Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #159: John Eberhart’s Tactics For Tough To Kill Big Bucks

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #159: John Eberhart’s Tactics For Tough To Kill Big Bucks · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode one nine and
0:19
Speaker 1: today the show we were joined by one of the
0:21
Speaker 1: most successful d I Y deer hunters in my home
0:24
Speaker 1: state of Michigan and across the country, John Eberhart, and
0:28
Speaker 1: in this episode we dive deeper than ever into his
0:30
Speaker 1: secrets for hunting tough to kill big bucks. Welcome to
0:47
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick Gear.
0:50
Speaker 1: And today in the show, we've got a repeat guest,
0:53
Speaker 1: John Eberhart. And you've probably heard me say it before.
0:57
Speaker 1: You'll hear me say it again later in this interview.
1:00
Speaker 1: But John was one of the most influential people in
1:02
Speaker 1: my evolution as a deer hunter. About a decade ago,
1:05
Speaker 1: I read his book Precision Bow Hunting, and it completely
1:08
Speaker 1: turned how I hunt and how I think about hunting
1:10
Speaker 1: upside down. From that point, for my level of success
1:13
Speaker 1: has increased exponentially. So if you were not familiar with John,
1:16
Speaker 1: he's an outdoor writer, frequently published and outlets like Deer
1:19
Speaker 1: and Deer Hunting magazine, and he's the author of three books,
1:22
Speaker 1: including the aforementioned Precision Bow Hunting, Bow Hunting I Think
1:26
Speaker 1: It's Bow Hunting Pressured white Tails, and Bow Hunting white
1:29
Speaker 1: Tails of Eberhart Way and John specializes in sharing tactics
1:32
Speaker 1: and strategies for hunting mature white tail bucks in heavily
1:36
Speaker 1: pressured areas, these types of places where deer are particularly
1:40
Speaker 1: spooky and hard to hunt because of the constant presence
1:43
Speaker 1: of other hunters. If you hunt in an area like this,
1:45
Speaker 1: John's advice is golden. But even if you hunt in
1:48
Speaker 1: a less hunted area, the level of detail and focus
1:52
Speaker 1: that John puts into his hunting and tactics it can
1:54
Speaker 1: be applied just as successfully and probably probably even more
1:57
Speaker 1: so in lesser pressured regions. I've always said that if
2:00
Speaker 1: you can find success in a heavily pressured hunting area
2:03
Speaker 1: and perfect the tactics for those deer, and then apply
2:05
Speaker 1: those tactics to lesser hunted areas, you know you're just
2:08
Speaker 1: gonna be an absolute terror to those unexpecting deer. So
2:12
Speaker 1: today that's exactly what we're gonna try to do, where
2:15
Speaker 1: you're going to arm you with the strategies and tactics
2:17
Speaker 1: to finally wrap a tag around the biggest, baddest, oldest
2:20
Speaker 1: buck in your area, whether that's in Iowa or Michigan,
2:23
Speaker 1: or Georgia or Indiana or anywhere in between. And if
2:28
Speaker 1: you haven't heard our first episode of John, I would
2:30
Speaker 1: highly recommend you listen to that one too. It's episode
2:33
Speaker 1: number sixty two, I believe, and we cover a lot
2:35
Speaker 1: of great material in that discussion, and today that we
2:38
Speaker 1: try to head into new territory. We discussed some very
2:41
Speaker 1: different details and subjects and then dive into specific examples
2:45
Speaker 1: of some of John's hunts to illustrate the concepts that
2:48
Speaker 1: led to his success. So that's the plan for today.
2:51
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this one. It is a really really
2:54
Speaker 1: good episode, I think, in my possibly biased opinion. But
2:58
Speaker 1: before we get to that, we do not have my
3:00
Speaker 1: coach Dan along with us for this one. So in
3:03
Speaker 1: this little extra time we have, I want to give
3:05
Speaker 1: you a bit of homework to take care of after
3:08
Speaker 1: you listen to this one. Um. On this same day
3:11
Speaker 1: that we published the episode you're listening to right now,
3:14
Speaker 1: I also published a new episode of my other podcast,
3:17
Speaker 1: The Wild Podcast, and that episode is a particularly interesting
3:22
Speaker 1: one as well as it features Mark Dury. You know,
3:27
Speaker 1: we all know Mark Jury, the mad Scientists of Drew Outdoors,
3:29
Speaker 1: and it features Mark discussing aggressive hunting tactics for mature bucks,
3:34
Speaker 1: including an in depth analysis of his hunt and thought
3:37
Speaker 1: process while targeting a giant buck in two thousand and sixteen.
3:41
Speaker 1: And I think this conversation with Mark on the Wild
3:44
Speaker 1: podcast and the conversation you're gonna here today with John
3:48
Speaker 1: they kind of provide an interesting illustration of how different
3:51
Speaker 1: tactics and philosophies can work in different areas and circumstances.
3:55
Speaker 1: I mean, both Mark and John have had a tremendous
3:58
Speaker 1: level of success, and they both put in a ton
4:00
Speaker 1: of work into those hunting efforts. You know, I admire
4:02
Speaker 1: in respect both of these guys and have learned so
4:05
Speaker 1: much from the two of them. But I bring this
4:08
Speaker 1: up because I think it's important for for all of
4:10
Speaker 1: us hunters really to open our minds to as many
4:12
Speaker 1: different concepts and the ideas as possible. You know, whether
4:16
Speaker 1: it be from someone like Mark hunting a carefully managed
4:19
Speaker 1: farm in Iowa, or from someone like John hunting small
4:22
Speaker 1: public and private pieces in Michigan, taking all these things
4:26
Speaker 1: into taking them all in and filtering through these new
4:29
Speaker 1: ideas to find what sticks, what doesn't, and what could
4:33
Speaker 1: be applied to your own situation where you hunt. Um.
4:36
Speaker 1: You know, if you listen to both of these conversations,
4:38
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna hear some very different ideas, but
4:40
Speaker 1: you're also going to notice some underlying currents of consistency
4:43
Speaker 1: despite those very different circumstances, and that that's pretty interesting
4:46
Speaker 1: to me. I'd encourage you to to chew on those
4:49
Speaker 1: differences and similarities, and I think if you do that,
4:51
Speaker 1: you're gonna find a few things you can apply to
4:53
Speaker 1: your own hunting style and circumstances and methodology. I think
4:58
Speaker 1: it's safe to say that we all can grows hunters,
5:00
Speaker 1: no no doubt about that. And I think it's important
5:03
Speaker 1: that we not get too locked into only considering and
5:06
Speaker 1: hearing advice from people just like us. You know, new
5:10
Speaker 1: and different perspectives are so key, and that's I think
5:13
Speaker 1: that's true in life and in hunting. But when it
5:15
Speaker 1: comes to deer hunting, opening yourself to these new ideas
5:18
Speaker 1: and then properly filtering and thinking about how they may
5:20
Speaker 1: or may not apply to your own hunting. That's one
5:23
Speaker 1: of the very most important skills that you can play
5:27
Speaker 1: to improve your success in the field. So all this
5:30
Speaker 1: to say, when you finish this one, go download episode
5:33
Speaker 1: number forty one of the Wild Podcast with Mark Dury,
5:38
Speaker 1: Compare and contrast these ideas, do some thinking, and I
5:42
Speaker 1: bet you'll find some ideas from both of these cocks
5:45
Speaker 1: that can help you this upcoming season. I know we
5:48
Speaker 1: certainly have. So with that long and winding introduction out
5:51
Speaker 1: of the way, let's take a quick break to think
5:53
Speaker 1: our partners at Sick of Gear and today we've got
5:55
Speaker 1: an interesting Sick of story from our producer Spencer new
5:58
Speaker 1: Hearth as he throws things back to a turkey hunt
6:01
Speaker 1: of his from this past spring. For this week's Sitka story,
6:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about my final turkey haunt of this
6:08
Speaker 1: last spring that took place in the last week of
6:10
Speaker 1: April in South Dakota's Black Hills. Now, the Black Hills
6:14
Speaker 1: are known for a couple of things, one of them
6:16
Speaker 1: being their Merriam's turkeys, another one being there very volatile
6:20
Speaker 1: weather and the reason for that is they have a
6:25
Speaker 1: total mix of of different climates, like they have the
6:28
Speaker 1: Subarctic climate in one area like that of Alaska, and
6:31
Speaker 1: then they have a subtropic climate in another area like
6:33
Speaker 1: that of Florida, so planning a hunt there can be
6:36
Speaker 1: very difficult. I went out there scouting the day before
6:40
Speaker 1: and it was like mid seventies, beautiful weather, and the
6:45
Speaker 1: following day we got about eight inches of snow and
6:48
Speaker 1: the weather, the temperature was down in the teens. So
6:51
Speaker 1: it totally changed up what the turkeys were doing, and
6:54
Speaker 1: it totally changed up what I was doing now. On
6:57
Speaker 1: that haunt, I was really struggling to not only fine birds,
7:01
Speaker 1: but even get an idea of where they were at all.
7:03
Speaker 1: My scouting was thrown out the window because of the
7:06
Speaker 1: blizzard and the birds were now in survival mode, So
7:10
Speaker 1: rather than making your typical turkey setups and calling them
7:13
Speaker 1: in um, I had to just go after them and
7:17
Speaker 1: put a lot of miles on my boots that day,
7:19
Speaker 1: hoping to just come across flocks of birds, And that
7:22
Speaker 1: finally happened in the late afternoon when I cut the
7:26
Speaker 1: tracks that were crossing a snowy gravel road, and so
7:30
Speaker 1: the tracks were pretty small, and I followed them with
7:32
Speaker 1: hopes that it was at least a jake and when
7:34
Speaker 1: I got up on the tracks, I was bummed to
7:37
Speaker 1: find that it was a hen until that hen turned
7:40
Speaker 1: and showed me that she had a beard down South Dakota.
7:43
Speaker 1: It so you got to take any bearded turkey with
7:46
Speaker 1: a male turkey tag, And so I was really excited,
7:49
Speaker 1: childered my gun and dropped her with one concluding shot. Now,
7:53
Speaker 1: on that hunt, I was wearing Sitka's Stratus system, which
7:56
Speaker 1: worked out really well because the day before and I
7:58
Speaker 1: was scouting, it was perfect as a standalone set up,
8:02
Speaker 1: and the following day when the blizzard came, I was
8:05
Speaker 1: able to layer with it and keep on hunting. If
8:08
Speaker 1: you'd like to create a Sitka story of your own,
8:10
Speaker 1: or to learn more about Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit
8:13
Speaker 1: sitka gear dot com. Alright here with us now on
8:18
Speaker 1: the line is John Eberhart. Thanks for joining us back
8:22
Speaker 1: on the show again. John. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate
8:25
Speaker 1: the offer to come on the show. You guys have
8:27
Speaker 1: a very popular show and definitely looking forward to it.
8:31
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I um, you know, we were just
8:33
Speaker 1: talking a second ago before we started recording, and I've
8:35
Speaker 1: said this on the podcast several times in the past,
8:38
Speaker 1: but not to um to build you up too much,
8:41
Speaker 1: but you really are one of the most influential people
8:45
Speaker 1: on my hunting journey. UM. Your books early on, UM
8:49
Speaker 1: really kind of helped shape my focus areas and things
8:52
Speaker 1: that really took me from that guy who could maybe
8:54
Speaker 1: shoot a four corn buck to a guy that can
8:55
Speaker 1: maybe shoot him acture bucks. So I gotta thank you
8:58
Speaker 1: for that, and then I just guess I'm excited to
9:01
Speaker 1: have you on the show. Well, thank you very much, Mark, I,
9:05
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. That's always been my goal is
9:07
Speaker 1: to help hunters be more successful because if you're a
9:12
Speaker 1: passionate deer hunter and you're successful at it, killimure books.
9:16
Speaker 1: It kind of almost changes your life, how you interact
9:19
Speaker 1: with people, how other hunters interact with you, how you
9:23
Speaker 1: deal with your family during your season. It's just the
9:25
Speaker 1: life changing experience. It definitely definitely isn't and our and
9:29
Speaker 1: our wives might say a consuming life experience as well.
9:32
Speaker 1: But yeah, so, so we had you on the podcast.
9:38
Speaker 1: I think it was two years ago now, I can't
9:40
Speaker 1: believe it's been that long ago. UM, But for those
9:43
Speaker 1: you know, we introduced you before we got you on,
9:45
Speaker 1: But just for those who aren't familiar. Can you give
9:47
Speaker 1: us like the Johnnyberhart one oh one, Like how would
9:50
Speaker 1: you introduce yourself to other deer hunters. I'd probably have
9:54
Speaker 1: to give myself a little bit of a bio, like
9:56
Speaker 1: when I'm doing seminars in the Midwest to expose Um,
10:00
Speaker 1: I'm sixty six, have been bowing fifty three years. I've
10:03
Speaker 1: got thirty bucks in the Michigan record book with a bow.
10:07
Speaker 1: Uh that's off nineteen different properties public land and knock
10:11
Speaker 1: on doors exclusively and no less don't own anything you
10:15
Speaker 1: don't not over bait and end up taking one out
10:20
Speaker 1: of state trips and I've killed nineteen bucks on those
10:23
Speaker 1: p and y bucks on those trips in those game
10:26
Speaker 1: off thirteen different properties in five different states. I love
10:29
Speaker 1: the fact that you've got all the data you quantify
10:32
Speaker 1: very well. That's awesome. Most people don't keep track of that,
10:34
Speaker 1: but that's that's it's really interesting to hear that and
10:37
Speaker 1: the numbers that are impressive, no doubt about that. Thank you.
10:41
Speaker 1: I'm curious you weren't always John Eberhardt the big buck Slayer, though,
10:46
Speaker 1: I'm sure, like, what was that evolution like for you?
10:49
Speaker 1: When you're just getting into it because I know, you know,
10:51
Speaker 1: early on, I think I remember chatting with you once
10:53
Speaker 1: and you said you you first really got an archery
10:56
Speaker 1: and then slowly made your way into hunting deer and
10:58
Speaker 1: then eventually old or dear um. But what was that
11:02
Speaker 1: like for you? Was that really challenging? And at what
11:04
Speaker 1: point did that light switch flip where you started being
11:07
Speaker 1: able to kill these these older, bigger deer. I've always
11:11
Speaker 1: been a person that likes to be challenged. I do
11:13
Speaker 1: a lot of different things like fish, I play pool,
11:15
Speaker 1: like golf. I do a lot of different things. And
11:19
Speaker 1: when I got into bow hunting, I you know, obviously
11:22
Speaker 1: back then I had no mentors, I had nobody in
11:24
Speaker 1: my family hunted. So I took it on by myself.
11:28
Speaker 1: And you know, I just started off trying to shoot
11:31
Speaker 1: anything and typically and I shot a couple of fons
11:35
Speaker 1: and I'm going back into the early sixties and shot uh,
11:39
Speaker 1: you know, then a doze. And then it got to
11:41
Speaker 1: the point where I kind of targeted subordinate year and
11:44
Speaker 1: a half old bucks and was getting pretty good at that.
11:46
Speaker 1: And it was just a succession. The better, the better
11:49
Speaker 1: I got, the more depth I became, the higher I
11:52
Speaker 1: set my goals, and it got to the point where
11:55
Speaker 1: in the mid seventies, um, I was pretty good at
11:58
Speaker 1: killing mature buck bucks in the areas that I was
12:02
Speaker 1: hunting so um And back then Michigan, I live in
12:06
Speaker 1: Michigan and it had a million gun hunters and there
12:08
Speaker 1: was no q DM, there was no you know, everybody
12:11
Speaker 1: killed anything that had legal three inch spikes, so you know,
12:16
Speaker 1: two and a half year old bucks were rare. Three
12:18
Speaker 1: and a half year olds were almost non existent. So
12:21
Speaker 1: it wasn't until probably the mid eighties into the early
12:25
Speaker 1: nineties when a lot of people started managing and passing
12:30
Speaker 1: up buck that I really started totally concentrating on three
12:34
Speaker 1: and a half and four and half and year old
12:36
Speaker 1: and older bucks and became very proficient that I didn't
12:41
Speaker 1: read anything anybody else wrote. I just did everything on
12:45
Speaker 1: my own. I still did this day. I've never read
12:46
Speaker 1: anybody's books. I don't read hunting articles, I don't watch
12:50
Speaker 1: TV shows. I don't know who most hunting personalities are.
12:54
Speaker 1: And it's just all been kind of self duck taught,
12:57
Speaker 1: and it's just been a competitive of deal with me.
13:01
Speaker 1: I just like to compete with myself and keep pushing
13:03
Speaker 1: myself to do the best I can do. That's kind
13:07
Speaker 1: of where its went. So I think something you said
13:10
Speaker 1: there is is a good point to emphasize for people.
13:14
Speaker 1: Increate me if I'm wrong here, But it sounds like
13:15
Speaker 1: you started hunting in the sixties and it wasn't until
13:18
Speaker 1: the mid eighties that you were consistently killing mature bucks.
13:21
Speaker 1: And by bringing up I just I mean to point
13:23
Speaker 1: out that it takes time, right, It's not something that
13:26
Speaker 1: can just happen you start hunting right away, you're killing
13:28
Speaker 1: mature bucks, right, It takes time to get to that point.
13:32
Speaker 1: Market totally depends on your situation nowadays with the high
13:36
Speaker 1: end leases and manage properties. You know, you know TV guys,
13:40
Speaker 1: their wives can you know, because they're hunting such exclusive
13:45
Speaker 1: properties with no competition, you know, their kids and wives
13:47
Speaker 1: to go out and start killing monster bucks immediately because
13:50
Speaker 1: they're hunting property with no competition. So I worked. I
13:54
Speaker 1: you know, I hunted in areas, public lands and knock
13:56
Speaker 1: on doors for free provision properties. I always had competition,
14:00
Speaker 1: so I was working to separate myself from the other hunters.
14:02
Speaker 1: So I was killing even in the mid mid to
14:05
Speaker 1: late seventies, I was killing the biggest bucks the area
14:08
Speaker 1: had to offer, which was typically a two and a
14:10
Speaker 1: half year old, you know the fourteen, sixteen and eight
14:12
Speaker 1: eight or ten point um. But then as time progressed
14:17
Speaker 1: and people started passing up up bucks on regular hunting
14:21
Speaker 1: properties you know ten acre acre for acre parcels and
14:24
Speaker 1: public lands, then I started killing three and a half
14:27
Speaker 1: and four and a half year olds because they existed
14:29
Speaker 1: where I was hunting in the seventies, they rarely existed
14:34
Speaker 1: because there's just so many gun hunters. They just kept
14:37
Speaker 1: everything mowed down. Um So, so I I guess I
14:43
Speaker 1: progressed to be proficient at killing mature bucks because of
14:48
Speaker 1: where I hunted. Today is different. You know, if somebody
14:52
Speaker 1: buys a big please is a big piece of property
14:55
Speaker 1: and micromanages that, you know they can go out and
14:58
Speaker 1: kill mature bucks relatively quickly because it doesn't take a
15:02
Speaker 1: lot of experience and knowledge because there's a lot of
15:04
Speaker 1: mature bucks in the area, because they don't have any competitions.
15:07
Speaker 1: So that needs to be like the TV guys for instance,
15:11
Speaker 1: most TV guys, if they had to get hunt in
15:13
Speaker 1: a pressured area, they wouldn't have a cool word to
15:15
Speaker 1: start right, Very very different circumstances, that's for sure, totally
15:19
Speaker 1: so okay, So what about this for someone that's in
15:24
Speaker 1: a similar situation to you, that just hunts private land
15:27
Speaker 1: by permission or public do you think it's easier or
15:31
Speaker 1: harder now for someone today in that situation versus you know,
15:35
Speaker 1: in the nineties, maybe twenty years ago, harder or easier
15:39
Speaker 1: to kill deer, or harder or easily already kill mature
15:42
Speaker 1: deer to kill mature deer in the same type of
15:45
Speaker 1: circumstances that you're talking about. I think it's actually easier.
15:48
Speaker 1: I think it's easier nowadays because I don't care where
15:51
Speaker 1: you're at in this country anymore. Even you know, whether
15:55
Speaker 1: you're in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York where
15:59
Speaker 1: there's extreme hunting pressure, there's a there's a higher percentage
16:02
Speaker 1: of hunters now that are not happy shooting year in
16:06
Speaker 1: half hold bucks, and a lot of them will shoot
16:09
Speaker 1: two and a half year old bucks, and some of
16:10
Speaker 1: them will even pass up to an a half and
16:12
Speaker 1: kill three and a half. So there are more bucks
16:14
Speaker 1: even on public lands that are surviving to two and
16:18
Speaker 1: a half, three and a half and even maybe four
16:19
Speaker 1: and a half years old in their quarterback in the
16:21
Speaker 1: sixties and the seventies point, they just didn't heavily hunted
16:25
Speaker 1: public lands that they just didn't exist because everybody was
16:28
Speaker 1: trying to kill any legal antword buck. Yeah. What do
16:30
Speaker 1: you see in regards to pressure increasing in that time
16:34
Speaker 1: from from like the nineties till now on private and public?
16:38
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like the narrative a lot of
16:40
Speaker 1: times that there's more and more people trying to get
16:42
Speaker 1: access on fewer and fewer properties, um and maybe the
16:45
Speaker 1: same on public Do you think have you seen that
16:47
Speaker 1: to be the case in your own hunting or what
16:49
Speaker 1: do you think? Uh? Yeah? And I also see a
16:53
Speaker 1: lot of people just giving up because there's so much
16:55
Speaker 1: emphasis now on trophy bucks and so many people now
17:00
Speaker 1: are buying up properties or leasing large parcels of properties
17:04
Speaker 1: keeping everybody off. It's it's extremely hard to get hunting
17:08
Speaker 1: permission anymore. So you know, it's pushing people to public lands.
17:13
Speaker 1: In some public lands, like in southern Michigan, for instance,
17:16
Speaker 1: where there's egg and a lot of huge pop general population,
17:19
Speaker 1: there's so much hunting pressure that people hunt there a
17:22
Speaker 1: few times, and a lot of people just if they're
17:24
Speaker 1: not that passionate about it. They just stopped out of
17:26
Speaker 1: hunting altogether. Our our gun hunting numbers in Michigan have
17:30
Speaker 1: went from a million back in the seventies to like
17:32
Speaker 1: seven thousand now. So the gun hunting, the gun hunting
17:36
Speaker 1: numbers have dwindled, and archery numbers have came up. Thought,
17:40
Speaker 1: and especially now that a lot of gun hunters are
17:42
Speaker 1: converting to the crossbows. What's the latest number you've seen
17:45
Speaker 1: there for archery hunters in Michigan About three. There's a
17:49
Speaker 1: lot of competition in the woods out there, force, isn't
17:51
Speaker 1: there absolutely? Yeah, keeps us on our toes, I guess, yeah,
17:58
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and that's happening kind of everywhere.
18:01
Speaker 1: I think. You know, last couple of a a few years,
18:03
Speaker 1: I've struggled to getting a permit for Kansas because Kansas
18:07
Speaker 1: now allows full inclusion crossbow hunters to apply for the
18:10
Speaker 1: same archery tags as a as a bowl hunter. So
18:13
Speaker 1: they didn't raise the amount of permits available, but the
18:17
Speaker 1: number of applications coming in are a lot higher, So
18:20
Speaker 1: your odds getting drawn are like a lot smaller. Yeah. Yeah,
18:24
Speaker 1: I actually, um, I was expecting to draw my Iowa
18:27
Speaker 1: tag this year, and I got with the number of
18:29
Speaker 1: points I had. I'd been able to draw this tag
18:31
Speaker 1: in the past twice, so I thought this would be,
18:34
Speaker 1: you know, a gimme this year, but did not get
18:36
Speaker 1: it this year. So I think that you said that
18:39
Speaker 1: there's more non residents going in some of these places
18:41
Speaker 1: now than ever probably and more like you said, the
18:44
Speaker 1: crossbow influx. And I mean, I think it's a good
18:47
Speaker 1: thing that people are given, you know, archery, hunting a
18:49
Speaker 1: shot and experiencing you know how much fun it is.
18:52
Speaker 1: But it does make for some challenges too. Yeah, definitely.
18:56
Speaker 1: And I believe I was probably one of the few
19:00
Speaker 1: dates that has not allowed full inclusion crossbow yet. I
19:03
Speaker 1: don't think they have one of the very few. I
19:07
Speaker 1: may be mistaken, but I don't think they. Okay, most
19:11
Speaker 1: areas in Iowa does take three preference points to get drawn,
19:14
Speaker 1: so you get drawn every four years. Yeah, it's it's
19:16
Speaker 1: definitely one of those spots that you need to be patient,
19:19
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Yes, very very true. So before we
19:25
Speaker 1: go any further, um, and we're gonna go down all
19:27
Speaker 1: sorts of warmholes here, John, because I've got about seventy
19:30
Speaker 1: two different questions I'd like to ask you about the
19:33
Speaker 1: pepper you with everything I can possibly think of here
19:36
Speaker 1: Before we get to that, though, UM, I got wind
19:39
Speaker 1: of the fact that you've got a new project going on.
19:41
Speaker 1: Um kind of related to some of the things where
19:44
Speaker 1: we're talking about here today. Can you kind of feel
19:46
Speaker 1: us in on that real quick? Yes I can. I'm
19:50
Speaker 1: starting a new venture. It's called Eberhart's White Tailed Workshops,
19:55
Speaker 1: and I'm also scouting properties, travel scouting to scout properties
20:00
Speaker 1: and kind of what's different about what I'm doing. You know,
20:03
Speaker 1: there's a lot of guys that do land management scouting
20:06
Speaker 1: for people, tell more to hinge cut and put food
20:08
Speaker 1: plots and put wind rows and berms to funnel deer
20:11
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But uh, you know they're they're
20:14
Speaker 1: speaking to a very limited audience of people at own
20:17
Speaker 1: and control their own property. You know, what I'm doing
20:21
Speaker 1: is whether you hunt public land or ten acres or
20:27
Speaker 1: uh you've you own forty acres or your leaf a
20:31
Speaker 1: hundred acres, doesn't matter what you're situation, or you're strictly
20:34
Speaker 1: a travel hunter, you travel out of state a lot,
20:37
Speaker 1: no matter the situation. My workshops are designed to teach
20:40
Speaker 1: people how to actually hunt in other words, Um, it's
20:45
Speaker 1: they're gonna be to day events. One's going to be
20:47
Speaker 1: in field on a piece of property. I have free
20:50
Speaker 1: permission to hunt. It's seventy acres, but it's only thirty
20:53
Speaker 1: seven acres of huntable land, the rests and crops. And
20:57
Speaker 1: I've hunted it for nine years and I'm taking five
21:00
Speaker 1: five book bucks off it. And there's two other guys
21:03
Speaker 1: that hunt the same property and they've punted it for
21:05
Speaker 1: twenty plus years and they've never taken a book buck
21:08
Speaker 1: off it. So I've got fourteen locations on this property
21:12
Speaker 1: and basically gonna walk everybody on the in field day
21:16
Speaker 1: through the locations and show them how I set up
21:18
Speaker 1: a location. Why this location may only have one shooting lane.
21:22
Speaker 1: Why this location is strictly a morning spot, this one
21:24
Speaker 1: strictly an evening spot, this one is strictly a rut spot.
21:28
Speaker 1: Why this entry route and this exit route per location,
21:31
Speaker 1: because a lot of the may have different entry and
21:33
Speaker 1: exit routes. And basically, you know, showing people how I
21:37
Speaker 1: set stuff up in and I think that would help
21:40
Speaker 1: people a lot more than going out and scouting their property,
21:43
Speaker 1: because when you scout somebody's property, you were basically telling
21:46
Speaker 1: them what they're showing them, what they may need to
21:49
Speaker 1: do on that particular given piece of property. Whereas when
21:52
Speaker 1: you look at a situation where you're looking at fourteen
21:55
Speaker 1: different locations and each location is set up for a
21:58
Speaker 1: very specific reason in time of season and time of day,
22:03
Speaker 1: you get a lot better overview of what to look
22:06
Speaker 1: for no matter where you go hunting. And that's really
22:09
Speaker 1: important because a lot of people don't just hunt one property.
22:12
Speaker 1: They hunt multiple properties, and they travel on and it's
22:15
Speaker 1: really nice to be able to go out of state
22:17
Speaker 1: and you know, be able to set up on the
22:20
Speaker 1: best the best bucks in the area and have an
22:23
Speaker 1: awesome chance of killing one in a one week period. Yeah, definitely.
22:27
Speaker 1: So these workshops, when are they starting? Where they at?
22:30
Speaker 1: How do we how do we learn more? Uh? On
22:33
Speaker 1: my website, I have a web I just revamped my
22:36
Speaker 1: website cost me a lot of money. So so it's
22:41
Speaker 1: the website is www dot d e e r heisen
22:48
Speaker 1: j o h N dot net or ww dot eber
22:56
Speaker 1: Hearts white Tail Workshops dot com or if anybody just
23:03
Speaker 1: googled my name, I'm sure that they would come up.
23:07
Speaker 1: And the website goes the website has the workshops, explanation
23:12
Speaker 1: of what the workshops are um, and then the scouting properties.
23:16
Speaker 1: It has testimonials from industry industry professionals like I've got
23:21
Speaker 1: testimonials on there from the executive director of the Pope
23:24
Speaker 1: and Young Club, uh, the editor in chief Nian Schmidt
23:27
Speaker 1: of Deer and Deer Hunting, Tom Nelson from American Archer.
23:30
Speaker 1: And these are all very good, awesome testimonials that I'm
23:36
Speaker 1: pretty proud that they gave them to me. And I
23:38
Speaker 1: got a ton of hunter testimonials from people that have
23:41
Speaker 1: read my books or watched my instructional DVDs over the years. Great,
23:47
Speaker 1: And are these coming up the summer or this fall
23:49
Speaker 1: or oh yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, the we're gonna I'm
23:52
Speaker 1: gonna have four of them and not we this is
23:55
Speaker 1: totally a me deal. The first one is going to
23:58
Speaker 1: be July. These are Saturday Sundays. Uh, second one will
24:03
Speaker 1: be July twelve thirteen, or I'm sorry, August August twelve
24:11
Speaker 1: and thirteen, and then the third one will be August
24:16
Speaker 1: nineteen and twenty, and the fourth one will be September four.
24:25
Speaker 1: So I've got four of them this year, and then
24:27
Speaker 1: I will probably have more next year and during the postseason,
24:31
Speaker 1: which would be February, February, March in April. It sounds
24:36
Speaker 1: sounds like an awesome event. And are these taking place
24:38
Speaker 1: somewhere in mid Michigan? Is that right? Yes? The yeah.
24:42
Speaker 1: I actually the thirty seven acres is in Edmore. And
24:47
Speaker 1: then the second day, which will be the seminar day,
24:49
Speaker 1: is going to be a Jay Sporting Goods which is
24:51
Speaker 1: in Claire, Michigan, which is the largest sporting goods store
24:54
Speaker 1: in the state. And they're going to be given out
24:56
Speaker 1: all the attendees a fift discount uh voluture for anything
25:02
Speaker 1: they buy over fifty dollars. And they actually have a
25:04
Speaker 1: seminar room with nice office chairs, so it'll be a
25:08
Speaker 1: very comfortable seminar. Tons of stuff. I'll have all my
25:13
Speaker 1: scouting gear and they have my There's gonna be a
25:17
Speaker 1: big portion of this will be on sunt control because
25:20
Speaker 1: I'm a huge, huge advocate of activated carbon and a
25:24
Speaker 1: total sunt control regiment. I don't pay any attention to
25:27
Speaker 1: wind direction ever, a right. I remember we talked about
25:30
Speaker 1: that last time, and that that was definitely even a
25:32
Speaker 1: shocker for me, even though I've read your work in
25:35
Speaker 1: the past, um you have, You've had a lot of
25:37
Speaker 1: confidence in your sun control. I don't get winded. I
25:41
Speaker 1: can have dear cross my entry routes have deer done wind.
25:46
Speaker 1: I have deer donet wind me all the time because
25:48
Speaker 1: I hunt my locations based on the sign at the time.
25:51
Speaker 1: I don't wait for the proper wind. I spent years
25:54
Speaker 1: and years hunting the wind for thirty five seasons, and
25:59
Speaker 1: there was certain rock phase locations. I never got to
26:02
Speaker 1: hunt that strictly because on my day's off work, I
26:05
Speaker 1: didn't have the right wind direction. And that's no longer
26:07
Speaker 1: the case. If you can beat the wind, you've made
26:11
Speaker 1: a big, big, huge difference in your hunting hunting success.
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, So so before we go too far
26:18
Speaker 1: down that road, I want to rewind a little bit
26:21
Speaker 1: um you mentioned in your Seminaris're gonna be talking about
26:24
Speaker 1: some of your scouting gear and some different things like that.
26:26
Speaker 1: And right now when we're talking right this is early July. UM.
26:30
Speaker 1: So at this time of year, John, what are you doing,
26:33
Speaker 1: if anything, to get ready for the upcoming season? Is there?
26:37
Speaker 1: Are you still doing any scouting or still doing any
26:39
Speaker 1: stand preppers? All that done post season already that is
26:42
Speaker 1: done of all my scouting and the location preparation is
26:46
Speaker 1: done by the end of April, and that's no different
26:49
Speaker 1: this year. Uh So, basically on this property that we're
26:52
Speaker 1: going to be doing these workshops on, I'm gonna totally
26:55
Speaker 1: trash amount. It's gonna definitely affect my early season hunting,
26:59
Speaker 1: but I'm willing to g that up. So to answer
27:02
Speaker 1: your question, all my locations are prepped. I'm ready for season.
27:07
Speaker 1: I'm always ready for season by the end of April.
27:10
Speaker 1: But I do what I call speed touring. In other words,
27:15
Speaker 1: I may go into season with, you know, on three
27:20
Speaker 1: different pieces of property, thirty plus locations prepared and ready
27:26
Speaker 1: to hunt, and I hunt out of the saddle, so
27:27
Speaker 1: I can hunt any one of them at any point
27:29
Speaker 1: in time. So let's say let's say ten of those
27:34
Speaker 1: locations are early season locations. In other words, they are
27:37
Speaker 1: they are located where there may be an apple tree
27:40
Speaker 1: and a lot of perimeter security cover or a white
27:43
Speaker 1: oak tree, you know, with perimeter security cover and transition
27:47
Speaker 1: security cover from a betting area to it. So just
27:51
Speaker 1: prior to season, usually after September, because I know all
27:55
Speaker 1: the big bucks are rubbed out by usually the fifth
27:57
Speaker 1: September up here in Michigan, all the big your bucks,
28:01
Speaker 1: so there's gonna be Buck signed. So after September fift
28:04
Speaker 1: I'll do a speed tour wearing my total suntlock suit
28:08
Speaker 1: and boots and you know, carbon backpack if I'm carrying
28:12
Speaker 1: anything in backpack, and I'll do a speed tour of
28:14
Speaker 1: all my early season locations, which are typically feeding locations
28:18
Speaker 1: in isolated feeding areas. And if I see that, obviously,
28:23
Speaker 1: if I prep something in postseason at an apple tree
28:26
Speaker 1: or white oak, I have no clue if it's gonna
28:27
Speaker 1: have apples or eggcorns. So during the speed tour, I
28:31
Speaker 1: see if they do actually are producing master fruit, and
28:35
Speaker 1: if they are by the September fift they're going to
28:37
Speaker 1: have some semblance of Buck signing around him in the
28:39
Speaker 1: former rubs. And typically apple trees if they're dropping apples,
28:42
Speaker 1: will have scrapes. So I do I do an early
28:46
Speaker 1: preseason speed tour, but it's not a scouting tour. I'm
28:48
Speaker 1: not repreparing any locations. I'm just checking them to see
28:51
Speaker 1: if they're going to be suitable for early season hunting locations. Okay,
28:55
Speaker 1: so can you elaborate on a little bit. So when
28:57
Speaker 1: don't you actually is it like Nmber eighteenth or something.
29:02
Speaker 1: Is there like a few daytime frame when you try
29:04
Speaker 1: and knock out all these speed tours or are you
29:06
Speaker 1: waiting on a specific set of conditions? Are you do
29:09
Speaker 1: you wait for a windy day or rainy day or
29:11
Speaker 1: anything that maybe lessons the impact you have? Is there
29:14
Speaker 1: anything as far as specifics when it comes to doing
29:17
Speaker 1: those speed tours? Man Mark, I can tell you read
29:20
Speaker 1: my book, Yes, I definitely do. I wait. Obviously there's
29:27
Speaker 1: a two week window in there because our season opens
29:29
Speaker 1: October one, and if I can look forward on the
29:33
Speaker 1: weather and see that there's going to be a day
29:35
Speaker 1: that is going to be raining, a hard rain or
29:38
Speaker 1: a really windy day, yes, those are the days that
29:41
Speaker 1: I will do those speed tours because it rain or
29:45
Speaker 1: hard winds will not only dissipate your noise, it will
29:48
Speaker 1: dissipate your any residual odor you might have left. Because
29:52
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you go in there and
29:55
Speaker 1: let's say you prep the spot you know in April
29:58
Speaker 1: and it said at an apple tree, and you know
30:03
Speaker 1: there's there's typically something you may have to do, you know,
30:06
Speaker 1: some new growth that maybe you know, encumbering your shooting
30:12
Speaker 1: lane or something that you may have to trim out
30:14
Speaker 1: so so it knocks your noise down, and if you
30:17
Speaker 1: do leave any trace elements of human odor, it will
30:21
Speaker 1: also you know, knock that down as well. Would it
30:24
Speaker 1: be safe to say that most of your early season
30:27
Speaker 1: locations are also places that are not going to require
30:32
Speaker 1: you go busting deep into the core of a property
30:35
Speaker 1: through betting areas. Absolutely, yes, I hunt within betting areas.
30:40
Speaker 1: I think anybody that doesn't hunt within betting areas if
30:43
Speaker 1: they don't own a lot of piece a lot of property,
30:46
Speaker 1: and then the deer can leave their betting area during
30:49
Speaker 1: rough phases, which is usually gun seasons, and get shot
30:51
Speaker 1: on board and property. I think people that don't hunt
30:55
Speaker 1: within their betting areas and do it smartly are making
30:59
Speaker 1: a huge mistake. But no, I do not scout within
31:02
Speaker 1: my betting areas during that speed tour. My betting areas
31:06
Speaker 1: are all set up postseason and I don't go in
31:09
Speaker 1: them until I have a bow in my hand and
31:11
Speaker 1: I'm actually physically hunting. Yeah, that's what I assumed. It
31:15
Speaker 1: seems like if you're going to do these very last
31:18
Speaker 1: minute scouting sessions. It has to be precision, it has
31:21
Speaker 1: to be low impact. Um Because to your point, anything
31:24
Speaker 1: at least, you know, from my perspective, I've always thought,
31:27
Speaker 1: you know, after at the beginning of September, I'm so
31:30
Speaker 1: so paranoid by any type of impact within those areas. UM.
31:34
Speaker 1: So you gotta be smart about it, right, Absolutely in Michigan,
31:39
Speaker 1: and I've shot bucks in Missouri and Kansas and Iowa
31:42
Speaker 1: and Ohio, and in Michigan, anytime you walk, even preseason
31:50
Speaker 1: on the property, it's like walking on eggshells. It takes
31:53
Speaker 1: such a minute amount of anything to turn them a
31:57
Speaker 1: jure buck nocturnal because there's so many hunters hunting them
32:01
Speaker 1: during your season, and they don't know you're scouting. They
32:04
Speaker 1: don't know you're just out there looking. They view your
32:07
Speaker 1: your presence as a threat to their existence, and they
32:11
Speaker 1: turn nocturnal until obviously they are testesterone testosterone levels rise
32:16
Speaker 1: and they start thinking with other body parts than their brain.
32:20
Speaker 1: And that's when your opportunities come. And that's when I
32:22
Speaker 1: hunt within the bedding areas is during the pre rot
32:25
Speaker 1: and rout phase lokay rough phase time frames. I don't
32:29
Speaker 1: hunt them until the rough phases. Yeah, that that was
32:31
Speaker 1: one of That's one of the key things that it
32:34
Speaker 1: was transformational for me as a hunter is just understanding
32:37
Speaker 1: the proper timing. Like growing up as a hunter, I
32:39
Speaker 1: just hunted whenever, wherever. And I think it was really
32:42
Speaker 1: your book Precision Bow Hunting. That was one of the
32:44
Speaker 1: first things that really locked this or knocked this into
32:46
Speaker 1: my head that you have to have certain places for
32:49
Speaker 1: certain times of the year and you don't invade into
32:52
Speaker 1: You're not pushing into your pre rut places on October one,
32:56
Speaker 1: and you're not going to be hunting necessarily where you're
32:58
Speaker 1: one hunt m on October and you need to have
33:02
Speaker 1: that timing right. And that's such a key concept I
33:04
Speaker 1: think when you're trying to tire out those older bucks,
33:06
Speaker 1: especially in high pressure areas, absolutely because a lot of
33:10
Speaker 1: people don't don't even consider, well, Okay, I'm gonna go
33:14
Speaker 1: hunting in this spot. It's October tenth, and you know what,
33:18
Speaker 1: I hunted here. I saw some doz I didn't I
33:21
Speaker 1: didn't get a shot, the big buck didn't come in.
33:23
Speaker 1: I'll go on it again. Hey, at least I saw
33:25
Speaker 1: some doughs. And then the next time they see, yeah,
33:29
Speaker 1: fewer dos. You know, they saw four the first time,
33:31
Speaker 1: now they see three, and then they on it again
33:33
Speaker 1: and they see one, and then then on it again
33:36
Speaker 1: and they see zero. What people don't understand is all
33:40
Speaker 1: buck activity during the rut phases revolves around dough activity
33:44
Speaker 1: at that location. So if you're hunting a destination location
33:48
Speaker 1: and you you know, prior to the rut phases, and
33:53
Speaker 1: you are altering dough traffic because you're hunting it, and
33:56
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden there's no dough traffic, well
33:58
Speaker 1: then you quit hunting it. Then you go back to
34:00
Speaker 1: hunt it during rud phases, you've totally altered that dough
34:03
Speaker 1: traffic away from that location during daylight hours. So obviously,
34:07
Speaker 1: if the buck traffic is revolving around the dough traffic,
34:10
Speaker 1: there's no reason for them to be there because there's
34:12
Speaker 1: no doughs there during daylight hours. It's such a simple analogy. Yeah,
34:18
Speaker 1: but to your point, so many people are guilty of
34:21
Speaker 1: not doing that because they want to hunt right, they
34:24
Speaker 1: want to go to their best spots, and they're excited
34:26
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the year and they go all
34:28
Speaker 1: gung ho into these areas and uh, little do they
34:31
Speaker 1: know that they're ruining it before they even really had
34:33
Speaker 1: a good chance there. Absolutely, and in kind of hate
34:37
Speaker 1: to knock on the TV guys again, but when you
34:39
Speaker 1: watch the TV shows, all you know they well, well
34:42
Speaker 1: we got this plan for hunting during the October wall,
34:45
Speaker 1: you know, when nobody else is killing deer. Yeah, we
34:48
Speaker 1: know how to do that. Well, they're hunting micromanaged areas
34:50
Speaker 1: where there's no other hunting competition. Those deer, you know,
34:54
Speaker 1: they were they have grown to maturity without having any
34:58
Speaker 1: hunter consequences. They don't target those bucks still are four
35:01
Speaker 1: years old, so obviously their daylight movement habits have remained
35:05
Speaker 1: somewhat intact because when they've had any hunter interactions, it
35:09
Speaker 1: hasn't been any consequences for it. So you know, those
35:13
Speaker 1: guys can kill bucks during that October lull because the
35:17
Speaker 1: mature bucks are not as fearful of human intrusions as
35:21
Speaker 1: they are in pressured areas and pressured areas, everything matters.
35:25
Speaker 1: Everything has to be detail oriented. It's that important. Yeah, Yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: I think it's important for people when watching hunting TV.
35:33
Speaker 1: You know, hey, it's all well and good if you
35:35
Speaker 1: look at it as entertainment. It's fun, you know, you
35:37
Speaker 1: can see big deer, and that's great, but realize that
35:41
Speaker 1: in many cases these are just different circumstances than what
35:43
Speaker 1: you may or may not have, and and just have
35:45
Speaker 1: realistic expectations based on that, and then also realize how
35:48
Speaker 1: you hunt will have to be different if you don't
35:50
Speaker 1: have those same circumstances. I think more and more people
35:52
Speaker 1: are starting to figure that out. I don't know, but um,
35:55
Speaker 1: but it's an important thing to just to always remind
35:58
Speaker 1: people because to your point earlier, when people start having
36:01
Speaker 1: this expectation that every time they hunt they're supposed to
36:03
Speaker 1: see a trophy buck, if that's the expectation you go
36:05
Speaker 1: into your hunting season with and when the reality turns
36:09
Speaker 1: out to be very different from that, like you said,
36:11
Speaker 1: it can be pretty discouraging. And um, this is supposed
36:14
Speaker 1: to be fun, you know. So I think if we
36:16
Speaker 1: go in there with realistic expectations based on our circumstances,
36:19
Speaker 1: based on where we're at, go out there and try
36:21
Speaker 1: to hunt the best you can, but have a good
36:23
Speaker 1: time with it and not get two worked up about
36:24
Speaker 1: the fact that you didn't kill the two or something.
36:27
Speaker 1: And I think if we if we go about it
36:28
Speaker 1: with the mindset like that, I think people are really
36:31
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy this activity a whole lot more and not,
36:34
Speaker 1: you know, not the other way. I you couldn't have
36:38
Speaker 1: laid that out any better. Mark that was absolutely perfect,
36:41
Speaker 1: you know what. I actually look at a lot of
36:44
Speaker 1: TV guys and uh, I look at where they're from,
36:49
Speaker 1: and I don't know one that's from a state like
36:53
Speaker 1: a p A or New York, or a Michigan or
36:56
Speaker 1: a West Virginia that has any bucks in their record
36:59
Speaker 1: book in their homes. Eight. They're killing lots of bucks
37:01
Speaker 1: in Ohiowa, Oowa, and Kansas and Nebraska and the you know,
37:06
Speaker 1: the Dakota is where it's relatively simple because they're so
37:09
Speaker 1: doing many of them and there's no lightning pressure. But
37:12
Speaker 1: they've got nothing in their credential background from their home state.
37:16
Speaker 1: So to me, unless you can kill mature bucks in
37:22
Speaker 1: a pressured state, um, I don't know. Kill credentials don't
37:26
Speaker 1: don't really mean a whole lot to me. I think
37:30
Speaker 1: that's a pretty crude way of putting it. But it's
37:32
Speaker 1: a realistic way of putting it. And I love watching
37:34
Speaker 1: the TV shows. I take them with a grain of
37:37
Speaker 1: salt and like, just like you said they're they're fun
37:41
Speaker 1: to watch, But those guys, I view them as entertainers
37:43
Speaker 1: just like anything else. That's how they're making their living,
37:46
Speaker 1: their entertaining hunters. Yeah, nothing nothing wrong with that, just different,
37:49
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that at all. So okay, So speaking
37:53
Speaker 1: of intrusion though, right, if we're if we're worried about
37:55
Speaker 1: our intrusion and the pressure we're putting on our deer,
37:59
Speaker 1: there probably are a lot of people. I'm guilty of
38:01
Speaker 1: this myself. Actually, I still have some projects I'm doing
38:04
Speaker 1: in the woods. Um so for people like me who
38:06
Speaker 1: are not as prepared as you were and had things
38:08
Speaker 1: done in April, if we're still hanging stands right now,
38:11
Speaker 1: or maybe doing some quick scouting or something, how can
38:14
Speaker 1: we do that in as best away as possible. What
38:16
Speaker 1: types of things should be thinking about this time of
38:18
Speaker 1: a year to keep that impact low? And also, you know,
38:21
Speaker 1: I guess I guess what I'm trying to say also
38:23
Speaker 1: is how do we keep it low? Impact low? But
38:25
Speaker 1: then also what would you be doing in April that
38:29
Speaker 1: we could be doing now in July? If you know
38:31
Speaker 1: what I mean, Well, you know, July depends on the state.
38:34
Speaker 1: I know some states open in September one. Some states
38:37
Speaker 1: open mid September, you know, Michigan happens to be October one.
38:41
Speaker 1: So even even right now, you've got one July August
38:45
Speaker 1: in Michigan, you've got almost three months before seasons. So
38:47
Speaker 1: if if you went out there and did a late
38:49
Speaker 1: you know, hail Mary, set a few stands and you've
38:52
Speaker 1: got them done by the end of July, they still
38:55
Speaker 1: have two months to calm down um and go back
38:58
Speaker 1: on about their regular routines. That's a cool thing about
39:01
Speaker 1: postseason scouting. You can scout your property. You can scout
39:04
Speaker 1: properties every day from daylight till dark for a month straight.
39:07
Speaker 1: You can spook every deer in the area out of
39:09
Speaker 1: the out of the area, and it doesn't make any difference.
39:12
Speaker 1: I got six months come back, and everything will be
39:14
Speaker 1: hunky dory as normal by the time season starts. But
39:18
Speaker 1: this time of year, when you go in and you scout,
39:23
Speaker 1: you're definitely making an influx of human activity. You're going
39:27
Speaker 1: to be spooking deer. You want to do it as
39:29
Speaker 1: sent free as possible, which is impossible in this type
39:31
Speaker 1: of heat. You god, I don't even care if you
39:33
Speaker 1: were in all seltlack and you know, if you've got
39:35
Speaker 1: everything perfectly sent free, you're still going to leave some
39:39
Speaker 1: human older because you're gonna be working on stuff, you're
39:41
Speaker 1: gonna touch stuff, and you're gonna sweat, and you're gonna leave.
39:43
Speaker 1: You leave a human order. So this time of year,
39:46
Speaker 1: you can go in and prepare some stuff and odds
39:49
Speaker 1: are might not affect you in the early season. But
39:53
Speaker 1: one of the things I really hate doing is this
39:56
Speaker 1: time of year, everything is in full foliage. So when
39:59
Speaker 1: you go in and you prepare shooting lanes, you're making
40:01
Speaker 1: a major visual difference. So you're not only leaving a
40:05
Speaker 1: a human intrusion, maybe a faint scent ribbon throughout the
40:11
Speaker 1: woods and wherever you're paying a locate preparing a location,
40:15
Speaker 1: but you're also making a visual change. You know, most
40:18
Speaker 1: most locations you're cutting two, three, maybe even four shooting
40:22
Speaker 1: lanes if you're within any type of security cover, and
40:27
Speaker 1: so you're making visual changes. Whereas during post season, you
40:32
Speaker 1: know you're cutting stuff where there's no foliage on it,
40:34
Speaker 1: and then everything greens up the same as it does
40:37
Speaker 1: as it comes into spring and summer, and there is
40:40
Speaker 1: no real visual change because everything is just happening at
40:44
Speaker 1: the same, you know, as everything grows so um, but
40:48
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, right now, you could go out
40:50
Speaker 1: and it probably maybe wouldn't affect too much. It depends
40:54
Speaker 1: on the state. In the area of public lands. I
40:57
Speaker 1: don't know public lands. I think they get pounded. And
41:00
Speaker 1: definitely would you know the place I the place I
41:04
Speaker 1: hunted opening morning, for probably twenty plus years, there was
41:08
Speaker 1: a minimum, an absolute minimum of thirty bow hunters and
41:12
Speaker 1: trees in the section, which is sixty acres on opening day.
41:18
Speaker 1: At that you say wow. But in zone three in Michigan,
41:21
Speaker 1: that's not that abnormal. That's relatively normal. And you look
41:25
Speaker 1: at states like like West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York,
41:31
Speaker 1: Massachusetts that that's a pretty common number people. People might
41:36
Speaker 1: not think that, but when you look at you know,
41:39
Speaker 1: you've got sixty acres, and you've got twenty acre parcels,
41:42
Speaker 1: ten acre parcels, forty acre parcels, eight acre parcels. You
41:45
Speaker 1: put two or three hundreds on each one of those.
41:47
Speaker 1: That adds up real quick. It's true, it's true. I
41:52
Speaker 1: hate to think about that in my own in my
41:53
Speaker 1: little sections. But as I sit and I start thinking about, okay,
41:56
Speaker 1: such and such probably be hunting, and so and so
41:59
Speaker 1: is likely be hunting, and this section, you're right that
42:01
Speaker 1: it adds up quick. Yeah. And and obviously opening morning,
42:05
Speaker 1: everybody wants to be in the woods. You know, they've
42:07
Speaker 1: been waiting all year for that. And that's a that's
42:09
Speaker 1: another thing, you know, I have a ton of hobbies.
42:12
Speaker 1: I I think people that just dwell one of their
42:15
Speaker 1: life on deer hunting and trying to kill them into
42:17
Speaker 1: your buck every year to actually overthink things, it's it's
42:22
Speaker 1: you do. You have to be very detail oriented and
42:24
Speaker 1: very cautious of everything you do. Uh. Once you get
42:28
Speaker 1: to a certain point, Uh, you tend not to overthink things.
42:32
Speaker 1: You just hunt smart and then things come relatively consistently.
42:37
Speaker 1: And and I don't know things nowadays. I had less
42:44
Speaker 1: hours than I ever used to come back in the
42:45
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, and I'm I'm far more consistently successful
42:49
Speaker 1: on mature bucks. I just hunt a lot smarter. Yeah.
42:52
Speaker 1: That that definitely is to be consistent. Trait with those
42:56
Speaker 1: most successful hunters is they don't necessarily hunt harder, they
43:00
Speaker 1: hunt smarter. And if you can do that, that that
43:03
Speaker 1: really is a one of those major lege thresholds. Once
43:06
Speaker 1: you've kind of passed through that in your journey as
43:08
Speaker 1: a hunter, I feel like you start seeing significant differences.
43:11
Speaker 1: So all right, now, let's let's go back to we're
43:15
Speaker 1: doing some summer scouting, maybe and we found a location
43:18
Speaker 1: that looks that looks good. Maybe we'll just say for
43:21
Speaker 1: early season, I see a spot. This looks like a
43:22
Speaker 1: good early season spot to me. Um, you're there with me.
43:26
Speaker 1: Let's say you're walking the property with me, we say, hey,
43:28
Speaker 1: this is a good early season spot. Take me through
43:30
Speaker 1: your why why is it? Why would you think it's
43:33
Speaker 1: a good early season spot? Well, that was going to
43:36
Speaker 1: maybe be my question for you, but let's have I'll
43:38
Speaker 1: throw hypothetically. I'll throw a hypothetical situation out there, and
43:41
Speaker 1: let's just say this is a stand location that is
43:44
Speaker 1: easy to access. I'm not gonna bump any deer when
43:47
Speaker 1: I'm trying to come in for an afternoon set. I'm
43:49
Speaker 1: going to say, there is an isolated food source that's
43:51
Speaker 1: within cover. Maybe like you mentioned earlier, little apple tree,
43:55
Speaker 1: and um, the prevailing winds are likely gonna at that time,
43:58
Speaker 1: you're gonna be coming from a betting era that's not
44:00
Speaker 1: too far away. It's going to be coming towards me,
44:02
Speaker 1: so I can be now, I I worry about the wind,
44:05
Speaker 1: So that's something that would matter to me. Um. But
44:08
Speaker 1: so that's that's our high level situation. We're standing in
44:11
Speaker 1: this area, we're looking around. I'm curious to hear your
44:14
Speaker 1: thoughts on what's going through your mind when you're trying
44:17
Speaker 1: to choose that right tree? What does the right tree
44:19
Speaker 1: look like for you? What do you think about when
44:21
Speaker 1: choosing where you're standing? Needs to be set up in
44:23
Speaker 1: a general area? Um? Anything and everything related to that
44:26
Speaker 1: I'm curious about. Okay, let's pretend you just did find
44:29
Speaker 1: an apple tree, because use an apple or let's say
44:32
Speaker 1: a white oak? Which do You're obviously prefer white oakgate
44:34
Speaker 1: corns over red olk cakecorns. So either one of those
44:36
Speaker 1: two trees. Uh. If I backed my career up seventeen
44:41
Speaker 1: years before I learned how to properly care for and
44:44
Speaker 1: use snot lock, which most people that do well in
44:47
Speaker 1: sunt lock don't know how to properly care for and
44:49
Speaker 1: use it. Um. But if that if that were the case,
44:53
Speaker 1: and I did pay attention to win like I used to,
44:55
Speaker 1: I would obviously want to set up on the down
44:57
Speaker 1: wind side of the actual destination location. Uh Me, personally,
45:03
Speaker 1: I'm not the most phenomenal archer in the world. I'm
45:07
Speaker 1: a twelve or eighteen yard guy. I like shots within
45:10
Speaker 1: twenty yards, so I would set up within twenty yards
45:13
Speaker 1: of the actual destination spot. I'm not that guy that
45:18
Speaker 1: you know. If I see a scrape area, you know
45:20
Speaker 1: I set up on runway leading to it. I want
45:24
Speaker 1: to set up at the destination spot. I want that
45:27
Speaker 1: particular hunt to be the most potential possibilities possible, So
45:31
Speaker 1: I'm setting up at the destination spot. So if I'm
45:34
Speaker 1: gonna set up in an apple tree where you're gonna
45:36
Speaker 1: come in, especially doozen fauns and more than bucks, they're
45:40
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna feed at that location for five to
45:42
Speaker 1: ten minutes before before they move on and go to
45:45
Speaker 1: go someplace else. So, anytime you set up at a
45:49
Speaker 1: destination spot where deer will be lingering for a period
45:52
Speaker 1: of time, you have to set up. And because I
45:56
Speaker 1: hunt out of a sling I set up on the
45:59
Speaker 1: back side the tree, So I'm gonna be on the
46:01
Speaker 1: down wind side. If I'm paying attention to the wind,
46:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on the down wind side of the
46:04
Speaker 1: actual tree, and I'm gonna be on the back side
46:07
Speaker 1: where the tree is going to be a blocker between
46:10
Speaker 1: me and the apple tree. Now that's a negative. With
46:13
Speaker 1: a tree stand or a climber or a ladder stand,
46:15
Speaker 1: a conventional stand, you can't typically do that because with
46:19
Speaker 1: a sling you can just swing around to the side
46:21
Speaker 1: of the tree when your shot opportunity comes and make
46:23
Speaker 1: the shot. So but anyway, I'm gonna be on the
46:26
Speaker 1: back side of the tree, peeking around the tree or
46:29
Speaker 1: you know, at the deer, and that way I'm not
46:33
Speaker 1: going to get picked. Anytime you're at a destination location
46:37
Speaker 1: and you're on a hang on or you're at a
46:39
Speaker 1: ladder stand, you're typically hanging to the side of the tree,
46:43
Speaker 1: whether your shot is to your left if you're right handed,
46:46
Speaker 1: so basically your body figure is sticking out to the
46:50
Speaker 1: side of the tree. So you're a protrusion, so you're
46:53
Speaker 1: easy to pick, especially if it leaves your down. But
46:55
Speaker 1: if it's an early seasonal location, the leaves are probably
46:58
Speaker 1: gonna be up and you're probably gonna have some background
47:00
Speaker 1: security cover. So that that's what I would do, and
47:04
Speaker 1: I have several locations prepared like that. You know, I'm
47:08
Speaker 1: not necessarily on the down one side because I don't
47:10
Speaker 1: pay attention to win. But anytime I'm hunting in a
47:13
Speaker 1: destination location, I always want to be on the back
47:16
Speaker 1: side of a tree where I've got it blocking me
47:19
Speaker 1: from the deer that are going to be lingering there.
47:21
Speaker 1: Because in Michigan and pressured areas, deer always looking around
47:23
Speaker 1: for people in trees. They're just always the ears or
47:25
Speaker 1: movement eyes are looking around. And anytime you get three
47:28
Speaker 1: or four deer, they're going to funds and maybe two
47:30
Speaker 1: dolls and two funds. Your odds are getting picked sticking
47:34
Speaker 1: out on the side of a tree are real high.
47:36
Speaker 1: So you know, I would suggest if you were a
47:40
Speaker 1: conventional tree stand hunter, you'd want to be up there
47:43
Speaker 1: a minimum of twenty ft maybe twenty five, so you're
47:47
Speaker 1: kind of up out of their peripheral vision. The lower
47:50
Speaker 1: you are, the more apt you are to get picked.
47:53
Speaker 1: So then how does that factor into how much trimming
47:56
Speaker 1: you do. Are you the type that does not do
47:58
Speaker 1: a lot of trimming for lanes because you want to
48:00
Speaker 1: have as much cover in the tree, or do you
48:02
Speaker 1: want to make sure you're not going to miss a
48:03
Speaker 1: shot opportunity because of a limb at a destination location.
48:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna probably one shooting lane, and it's going to
48:09
Speaker 1: be to the actual destination location, whether it be a
48:12
Speaker 1: primary scrape area underneath white oak or at an apple tree.
48:17
Speaker 1: Now I've got two apple trees on this property that
48:21
Speaker 1: my workshops are gonna be held at where I've got
48:24
Speaker 1: single lanes cleared to the actual tree in at one
48:28
Speaker 1: of them, which is my favorite tree in the entire
48:30
Speaker 1: property until two p and y bucks. At this spot,
48:35
Speaker 1: I've raped half of the tree, and the farmer allowed
48:38
Speaker 1: me to do that. In other words, I've got a
48:39
Speaker 1: big V cut out of the center of the tree
48:42
Speaker 1: because on the back side of the tree from where
48:45
Speaker 1: I'm actually hunting, i'm hunting, I'm sitting. I'm hanging in
48:48
Speaker 1: my sling in a red oak, and it's about i'd
48:51
Speaker 1: say fourteen yards from the base of the apple tree.
48:55
Speaker 1: But on the back side of the apple tree there's
48:58
Speaker 1: a bunch of brush, and any time a mature buck
49:01
Speaker 1: comes into that apple tree, he comes through that heavy
49:05
Speaker 1: cover and he just steps out and he'll eat a
49:09
Speaker 1: few apples. On the opposite side of the tree from
49:11
Speaker 1: where I'm sitting, and then he'll turn around and he'll
49:14
Speaker 1: exit back out that security cover, and he's coming in
49:16
Speaker 1: to check for Doze, And while he's there, he's just
49:18
Speaker 1: eating a couple of apples linger like Doz and Subordinate
49:22
Speaker 1: Bucks do. Whereas when Dose and Subordinate Bucks come in,
49:26
Speaker 1: they will actually come over onto my side of the
49:30
Speaker 1: apple tree, which is much more open, and it's kind
49:32
Speaker 1: of on his side. He'll slant and they'll be totally exposed,
49:35
Speaker 1: and they'll just walk around and eating apples for you know,
49:37
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen minutes before they leave. But the mature
49:41
Speaker 1: bucks always come in through this heavy security cover, eat
49:44
Speaker 1: a few apples, you know. They'll pop out on the
49:46
Speaker 1: back side that just off that security cover, eat a
49:49
Speaker 1: few apples, and they'll turn around and go. So I
49:51
Speaker 1: had to physically clear out a huge portion of the
49:54
Speaker 1: tree so that I could shoot through the tree to
49:56
Speaker 1: the opposite side. But there's only any time I'm in
50:00
Speaker 1: a destination location. It's extremely rare that I have more
50:04
Speaker 1: than one shooting lane, you know, and it's focused right
50:07
Speaker 1: on the destination spot. Now, if I'm setting up a
50:12
Speaker 1: destination spot, let's say it like a scrape area, I
50:16
Speaker 1: will even though I'm not paying attention to wind, I'm
50:19
Speaker 1: not fearful of getting winded. I may set a tree
50:22
Speaker 1: up on the typically downwind side of the prevailing winds,
50:26
Speaker 1: which is northwest winds usually, so I'm on the southeast
50:29
Speaker 1: side of the scrape, because there's been several times when
50:32
Speaker 1: I've had dear mature bucks come down wind of the
50:35
Speaker 1: scrapes and set check it with the wind, as opposed
50:38
Speaker 1: to actually physically going to the scrapes and work in
50:41
Speaker 1: the scrapes and work in the licking branches. So I'll
50:44
Speaker 1: set up maybe twenty yards from the scrapes where I
50:46
Speaker 1: got a chip shot to the scrapes. But if the
50:48
Speaker 1: deer comes in and checks from twenty to forty yards
50:51
Speaker 1: down wind, I've also got a shot at that. Now,
50:54
Speaker 1: what about a location where you're expecting where it's not
50:57
Speaker 1: necessary destination, but a spot where you're catching travel. So
51:00
Speaker 1: let's maybe hypothetically a rut type stand site where you're hunting,
51:04
Speaker 1: maybe some kind of terrain funnel or pinch point where
51:06
Speaker 1: you're just expecting deer to be coming through, and there
51:09
Speaker 1: might be a couple of different places they're coming from.
51:11
Speaker 1: Will you open up multiple other student lanes in that case,
51:15
Speaker 1: or is it still as minimal as possible. Typically, when
51:18
Speaker 1: I'm hunting a transition zone, that's what you're talking about,
51:21
Speaker 1: from let's say, a betting to a feeding area during
51:23
Speaker 1: the early season, or from a betting area to a
51:26
Speaker 1: betting area during the road phases when bucks are sent
51:28
Speaker 1: checking for estrous does in the middle of the day. Uh. Typically,
51:32
Speaker 1: in a pinch point, I will just have a shooting lane,
51:36
Speaker 1: two shooting lanes, one each direction to the outside edge
51:39
Speaker 1: of the pinch point, as far as I can shoot
51:41
Speaker 1: to either side. There's no reason to have more than that,
51:43
Speaker 1: because the deer going through that pinch point either on
51:45
Speaker 1: my right up to my left. There's no reason to
51:48
Speaker 1: have more than two shooting lanes. Now, if I'm setting
51:50
Speaker 1: up a location within a betting area during postseason, within
51:54
Speaker 1: a betting area, I can have as many as five
51:56
Speaker 1: shooting lanes. They're like spokes on a tire because it
52:00
Speaker 1: during the rough phases when does are chasing chason estrus does.
52:05
Speaker 1: They can come from any direction and they can go
52:08
Speaker 1: buy at any time, at any and at any place.
52:10
Speaker 1: There is no rhyme nor reason, there is no routine.
52:13
Speaker 1: You know, people that sit on the edge of perimeters
52:16
Speaker 1: of betting areas and listen to bucks chasing inside betting
52:18
Speaker 1: areas while they're sitting on a perimeter know exactly what
52:20
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. When you're within the perimeter, when you're
52:23
Speaker 1: within the betting area, you have to have multiple lanes
52:26
Speaker 1: so that you don't miss opportunities because you're not going
52:28
Speaker 1: to be hunting in there more than two or three
52:29
Speaker 1: times during the course of the season during the run phases.
52:32
Speaker 1: So if an opportunity arises, you want it, you want
52:35
Speaker 1: to capitalize on it, so you have multiple, multiple shooting
52:40
Speaker 1: lanes as many as five. That makes sense. Okay, now
52:44
Speaker 1: real quick, before we get to my next question for John,
52:46
Speaker 1: we need to pause briefly to think our partners at
52:48
Speaker 1: White Tailed Properties for their ongoing support of this podcast
52:52
Speaker 1: and for this week's white Tail Wisdom segment, our producer
52:55
Speaker 1: Spencer has brought in another Michigan hunter and a White
52:58
Speaker 1: Tail Properties land special list, Tony Hansen, and Tony has
53:02
Speaker 1: a few thoughts to share here on topics very similar
53:05
Speaker 1: to that which we've been talking about with John. This week.
53:09
Speaker 1: With White Tail Properties, we are joined by Tony Hansen
53:12
Speaker 1: aid Land specialists out of Michigan, and Tony is gonna
53:15
Speaker 1: be telling us about what factors matter most on a
53:18
Speaker 1: property in high pressure areas well. To me, it's it's
53:22
Speaker 1: a variety. So even though I mean I own and
53:26
Speaker 1: kind of hunt a lot of small properties, you got
53:30
Speaker 1: to look forward a mix of things you need. You
53:33
Speaker 1: need food for sure, but you need cover probably even more. So.
53:38
Speaker 1: You know, I need to have all of the pieces
53:41
Speaker 1: that the deer needs because I don't want them traveling
53:43
Speaker 1: very far, and I don't want them to feel like
53:44
Speaker 1: they have to travel very far because you know, especially
53:49
Speaker 1: during our gun season when there's nearly a million guys
53:52
Speaker 1: out there, if a deer moves, it's it's got a
53:56
Speaker 1: real pigance of getting shot. So I try to find
53:59
Speaker 1: properties that have everything you need right there. And yes,
54:02
Speaker 1: neighborhood matters, but it doesn't matter quite as much as
54:06
Speaker 1: what you can, you know, do right there on your
54:08
Speaker 1: own property. So you want to make sure that you
54:09
Speaker 1: have food and cover and um, you know, betting areas,
54:13
Speaker 1: security places and actuaries are a big thing with me too,
54:17
Speaker 1: So I looked for a lot of variety, and that's
54:19
Speaker 1: in the property. If you'd like to learn more and
54:23
Speaker 1: to see the properties that Tony currently has listed for sale,
54:27
Speaker 1: visit white tail properties dot com backslash Hanson. That's h
54:33
Speaker 1: A N S E N. So I want to hear
54:36
Speaker 1: a little bit more about your betting area stands sites.
54:39
Speaker 1: But but before we get that, maybe we can work
54:41
Speaker 1: through it to that sequentially. Can you give me an
54:44
Speaker 1: example of a few of your ideal locations for you know,
54:50
Speaker 1: we talked a couple of examples for early seasons, like
54:52
Speaker 1: an oak tree or an apple tree, but are there
54:53
Speaker 1: any other early season locations that you would say just
54:57
Speaker 1: high level generic this and that, and then could move
55:00
Speaker 1: me through the season until we get to that rut
55:02
Speaker 1: betting area stands side. Ah. Yeah, early season it's it's
55:07
Speaker 1: not extremely uncommon to find scrape areas in September. So
55:14
Speaker 1: if I'm out doing my speed touring and uh, you know,
55:17
Speaker 1: I happen to go through a lot of times, I'll
55:19
Speaker 1: actually also look at my transition my transition funnels basically,
55:25
Speaker 1: and if there's scrape areas and in a type pinch point,
55:29
Speaker 1: you know, I'll those are spots where I'll hunt during
55:33
Speaker 1: the early season as well. So, but that's about it.
55:39
Speaker 1: Typically early season if it's not as a scrape area
55:42
Speaker 1: or white oak or apple tree, I'm typically not hunting it.
55:48
Speaker 1: I key on some you know, a key on destination areas.
55:52
Speaker 1: I don't hunt a lot, you know, maybe on the
55:53
Speaker 1: first three or four days of season, and then I
55:57
Speaker 1: really slack off on my hunting. So I don't need
56:00
Speaker 1: a lot of early season locations to to actually hunt. Now,
56:05
Speaker 1: I do have a not one other spot that's um
56:10
Speaker 1: it's on the edge of September and there's about a
56:16
Speaker 1: fifteen yard gap from the edge of the timber, and
56:20
Speaker 1: it's tall weeds. It's a buffer zone between the timber
56:24
Speaker 1: in a crop field. Now the in the edge of
56:27
Speaker 1: that timber is all red oaks, and but there's no
56:30
Speaker 1: white it's in the area, and they will they will
56:32
Speaker 1: eat red o'kakecorns if there are no whites, because if
56:35
Speaker 1: there's whites, and they'll eat those first. So during the
56:38
Speaker 1: years that that crop field is in standing, corn dear
56:40
Speaker 1: will bed in the crop fields or they'll bed back
56:43
Speaker 1: in the timber, and they'll transition back and forth just
56:47
Speaker 1: you know, because they've got security cover from one spot
56:50
Speaker 1: to the next. So that's another spot that even though
56:54
Speaker 1: there's no scrape area. The full the full tree line
56:58
Speaker 1: is red oaks, so there's no that's not really a
57:00
Speaker 1: destination area. But but typically there will be scrapes, even
57:05
Speaker 1: prior to October first, when they're dropping acorns, there will
57:10
Speaker 1: be scrapes along that timberline. And dear, I will put
57:14
Speaker 1: a motion camera, which I don't use motion cameras much
57:16
Speaker 1: in Michigan, and if I do happen to see something
57:20
Speaker 1: worth shooting, I will set up it strictly an evening spot.
57:23
Speaker 1: I can't hunt that spot in the morning. UM I will.
57:26
Speaker 1: I will hunt that spot. And I did kill a
57:30
Speaker 1: UM twenty two inch wide ten point there, wide ten
57:35
Speaker 1: point there two years ago in early season. Does water
57:40
Speaker 1: factory new yearly season strategy at all? Uh? It used to.
57:45
Speaker 1: It depends on the area. You know. If I'm hunting
57:48
Speaker 1: an area that's pretty much devoid of water and I
57:52
Speaker 1: find a water source, yeah, then it definitely factors into
57:56
Speaker 1: my into my my plan. But the properties that I'm
58:01
Speaker 1: hunting now, one of them has a lot of swamp
58:04
Speaker 1: on it, so there's water everywhere, so water is not
58:06
Speaker 1: a factor. Uh. And the other's the other spot's got
58:10
Speaker 1: a crook running through it. So you know, water is
58:12
Speaker 1: not a factor there. But there has been periods of
58:15
Speaker 1: time in my hunting life because I've probably hunted fifty
58:20
Speaker 1: to seventy different parcels of property where there hasn't been
58:24
Speaker 1: any water to speak of. You know, the area has
58:27
Speaker 1: been pretty devoid of water, and if you find a
58:29
Speaker 1: water hole, it's a phenomenal spot to hunt um. In fact,
58:33
Speaker 1: I've actually made water holes before where they didn't exist
58:37
Speaker 1: because the area had no water. As soon as you
58:38
Speaker 1: put something put water there, you know dear will come.
58:42
Speaker 1: It's they have to drink water. Do you find any
58:45
Speaker 1: difference in how dear um prefer moving water versus standing water?
58:50
Speaker 1: Do you find that they tend to prefer like a
58:51
Speaker 1: pond or a water hole over a stream or it
58:53
Speaker 1: does not matter. I find that mature deer exclusively pressured
59:00
Speaker 1: areas like to drink water wherever they have security cover.
59:05
Speaker 1: Matured bucks and pressured areas like to have security cover.
59:09
Speaker 1: I don't care what they're doing, I don't care if
59:12
Speaker 1: they're drinking, swimming party in laying on a tube. They
59:16
Speaker 1: like security cover. That is an absolute critical must. So
59:21
Speaker 1: if they have if they have a pond that has
59:25
Speaker 1: a forty yard buffer of grass. Odds are they're not
59:30
Speaker 1: going to drink water there during daylight hours. It's going
59:32
Speaker 1: to be strictly during the security of darkness. Whereas if
59:36
Speaker 1: they have a little water hole mud puddle, it's a
59:39
Speaker 1: hundred yards off that pond and it's got security cover
59:42
Speaker 1: all around it and it's got security transition covered to it.
59:45
Speaker 1: That's where they will drink their water, and that they
59:47
Speaker 1: if they're drinking it in daylight hours. So what's the
59:51
Speaker 1: fast forward now from the early season to mid to
59:54
Speaker 1: late October. I know historically you tend to not hunt
59:57
Speaker 1: as much during the quote unquote October low Um. Is
1:00:01
Speaker 1: that still the case or are you starting to do
1:00:04
Speaker 1: a little more during that time period? That's it's still
1:00:07
Speaker 1: the case. I still hunt some secondary spots, uh. You know,
1:00:10
Speaker 1: basically there's spots where I'm not impeding or doing any
1:00:15
Speaker 1: intrusion close to any my rugphase locations. As long as
1:00:18
Speaker 1: you can pick up find secondary spots where you're not
1:00:23
Speaker 1: interrupting any deer activity, dough activity, or otherwise that your
1:00:26
Speaker 1: rudphase locations, It's okay to hunt during that low period, Um,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: but it's very rarely productive. I think, Oh, I'm trying
1:00:36
Speaker 1: to remember. I've probably killed three bucks in my lifetime
1:00:41
Speaker 1: that made book in Michigan in you know, mid October. Okay, Now,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: out of thirty that's a pretty low number. The odds
1:00:50
Speaker 1: aren't great killed. Let me put that in perspective. I
1:00:55
Speaker 1: think I've killed five during the first three days that
1:00:58
Speaker 1: made book three during the mid October time frame, and
1:01:03
Speaker 1: then the other twenty two between Halloween and the fourteenth
1:01:08
Speaker 1: in November. So you get twenty two and to basically
1:01:11
Speaker 1: a two week time frame and only eight in the
1:01:14
Speaker 1: other month. Yeah, yeah, start start comparison, no doubt about that.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: And I've done the statistics in all my books, and
1:01:22
Speaker 1: statistically I don't make I don't care what state you're
1:01:24
Speaker 1: hunting in. Sixty plus percent of all trophy bucks entered
1:01:30
Speaker 1: in the p n Y Record Book are taken during
1:01:33
Speaker 1: that state's RUD phases. You know, in every state has
1:01:37
Speaker 1: a different RUD phase period for pretty much not every state,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: but when you get down south, some of them rindy
1:01:42
Speaker 1: summer and even January. Yeah, things get a little wonky
1:01:45
Speaker 1: down there. Um. Now, there are exceptions to the rule
1:01:51
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, which you have killed some bucks during
1:01:53
Speaker 1: mid October. Specifically, I want to point out your recent
1:01:57
Speaker 1: success in two thousand fifteen, just a few months after
1:02:00
Speaker 1: we talked last time in the podcast, you killed a
1:02:03
Speaker 1: great buck on October, and I'm really curious to hear
1:02:06
Speaker 1: how that happened. How were you able to make the
1:02:09
Speaker 1: best of that tough time period. Well, that was actually
1:02:13
Speaker 1: at that location where I was talking about, where I
1:02:16
Speaker 1: was hunting that red oak timberline and had that fifteen
1:02:20
Speaker 1: foot weed buffer, and then they were standing corn. So
1:02:25
Speaker 1: basically what I did is I parked on the road,
1:02:29
Speaker 1: I walked through the standing corn. Because once I walked
1:02:32
Speaker 1: through the standing corner, you don't really spook much for
1:02:36
Speaker 1: deer when you're walking in standing corn, even though deer
1:02:38
Speaker 1: are betting in it. If you do happen to spook,
1:02:40
Speaker 1: and they just go off to the sides and go
1:02:43
Speaker 1: out into the corn. They don't leave the corn and
1:02:45
Speaker 1: go in the woods. They just go out and chill
1:02:47
Speaker 1: out and go back to the normal thing. So basically,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: I walked through the cornfield and once I got through
1:02:53
Speaker 1: the cornfield, I've just got a like I said, a
1:02:56
Speaker 1: fifteen yard buffalo weeds. I just walked right to the
1:02:58
Speaker 1: dream and got up the tree, so I'm not really
1:03:00
Speaker 1: intruding on anything. And that particular day, uh, there must
1:03:07
Speaker 1: have been an early estrus doll in the area. That's all.
1:03:10
Speaker 1: That's basically all I can say is because I saw
1:03:14
Speaker 1: this big buck back behind the timber line, probably fifty yards.
1:03:19
Speaker 1: The woods is a relatively open and then there's a
1:03:22
Speaker 1: big area just really really tall weeds and that's where
1:03:26
Speaker 1: the dew that's where dear bed as well as in
1:03:28
Speaker 1: the corner. And I saw this big buck come out
1:03:31
Speaker 1: of that weedy area and kind of cut sideways and
1:03:35
Speaker 1: go over into these the standard pines that spruce trees
1:03:39
Speaker 1: that grow right down to the ground. And it was
1:03:42
Speaker 1: like fifty yards away, so obviously I didn't get a shot.
1:03:45
Speaker 1: And uh as though they're probably half an hour later,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I've seen this dough and followed
1:03:51
Speaker 1: by two phones come running out of that pine area,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: made a big circle, went back by the weeds, turned
1:03:57
Speaker 1: and came and she ran right under my tree into
1:04:01
Speaker 1: the cornfield, turn right under my red oak, right through
1:04:04
Speaker 1: the weed buffer, right into the cornfield, and the two
1:04:07
Speaker 1: funds stood there. They just kind of right at the
1:04:11
Speaker 1: tree line. They just kind of loitered, and they just
1:04:13
Speaker 1: kind of moved off to the side a little bit,
1:04:15
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I heard this scrunt, and
1:04:18
Speaker 1: sure enough, here comes that big buck. And he followed
1:04:21
Speaker 1: her exactly on her exact route and alose to the ground.
1:04:25
Speaker 1: And when he got to the tree line, he was
1:04:28
Speaker 1: six yards from my tree. He stopped. He did not
1:04:33
Speaker 1: want to cross that fifteen yard open buffer of weeds,
1:04:36
Speaker 1: of weeds, He did not want to leave the timber,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: and he stopped. Now, maybe she wasn't in heat. I
1:04:43
Speaker 1: think if she would have been actually in heat, she
1:04:45
Speaker 1: may have been close to it. But I don't think
1:04:47
Speaker 1: she was actually in heat. I think if she had been,
1:04:49
Speaker 1: she would have followed her. But he stopped there, and
1:04:53
Speaker 1: he was broadside. And because I hunt out at a sling,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: he was to my right, and obviously, with a sling
1:05:00
Speaker 1: shots to your left, I'm right handed. I had to
1:05:02
Speaker 1: lift my ball up over the sling lead strip and
1:05:06
Speaker 1: spin around and shooting an awkward position. But I practiced
1:05:09
Speaker 1: that shot, and I'm probably twenty eight ft up, and
1:05:13
Speaker 1: so I was not worried about him picking me at
1:05:15
Speaker 1: six yards. His peripheral vision, he had to look straight
1:05:18
Speaker 1: up to see me. So I flipped my ball up
1:05:21
Speaker 1: over the lead strap and I made that shot, and
1:05:23
Speaker 1: he ran about a hundred yards and what was kind
1:05:26
Speaker 1: of weird, he ran out of sight and the two
1:05:29
Speaker 1: fonts ran after him. When he ran back into the timber,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: he didn't go into the weeds. He ran off sideways
1:05:35
Speaker 1: into the timber, and the fawns kind of took off
1:05:37
Speaker 1: after him, which I thought was really strange. I'd never
1:05:39
Speaker 1: seen that before. And about ten minutes later, you know,
1:05:44
Speaker 1: the two fonts came back, you know, probably looking for
1:05:47
Speaker 1: Mom and one of the fawns, a button buck fawn.
1:05:51
Speaker 1: I kept looking back, kept looking back to where the
1:05:54
Speaker 1: the buck, where I last saw the buck go, and
1:05:57
Speaker 1: finally they went and you know, into the corn after Mom.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: But him looking back just kind of let me know
1:06:04
Speaker 1: that he had expired over there. But I still didn't
1:06:06
Speaker 1: look for him until the next morning and he was
1:06:07
Speaker 1: laying right there. Wow. So, if I had to if
1:06:10
Speaker 1: I had to drill down from what you said, if
1:06:13
Speaker 1: I had to drill down, like the why behind why
1:06:16
Speaker 1: that worked out for your why you hunter there and
1:06:18
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, But would it be safe
1:06:20
Speaker 1: to say that you chose to hunt there that day
1:06:22
Speaker 1: because A it was a transition area from bed to feed.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: B it was low impact, like you could go in
1:06:28
Speaker 1: there and you weren't going to mess up anything because
1:06:30
Speaker 1: you had that great access to the corn. You could
1:06:32
Speaker 1: pop right into the tree. So it's a safe place
1:06:34
Speaker 1: for you to go at a time frame when you
1:06:36
Speaker 1: weren't really expecting great action. But you're an easy to
1:06:39
Speaker 1: get to place where there's the potential for that bed
1:06:41
Speaker 1: defeed transition? Is that at a high level? Correct? You
1:06:45
Speaker 1: said that perfectly? Yes, perfect spot on low impact entry. Uh,
1:06:54
Speaker 1: didn't affect my road face hunting locations. Now, something you
1:06:58
Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning of that story intrigued me when
1:07:00
Speaker 1: you're talking about the fact you could you know, you
1:07:02
Speaker 1: can walk through standing corn and not worry too much
1:07:05
Speaker 1: about spooking deer. And this is something I always like
1:07:08
Speaker 1: debate myself when I'm hunting a property has standing corn.
1:07:10
Speaker 1: I'm always torn between should I access through the middle
1:07:13
Speaker 1: of the corn because of that, because I don't think,
1:07:15
Speaker 1: you know, you're less likely for something to see you
1:07:17
Speaker 1: off in the timber, bettered or something um Or should
1:07:20
Speaker 1: I walk along the edge of the field where it's
1:07:22
Speaker 1: quieter usually because you're not hitting against all the cornstalks,
1:07:26
Speaker 1: but you might spook more deer that way. And then also,
1:07:29
Speaker 1: I feel like you get so much travel along the
1:07:31
Speaker 1: edge of the corn fields. Uh, and I worry a
1:07:33
Speaker 1: my leaving a centrail when I'm traveling that. So is
1:07:36
Speaker 1: it better to access your stands right through the middle
1:07:39
Speaker 1: of standing corn and try to use that as a
1:07:41
Speaker 1: way to mask your access or is it better to quieter? Okay? Absolutely,
1:07:46
Speaker 1: you hit it right out, you hit the mail right
1:07:47
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely better to access through the corn anytime.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: One piece of property that I hunted for years, uh.
1:07:57
Speaker 1: For the first few times for me to access an
1:08:01
Speaker 1: evening location, I'd walk down the edge of the corn
1:08:05
Speaker 1: and I would always spook dear bedded in the timber
1:08:08
Speaker 1: to my right, you know, to the side of the corn.
1:08:12
Speaker 1: And when I started going coming and entering through the corn,
1:08:17
Speaker 1: and you know, through the corner I could get when
1:08:19
Speaker 1: I was relatively close from the tree. From the tree
1:08:22
Speaker 1: outline in the skyline above the corn, I could tell
1:08:25
Speaker 1: where my tree is, so I would just move over
1:08:27
Speaker 1: until I you know, once I exited the corn, I'm
1:08:30
Speaker 1: right there at my tree. And I love hunting transition
1:08:34
Speaker 1: zones from corn to timber or corn corn to swamp. Um. So, yes,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: you are absolutely correct on that. Uh, you're definitely better
1:08:44
Speaker 1: off going through the corn. In fact, last year, UM,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: I had a guy on saddle hunter dot com, which
1:08:51
Speaker 1: is a hunting talk for him. He invited me to
1:08:54
Speaker 1: come down in Ohio and bow hunt at ten point
1:08:58
Speaker 1: that him and his buddy had been wanting all season,
1:09:01
Speaker 1: and they gun hunted that buck all season, and they
1:09:03
Speaker 1: missed him twice during gun season and they hunted. Invited
1:09:07
Speaker 1: me to come down in December and I went down
1:09:10
Speaker 1: there and I prepped a tree and I spooked some
1:09:14
Speaker 1: deer when I prepped the tree, and um, which I
1:09:17
Speaker 1: didn't like. But I was I was gonna hunt for
1:09:21
Speaker 1: five days, and I had one day. The first day
1:09:24
Speaker 1: was set aside for scouting and prepping a couple of locations.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: So when I went in and prepped the locations and scouted,
1:09:31
Speaker 1: I just figured out there's no way I'm going to
1:09:34
Speaker 1: be able to hunt this property in the mornings. So
1:09:37
Speaker 1: I immediately excluded half of my hunting time. Now I'm
1:09:41
Speaker 1: down to when I'm down to down down to five
1:09:44
Speaker 1: evening hunts. Because the property was just knit, not laid
1:09:47
Speaker 1: out in a in a type of It was just
1:09:51
Speaker 1: wasn't laid out where I can hunt mornings without spooking deer.
1:09:54
Speaker 1: And I refused to do that because I know in
1:09:57
Speaker 1: this area there was considerable unting pressure, not like Michigan,
1:10:01
Speaker 1: but enough to know that if I started spooking deer
1:10:03
Speaker 1: with my entries in the morning, you know, my odds
1:10:06
Speaker 1: are getting shots the rest of my five days, they're
1:10:08
Speaker 1: going to be pretty slim. So I totally negated morning
1:10:10
Speaker 1: hunts and I ended up killing that buck on my
1:10:13
Speaker 1: third evening hunt in a snowstorm on I think it
1:10:16
Speaker 1: was December. But what I did differently than them the
1:10:22
Speaker 1: one guy was walking during season. He was walking there
1:10:26
Speaker 1: was like a five or six row buffer of pine trees,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: and they were white pine trees, and they were mature,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: so they were dead underneath. The bottom six ft were dead,
1:10:36
Speaker 1: so you could see through him. And he was walking
1:10:38
Speaker 1: down the edge of those pines from a big weed
1:10:42
Speaker 1: field and it kind of dropped down as soon as
1:10:46
Speaker 1: you left those pines down into some brush, and he
1:10:49
Speaker 1: was spooking deer with his entry without even I don't
1:10:52
Speaker 1: even think he knew it. And so what I did
1:10:55
Speaker 1: is I prepped a tree. I prepped one of the
1:10:57
Speaker 1: pine trees coming from down over the hill where the
1:11:00
Speaker 1: deer were coming from their bedding area up through the pines,
1:11:03
Speaker 1: and there was a couple of scrapes along the pines.
1:11:06
Speaker 1: But what I did is I walked out into the
1:11:08
Speaker 1: middle of the weed field. There was a little drainage ditch,
1:11:12
Speaker 1: and I walked that drainage ditch, so I was low.
1:11:15
Speaker 1: And then I got out into the middle of wheat
1:11:17
Speaker 1: field and I walked through the wheat field, which would
1:11:19
Speaker 1: be the same as walking through corn. And I walked
1:11:21
Speaker 1: through the weed field right to the pine tree that
1:11:24
Speaker 1: I had propped, So I wasn't spooking anything by walking
1:11:27
Speaker 1: down the edge of that field the edge of the pines,
1:11:31
Speaker 1: if you're understanding what I'm saying. And I got in
1:11:34
Speaker 1: that pine tree, and there was a blizzard bed day
1:11:36
Speaker 1: and I killed that buck on that third evening at
1:11:39
Speaker 1: fourteen yards. He actually came out of that low spot
1:11:42
Speaker 1: below the pines, came up and and was actually making
1:11:45
Speaker 1: fresh scrapes where he had had scrapes, you know, before
1:11:49
Speaker 1: it snowed, and that he was actually opening in them
1:11:52
Speaker 1: back up. It's amazing what a difference access can make.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: It's one of those details that huge is so so important,
1:11:59
Speaker 1: but gets over looked far too often. I think huge.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: And also when when he would when the other guy
1:12:05
Speaker 1: that was hunting there was when he was entering, his
1:12:08
Speaker 1: body was spooking deer with his entry, and even if
1:12:12
Speaker 1: it was a rainy or wendy day when he might
1:12:14
Speaker 1: not have spooked much with his entry. Then when he
1:12:17
Speaker 1: exited after an evening hunt, because he was primarily an
1:12:19
Speaker 1: evening hunter, he would exit through the wheat field or
1:12:23
Speaker 1: down that you know, he'd walked down the edge of
1:12:24
Speaker 1: that wheat field again. So when I exited, you know,
1:12:27
Speaker 1: because I hunted that the day before and I didn't
1:12:30
Speaker 1: kill anything, I saw a big six point. But when
1:12:33
Speaker 1: I exited, I exited down through the pines, through the
1:12:36
Speaker 1: bedding area. I gave it about a half hour to
1:12:38
Speaker 1: forty five minutes after dark before I exited. But I
1:12:41
Speaker 1: exited where the deer were coming from up into the
1:12:44
Speaker 1: wheat field. So I wasn't spooking deer with my exit
1:12:48
Speaker 1: or my entries. And that's a big deal. People think
1:12:52
Speaker 1: just because well I'm spooking deer, I'm done hunting, I'm
1:12:54
Speaker 1: spooking deer with my exit. That doesn't affect anything. Well,
1:12:58
Speaker 1: that's totally not correct. Yeah, at least if you want
1:13:02
Speaker 1: to hunt there again, right, because that's definitely changes things. Yes,
1:13:07
Speaker 1: Going back to the corn topic. Um, I feel like
1:13:11
Speaker 1: so many times hunters get frustrated when they have standing corn.
1:13:14
Speaker 1: There's you know, oh you know it was bad season,
1:13:16
Speaker 1: standing corn left up too late. Um. How do you
1:13:19
Speaker 1: feel about standing corn versus you know? I feel like
1:13:21
Speaker 1: in a lot of parts of the country there's corn
1:13:23
Speaker 1: one near beans one year and it rotates on these properties. Um,
1:13:27
Speaker 1: when you have that rotation and property that you're hunting
1:13:29
Speaker 1: near or on, how does that impact your hunting? Do
1:13:31
Speaker 1: you like the standing corn? Do you like the beans?
1:13:33
Speaker 1: Do you like it when it's cut? What are your
1:13:34
Speaker 1: thoughts there? I love finding when they're standing corn. I
1:13:38
Speaker 1: would prefer standing corn over beans or hey or wheat
1:13:41
Speaker 1: any day or the week in a pressured area without
1:13:44
Speaker 1: a doubt, because because dear, you can set up in spots.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: You know, I always have spots set up in transitions
1:13:52
Speaker 1: loans from the crop field where there's security cover. The
1:13:55
Speaker 1: butts right up to a crop field and goes into
1:13:57
Speaker 1: the timber or whatever, you know, back into a ridge
1:14:00
Speaker 1: with acorns or white you know, a oak trees or whatever.
1:14:04
Speaker 1: And when they're standing corn, that's just a natural transition
1:14:08
Speaker 1: from betting to betting. You know, they've got security cover
1:14:10
Speaker 1: all the way, so you can actually hunt those transition spots.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: You can't hunt those transition spots if it's anything short
1:14:17
Speaker 1: crop field because the deer, mature bucks are just not
1:14:19
Speaker 1: going to in pressure areas, be exposed out in an
1:14:24
Speaker 1: open area during daylight hours. It's just it's just very
1:14:28
Speaker 1: very rare. You know Kansas, ioway, Yeah, they will see
1:14:31
Speaker 1: then walk across the grass field two inches tall in
1:14:33
Speaker 1: the middle of the day. But in pressured areas that
1:14:35
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen on any consistent basis. So I would
1:14:39
Speaker 1: much much rather hunt standing corn. And plus my a
1:14:43
Speaker 1: lot of like that red old tree that I was
1:14:45
Speaker 1: talking about how I killed that big buck, There is
1:14:48
Speaker 1: no way God's green earth I would have killed that
1:14:51
Speaker 1: deer if that would have been a bean field, because
1:14:53
Speaker 1: that doll would not have ran into that bean field
1:14:56
Speaker 1: because there was no security cover. So horn is to me,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: is a huge factor. Also, if you're setting up in
1:15:04
Speaker 1: trees a lot of times you can have trees prepped
1:15:06
Speaker 1: the long crop fields and deer will actually transition down
1:15:11
Speaker 1: the edge of corn when during the rud phase, as
1:15:13
Speaker 1: if it's still standing, which it rarely is by that
1:15:15
Speaker 1: time of year, but if it is, you know, they'll
1:15:18
Speaker 1: transition down the edge of of standing corn searching, you know,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: scent checking for those that came in and out of
1:15:23
Speaker 1: the corn early in the morning or came the end
1:15:26
Speaker 1: of the corn in the evening. So I think standing
1:15:29
Speaker 1: corn is a huge advantage. Most people just don't know
1:15:32
Speaker 1: how to react to it. And I love hunting within
1:15:34
Speaker 1: standing corn. A lot of times during mid October, I'll
1:15:38
Speaker 1: actually hunt the corn, you know, if I want to
1:15:40
Speaker 1: kill a couple of dolls or something for the freezer,
1:15:42
Speaker 1: if I just love stock and corn. Any advice on
1:15:46
Speaker 1: how to pull off the corn field stock, Yeah, it's
1:15:49
Speaker 1: real simple. You basically you want to go, you know, uh,
1:15:56
Speaker 1: opposite the corn rows. You you kind of look at
1:15:59
Speaker 1: the yield. You go thirty forty yards in from the edge,
1:16:03
Speaker 1: and you just you just walk directly parallel or not parallel,
1:16:09
Speaker 1: perpendicular to the corn rows and you kind of get
1:16:12
Speaker 1: a visual. You know, some corn there's weeds in it.
1:16:15
Speaker 1: Some corns are some corn fields are real clean. But
1:16:18
Speaker 1: I try and move to the side however far I
1:16:21
Speaker 1: can see. So let's say I can see fifty yards
1:16:23
Speaker 1: down the corner, down the corn rows, I'll move fifty
1:16:26
Speaker 1: yards into the cornfield, and that's where i'll do my
1:16:28
Speaker 1: first walk Once I walk down. The first walk through.
1:16:31
Speaker 1: Basically what I do and how I walk walk the
1:16:34
Speaker 1: corn is I'll take my left foot, I'll put it
1:16:37
Speaker 1: at the base of a corn stock, and I have
1:16:39
Speaker 1: not I do not have an arrow knock. My bow
1:16:42
Speaker 1: is over my shoulder. I'll put my foot on the
1:16:45
Speaker 1: edge of the corn stock. And this has to be
1:16:47
Speaker 1: in a windy or a rainy day. Can't be on
1:16:48
Speaker 1: a calm day. It's got to be a noisy day.
1:16:51
Speaker 1: I'll push the corn stock to the side, you know,
1:16:55
Speaker 1: stick my head through, look both directions that there's nothing
1:16:58
Speaker 1: bettered there. I'll move into that row and do the
1:17:01
Speaker 1: same thing in the next row. And once you do
1:17:02
Speaker 1: that for a while, you know, you get relatively fast
1:17:05
Speaker 1: at it. Once you get through the field, you move on.
1:17:07
Speaker 1: If you can see fifty fifty yards down each row
1:17:10
Speaker 1: or thirty yards whatever, you double that distance you go
1:17:13
Speaker 1: double that distance and then you come back the other direction.
1:17:18
Speaker 1: So if you could see fifty yards, you go a
1:17:19
Speaker 1: hundred yards down that way. You're looking at the fifty
1:17:21
Speaker 1: yards you didn't see, and then fifty yards the other direction,
1:17:25
Speaker 1: and you just keep doing that, and you do it
1:17:26
Speaker 1: relatively slowly. But if it's the wind ear, it is
1:17:30
Speaker 1: the rainier, it is the faster you can go because
1:17:33
Speaker 1: the deer can't hear you. And when you see something
1:17:36
Speaker 1: within shooting distance, and it's not uncommon to you know,
1:17:39
Speaker 1: have a dough or whatever bettered walk stick your head
1:17:43
Speaker 1: through and have a dough five yards away from you,
1:17:46
Speaker 1: and you just back up knock an arrow. I usually
1:17:51
Speaker 1: would move maybe five yards down the row, so I
1:17:54
Speaker 1: don't have that short of a shot because you've got
1:17:56
Speaker 1: to step into the row. So there's is going to
1:17:58
Speaker 1: be a visual Uh yessue step into the row and
1:18:02
Speaker 1: take my shot. That'll be pretty intense. I've got three
1:18:06
Speaker 1: does in one in one hunt. Yeah, I mean, and
1:18:10
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not the type of deal where
1:18:12
Speaker 1: you're gonna kill big mature bucks. But you know, you
1:18:15
Speaker 1: typically I save filling my freezer until you know, December,
1:18:20
Speaker 1: late December but if there's corn and I need some venicine,
1:18:24
Speaker 1: that's what I do. That's the way of doing it.
1:18:26
Speaker 1: And I have killed one nice buck in a corn
1:18:29
Speaker 1: doing that, but that wasn't my plan. It sounds like
1:18:32
Speaker 1: a sounds like a fun way to go about it.
1:18:34
Speaker 1: Though it's a riot. I love it. It's a lot
1:18:38
Speaker 1: of fun in it really teaches you patients. Oh yeah,
1:18:42
Speaker 1: I imagine you got to be very careful with each step,
1:18:44
Speaker 1: each movement, each each next process. Yeah, but you'd be
1:18:49
Speaker 1: surprised when it's when it's a windy day and or raining,
1:18:53
Speaker 1: you can get away with a lot. And set control
1:18:56
Speaker 1: is a big issue there too, because if if you
1:18:59
Speaker 1: don't have a good scent control, always half of the
1:19:02
Speaker 1: deer are going to be downwind of you. You know,
1:19:05
Speaker 1: if you see deer, obviously half of the field that
1:19:09
Speaker 1: you're looking, you're gonna have deer downwind of you. Yeah, yeah,
1:19:12
Speaker 1: definitely gonna keep that aligned. Yeah, So I want to
1:19:16
Speaker 1: wear something beige that kind of matches the corn, so
1:19:20
Speaker 1: if you do step in the row for a shot,
1:19:22
Speaker 1: you don't stick out like a sore thumb. And I
1:19:24
Speaker 1: actually have some old corn corn cameo. That makes sense
1:19:29
Speaker 1: that makes sense. I was going to go back to uh.
1:19:32
Speaker 1: We were talking through some early season locations, we were
1:19:35
Speaker 1: talking through some mid October locations, and in the last
1:19:38
Speaker 1: podcast we did together, we spent a lot of time
1:19:41
Speaker 1: talking about how you use primary scrape areas during the
1:19:44
Speaker 1: rut and pre rut time period. We covered that really well.
1:19:47
Speaker 1: Um but but from what I understand, two other general
1:19:50
Speaker 1: types of areas that you focus on during that rut
1:19:52
Speaker 1: time period are rut staging areas and then, as you
1:19:55
Speaker 1: mentioned briefly earlier, betting areas. Can you elaborate on both
1:19:59
Speaker 1: of those typically what those look like, what you're looking for,
1:20:02
Speaker 1: and then how you hunt them. Rud staging areas I've
1:20:05
Speaker 1: kind of abandoned. I don't hunt rud staging areas anymore.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: I think in my first two books I wrote that
1:20:13
Speaker 1: I've had I know, in the first book I had
1:20:15
Speaker 1: a chapter on it, but I kind of abandoned that
1:20:18
Speaker 1: practice because, um, you know, I just hadn't had a
1:20:22
Speaker 1: lot of success with it. So I always look at
1:20:26
Speaker 1: my percentages of where my best opportunities are, and it
1:20:29
Speaker 1: was not at staging areas. You know, a lot of
1:20:31
Speaker 1: hunters at hunting lightly pressured areas. It's a Turkey common
1:20:35
Speaker 1: for deer to actually get out of a betting area
1:20:38
Speaker 1: and go and move closer to a feeding zone and
1:20:43
Speaker 1: bed in some sort of security cover and wait for
1:20:47
Speaker 1: est you know, for those and hopefully they get one
1:20:49
Speaker 1: in estris moving through that zone. Um, and that's a
1:20:53
Speaker 1: still they'll actually stage there in the evening or else
1:20:57
Speaker 1: they'll stage there in the morning and wait for those
1:20:59
Speaker 1: to come back you you know, after daylight. But I
1:21:02
Speaker 1: just haven't had a lot of success in Michigan doing that,
1:21:05
Speaker 1: so I kind of abandoned that. Okay, interesting And what
1:21:08
Speaker 1: was the other one betting areas? Uh? And what did
1:21:13
Speaker 1: you want to know about that? Well? So just I'd
1:21:15
Speaker 1: be interested in hearing about how you know, we talked
1:21:18
Speaker 1: about briefly, but when it comes to hunting betting years
1:21:20
Speaker 1: during the rut um you mentioned kind of alluded to
1:21:24
Speaker 1: that you're going right into the middle of them um
1:21:26
Speaker 1: for some of these hunts rather than on the edge.
1:21:27
Speaker 1: But can you kind of expand on that, you know,
1:21:29
Speaker 1: what other types of betting ears you're looking forward during
1:21:31
Speaker 1: the rut you know, how are you at, what are
1:21:33
Speaker 1: you thinking about when you're setting up there, etcetera. Etcetera. Okay, dude, Well, obviously,
1:21:38
Speaker 1: as I've mentioned, I only set up in betting areas
1:21:41
Speaker 1: during post season, so you know they I totally scrutinize
1:21:47
Speaker 1: all the betting areas on the property I'm hunting during postseason,
1:21:52
Speaker 1: and um, it's pretty rare that I don't set up
1:21:56
Speaker 1: a location or two in in each betting area. And
1:22:00
Speaker 1: what I'm typically looking for is an open area. You know,
1:22:02
Speaker 1: a lot of people think when I'm talking about a
1:22:04
Speaker 1: bedding area, it's all dense. Everything is dense. That's not
1:22:07
Speaker 1: the case. Anytime you go in a bedding area, there's
1:22:10
Speaker 1: gonna be open areas. There's gonna be convergence points, there's
1:22:12
Speaker 1: gonna be little openings where there's three or four runways
1:22:15
Speaker 1: coming through. There might even be at lost apple tree
1:22:18
Speaker 1: in the bedding area that maybe a couple of oak trees. Uh,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: there may be those pricker bushes that have that real
1:22:24
Speaker 1: light green leaves, and that's a preferred browse for deer
1:22:28
Speaker 1: that are in bedding areas. You know a lot of
1:22:30
Speaker 1: times it's it's it's advantageous to know what deer prefer
1:22:34
Speaker 1: to browse on. If there are no mass or fruit trees,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: or crop crops in the area, and um, you know
1:22:42
Speaker 1: those little pricker bushes with those nice green leaves. Deer
1:22:46
Speaker 1: love eating on those. So that's what I kind of
1:22:50
Speaker 1: key on. And and once in a blue moon, not
1:22:52
Speaker 1: very often, but if you find an opening in a
1:22:54
Speaker 1: in a betting area, a lot of times they'll be
1:22:57
Speaker 1: occasionally there'll be some scrape areas, and obviously I key
1:23:00
Speaker 1: on scrape areas. Of the bucks that I've killed over
1:23:04
Speaker 1: the last three years have been at primary scrape areas.
1:23:07
Speaker 1: You know, it might have been at an apple tree,
1:23:09
Speaker 1: but it's got a primary scrape area. It might have
1:23:11
Speaker 1: been in a white oak, but it's got a primary
1:23:13
Speaker 1: scrape area. It might have been in a funnel transition
1:23:17
Speaker 1: zone between two betting areas, or betting in a feeding area,
1:23:21
Speaker 1: but because it's a pinch point, there's a lot of
1:23:23
Speaker 1: dough traffic there, there's a scrape area there. Scrape areas
1:23:26
Speaker 1: are always located where there's a lot of dough activity.
1:23:29
Speaker 1: So plus of my bucks have been killed at scrape areos.
1:23:32
Speaker 1: So a lot of times you might find a scrape
1:23:34
Speaker 1: area within a betting area because there's a lot of
1:23:36
Speaker 1: doughs in the betting area. And if there if they
1:23:39
Speaker 1: have a convergence point in an opening or at a
1:23:42
Speaker 1: feeding location, there could be a scrape area. So that's
1:23:45
Speaker 1: kind of what I ken on. I I still key
1:23:46
Speaker 1: on the same thing. I key on a destination spot,
1:23:49
Speaker 1: hopefully a feeding spot within the betting area because of
1:23:53
Speaker 1: a mature buck and pressured areas. Typically, even during the
1:23:57
Speaker 1: rough shases, he'll come in to his betting area prior
1:24:01
Speaker 1: to daybreak. So I'm usually in them and set up
1:24:04
Speaker 1: an hour and a half before daylight. Uh So he
1:24:07
Speaker 1: comes in before daylight, and once he's in a secure
1:24:11
Speaker 1: betting area, he's pretty he feels pretty comfortable, So you
1:24:14
Speaker 1: know he's gonna move around, he's gonna browse, he's gonna
1:24:17
Speaker 1: do whatever he may even it's possibly might even bet
1:24:19
Speaker 1: down before daylight. But then midday during the road phasesn't
1:24:23
Speaker 1: that's the only time I hunt there. He's gonna get
1:24:26
Speaker 1: up and he's gonna start set checking that betting area
1:24:30
Speaker 1: for possible ester stows. And if he doesn't find anything
1:24:33
Speaker 1: in that particular betting area, and there's another betting area
1:24:36
Speaker 1: within his core zone, and it has adequate transition security
1:24:41
Speaker 1: cover from this betting area to that one, he's going
1:24:44
Speaker 1: to take that route and go check that one as well.
1:24:47
Speaker 1: And if there's a third or fourth, he'll do that
1:24:49
Speaker 1: as well. So betting areas are just key locations to
1:24:54
Speaker 1: hunt during the road phases. And and as always I
1:24:57
Speaker 1: try to set up in a destination spot it if
1:25:00
Speaker 1: I can't find a apple or something sort of a
1:25:03
Speaker 1: food source, I'll try and find wherever I can find
1:25:05
Speaker 1: the most convergence of runways or sign within the betting area.
1:25:09
Speaker 1: And a lot of times if a buck, mature buck
1:25:12
Speaker 1: is betting in a betting area and you're scouting it
1:25:16
Speaker 1: during postseason, I've seen it many many times where there
1:25:20
Speaker 1: will be a cluster of rubs in a real small zone,
1:25:24
Speaker 1: which means he's betting. That's his betting spot. He's betting
1:25:28
Speaker 1: within fifteen yards of these rubs. And I've seen it
1:25:31
Speaker 1: where a buck will be bedded right in a little
1:25:34
Speaker 1: cluster of like small pines or spruce trees, and all
1:25:37
Speaker 1: the trees around him they're just shredded to shredded to pieces.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: And obviously I bolted out of there whatever time it
1:25:44
Speaker 1: season that I you know, postseason, I did, but it's
1:25:47
Speaker 1: six months before I'm going a hunting, So it's not
1:25:49
Speaker 1: a big deal. He's gonna definitely be back in that spot. Now,
1:25:52
Speaker 1: when you're when you're hunting these betting areas during the
1:25:55
Speaker 1: rough phases, are you specifically trying to hunt close to
1:25:58
Speaker 1: that buck betting are or do you focus on the
1:26:00
Speaker 1: dough betting areas because that's where these bucks are all
1:26:02
Speaker 1: coming to to look for the females. I focus on that.
1:26:05
Speaker 1: I focus on where dot drafting is always all buck
1:26:09
Speaker 1: activities during the rough phases revolves revolves around do activity. Yeah, okay,
1:26:14
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Um, Now, I think I think most
1:26:18
Speaker 1: hunters know what we're talking about when we're talking about
1:26:21
Speaker 1: finding these betting areas. But can you just just in
1:26:24
Speaker 1: case someone is still at that point in their hunting
1:26:26
Speaker 1: fate or journey where they're trying to fare? Okay, where
1:26:28
Speaker 1: the heck are these dear betted? You're in a high
1:26:30
Speaker 1: pressure state like Michigan or Pennsylvania, where do you typically
1:26:33
Speaker 1: see these dear bed That the perfect answer for you, Mark,
1:26:36
Speaker 1: And this is really simple, and I say this at
1:26:39
Speaker 1: my seminars all the time. When you're scouting a property,
1:26:44
Speaker 1: depending on the hunting pressure in the area, you have
1:26:46
Speaker 1: to pretend every single person is trying to kill you, okay,
1:26:52
Speaker 1: but he's trying to kill me. Where on this property,
1:26:55
Speaker 1: of all the places I can look, might I possibly
1:26:59
Speaker 1: feel feel comfortable standing up and moving during daylight hours?
1:27:04
Speaker 1: That's what you have to look at. Everybody's trying to
1:27:06
Speaker 1: kill me. That's going to be a betting area fair
1:27:10
Speaker 1: enough that most betting areas are going to be the
1:27:14
Speaker 1: typically the best available security co available on the property
1:27:23
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be sult but it's got to be
1:27:25
Speaker 1: dense enough where most humans do not want to go there.
1:27:29
Speaker 1: That's why they are comfortable being in there. That's where
1:27:32
Speaker 1: people That's where the hunters pushed the deer to during
1:27:36
Speaker 1: preseason scouting ventures. In early season mounting, that's where the
1:27:39
Speaker 1: deer are pushed to not only mature bucks, but mature
1:27:42
Speaker 1: does as well. Because it typically if you're hunting in
1:27:44
Speaker 1: a pressured area, there's a lot of hunters are targeting dose.
1:27:46
Speaker 1: They're targeting everything, you know. It's unlike managed property where
1:27:50
Speaker 1: they're only targeting mature bucks. Typically, in pressured areas, a
1:27:54
Speaker 1: lot of the hunters are targeting any legal landward buck,
1:27:57
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are targeting dose. During any
1:28:00
Speaker 1: time of the season, So you gotta pretend everybody's trying
1:28:05
Speaker 1: to kill you. And where's the places on this property
1:28:07
Speaker 1: where I might feel comfortable with getting up and moving
1:28:09
Speaker 1: during daylight hours. That's the easiest way to put it.
1:28:11
Speaker 1: That's a healthful exercise. I definitely think that's a that's
1:28:14
Speaker 1: a good way to think about it when trying to
1:28:15
Speaker 1: figure this out for yourself. Yeah. Yeah, because it takes
1:28:19
Speaker 1: everything down to its simplest point in my opinion. All Right,
1:28:24
Speaker 1: so let's continue. We've we talked early mid rut time period. Uh.
1:28:29
Speaker 1: That's important timing, right, figuring out where to hunt at
1:28:32
Speaker 1: the right time of year. But I also know other factors,
1:28:36
Speaker 1: at least in my hunting are really important as to
1:28:39
Speaker 1: when I go into some of these spots I've prepared. Um.
1:28:42
Speaker 1: We've talked in the past about the fact that you
1:28:44
Speaker 1: like hunting and preceptation, rain and snow. Um, but we
1:28:47
Speaker 1: didn't really get to a couple other factors like cold
1:28:50
Speaker 1: fronts or bare back of pressure or the moon some
1:28:54
Speaker 1: of these other things that other hunters talk about. Do
1:28:56
Speaker 1: any of those things factor into when or how often
1:28:59
Speaker 1: you hunt? No, not at all. Uh, Nope, I paid
1:29:05
Speaker 1: zero attention to moon phase. When I have a day
1:29:07
Speaker 1: off to hunt, and I feel the circumstances are right,
1:29:12
Speaker 1: and it's the right seasonal time of season, and it's
1:29:16
Speaker 1: the right time of day for that particular location, I
1:29:19
Speaker 1: go hunted. Um. Back in the sixties, when I was
1:29:24
Speaker 1: in high school, I used to go shining a lot,
1:29:28
Speaker 1: and it was very common back then. You don't see
1:29:30
Speaker 1: it much anymore, but I mean, it was not uncommon
1:29:33
Speaker 1: to see three people shining the same field back then,
1:29:36
Speaker 1: and and it was there was one thing that I
1:29:39
Speaker 1: always paid attention to. I always paid attention to weather conditions.
1:29:44
Speaker 1: If it was a rainy night, I saw a lot
1:29:47
Speaker 1: more dear activity, and I saw a lot more buck activity.
1:29:50
Speaker 1: If it was a full moon, I saw very minimal
1:29:54
Speaker 1: buck activity. I'd see dough activity, but I wouldn't see
1:29:57
Speaker 1: bucks out at night. Um, at least not any two
1:30:02
Speaker 1: and a half year old. Back then, you two and
1:30:03
Speaker 1: ALFs were about as good as good as it got,
1:30:06
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't see any two and a half year
1:30:08
Speaker 1: old bucks. But if it was a full moon and
1:30:12
Speaker 1: it was overcast or it was raining at night, I
1:30:15
Speaker 1: would see the deer. So it wasn't necessarily the full
1:30:20
Speaker 1: moon phase that stopped them from moving being out there
1:30:28
Speaker 1: at night after dark. It was just that it was
1:30:32
Speaker 1: so bright out. So I think the full moon thing
1:30:35
Speaker 1: is not that big a deal. It may affect when
1:30:38
Speaker 1: the actual rout phase is that I do not know,
1:30:41
Speaker 1: and neither does anybody else. But during a when there
1:30:46
Speaker 1: is a full moon, I have found and there and
1:30:49
Speaker 1: there's no cloud cover. I have found the next day,
1:30:53
Speaker 1: during the day, mid day to be a really good
1:30:56
Speaker 1: time hunt because the nighttime movements were very minimal. The
1:31:00
Speaker 1: next day, daytime movements are a little bit stronger than
1:31:04
Speaker 1: normal during the Rod phases. And I'm not talking about
1:31:07
Speaker 1: early season or you know, October low. I'm talking about
1:31:10
Speaker 1: Rod phase. The During the Rod phases, the daytime activity
1:31:14
Speaker 1: was a lot better, especially during midday. And that was
1:31:18
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I miss it. That was
1:31:20
Speaker 1: the day after full moon. Yes, that was that would
1:31:23
Speaker 1: be the day after There was a full moon that
1:31:26
Speaker 1: night the previous night with no cloud cover and as
1:31:29
Speaker 1: far as windy, rainy, unless there's a tornado. If I've
1:31:36
Speaker 1: got the day off, I'm hunting. I've killed deer in
1:31:39
Speaker 1: thirty five mile winds when it was probably a wind
1:31:42
Speaker 1: chill at three below zero of hunted of killed deer.
1:31:46
Speaker 1: In rainy conditions, my preference is a drizzly day, just
1:31:50
Speaker 1: a nice steady drizzle. You don't see as many deer,
1:31:54
Speaker 1: but bucks tend to move better in that type of weather. Yes,
1:31:58
Speaker 1: I see more doze and in subordinate bucks on nice
1:32:01
Speaker 1: bluebird days. But as far as seeing mature bucks, I
1:32:06
Speaker 1: definitely see more mature bucks in inclement weather than I
1:32:09
Speaker 1: do in nice sunny day weathers. Because if it's sunny
1:32:12
Speaker 1: and it's calm out a mature buck and you know
1:32:15
Speaker 1: this mark as well as anybody. Every time a mature
1:32:18
Speaker 1: buck takes a step, they crunch leaves and they stand
1:32:22
Speaker 1: there and wait for a reaction. And when it's raining
1:32:26
Speaker 1: and the grounds weather, it's windy and and they're not
1:32:29
Speaker 1: concerned about their noise. Ah, they moved steadily through the woods.
1:32:36
Speaker 1: They don't. They don't stop and wait for a reaction
1:32:38
Speaker 1: to every step they takes. Yeah, I've definitely seen the
1:32:41
Speaker 1: same thing. It's those kind of nasty days, like you said,
1:32:45
Speaker 1: there's drizzles, cool, drizzly, or some rain coming on in
1:32:49
Speaker 1: and out. Those almost always are the days I'm seeing
1:32:52
Speaker 1: a mature buck. If I'm going to see a mature
1:32:54
Speaker 1: buck during the year eight times at ten, it's probably
1:32:57
Speaker 1: gonna be a day like that. Yep. But that one,
1:33:01
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you this one one. I may have
1:33:03
Speaker 1: mentioned it on the last podcast. I don't know, but
1:33:05
Speaker 1: I was hunting in Illinois on state land with a
1:33:08
Speaker 1: forty poundbo because I messed up my shoulder that year.
1:33:12
Speaker 1: And this was in December, so it was a late season,
1:33:14
Speaker 1: after gunning season, and it was this was that thirty
1:33:20
Speaker 1: five win day with seven degrees when I left the hotel,
1:33:26
Speaker 1: and that was without a windshill, thirty five winds. I
1:33:29
Speaker 1: was so cold. I had so many clothes. I had
1:33:32
Speaker 1: on five body warmers, and about a half hour before dark,
1:33:38
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen a thing. And I'm sitting in a
1:33:41
Speaker 1: big oak tree next to a locust tree. Seven seven
1:33:45
Speaker 1: seventeen yards from me is a locust tree with those
1:33:47
Speaker 1: big long beans. And I almost got out of the
1:33:51
Speaker 1: tree and went back at the hotel. But I sat
1:33:53
Speaker 1: there and I thought to myself, you know what, I know,
1:33:56
Speaker 1: I'm not going to kill anything in the hotel. I've
1:33:58
Speaker 1: only got a half hour to forty five minutes left
1:34:00
Speaker 1: to sit here and suffer. So I'm just gonna sit
1:34:03
Speaker 1: here and suffer. I saw five bucks in that last
1:34:05
Speaker 1: half hour, and one of them was a twelve point
1:34:08
Speaker 1: and I killed him. He was a monster. Twelve point,
1:34:10
Speaker 1: just perfect twelve point makes it all worth it. Oh,
1:34:17
Speaker 1: you got that right, A well earned reward, I imagine. Yes. Yeah.
1:34:25
Speaker 1: And the guy that I was running with, I was
1:34:27
Speaker 1: actually hunting with a guy. Took a guy down there
1:34:29
Speaker 1: with me, which was kind of rare, and he was
1:34:32
Speaker 1: he couldn't believe we were even hunting it now like
1:34:34
Speaker 1: you're nuts. I'm going you don't have to go all
1:34:41
Speaker 1: things being equal, let's take let's take weather out of it.
1:34:43
Speaker 1: Let's take precipitation, all that kind of stuff out of it. Um,
1:34:47
Speaker 1: if you had to just pick let's say three days
1:34:50
Speaker 1: during the season, if you had to pick the three
1:34:52
Speaker 1: very best days of this season, you had to be
1:34:54
Speaker 1: in a tree, what would those three days be? Halloween,
1:34:59
Speaker 1: which I leave is the beginning typically you know the
1:35:03
Speaker 1: weather based of course, uh, beginning of pre rut. I'm
1:35:06
Speaker 1: a big pre rut guy because dear mature bucks have
1:35:10
Speaker 1: a routine during pre run. Once once the peak rut
1:35:13
Speaker 1: starts and all the mature all the most of the
1:35:15
Speaker 1: doses are coming into heat, all the routines go out
1:35:19
Speaker 1: the window. They're chasing those on you know routines that
1:35:23
Speaker 1: there are no routines. So I'd say Halloween through the
1:35:28
Speaker 1: fifth of November that those are my favorite time and
1:35:31
Speaker 1: I and Opening Day. I love Opening Day because I
1:35:33
Speaker 1: look forward to it so much. Okay, speaking of those routines, UM,
1:35:38
Speaker 1: do you I've heard a couple I think as I'm
1:35:41
Speaker 1: thinking back through some stories and stuff, I feel like
1:35:42
Speaker 1: I've heard a couple of examples where you've talked about,
1:35:45
Speaker 1: you know, zeroing in a little bit on a specific deer.
1:35:48
Speaker 1: But how often do you actually pattern a specific deer
1:35:51
Speaker 1: over the course of a season or a few hunts? Um,
1:35:54
Speaker 1: Is that a big part of what you're doing or
1:35:56
Speaker 1: are you jumping from place to place and you know
1:35:59
Speaker 1: if he's showing up, it's cann me out one day
1:36:00
Speaker 1: and you kill them. I rarely patterned deer. I rarely
1:36:05
Speaker 1: look for deer. I rarely put out motion cameras, uh
1:36:08
Speaker 1: to see what's there. Um, I'm hunting destination locations where
1:36:13
Speaker 1: there's dough traffic, and I know if there's do traffic,
1:36:16
Speaker 1: the best bucks in the area aren't going to come
1:36:18
Speaker 1: through there. So I'm I'm specifically targeting destination locations and
1:36:23
Speaker 1: sign That's what I do now when I go out west,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: when I go to Kansas or Iowa, I hunt my cameras.
1:36:30
Speaker 1: I hang cameras at every location. And I totally hunt
1:36:33
Speaker 1: my cameras because I can check them every day and
1:36:35
Speaker 1: the deer I hate to use the word stupid, but
1:36:40
Speaker 1: they don't care. I can go in and intrude my
1:36:42
Speaker 1: spots and it doesn't seem to make any difference on
1:36:45
Speaker 1: the deer activity in in in pressure areas, that's just
1:36:48
Speaker 1: not the case. So so out there, I totally hunt
1:36:52
Speaker 1: my cameras on what I'm seeing on my cameras. And
1:36:54
Speaker 1: in Michigan, I'm totally hunting destination spots. I'm hunting destination
1:36:59
Speaker 1: spot out there too. I'm hunting primary scraper is for
1:37:02
Speaker 1: the most part, or rub lines or something or pinch
1:37:04
Speaker 1: points and draws. But um, in Michigan, it's it's totally
1:37:10
Speaker 1: destination areas. Michigan. Then last year, UM, if I if
1:37:15
Speaker 1: I heard you correctly a little bit earlier before we
1:37:18
Speaker 1: start recording, you mentioned that you killed two bucks last
1:37:21
Speaker 1: year in Michigan with your bow. One I think you
1:37:24
Speaker 1: mentioned was la October one was like the second week
1:37:27
Speaker 1: of November. Could you tell us the story of both
1:37:29
Speaker 1: of us hunts, how specifically those came together, why you
1:37:32
Speaker 1: were successful on those those hunts. Well, the one was
1:37:36
Speaker 1: a ten point and that was on Halloween. I just
1:37:39
Speaker 1: mentioned Halloween a minute ago. I was on Halloween evening
1:37:42
Speaker 1: and I had seen this buck in a different part
1:37:47
Speaker 1: of the property, thirty seven acre parcel. I've seen him
1:37:50
Speaker 1: over on the other side of the property. Oh god,
1:37:55
Speaker 1: second or third day of season, walking along the edge
1:37:57
Speaker 1: of the standing cornfield. Oh this once. Remember me telling
1:38:03
Speaker 1: you about the apple tree a while ago where I've
1:38:05
Speaker 1: got it cleaned out through the to the opposite side. Okay,
1:38:10
Speaker 1: Halloween night, my first set at this tree. I'm sitting
1:38:13
Speaker 1: in this red oak next to this apple tree. And
1:38:17
Speaker 1: just like I said, he came out through the heavy
1:38:20
Speaker 1: cover on the opposite side of the tree. He fed
1:38:23
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the tree for maybe three minutes,
1:38:26
Speaker 1: eight three or four apples, turned around and went right
1:38:29
Speaker 1: back the where he came from. And because he was
1:38:31
Speaker 1: always facing me, I did not get a shot. He'd
1:38:33
Speaker 1: never turned broadside. So and that was that was probably
1:38:38
Speaker 1: an hour and a half before before dark, and uh,
1:38:42
Speaker 1: just about the time I was getting ready to think
1:38:44
Speaker 1: about getting out of the tree, I heard a doll
1:38:47
Speaker 1: coming and coming down through the swamp. She ran right
1:38:52
Speaker 1: through the opening. Remember me saying on the side of
1:38:56
Speaker 1: the tree that I'm on. The apple tree on eyeside
1:39:00
Speaker 1: was open and it kind of a little downhill slide,
1:39:03
Speaker 1: but it was wide open. She ran right through there,
1:39:06
Speaker 1: right through that opening. And it wasn't twenty seconds later
1:39:10
Speaker 1: I heard a running and you know, I didn't know
1:39:13
Speaker 1: it was going to be that dear, but obviously I
1:39:15
Speaker 1: got ready and it was that that ten point and
1:39:19
Speaker 1: I shot him. Um, he was going. He was falling
1:39:22
Speaker 1: exactly obviously, and nose to the ground following her and
1:39:27
Speaker 1: I came a full draw and I made a man
1:39:30
Speaker 1: and he stopped and I shot him. And then the
1:39:33
Speaker 1: second one was on a two acre parcel that I
1:39:36
Speaker 1: had just gotten permission from and it just happened to
1:39:38
Speaker 1: be a spot where there was it was the headlands
1:39:41
Speaker 1: of a big cattail marsh, and um, I prepped a
1:39:46
Speaker 1: tree there and there was some rubs and stuff in
1:39:49
Speaker 1: that area, probably just prior to season. When I went
1:39:52
Speaker 1: and speed toward it, and I sat in that tree.
1:39:56
Speaker 1: First time I sat in that tree, it was I
1:39:58
Speaker 1: think it was November ten through eleventh, and it was
1:40:02
Speaker 1: pretty late. It was like a quarter to ten maybe,
1:40:04
Speaker 1: you know. I'd seen two little bucks going to the
1:40:07
Speaker 1: cat Tail Marsh, and about a quarter to ten uh,
1:40:11
Speaker 1: out of that cat Tail Marsh came this eleven point
1:40:15
Speaker 1: and I did not know he was in the area
1:40:18
Speaker 1: at all. I've never seen him, and he was chasing
1:40:23
Speaker 1: some dolls around and I shot him at about I
1:40:25
Speaker 1: don't know, twelve twelve yards maybe, and he ended up
1:40:28
Speaker 1: I shot him a little too far back, and he
1:40:29
Speaker 1: ended up dying in some uh a little pond. Anytime
1:40:33
Speaker 1: you hit a deer, I hit him in the liver,
1:40:35
Speaker 1: and anytime he hit a deer too far back, they
1:40:37
Speaker 1: gave him a lot of time, and he ended up
1:40:39
Speaker 1: dying in that pond because they liked to soothe their wound.
1:40:42
Speaker 1: I think the cool water. Why do you think or
1:40:45
Speaker 1: why I'm curious why you set up there. You mentioned
1:40:48
Speaker 1: it was near cat Tail Marsh and you saw some rubs.
1:40:51
Speaker 1: Um was that? Was it just that that made you
1:40:53
Speaker 1: set up there? Or did you did you think there's
1:40:55
Speaker 1: some betting in the marsh or can you leverage a
1:40:56
Speaker 1: little bit on specifically why you dropped that tree where
1:40:59
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, anytime, any time you have a dry
1:41:02
Speaker 1: marsh cat tail marsh, dey are going to bet in it.
1:41:05
Speaker 1: If you're in a pressured area and there's a dry
1:41:07
Speaker 1: cat tail marsh, de're gonna bet in it. So I
1:41:09
Speaker 1: knew there was going to be dear betting in it.
1:41:11
Speaker 1: And there was some timber that butted up to this
1:41:15
Speaker 1: cattail marsh right on the corner of this little two
1:41:18
Speaker 1: acre parcels. So I went in and I set up
1:41:22
Speaker 1: a tree postseason, and I didn't hunt it until November.
1:41:28
Speaker 1: And I did hunt it one other time in November,
1:41:31
Speaker 1: and I did not see him. I think I saw
1:41:34
Speaker 1: a little late pointer in a four point. But then
1:41:37
Speaker 1: the second time I went back and for the morning hunt,
1:41:40
Speaker 1: and it's primarily a morning spot um, and I was
1:41:44
Speaker 1: in there probably two hours before daylight. He came through
1:41:47
Speaker 1: the quarter at quarter ten o'clock. Now I'm making an
1:41:52
Speaker 1: assumption here, but I feel like if I'm like making
1:41:55
Speaker 1: an assumption about the average deer hunter, and maybe if
1:41:57
Speaker 1: I'm I'm basing that on maybe what I used to
1:42:00
Speaker 1: do ten years ago or something would be. You know,
1:42:02
Speaker 1: I've got my one property hunt and maybe I've got
1:42:05
Speaker 1: my best stand or my best two stands. And so
1:42:07
Speaker 1: when it gets to that rut, it's the first week
1:42:09
Speaker 1: in November something, I'm gonna be sitting there over and
1:42:12
Speaker 1: over and over again, because that's where I think all
1:42:13
Speaker 1: these deer going to be. UM. When I hear you
1:42:16
Speaker 1: talk about the way you're hunting, and I read your things,
1:42:19
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like you are bouncing from place
1:42:22
Speaker 1: to place often, um, and that you're not hunting the
1:42:25
Speaker 1: same place over and over and over again. Is that accurate?
1:42:27
Speaker 1: And even during the rut it sounds like you're on
1:42:29
Speaker 1: this property for a hunt or two and then over
1:42:31
Speaker 1: on this stand farther away or that property. Um. Is
1:42:34
Speaker 1: that accurate? Or that's very accurate. But I have to
1:42:39
Speaker 1: put a disclaimer in there, because if I'm hunting, let's
1:42:44
Speaker 1: say an apple tree that's been dropping apples for a
1:42:47
Speaker 1: few weeks and it's got you know, there's three or
1:42:50
Speaker 1: four scrapes there, it's a primary scrape, and I hunt it,
1:42:54
Speaker 1: you know, to Let's say I go in there in
1:42:57
Speaker 1: November and I hunted, and I see three or four
1:42:59
Speaker 1: dolls and some some fauns and a subordinate buck. Uh,
1:43:04
Speaker 1: And I didn't spook anything because of my entry and
1:43:07
Speaker 1: exit routes, I didn't spook anything. I'll hunt it again.
1:43:10
Speaker 1: Then the very next hunt, I'll hunt that spot again.
1:43:12
Speaker 1: If it's a morning spot hunt, it's the next morning.
1:43:14
Speaker 1: If it's a morning and an evening spot, I'll come
1:43:16
Speaker 1: back and hunt it that evening. And as long as
1:43:19
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing a difference in my visual deer sightings
1:43:24
Speaker 1: and the activity remains the same, i will continue to
1:43:28
Speaker 1: hunt that spot. As soon as I see where my
1:43:31
Speaker 1: intrusions are affecting the dough traffic at that spot, I'll
1:43:35
Speaker 1: go hunt someplace else and put that one off for
1:43:37
Speaker 1: a week. So it totally is depending upon my visual
1:43:42
Speaker 1: sightings and the active you know, the scrapes being actively hit,
1:43:47
Speaker 1: you know at night, because you know he may be
1:43:49
Speaker 1: with a dough. The buck that I'm pursuing maybe with
1:43:51
Speaker 1: a dough during her twenty eight to thirty two hour cycle,
1:43:55
Speaker 1: so you know, my kinding maybe off. You know, just
1:43:58
Speaker 1: because you hunted spot does mean he's gonna come through
1:44:00
Speaker 1: there that time. He may be doing something else someplace else,
1:44:04
Speaker 1: So as long as you're not interrupting the activity. It's
1:44:08
Speaker 1: okay to hunt a spot three or four times in
1:44:10
Speaker 1: a row, and you know, because then there's a good
1:44:14
Speaker 1: chance he's going to come through one of those times,
1:44:16
Speaker 1: because if he wasn't with a hot dough, she's gonna
1:44:18
Speaker 1: be out of her cycle, and then he may be
1:44:20
Speaker 1: searching for the next one and come and check out
1:44:22
Speaker 1: that scrape area in doing so. Yeah, to your point,
1:44:25
Speaker 1: atually depends on the situation, But yes, I do like
1:44:27
Speaker 1: to bounce around a lot so that I'm not you know,
1:44:31
Speaker 1: even though I'm not worried about my cent, you're still
1:44:34
Speaker 1: making a visual or not a visual, but you're still
1:44:37
Speaker 1: making an intrusion. You know, you may be spooking something
1:44:39
Speaker 1: with an entry or whether you're exit. I try not to,
1:44:41
Speaker 1: but as you well know, that's impossible not to do
1:44:45
Speaker 1: all the time. So stuff happens, that's for sure. Yes, absolutely,
1:44:51
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious. Um, I want to want to
1:44:53
Speaker 1: shift a little bit for just a moment here before
1:44:55
Speaker 1: we wrap this up, since I've kept you a pretty
1:44:57
Speaker 1: long time here. But you did mention um, you know
1:45:00
Speaker 1: the fact that you are hunting differently when you had
1:45:02
Speaker 1: to you know, farther west, some of these other states
1:45:04
Speaker 1: like Kansas or I or or whatnot. Um, can you
1:45:08
Speaker 1: give us like a the Eberhart Way one on one
1:45:11
Speaker 1: on pulling off these d I y hunts to the
1:45:14
Speaker 1: less pressured Midwest? You know how you pull off these
1:45:17
Speaker 1: weeklong hunts. Oh yeah, I do not go out in
1:45:22
Speaker 1: pre scout. Uh. I've been hunting Kansas now. I've got
1:45:26
Speaker 1: two or three farms, the free permission farms. Again, I've
1:45:29
Speaker 1: never paid on any place in my life. Um, and
1:45:33
Speaker 1: so I kind of know the locations already. I know
1:45:36
Speaker 1: the areas, and primarily in Kansas, it's a lot of draws.
1:45:39
Speaker 1: You know, ninety five per cent of property out there
1:45:43
Speaker 1: is in crops or weed fields or CPR, and there's
1:45:46
Speaker 1: not a lot of timber. And that's what I love,
1:45:49
Speaker 1: you know. So anytime you see a draw, there maybe
1:45:51
Speaker 1: a draw every half a mile or three cords of
1:45:53
Speaker 1: a mile, and it just kind of meanders through the sections.
1:45:57
Speaker 1: And those draws have pinch points and they have rights.
1:46:00
Speaker 1: That's basically during the daylight hours, you know, the deer
1:46:04
Speaker 1: are kind of they're not up on the flats and
1:46:07
Speaker 1: the crops, they're down in those draws. That's where they
1:46:09
Speaker 1: bet because there's a lot of weeds. It's more moist
1:46:11
Speaker 1: down there, it's more fertile, and that's where the dear
1:46:13
Speaker 1: bed and that's where they transition through. So it's very simple.
1:46:16
Speaker 1: You just kind of walk me indus through those draws.
1:46:19
Speaker 1: On your first day there, leave scouting and prepping locations,
1:46:23
Speaker 1: and you prepare whatever locations and the tightest pinch points possible,
1:46:27
Speaker 1: and you just put a camera and on him accordingly,
1:46:30
Speaker 1: and typically will always out there. There's always scrapes and rubs. Always,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: there's so many mature bucks. There's always scrapes and rubs.
1:46:39
Speaker 1: So it's just getting access to some decent properties and
1:46:43
Speaker 1: walk on properties or whatever. Blowing off your first day
1:46:47
Speaker 1: even day and a half. That's one mistake a lot
1:46:49
Speaker 1: of people make because they go out there and they
1:46:50
Speaker 1: feel like, oh my god, I've got to hunt this evening. No,
1:46:55
Speaker 1: don't worry about this evening, don't stress out totally. Spend
1:46:59
Speaker 1: the first day scouting and prepping locations, and then haunt
1:47:02
Speaker 1: according to what you visually see on the locations you're prepped.
1:47:05
Speaker 1: I usually will set up blow off the first day
1:47:08
Speaker 1: and a half, set up the nine or ten eleven locations,
1:47:12
Speaker 1: put cameras at each and then hunt according to what
1:47:14
Speaker 1: I see in the cameras. Can you elaborate on the
1:47:16
Speaker 1: camera strategy? Are you know, are you putting these actually
1:47:20
Speaker 1: at the tree stand location? And how often are you
1:47:23
Speaker 1: checking those to make decisions? We are putting them And
1:47:27
Speaker 1: then when I say we, my son John and another
1:47:30
Speaker 1: friend of mine go out, have been going out there
1:47:31
Speaker 1: last few years, and we put them at the actual
1:47:34
Speaker 1: hunting location correct right that we have them targeted right
1:47:37
Speaker 1: at either the runways in the tightest part of the
1:47:40
Speaker 1: funnel or at the scrape areas themselves. And then we
1:47:43
Speaker 1: will visit those cameras every day, and it's not uncommon
1:47:47
Speaker 1: for us to drive to those cameras, which you would
1:47:49
Speaker 1: never do in Michigan, and we will check the cameras
1:47:53
Speaker 1: and we might even spook deer when we're driving or
1:47:56
Speaker 1: walking in checking cameras. And it just doesn't seem to
1:47:59
Speaker 1: matter because there's the rut out there because there's so
1:48:02
Speaker 1: many mature bucks in the buck of door ratio mature
1:48:04
Speaker 1: buck to mature doll ratio is so close to me,
1:48:06
Speaker 1: and even the rut is so competitive, it just doesn't
1:48:09
Speaker 1: seem to make any difference. You know, you get in
1:48:12
Speaker 1: a pressure area. There's so few mature bucks in and
1:48:15
Speaker 1: the rut is not that competitive for the dominant bucks
1:48:17
Speaker 1: because they just don't have much competition out there. There's
1:48:21
Speaker 1: a ton of competition. And even if you both the
1:48:24
Speaker 1: deer up, they they still continue to move, you know,
1:48:26
Speaker 1: the next day or even that evening through that thing area.
1:48:30
Speaker 1: And at that time of year two a lot of
1:48:32
Speaker 1: the activity. You could have a buck coming through that
1:48:34
Speaker 1: was half a mile or a mile away yesterday. When
1:48:36
Speaker 1: you check the cameras. Now when he comes through, he
1:48:39
Speaker 1: has no idea what was going on there yesterday, right, Yeah,
1:48:42
Speaker 1: And that's that's a very good point mark because it
1:48:45
Speaker 1: is very common out there for us to put up
1:48:48
Speaker 1: a camera and get the same buck on cameras two
1:48:52
Speaker 1: and a half miles apart in one day. Because the draws,
1:48:56
Speaker 1: you know, up in the crop fields, up in the flat.
1:49:01
Speaker 1: You know that once the deer all converged down into
1:49:04
Speaker 1: the draws during the daytime, which is five of the
1:49:07
Speaker 1: landscape at best, they travel a long waist through those draws.
1:49:11
Speaker 1: The draws run for miles, and so it's not uncommon
1:49:14
Speaker 1: whatsoever to get pictures of the same bucket, you know,
1:49:18
Speaker 1: a couple of miles apart. Yeah, it's pretty incredible how
1:49:21
Speaker 1: much they move different. Yeah, it's refracting, let me put
1:49:25
Speaker 1: it that way, because it's so easy. I do enjoy
1:49:29
Speaker 1: any trip to somewhere different than Michigan, just because you know,
1:49:33
Speaker 1: it is very different, and and the just the if
1:49:36
Speaker 1: nothing else was different, just the number of mature bucks,
1:49:39
Speaker 1: the target, the pool of potential targets is so much
1:49:42
Speaker 1: larger that you just see different behavior and it's just
1:49:46
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I always encourage anyone if you
1:49:48
Speaker 1: hunt in a state like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, or
1:49:50
Speaker 1: the Northeast or somewhere like that, it's worth saving up
1:49:53
Speaker 1: some money and time to to do a trip like
1:49:55
Speaker 1: this to experience it, because it's just fun. It's different
1:49:58
Speaker 1: and it's a lot of fun. It's like being single
1:50:01
Speaker 1: and going into a bar. You're the first guy in
1:50:04
Speaker 1: a bar after the Chippendale's performed, and it's nothing but
1:50:08
Speaker 1: women in there, and they're all crazy. I think, I
1:50:13
Speaker 1: think you just got a lot of guys to buy
1:50:14
Speaker 1: a plane ticket out to Kansas or Iowa. Now after
1:50:17
Speaker 1: that analogy, well that's a good analogy. Is that very true?
1:50:24
Speaker 1: Very true? All right? So John, this is uh as
1:50:30
Speaker 1: I knew it would be. This has been really interesting.
1:50:32
Speaker 1: I wanna ask one final question, and that is, of
1:50:36
Speaker 1: everything we've talked about, or maybe things we haven't talked about,
1:50:39
Speaker 1: if there was like one thing that you could get
1:50:42
Speaker 1: the average haner to change, or if there was just
1:50:44
Speaker 1: one parting word of wisdom, or maybe it's the one
1:50:47
Speaker 1: thing that you see that separates the average honer from
1:50:49
Speaker 1: the best hunters. You know, what's that one thing you
1:50:52
Speaker 1: want everyone to walk away from this conversation with and
1:50:54
Speaker 1: take action on. That is really easy sent control period,
1:51:02
Speaker 1: end of discussion. If you can control your sun where
1:51:06
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay attention to the wind, that
1:51:08
Speaker 1: makes a monstrous difference, and it can be done. Most
1:51:11
Speaker 1: people think it's a scam. That is absolutely not true.
1:51:14
Speaker 1: It is not a scam. It can be done. I
1:51:17
Speaker 1: do it all the time. I do not pay attention
1:51:19
Speaker 1: to wind, and that makes hunting so much easier. I
1:51:23
Speaker 1: every time you say that, it kind of blows my
1:51:25
Speaker 1: mind a little bit. It's hard to believe that, but
1:51:27
Speaker 1: I will take your word for it. John. I know
1:51:29
Speaker 1: my workshops, my workshops, both on the infield day and
1:51:32
Speaker 1: on the sum of our day. I'm going to go
1:51:34
Speaker 1: over sun control with a fine tooth comb. I think
1:51:38
Speaker 1: I do not disagree with you at all, and the
1:51:40
Speaker 1: fact that everything you possibly can do to manage that
1:51:44
Speaker 1: sunk control, just like anything I think if we like.
1:51:47
Speaker 1: Maybe the moral of a lot of what we talked
1:51:48
Speaker 1: about here is that the details matter, right, It's it's
1:51:51
Speaker 1: paying attention to the little things. It's being attentive to
1:51:54
Speaker 1: all every little piece of the puzzle matters, and sink
1:51:57
Speaker 1: controls is a very important piece of that. And if
1:51:59
Speaker 1: you can push the odds a little bit more in
1:52:01
Speaker 1: your favor with that, that's gonna you know what blows
1:52:03
Speaker 1: me away? Mark. You know, I watched the TV shows,
1:52:06
Speaker 1: even the guys being sponsored by Sunlock. They got beards exposed,
1:52:11
Speaker 1: faces exposed. Next they wear a logo cap with their
1:52:14
Speaker 1: hair hanging out. You know, any one of those things
1:52:16
Speaker 1: they were face paint to look cool. Any one of
1:52:19
Speaker 1: those things totally in the gates. Everything else you've done.
1:52:22
Speaker 1: On the suntlock side, you can be wearing a perfectly
1:52:24
Speaker 1: pristine suntlock jack and pants, rubber boots. You can have
1:52:28
Speaker 1: a sunlocked backpack, And if you've got any one of
1:52:31
Speaker 1: those other flaws, you better pay attention to the wind
1:52:33
Speaker 1: or you're gonna get busted, or you may have sent
1:52:37
Speaker 1: control regiment. You were in the proper headgear with dropped
1:52:41
Speaker 1: out face mask, You've got your mouth covered, your next covered,
1:52:44
Speaker 1: everything's covered, your boots, and yet you go out there
1:52:47
Speaker 1: with a backpack that you've never washed. You get into
1:52:49
Speaker 1: it with your bare hands every day. So you've got
1:52:51
Speaker 1: this huge human scent wick in the tree with you.
1:52:53
Speaker 1: And then if you get win, did you blame it
1:52:55
Speaker 1: on your suntlock suit when in reality, if your backpacks,
1:53:00
Speaker 1: it's all of it's all a matter of degree. If
1:53:03
Speaker 1: you don't do it correctly, you better pay attention to
1:53:07
Speaker 1: the wind. And if you get busted because you didn't
1:53:10
Speaker 1: do it correctly, don't blame it on the suit. Blame
1:53:11
Speaker 1: it on yourself. It's your fault. Right. Yeah, there's a
1:53:14
Speaker 1: lot of again, the little things, even your your bow
1:53:17
Speaker 1: release or your poll rope, anything like that. So I've
1:53:22
Speaker 1: been busted years ago because of my bowl rope. So
1:53:26
Speaker 1: that's that's a great point. Well, John, If people want
1:53:29
Speaker 1: to check out these workshops or if they want to
1:53:31
Speaker 1: pick up your books or your DVDs. Can you just
1:53:33
Speaker 1: remind us again what that website was that we should
1:53:35
Speaker 1: that we can go to. Yeah, you can google my
1:53:38
Speaker 1: name Johnny berharton and I'm sure it'll pop up. Or
1:53:41
Speaker 1: the easiest one would be www dot d E E
1:53:46
Speaker 1: R dash, the little hyphen j O h n dot
1:53:51
Speaker 1: net perfect deer John Deer hyphen John dot net. Or
1:53:57
Speaker 1: you can you can be you can call me on
1:54:00
Speaker 1: my phone number at nine six four four six zero
1:54:06
Speaker 1: six seven. I'd be more than happy to talk to
1:54:08
Speaker 1: you about it. That's a dangerous move you did there, John,
1:54:11
Speaker 1: That's I don't know. I'm impressed that you're willing to
1:54:14
Speaker 1: share the phone number. That's good. Well, that's awesome. Well, John,
1:54:20
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough. Um, this is always an
1:54:23
Speaker 1: interesting chat with you, and this definitely lived up to that.
1:54:26
Speaker 1: So I appreciate it, and I hope you have another
1:54:29
Speaker 1: great season this year. Good hunting everybody out there, absolutely
1:54:34
Speaker 1: and that is going to be it. I hope you
1:54:37
Speaker 1: enjoyed this one as much as I did. And like
1:54:39
Speaker 1: I said in the intro, take a listen after this
1:54:41
Speaker 1: to the Mark Drewy episode I mentioned. Obviously, these two
1:54:45
Speaker 1: guys hunting very differently and are in very different places
1:54:48
Speaker 1: and circumstances, but it offers an interesting study in contrast
1:54:51
Speaker 1: and a good example for us to look at. And
1:54:55
Speaker 1: I just think it's good stuff all across the board.
1:54:56
Speaker 1: We can learn different things from each and I think
1:54:59
Speaker 1: that it is pretty cool. So I also want to
1:55:02
Speaker 1: remind you all that I will be at the two
1:55:04
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen Quality Deer Management Association National Convention later this month,
1:55:10
Speaker 1: and I really really would like to see a bunch
1:55:12
Speaker 1: of you there. I'm speaking and recording a live podcast
1:55:15
Speaker 1: on July one, and we're gonna be doing some live
1:55:18
Speaker 1: Q and A from audience members, So it would be
1:55:20
Speaker 1: super cool if some of you were there to ask
1:55:22
Speaker 1: your questions and to be in the podcast. So head
1:55:25
Speaker 1: over to q d m A dot com as soon
1:55:28
Speaker 1: as possible to learn more and a register for the event. Again,
1:55:30
Speaker 1: that's July one, it's down in New Orleans. It's gonna
1:55:34
Speaker 1: be a good time. I would love to see you there.
1:55:36
Speaker 1: And finally, I want to offer a big thank you too.
1:55:39
Speaker 1: Sick a gear YETI Coolers. Matthews Archery, Maven Optics, White
1:55:43
Speaker 1: Tail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt Terra
1:55:47
Speaker 1: maps and of course thank you to all of you listening.
1:55:50
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time, I appreciate your support. I hope
1:55:53
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this one and until next time, stay wired
1:55:58
Speaker 1: to the port to be compet