, then the kill zone shrinks, right?
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: And also really distorts.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: This is, I shouldn't say this because now they have,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: you know, range finders that adjust for this. But back
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: when I was closer to your age and I used
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: to climb into the ozone layer, it really distorts your
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: depth perception of how close or how far away something
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: is when you're 35 feet up in the air. And
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: now it gets you out of their sight and they're
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: playing a sight, but it also, it messes with you.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: So that tree that I was in in 1998 was
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: an old Woolfolk and it went up about 15 feet
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: and then it broke into three big trunks and I
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: was cupped in the middle of those three big trunks.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: So no matter which direction a deer was coming from,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: I could be behind a big trunk.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: I could gather away. It was just perfect.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: But yet it wasn't, I had plenty of room to draw.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: There was, you know, a couple of feet gap in between.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: It was almost like a natural box blind.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: Without the box, without the lid on top of it.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: So that's the ideal tree or any tree that breaks
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: up your outline, any tree where you can get high
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: enough and you got branches and twigs and say something else.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: The perfect tree has to be comfortable.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: If you are, so when I first started bow hunting,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: first year I killed 1980 with a bow, I was
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: sitting on a tree branch.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: I climbed up the branches.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: I was sitting on a branch with a compound bow
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: with no sights. So especially as I've gotten older, but
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: even for younger guys, if you're uncomfortable, you'll start to,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: you'll scheme, you'll come up with a reason why you
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 3: need to get down.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: But if you're comfortable, you can sit longer.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: So if you've got the right clothes on, you know,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: it's cold out, but you got plenty of clothes on,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: but yet they're not restrictive.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: You can still move. You can do whatever.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: And so I've really, my hunting strategy in the last
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: several years has been about sitting comfortably because that.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: Allows me to sit longer.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: And the longer I sit every minute, every second I'm
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: in a tree stand, my chance goes up, right? They're just,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: you're just clicking off seconds until you get that encounter. And,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: and you're, I believe in luck. The harder I try,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: the luckier I become that I believe in that. So
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: that's kind of my philosophy with deer hunting.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's a perfect place to, uh, to wrap
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: this up here.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: Uh, Thank you.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: A line that we can all keep in the back
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: of our minds this coming season that I think will
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: probably help us all. So, Mike, I have thoroughly enjoyed this.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: I am even more excited than I was beforehand for
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: this upcoming season, which is so rapidly approaching. So thank you, Mike.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Mark.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed it.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: All right, and that's going to do it for us today.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining me here today. Thanks for being
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: along for this ride. Your hunting season might be opening
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: any day now. And if that's the case, good luck
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: out there. Have a lot of fun. And if you're
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: not quite in that situation, it's just going to be
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: a matter of weeks, no matter where you live. So
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: it's almost here. It's a beautiful time of year. And
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: until then, thanks for being here and stay wired to hunt.