Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #105: Summer Deer Projects, Treestand Tweaks, Trail Cameras and More

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #105: Summer Deer Projects, Treestand Tweaks, Trail Cameras and More · 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, and this is episode number one
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: five Tan's show. Dan and I are talking summer deer projects,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: tree stand tweaks, and much more. All Right, welcome to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of Gear, and today it's just me and Dan Man.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about a whole hodgepodge of different things,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: all related to hunting in some way. But I fear
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: we just kind of sit around our virtual campfire of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: sorts and share a little bit of what's been on
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: our mind, you know, at this time of year, and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: as you know as deer nuts. I guess this year
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: round deer nuts, I would say, is is safe to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: call us? Even though it's May. There's there's plenty on
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: our deer hunting to do list. So I figured we
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: could talk about some of those projects, some of those
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: things we're working on, and then dive into a few
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: other things that have been kind of percolating in our heads.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Uh So that's kind of my thoughts what do you
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: think about that? Dan? Hey, I'm down for that, man.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I need a good a good white tail session. Yeah,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I agreed, I agree. We we didn't get to chat
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: last week because you were what what what were you
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: doing as a basket weaving conference? Is that right? Basket
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: weaving conference? It's you know, it's aside from white tails,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: white tails and hunting in general, it is a passion
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of mine. And knitting. Yeah, I mean just any type
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of uh, you know, jobs that historically women do. Those
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: are what I really am passionate about, like traditional old
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: school eighteen hundreds type of basket weaving and knitting across
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: stitching those things. Oh my god, just a huge passion.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it goes deep, it runs. I think it's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: in my blood, just like hunting. Right now, tell me,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: is it difficult to knit with those little needle things
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: with only nine fingers? It is very difficult. Um, And
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: just like hunting. You know, everybody has there. Anyone listening
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to this episode for the first time is going to
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: shut it off so quickly. God, these guys are horrible.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Why does why does this hunting guy knit? I made
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: my own camouflage. It was pretty cool, you know, in
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: all seriousness. You really did used to make your own camouflage, Dan,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: you made some jankie looking things. It was I tell
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: you what it was. It served no purpose other than
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: looking like Rambo First Blood. Tell our listeners who maybe
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the newer listeners within the last year year and a
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: half only no Dan Johnson, the nine fingered wonder who
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: wears nice sickcamo? What about the Danson of yr who
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: wore self made camera Tell them about that camo. The
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Dallas four worth of the world them, tell them about that. Um.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I dude, back in the day, it was like it
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't it was. It was not the hunting
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: industry for me. Like I wore Walmart camo. I did
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: my own stuff to make it three D, like cut
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: little triangles out of sweatshirts. I took giant patterns of
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: like camouflage that I got like scraps I that you
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: would get from camouflage companies, and I said, Hey, I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: want to make a poncho out of it. So I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: turned out I made a poncho out of it. Um.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I mean most of the time, most of the times.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I was when I very first started hunting, I was
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: wearing um like khaki pants, and I took black marker
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and brown marker and like make lines on them and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: to make it look like some kind of I don't know, camo.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: That was way back in the day, man, And that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that sounds like some pretty serious d I Y work
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: right there. Did you ever take like a burlap bag
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and just cut a neck hole and arm holes and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and bring that out on the woods with you? I
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: feel like you were real close. I have I have
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the the I guess you want to say fabric to
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: make that stuff, but I didn't. It wasn't a bag,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: it was that So what I would do. What I
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: did was I had my old and old hunting sweatshirt,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: hooded sweatshirt, and then what I did was I took
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: fabric glue and I dotted it and then I put
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the burle lap sack kind of over top of bit,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: almost like a poncho. I tell you what it looked.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It looked like sniper military is. It was pretty cool.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Oh man, that does sound pretty cool. I think you
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: should bring that back out for like a photo shoot.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see some of those now, you know.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And it's what's funny is that that's still like deep
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: at your core, like you still have a part of that,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: a part of you that wants to do that kind
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of thing. Because I went on a hunting trip with
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: you last year where you literally wore a black plastic
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: trash bag. You literally did that. So, by the way,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: those are not breathable. No, no, I doubt they are.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Plastic is not plastic? Trash bags are not breathable? Oh
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: jeez o, Pete? So what what we are you really
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: doing last week? You were gone? Was the conference? It
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: was a conference? Right? No, it wasn't a conference. It
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: was software training. So I was out in a suburb
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: just west of Philadelphia, and uh, I was learning new
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: software that my company is going to implement. Gotcha was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: that fun? Yeah? It was okay. I mean, I'm you know,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I love learning new things. But like travel for work
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: and travel for fun is two different things. Yeah, I agreed.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I Um. I used to travel a lot by air
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: for my old job, and so I kind of have
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a weird I don't know what it is, I I
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: associate even though a lot of my air travel was
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: like for work stuff, I still have this weird association
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: from like being a kid. Every time I go to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: an airport, I get all giddy and excited because I
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: think I'm going somewhere fun and exciting. But then, you know,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: after dozens and dozens of work trips, you start to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: get the opposite. But I'm back to being getty and
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: excited whenever I go to an airport, right, right, So
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I missed. I missed the podcast last week. I was
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: disappointed because I did have to travel. And so now
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I'm ready. I'm like, I'm jacked, I'm ready to go. Good?
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Are you ready to go? I'm ready? We we absolutely
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: should be. And what we're kind of talking about today
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I figured was that, you know, talk about some of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the different projects we're working on or thinking about right now,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: because I know there's a lot that I need to
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: be doing and that I have been doing over the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: recent couple of weeks, and we haven't really had any
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: just catch up time of what's going on in our
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: deer hunting worlds. So I thought they would be a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: good time to do that. Uh So, I don't know,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: have you have you been thinking about anything? Have you
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: been getting out and doing anything? Yet? Last time we talked,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, I don't. I don't think we've
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: talked to you since you were there turkey hunting down
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: at your place. Have you done anything since? But actually,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: for Dan answers that question, let's take a very quick
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: break for word from our sponsors of this podcast, Sick
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: to Gear, and today's sick of story comes from Wade James,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: who last year decided to sacrifice his own hunting season
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and instead focused on spending the whole fall with his
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: dad trying to help him get his first archery buck
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and film it all too. The season was tough as
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: October dragged on, Wade began to worry, but miraculously, right
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: towards the end of their archery season, things came together
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and a special season came to a special end. Yeah,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it was definitely just an emotional experience when it all
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: finally came together for us, just knowing that all the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: hard working time that we put in was rewarded on
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: both ends, the fact that I was able to give
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: back to my dad, and then I just a fact
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that it's just a great bonding season for us to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just spend time in the stand together all year round
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and kind of just for me to show him off.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Thank Lamp for all the time you put in with
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: me that I could just give it a little bit
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of back, a little bit of time back for him.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Wade took this powerful story of a son's ultimate thank
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you and made a terrific short film about it called Reciprocate,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: which you can watch at vimeo dot com, slash ad
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Live collective. That's a d l i V collective. And
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: if you'd like to learn more about sick gear, which
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Wade and his dad were both wearing on these hunts,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you can visit sick gear dot com. And now back
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to that question for Dan, No man, Uh not really.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I took my buddy out turkey hunting once U close,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: but no cigar type of deal. And uh, since then,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it's been just family. And uh, I tell you, as
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: soon as I'll keep this portion of it my my life,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like he's out of control right now with
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: just how busy everything is with that work trip I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: was on and then, uh, long story short, I was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in the hospital this entire weekend with my son, so
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that kind of I had plans to do some food
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: plot prep work, um, and that didn't happen. So now
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: that's been delayed. And uh, now my next after this weekend,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: this one. This is a holiday weekend right coming up. Yep,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So the following weekend, I've already okayed it with a
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: wife and uh that is going to be my trip
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: down to my main farm to do mineral and trail cameras. Nice. Nice.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So just so we're all update, everything's okay with a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: little guy right now. He's doing better. Yep. He was
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in the hospital for three days with pneumonia and uh
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: he got some treatments and he got some medication and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: he seems to be doing better. So good. Wow, I'm
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: glad to hear he's on the men that that sounded
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: pretty brutal. Yeah, he's a tough one. Uh. Just I
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: can tell he's a tough one from the number of
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: times he falls and hits his head and cries and
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: then kind of like shakes it off and he goes
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: back to play in So he's resilient. Oh man, it's
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: not gonna be too long till he's run around the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: woods in a burlap sack or a loin claw, right.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like he would be that type of kid. Yeah,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: he's not a fan of shirts and pants. Well, he's
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: off to a good start. Amen. So what's the plan
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: with the with the trail cameras in the minerals and
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: all that we've talked about, you know, a couple different
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: times in the past, over the past couple of years.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: But what's your game plan this year? How many putting out?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Where are you putting him? I got five more to
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: put out this year, so I think a total of eleven,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I think ten or eleven. One of them one of
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: my old ones, I don't think is is working very well,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: so that might be a close to home camera. But
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I got three, four, four, potentially five properties to spread out.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Eleven trail Amazon and uh so you know, this time
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of year is obviously inventory and uh basically check what
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: bucks are in the area, you know, check to see
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: how the does did as far as fund recruitment is concerned.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And then um, you know, watch that velvet rut, you know,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: watch them grow and and you know that's that's just
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but it's one of my
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: favorite things about the life cycle of the white tail
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: is absolutely watching them grow in the summertime, trying to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: pinpoint who that buck is. Is he you know, is
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: your return customer? Is he? Um? You know, as he
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: brand new to the area. You know, play that game,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: give him names and and all that stuff. So right
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: now is getting that getting that mineral out? And you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I use mineral for basically one reason, and uh that
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: is to do, uh get them to come in front
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: of my trail cameras for some inventory. But I don't
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: know if it does do If it does provide a
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: health benefit, then I'm okay with that as well. Yeah,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: it's funny. There's there's a lot of like debate about
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the actual health benefits of minerals, and basically everything I've
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: read and a lot of the research states that there's
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: an assumed value, Like it makes sense that there should
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: be some benefits to these minerals, um, you know, whether
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: it be just overall nutrition or antler growth um you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: because dear require a lot of the minerals that you know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: we provide them calcium, phosphorus, etcetera, etcetera. And especially in
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: there with antler growth like that's primarily um composed of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: various minerals like that. So this this type of UH
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: supplementation should help. But at least the latest I saw
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and that I've read, there haven't been any actual research
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: studies that can really prove it. Um. So it's kind
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of one of those things where I'm kind of like you, Dan,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I put it out where legal, you know, mostly just
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to get trail camera pictures and stuff like that, and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: if it does happen to help, great, But that's not like,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that's not really I'm really banking on, right. I think
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it was one of our one of our guests recently,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: within the past five episodes. I think it was talked
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: about how the only way you can really tell if
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: mineral is doing any good is have a set of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: identical twin bucks that have, you know, basically the same
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: rat characteristics and have the same diet and same stress
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: levels and expose them only only one of them to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the mineral to see how it does. And that's almost
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: impossible to do, right. Yeah, that's a pretty pretty tough
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: test control to pull off. Yeah, but either way, if
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you can get them out there, it's certainly not a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: bad thing if it's legal in your state. And uh,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: what what are you putting out this year for your cameras?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: What type of stuff? I know you've tried some different
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: things in the past as far as trail cameras are
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: concerned mineral track down or what I mean, mineral man.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I've view used anything like right now. I have a
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: couple of trophy rocks out, UM, I have some analogic
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: stuff out I have UM in the past, I've used
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Lucky Buck and a couple of other minerals. Um. There
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: is uh a mineral company that I wish was doing
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: a better job. I know the owner, really good guy.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: But for some reason, I feel that it's called white
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Tail x TC. I don't know if you've ever used
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: it in the past, but that stuff, for some reason,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: every trail camera I put it in front of brings
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the deer in, and I mean a lot of it
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: almost seems like it's it's working to attract dear to
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that location way better than any product I've used in
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the past. And and Lucky Buck has always done a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: real good job. But this white Tail x t XTC
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: stuff is really like. I've used that, I think for
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: three or four years now, and it does a really
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: good job. So, speaking of Lucky Buck, do you know
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: what Lucky Buck is based down here by me in
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: southern Michigan. Really yeah. And in another interesting fact, you know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: my buddy Dustin you met just in a couple of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: times he was actually used. Pictures of him were used
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: in a bunch of Lucky Bucks ads and even on
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: their bucket of stuff. Oh yeah, that's right. I remember
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: him telling me that, Uh what a t a show
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: two years ago. Yeah, because he shot it was a
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: two d four inch buck in Michigan two four and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: an eighth or three eighth or something like that. Net um,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So he he had a little bit of a celebrity
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: status there for a while, was on that those ad materials.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: That was kind of cool. What would you do if
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you killed two buck? I don't know what I do. Well,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: after I changed my underwear, Um, i'd probably I don't know.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I would just sit and stare at it for hours. Probably.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I mean when I go to some of the some
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of the trade shows and or like the Iowa Deer
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Clas Sick and you walk up and down the big
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Buck row or you know the big Buck area where
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: all the mounts are at, and you just stare. I
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: mean there's days my I have my buck down the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: basement here, I just sit and I stare at it.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I lay on the couch and I stare at it,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and I just play the hunt in my head over
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and over and over, and so I would probably do
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that tenfold with One of my favorite things about having
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: shoulder mounts is just being able to kick back and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: look at them and just relive that moment. Right. What
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: have you used in the past for mineral I've done
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of different things. I'd say the most consistent
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: thing that I basically always use if I'm putting on
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: a mineral or any kind of attracting, I almost always
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: have a trophy rock out there. Um. You know, lots
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of times I'll try other things along with it. Um.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: So I've used like a number of different attractants, like
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: BB Squared from Big and j um and they have
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: They've got a mineral product too, I cannot I think
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: it's called meltdown or something like that. I think it is,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: so I've I've used that in the past. I've used
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: their their attractant, which is like a grain based attracting
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: with some other things in it. Um. Oh gosh, what
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: else have I tried? You know? I've tried something like
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the Evolved. I think it's like Joe black Magic or
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: deer cane or deer cocaine or stuff like that. I've
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I've kind of kind of at a convenience. Whenever I'm
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: like down in some different state where I'm going to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: use this, I don't have anything with me. I'll just
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: grab whatever is at Walmart or wherever. Um. But but
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: almost always I've got a trophy rock out there. Like
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, we um, we just put out our trail
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: cameras down there, Oh, I don't know, a couple of
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, and we got some trophy rocks, and we
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: got some corn. I think, you know, this year, we
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: didn't have corn. Usually put out corn and then a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: trophy rock. The corn kind of gets them into the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: area and then they continue coming to the mineral after that. Um,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: but we had I don't think. I don't think we
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: were able to find corn. So we just got some
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, oh gosh, some apple mix. I
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: can't tell you. There's so many. It's kind of ridiculous
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: how many different things there are out Do you remember
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: back in the day. I don't know if it was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: something called deer kane, but it was an actual mineral
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: that had addictive properties to it, or at least they
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: said it was. Well, I actually think it did, and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: they had to stop the manufacturing it because it was
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: it really wasn't helping the deer's health. It was just
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: getting basically it was like cocaine, and it literally was
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: making them skinnier because they were forgetting to eat. They
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: were just going back to these mineral stations over and
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: over and over again, for real, for real, dead serious. Wow,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I'll have to I'll have to do some more research
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: on that, but I'm pretty sure there was I don't
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: know if it was dear cane or that. I think
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that's still around cane or deer cocaine or something like that. Yeah,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't have all the information on
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that right now, but I'm pretty sure there was a
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: manufacturer out there that had to uh maybe I'm wrong,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: but a manufacturer that had to change the recipe because
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: there was addictive properties in the actual um I guess recipe.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Just imagine just imagine that bait pile, you know,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: just you get your deer hooked on drugs and then
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: you put put it out there and they come right
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to you no matter what not because they're afraid because
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: they're jones in that's talk. I think we have some
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: ethical issues came to that. I think there's be some
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: serious questions, oh man. But yeah, lots of interesting things
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you can choose from from a mineral standpoint, that's for sure.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: There's no shortage of attractings and stuff like that. And
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I think I think both of us are kind of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like this. Neither one of us are really too big
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: on actually using that kind of stuff for hunting. I
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: don't think you really do much to well, you can't
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: it in Iowa. You can't have bait piles or mineral
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: stations within So all of my mineral stations are kind
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of planned out in an area that you know is
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say it's not in the area
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of where I'm hunting, but it can't be in a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: direct line of like a major trail or within a
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: certain distance of UM because in Iowa it's a judgment
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: call on the d NR officer if he wants to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: wants to bust you. Where In Nebraska, I think it's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: anything within two hundred yards is illegal, but anything outside
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of that is perfectly legal. So in Iowa it's a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: judgment call. And I think I told you the story
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: before about UM the guy I was hunting, and there
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: was a cattle mineral lick in the middle of this field,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: just a salt block that the cows would go to.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And uh, the guy tried because he knew there was
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: a big deer in there and I was hunting it
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and he wanted to hunt it. He he called the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: d n R officer on me to tell me, hey,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: this guy he's hunting over a bait pile or something
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: like that. So the d n RC officer came out.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I had to show this was years ago, and I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: just showing my tree stand and then he followed the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: trail to this this cattle pasture and sure enough, like
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: seventy five yards into this cattle pasture and this was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a block. Pretty pretty typical in any you know, cattle operation.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: There's salt blocks out there. And he's like, yeah, uh,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: you're it's probably gonna be best if you just move
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: your trees. And he was pretty he was real cool
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: with me. You know, It's like in Iowa and in
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: some of these farms, if you're especially if you're hunting
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: an active farm, there's mineral in the ground. Whether it's
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: horses or cattle or pigs or whatever you're raising, there's
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: there's something out there. For supplemental feed for for those
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: for livestock that you know, deer used as well. Yeah,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: it seems way too subjective, and because that's a similar
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: situation to that came up with the Joe the Joe
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Franz buck. Did you hear about that? Oh? Yeah, So
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: so for those not familiar, right, this guy killed this
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: huge buck on his property that was I think the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: biggest buck ever filmed, ever killed on film at the time.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: This was maybe three years ago, and you know, so
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: he had it all documented and he was, you know,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: really meticulous because he knew this was gonna be like
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a world class buck. Killed the buck. It was all
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: great and dandy. And then some jealous neighbor or something
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: like that reported that this guy had you know, mineral
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: sites or something on his farm illegally, and it was
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: that kind of situation where he had I think some
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: mineral out on a different part of the farm. But
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you know it was not you know, it hadn't been
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: either properly covered or I don't remember the exact details,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So don't quote me on this. This is just you
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: know what I remember hearsay. Um, But there's this whole
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: big thing about whether or not you know, what he
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: was doing was within the law or outside of the law,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and he you know, went into it thinking he was
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: completely fine. And long story short, after the year or two,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: after kind of getting dragged to the mud, he was
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: exonerated and and you know, got out of it because
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: you know, they found that he wasn't doing this on purpose,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and then whatever it was, if it was the distance
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: between where he was hunting to where those those mineral
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: sites were, or you know, if they're covered up, I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: think you have to cover mineral sites if they're close,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: or I don't know. I've talked to someone Abudds in Iowa,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: and it sounds like it's just kind of a messy,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: subjective way of going about it, and I think, you know,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: it probably makes sense that they should try to clarify
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: some of that stuff because well meaning people could be
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you know, breaking the law when they're just simply trying
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to do the best that can given the very murky laws, right.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And that's what the d n R officer told me.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: On a second occasion where I went, I got a
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: new property and there was mineral sites, some from cattle
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and some from actual other hunters, and that the hunters
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: don't hunt there anymore. And uh, I said, Okay, I
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: want to hunt in this area, but there's a mineral site.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: What do I have to do? And he's like, well,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you gotta put rock in it, and you have to
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: cover it up with dirt. So like put some gravel
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: in it and covered up with dirt. And I'm like okay,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And then he's like, well and then if we see it,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we'll test the soil to see if there's
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a high level of sodium or other minerals in it,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and if we if we come back and that's positive,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, hey, how about a law that says
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: no mineral sits within two yds of your tree stands?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't that wouldn't that just be or or if there's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: a mineral station that is one year old or something
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: like that, you have to do this to it and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: then it's considered clear. You know, it's it's not our
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: mineral site anymore. I I just it just feels I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: just feel it should be much simpler. Certains that it
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: would be easier, not only from a hunter standpoint, but
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: also from a conservation officer standpoints, try and force the law.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: It would probably make their jobs a lot easier if
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: there was some clarity around that too, right right, that's frustrating.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So I just kind of, you know, I put my
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: mineral stations out, and then I just avoid them, uh,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: you know, avoid setting up near them when it comes
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to uh, when it comes to hunting season. So food
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: plot or not food plots. You got your mineral stuff out.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Cameras you said, you got eleven cameras you're putting out.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I have to do a little camera work, like I said,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I already put my cameras down Ohio. But I'm leaving
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: for my western trip here in just a few days
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: for two months, and you're you're stopping to get me
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: right on your way out there, right right? It was
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: gonna get you. Me and my wife Kylie, and the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: three of us were gonna stay in a little cottage together.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And that's the plan, right right. That's I mean, I'll
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: clean up after myself. You won't know him there. I'll
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: bring my tent and I'll just stay in the mountain.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I'll bring my tent and my frog togs and and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: your plastic bags, plastic bags, and I'm set and you
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: will be good to go. Oh man, Well, yes, we
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: so we we have to. I'm trying to get a
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: bunch of work done before I take off for that
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: because that's like a two month period where I can't
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: do any of my typical deer work. So I have
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: been scurrying around doing some stuff here in Michigan, and uh,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: probably tomorrow or the next day, I've got to go
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and put a couple of cameras out. Um. You know,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot I can do here since
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I've been gone for two months, but I'll have them
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: out there on some typical feeding areas. It's beans on
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: one of my main farms, so I know we're some
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: deer typically going to be coming out into the beans.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So hopefully it gets some a few summer picks in
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: June July, so when I come back, they'll be something
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to look at. Um. You know, I did that last year,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and it was kind of you know, I didn't have
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: super high hopes of what I might get, since I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: was setting cameras in May and coming back two months later.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: But I had pictures of the buck I end up
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: killing last year, so that worked out. Um, So I
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: gotta do that. But the big thing I'm working on
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: it's food plot stuff. Um So I've got well, let's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: see here, two food plots on my main Michigan property
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: that I've been just trying to get prepped as best
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: as possible for me to work on them when I
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: come back in August. So I had to spray them.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So like last week, I was out there spraying, and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: we've just been having such a wet spring that's been
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: hard to even get into the fields of my four
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: wheeler to get out there at all. Um So that's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: been a challenge. But I finally was able to get
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: out there and spray everything. So everything is killed down.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: But now what I gotta do is on my front
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: food plot. It is. And I can't remember if we
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: talked about this or not, but have we ever talked
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: about this food plot up in front that is where
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I killed my buck last year? We ever talked about
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: what I did there in Michigan? Yeah? Yeah, So that
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: little uh, that little triangle, yeah yeah, yeah. It's kind
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: of like a pie and it's separated into three small
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: pieces um of different stuff and you know it's a
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: ah a split sort of between brassicas and oats. Every year,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I kind of flip flop them. Well right now, what
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to do is I'm trying to plant a
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: screen around the outside of it. You know, two years
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: ago when I first made this new section, the issue
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: with it is that's out in the wide open right
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: adjacent to these crop fields. So the first year, I
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: planted a mixture of Egyptian wheat and sorghum, which are
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: like really tall um plants kind of like corn sort of,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and then grew up like ten twelve feet tall. So
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I planted a screen of that around the outside of that,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: like outer crust of the pie sort of um. But
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: then last year I wasn't able to plant it because
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the growth from the year before were so thick in
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that area. I couldn't disc it up with my little
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: a t V disc. But luckily it was a corn year,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: so there was corn surrounding most of the plots. I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: kind of get away with it. But this year it's
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: gonna be beans again, so I want to make sure
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I've got that cover around the outside, so I'm trying
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to get that in. So tomorrow I'm gonna go out
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: there and just disc away with my little A TV
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: disc for probably four hours trying to get this thing
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: tilled up, and then I'm gonna try and get all
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that planet so that it'll be in the ground for
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: this rain that we have hitting on Thursday, I think,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and then it will have two months to grow before
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I come back, and then hopefully that's grown up well
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: by the time I get back in August, and then
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I'll be able to start working on actually planning the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: food and then um, it'll be good to go. But
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that really, that front food plot has been a really
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: good addition to this property. Like I can't remember if
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I explained how this section of the farm works, but
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: there had been almost no deer activity towards the far
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: western side of the property at all in the past
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: because it's kind of wide open. There was a little
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: section timber that came out, but overall it is pretty
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: wide open. And then on the neighbors he had some
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: good thick cover, but of course I couldn't hunt the neighbors. Um,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: so I was hunting in the far eastern side of
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: this farm, never really getting to use the west side.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And then once I add this this food plot and
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the added cover on the outside and make those deer
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable moving out there, and then finally all of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a sudden, lots of daytime activity, lots of mature buck activity.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Now it's like one of the best spots in the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: whole farm. Um. So that's been kind of cool. You know.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: A great example of that was last year, that opening
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: day hunt. So I'm just I'm excited because this it's
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: a fun spot to hunt. You see a ton of
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: deer and my early season stand there where I killed
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that buck from last year is one of those stands
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you can't hunt a lot because you you're gonna spook
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: deer coming out of it, and almost inevitably, luckily I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: can you know, if someone, if I've got a friend
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: or my wife is willing, it's not too far from
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: my house, so she can actually drive a forewarder and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: she can drive that forewarner all the way to that
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: food plot and spook deer way. Um. So that's one
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: way to get out of there without spooking deer. But
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: otherwise it's it's right there on the food So it's
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: kind of one of those hunts that I only go
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: in there if I really think I'm gonna kill something
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and just do it a couple of times. But if
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: you hunt this tree, you've got this food plot surrounding you.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: But then you can see in this big, thick, nasty
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: betting year. That's all. I don't even know what kind
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: of shrubs or multi floor rose or brush, I don't
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: know what it's low. It's not big trees. It's some
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: kind of like early successional growth that's just thick and
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: nasty and all sorts of tall grasses and stuff. The
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: deer love it. But you just can't see anything in
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: there unless you're way up high right sort of on
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the edge. And that's kind of where I'm at. So
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I can look over this whole betting here and see
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: deer hundreds of yards away that think they're completely you know,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: invisible in this thick stuff. But I can kind of
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: watch them from above. So it's it's a cool place.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm getting kind of excited just talking about it. So, yeah,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it gets me excited. I have. Yeah, So I am
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: in the process. You know, I got my food plot
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: coming up to right, So, um, I have to remove
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a fence and spray this entire area. And UM, I
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: think this area is bigger than what I initially thought.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So am I I'm gonna ask you a question now,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and aside from brassicas for you know, like after that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: first frost and then UM and then we talked about oats.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you might recommend for me
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: as far as uh, you know, a seed is concerned
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: that they might come to somewhere around that mid to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: late October period. Well, I think the big thing comes
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: down to how you're going to try to get the
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: plot in the ground. So I mean, you know, like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: we talked about with Craig a couple of weeks ago,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: if you're not gonna have any equipment to disk up
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the ground at all, right, then you're gonna have to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: use a really small seed like Nebraska or a clover.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Probably they have small seeds to UM. The tricky thing
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: with clovers, at least at least that I've um experienced,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: is that they're a little hard to establish that first
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: year UM at least perennial clovers, like if you plant
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: something in the summer or late summer, typically you're gonna
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: plant either early spring or late summer. Most people want
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to avoid planting during the middle of the summer because
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: that's usually really hot and dry. You want to plan
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: on either end of it where there's more moisture um.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So with perennial clovers, again, this is just what I've seen,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: it's kind of tough to get a good stand of it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: If you plant in August or late that year, you'll
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: get a little coming in, but it's just never really thick.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I haven't
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: had great success that first year. It's the next spring
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: when it typically tends to really pop and get going good.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: So that's why I've always liked stuff like oats or brassicas,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: which which are annuals, and I really seem to get
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: really good, really good early growth. So the issue with
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: oats though, oats and a lot of other grains is
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that their big seeds and you need to get them
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: under the dirt. So with abraska seed or clover seed,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you really just need that seed just pressed in the ground,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: you know, just on top of the soil and having
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: some sort of soil to seed contact. But with an
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: oat seed or something like that, you actually have to
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: have it like a half inch or more under the dirt.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: So if you if you can't get any kind of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: way to cultivate that, so I'll plow it up, disc
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: it up. Rode a till. If there's nothing like that,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: then you're gonna be probably stuck with something like Abraska
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: or some of the clovers. If you find an annual clover,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I think that would come in stronger. Um, and that
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: will definitely be something that's attractive in September, October, I
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: mean all through October, even November, they'll be hitting clovers.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: It's not until after you get some really hard, nasty
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: frosts that that will start to kind of go down
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: in attraction. Um. But it's hard to go wrong with that. See,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: my buddy's got a Cabota tractor now, uh, he bought
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it and it's got He uses it to mow his property.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: So but it has a three point hitch on the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: back with a power takeoff. So now I looked and
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I can rent a tiller that can hook up to that. Nice.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: So now that's opened up some new doors for me. Yeah,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: that would be that would be really nice thing, especial
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: bigger than you thought. Yeah. So I have the ability
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: now to rent that, and it's gonna cost me like
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a hundred bucks for a day, two d bucks maybe
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: for a day, And uh, I can I in a
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: day a day or two. I can till up a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: really good area with that, especially if I prepare for
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: it and kill the grass ahead of it. Um, I think,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: you know, And now with that being said, I think
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I can expand into a little bit and not have
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: to wait for a first frost to hunt that food plot. Nice. Yeah,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that would be a really good deal. Yeah, I think.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: And if if that's the case, then you definitely have
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: more options then. I think. You know, some type of
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: grain like oats is a great option. And you know
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: where the thing with oats is that they are probably
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the most um attractive of the grains um. But some
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: say they're the least cold hardy. But I haven't experienced
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: that so much that the oats. I've used the dear
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: love and they seem to feed on them definitely more
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: before the frost. But I still get my oats picked
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: on and eating even into late November December sometimes, So
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: you know that that's a combo. I just really like
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: if there's not some really good reason, like issues whe
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: their soil or something that oats and Braska's won't work
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and maybe some clover thrown in. Um, that's the way
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I always like to go. It's just you're gonna get
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: good attraction throughout the whole season, um at least in
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: this part of the country that you and mirror in.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: And if you have a way to get that stuff
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: in the ground, you know, you're just gonna want to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: disk it all up and then you want to then
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: pack it all down again because you want that ground
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: to be um relatively packed and not super super lowy
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: broadcast your seed. And then if you're doing oats or
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: a grain like that, then you've got to kind of
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: disk it back into soil a little bit. If you're
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: doing brass because they're clover, you just need to like
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: almost run it over with your a TV tires or
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: if you know there's or your tractor tires or whatever,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: just to press it in. And that's that's all I
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: gotta do. So the next question I have for you
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: is shade. This is it's an old garden, but there
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: is it is in shade quite a bit of the day,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: not all day, like when the sun is high in
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the sky. Probably from that I'd say somewhere about ten
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: thirty eleven o'clock till two it's gonna be in this
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: in the in the sun. But then after that it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: pretty much shade all day with you know, breaking sunlight
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: coming in and out of it. Yeah, I don't think
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: any of those things would have issues with that amount
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of sunlight, although, like I'm saying that as an assumption,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: not based on like expertise on that particular question. I
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: planted all of those things that just mentioned in situations
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: of partial shade, partial sun and they've all done fine.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So based on that, I'd say you're probably okay perfect.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: So yeah, man, you just gotta figure out, you know,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: probably at this point now it's almost June. What are
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: you thinking about planning in August then? Or yeah, it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: gonna be August whatever, whatever I do that that will
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: give me time to kill the grass, take the fence out,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: trim back some overhanging branches um, and then plant my
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: seed and then on this fence is part of the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: fence that the gate was hanging on was two giant
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: um wooden posts. Okay, so I think I'm going to
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: turn that into a vertical rub. So I'm gonna walk
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: into the timber, find an old rub, and then cut
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: cut it down. Do you mean a horror zonald rub? Yeah? Yeah,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: she's she's me a horizontal rub based on that. Have
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: we ever talked about that? I don't think we have, no,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: not really. So do you want to talk about where
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: this idea came from? I'm assuming did did this idea
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: come from? Ted Miller? There's a guy his names Ted
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Miller and uh he he's he's a white tail whisper
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: like some of the other guys that we know, and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: he he uh he. I don't know if he necessarily
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: he just loves to document dear and get in their bedroom.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: And I don't even know if he if it's all
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: about the kill for him as much as it is,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: you know, just observing this. So he's come up with
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: this idea and I don't know if it if it
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: was him, but he's the first person that I've ever
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: seen use it where he takes uh, some kind of
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: wood like a cedar tree, and he marks it up
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: with a knife or a saw or something like that
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and hangs it vertically in between two other posts trees
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: horizontally horizontally and uh and the deer and he's got
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: some footage. The deer come right to it and they
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: use it as a scent post. And he sets his
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: tree stand up next to it, and he has some
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: crazy footage of of that. So yeah, is it does
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: sound like kind of bizarre, like you don't see horizontal
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: rubs in the wild, but they use this thing. Like
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: there's so much video of the shows. It's pretty crazy.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And like you said, it's for for whatever reason, they
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: just seemed really drawn to it. And he's got some
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: sweet footage, trail camera footage, actual hunt footage. So have
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: you have you ever actually tried it yourself before or
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: is this gonna be the first time. This will be
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the first time I've tried something similar, But it was
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: real fast, not planned out. I cut down when I
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: was setting up a tree stand in July this last year.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I I cut down an old, old rub and just
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: set it basically between the why of two young tree
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: east and uh, I don't know if anything touched it
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: or not. So A, you're gonna put a camera on
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: this one. Oh yeah, it's gonna be right in the
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: middle of the food plot. Nice. I'm interested to see
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: how that goes for you. That'll be yeah, me too.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: It's it's gonna be different if and if it doesn't work,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work. But the Drearies also do something with
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Some company sponsors them. It's like a
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: fake tree or something like that that they put right
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: in the middle of some of their food plots and
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: the deer go right to it. So the same kind
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of principle. Yep, yep, they I know, they they actually
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: helped create that. It's called the tree coy is what
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: they're calling. That's like a fake tree. But I mean
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it came from an idea that a lot of people
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: have used in the past, where you know, similar to
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about making a fake rub, that idea
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that they're using is making a fake scraping tree scrape branch.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: So you you know, I've done this in the past.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: You cut down a tree and it has a branch
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: or two about at the height that a typical scrape
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: branch looking brand should be on a scrape. Put that
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: in your food plot or your field or whatever, open
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: up a scrape underneath it, you know, kick out some
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: dirt underneath the licking branch, you know, crack with a
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: couple of the branches, hang down a couple of branches,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: and then you know, bury that tree in the ground
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: so it's stable. And then yeah, I mean I've seen
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: it happen many times. Deer will be you know, as
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: you know, as we've all seen, if there's a scrape
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: in the area, bux are typically gonna want to pass
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: by and check it out, give it a sniff, maybe
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: market themselves. So when that's out in the open, that's
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: gonna be one of the first things that deer are
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: typically attracted to. UM. And so that is a really
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: good way to kind of entice deer to move to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: a certain location if you're hunting an open area. So
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: I'm actually starting to try to do that now, and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: like all my food plots or if I'm even hunting
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: an open field during the hunting season, and you know,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: it's for whatever reason, I want to be there, but
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just not sure I'm gonna get enough deer close.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: This is a great way to kind of influence them
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: to come a little bit closer, or to give you
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: that stopped broadside shot or different stuff like that. So
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I put one in one of my food plus last year,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately, um, when I went in there hunted the
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: first time, it had been knocked over. UM, So I
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: didn't do a good enough job of of getting into
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: the ground. But I'm gonna do it again this year
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: across a couple of spots. Um Man, I think pretty cool.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a solid concept. So and I
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: have and in the same area. The deer in this
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: they they don't walk through this little garden area. They
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: walk on the would be the north side of it,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: just in the timber. So anything to help you know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: that food plot once it's done, will help change that.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: But anything to help pull them out just a little bit.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And what that's gonna do is I think I talked
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit about this particular property and how the
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: wind shifts so bad. But the further up I get
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: from that creek bottom, the less the wind shifts. So
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: if I can pull the deer out, not only with
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the food plot and um maybe that horizontal rub, then
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I can I can play the win just a little
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: bit better. Yeah, this is one of my favorite things
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: about like having a property where you can do some
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: habitat work is just like the chess match of it.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why I love about hunting in general,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: right is trying to figure out, you know, the right
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: place to be, understanding the deer and making the right
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: move and you know, making all these slight adjustments, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: with habitat improvements, it's sort of a slight alteration of
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: that where you can now make moves that might influence
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: where the deer go. And I know some people claim
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: they don't like that. Some people prefer to just hunt
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: what the deer and naturally doing, and they look down
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: on people that would use food plots or something. But
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: for me, you know, and there's a different line for everyone,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I guess you know, right, some people you know feel
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the same way about bait. I don't necessarily like using bait. Um,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: but I'm okay using food plots. So maybe I'm just
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: like them. I don't know. But um, there's something pretty
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: interesting and fascinating about being able to make an improvement
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: which is a a net positive for wildlife in general,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: but then also see how that influences a deer movement. Um,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: that's it's super fun when you actually do something hoping
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: that deer will, you know, behave an X way and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: then be out there hunting and watch them do that
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: because of the thing you put in there, the change
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: you made. Um, that's that's pretty cool. So I think
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get a kick out of trying that and
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: seeing how it might change that property. Um, you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: like the food plot I was talking about how I
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: kind of completely changed how this one Michigan property hunts
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: because of that project. That was kind of exactly what
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I was hoping would happen. And I got fortunate that
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: they they react in the way I was hoping they wouldn't.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: But it's fun to experiment with That's for sure. I
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: could fail horribly too, So there's always that. There's definitely that. Now,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: are you doing any tree stand stuff this summer? Are
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you making any moves or do you feel well set?
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: You know obviously they I'm gonna go. I'm to put
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: stands in my historically good ruck cruising spots next to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the betting areas. I have three stand locations that I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: need to alter. And what I mean by that is
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: moved to a different tree in that same area, but
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: you know, basically micromanaged that tree stand location. Um, and uh,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: get to where the wind is just not right but
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: the wind is just right. Um. And also let's see
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: one to to stand locations where I'm I'm trying to
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: play with different access routes and one is god, I
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I it kind of clicked this last year where I'm
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: driving all the way back to the farm and I'm
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: parking in where this horse pasture is, and I hunted
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: on a south wind. Well even though the I'm in
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: my truck, I think I'm spooking some deer coming in
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: from the east, and I am going to now try
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: to come in from the west. The first thing I
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: have to do is to see what the rules are
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: for waterways and if they are in fact public domain,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I'm going to park
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: on road and walk a creek all the way to
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the backside of this property, which is about the same
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: walk that I would be taking if I parked from
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: my truck. Um. But I'm just trying to figure out
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: how what. First, I gotta find out what that rule is.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And then basically, if the water is ever high, I'm
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: screwed getting in. I'd have to go in through the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: regular way. But I have a feeling that the way
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: i'm the way this property sits. And you've you've shed hunted.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you shed hunted. Yeah you did.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: You shed hunted the way back portion of it with
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: me that one day where we went on that really
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: long giant walk and I think your buddy was there too, Corey.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: That a couple of those. Yeah, But was it where
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I found that shed back in that pasture in the back?
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I think last day I found a nice shed laying
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: out on the grass. Oh no, that's a different property.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: But anyway, it goes down to a creek and then
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: it rises up. There's some there's some egg around down there,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: but it floods a lot, so it's not always going
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: to be there. There's some years where it's just like weeds.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: But then it comes up to a and the the
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: timber and the timbers on on a ridge, and then
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: it goes up to the horse pasture where it gets flatten.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: The past the horse pasture where I drive is egg field,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: so I feel these deer crossing the horse pasture to
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: get to these egg fields. So what I'm doing when
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I drive through there is I'm either spooking the deer
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: coming back to bed and they're going a different route
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: to the bedding area, or picking an entire bedding area
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: all new bedding area altogether, or there I'm just you know,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just blowing the entire area out. So I am
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: going to try to find a couple of new access
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: routes for a couple of stand locations that are on
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the way back part of the farm. And uh, the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: guy has told me no, I can't park on his
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: property or walk through his property. But I think if
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: my memory serves me right, I can walk the creek
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: any anywhere below the high water mark is considered public.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: So I can walk that creek bed, find some hip
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: waiters or some some bigger boots, and uh walk that
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: to the backside of the farm, walk up a little embankment,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: and then get to my tree standing that way. But
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: it's just it's gonna be another trial and air type situation.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I think, what you know, I think what you just
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: described there is such an important thing for all of
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: us to probably do every year, right, is to look
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: at all of our locations and then think, how can
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: we tweak it a little bit? You know, can we
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: improve our access or do we need to figure out
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: a better way to get out, or you know, can
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: we improve the cover on the tree a little bit?
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Or should I move over ten yards to the tree. Um,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: it's pretty easy every year to get your usual spots,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and then every year hanger stands there and
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: just stick with that because it's easy. And I'm guilty
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: of that sometimes too, But this is the time of
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: year where I think it definitely makes sense to go
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: in there and rethink some stuff and think, you know,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: if I could make this a little bit better, how
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: could I do that? And then go ahead and do it,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: because all those little things add up, you know, So
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: to your point, access is a huge one. I read
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: an article recently from Bill Winki where he was talking
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: about how a lot of hunters, you know, us included,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: many times think about choosing a stand location backwards at
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: least backwards of what he would recommend. You know, most
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: of us go into a property and we look for sign,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: or we look for funnel or whatever. When we find
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: that great sign or that great spot, then we say, okay,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: where's a good tree near this sign? And then we
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: find that tree. And then once we find our tree
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: near the sign, then we're like, okay, now where do
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I walk to get out of here? He was saying,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: the smartest thing to do should be go about the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: other way entirely, think about where are my best access
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: routes and exit routes in and out of this farm.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: So let's say, hypothetically, in your case, Okay, there's this
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: creek that runs through the center of the farm, and
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: then take that creek all the way along until you
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: find a suitable tree and suitable spot alongside that access route.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: And that that's the most important thing, to be able
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: to get in and out without spooking deer. If you
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: can get in and out without spooking deer, you'll probably
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: have more success versus you know, while hunting maybe B
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: plus sign versus hunting a plus sign, but spooking all
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the deer coming in or coming out, Um, that's an
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: interesting thing. Instead, I've been trying to kind of think
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: about that a little bit more. Is just if you
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: start prioritizing entry and exit over other things, it might
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: end up having a kind of a spill over effect
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and everything else. Right, and especially early in late season
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: when the deer are on their bed to feed patterns
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: that the access is so important. I mean, I can't
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: it's hard to put into words how portnant it is.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: You know, are the ruts different. I mean you can
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: walk into you really, I mean expect except if you're
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: hunting a betting area. But if you're like in a
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: pinch point, you can have a wrong wind and walking
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: in as far as access is concerned, and then still
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: make it to the stand and have successful hunts because
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: it's a cruising area. But early season, if your accesses
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: or if your um access is wrong and your wind
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: is blowing into basically a deer waiting for you to
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: ruin it, then it's screwed, not only for that particular hunt,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: but depending on what the pressure is for future hunts. Right,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: and there's a domino effect. Yeah, that's that's a that's
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: such a huge thing. And I've been trying to tweak
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: that a little bit, just adjusting you know, either you know,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: either be just thinking about different ways to get in
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and out or actually manufacturing better ways to get in
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: and out, you know, like clearing new trails, or you know,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: if you have the ability, like for example, if you
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: have to cross the wide open fee able to get
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: in or to get out, and deer always see you. Um.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: You know. One thing that I've done a little bit
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: where I'm allowed to is plant. You know, like I
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: talked about that food plot screen that Egyptian wheat and sorghum.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: If you have permission to do this in an area,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: um plant some of that to act as a screen
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: to exit or to get in. So use that as
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: a visual blocker. If you know that there's a section
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you have to walk through, the deer sometimes see you,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you know, plant ahead in you know, May or June,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: plant a wall of that that. You know, simple things
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: like that could be really beneficial. It takes a little
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: extra work, but if it means you can get in
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: and out of the tree stand without spooking deer man,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: you can be in a great situation. I mean, finding
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: those spots that offer bulletproof access and entry and exit.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I mean that's that is a really really great thing.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: If you can find spots like that, you can get
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: away with a lot more hunts than usual. So when
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: it comes to the pressure that we always talk about,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: you can get away with putting a little bit more
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: pressure on deer if you can eliminate the entry and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: exit pressure. So I try big thing to do this time.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: You're another thing I'm doing, Um I just post an
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: article about it was evaluating the cover in some of
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the trees that I've got tree stands in. So I
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: try to go in this time of year and start,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: you know, okay, looking at spots. Maybe this is the
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: tree I really want to be in, but there's not
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: as much cover as I like. I'll try to go
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: in there and attach branches to the tree, like with
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: zip tize or rope or something like that, to add
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: cover so that I can blend into that tree a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: little better. If there's not naturally there, I like to
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: kind of manufacture that. That's something that I'm starting that
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: I've been doing recently here um on some of my
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Michigan spots, and a couple of weeks ago, I was
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: checking out my Ohio tree stands to see if there's
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: anywhere I need to add stuff. That's a really easy
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: way to be able to just make that stand a
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: little better. I think any opportunity you have to make
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: things a little bit better at this time of the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: year could help you a ton come the fault because
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: if you just so happened be hunting that tree, and
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: in past years maybe deer might have seen you. If
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: this year you took the extra fifteen minutes to hang
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: a bunch of branches all around it, and now you
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: blend in better, or your movement isn't as obvious, you know,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: that makes the difference between an empty you know, an
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: empty truck bed or a full one. I tell you,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: let me tell you something about zip ties. And you
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: wrote that article about you know, adding some cover into
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a tree stamp location by zip tying trees too, you know,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: up there by the tree. The other thing you can do,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: and this is a free tip from yours truly is
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: have we been paying for the other tips? No? Not really? Uh,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: but to continue, But if there's a fence right in
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: your and these deer maybe crossing a fence in a
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: particular area and you don't want them to cross there,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: take that zip tie, zip tie that um top fence,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: that line of bob wire or whatever it is, that
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: wire and zip tie it down to the next one
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: and that creates a little bit lower of an area
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to where they could cross. And I did this on
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: an old piece of property where they were crossing on
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: one fence quarter. So what I did was I fixed
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: the bob wire in that one area, and then I
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: went up and I took to zip ties and I
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: zip tied the top to the middle section of the
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: bob wire and they all started crossing there. So what
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: I did was I just altered their pattern or their
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: movement two closer, which which is more beneficial for me.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: The wind wasn't swirling down there. Uh, the wind was
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: blowing off the top of this ridge down to um
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: this valley. And uh, although no, none of my target
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: bucks were there when I was there, I have trail
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: camera pictures of the my target bucks using that fence crossing.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Just you know, I never connected on them. It's like cool,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: that's definitely a good idea. I mean, deer is, when possible,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: assuming that they feel safe, we'll take the easiest way possible, right,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: and so in that case, you made it easier for
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: them across. It's it's it's a great example of those
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: small tweaks you can make that can alter movement. Another
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: thing you can do is, you know, if you've got
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: a deer, typically if they're typically traveling a trail that's
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: maybe forty yards from your tree standing. For whatever reason,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: you're that's the right tree stand. Let's say maybe it's
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: right next to a creek and you can access it
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: really well, but most of the deer travels to a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: little bit too far away. I know, I've actually done
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: this sum and I know a lot of guys that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: will fall trees to block a trail and then kind
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: of angle fallen trees to make deer move fifteen yards
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: closer and kind of go around that obstacle by your
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: tree stand and then continue on their way. So there's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: different ways you can kind of tweak the environment to
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: get deer to move just a little bit closer, or
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: you know, to cross right here, or to come visit
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: a horizontal rub or scrape tree or something like that
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: and position themselves for a shot. I think that's really
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: one of those next level kind of things. Like you know,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: when we're just learning new property, we're just trying to
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: figure okay, where are the deer? And then you're figuring out, okay,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: how can I get in and out without spooking the deer?
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: And then I think that next level is okay, how
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: can I have got this great spot that can get
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: it out of? Now that next level is like, how
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: can I just enhance this spot a little bit better,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: whether it be any of these things we've talked about,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: to just make it that much more enticing or to
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: provide that much better of a shot opportunity. Um. I
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: think that's like my my big piece of encouragement would
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: be if you've got a bunch of nice spots on
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: your property where you've been hunting. I'd say, look back
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: at those places, take these, you know, over these next
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks and months of the summer, figure out
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: what little thing can I do, what more can I
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: do to make this just a little bit better? And
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: if you do that to every one of your tree stands,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: it can make a big difference. I think. I agree,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: there's never you can never say good enough. I would
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I would say, you always have to be. You always
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: have to be. It's like chess, right, you always have
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: to be thinking about the next move. Yeah, so true.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: And I think there's there's so many things that can
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: go wrong. And this is something we talk about all
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: the time for years. We've been talking about but there's
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: so many different variables outside of our control as deer
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: hunters that if you can add any little one of
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: those back into your favor, you should try, right, Because
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: there's there's some umpting different things that are outside of
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: our control that probably will go wrong. So you might
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: as well do whatever you can to move a couple
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: of pieces on your side. So, and and the thing
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: about it that I really like is here's something that
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I have has kind of opened my eyes in the
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: past four or five years, and that is, don't just
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: think about a typical betting area or a typical travel corridor,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: or you know, oh that that house is too close.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: I'll never hunt anywhere close to that house because the
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: deer are you know, they'll get spooked by the house.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: The deer are used to that house. I have a tree,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: I have a couple of tree stands, or I have
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: one particular tree stand where every morning I would watch
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the lady come and fill her coffee pot up with water.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: I could see into her kitchen window and uh, and
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: mature deer, we're coming by, you know, coming by that.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I got trail camera pictures of Mark Kenyon coming down
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: that pinch point next to the house. So keep your
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: eyes open and don't just you know it. There's times
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: where you got to think outside the box and be like, Okay,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: this isn't working. I need to I need to do
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: something completely different. Yeah. I think there's so many examples
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: of that in that type of scenario, like a somewhat
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: urban scenario, or you know, when you're relatively close to
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: houses or neighborhoods or stuff like that, we really need
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: to have a whole episode about that and bring uh
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: someone who's got a lot of experience of that kind
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: of thing to talk about it. Because I think that
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: type of hunting is becoming more and more common, you know.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot more bow hunting happening closer neighborhoods,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: especially as development continue continues to spread out into rural areas. Um,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people hunting that way. And you
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: can kill great deer and have a lot of success
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: in those types of areas, partly because of what you
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: just said, Because a lot of these deer become conditioned
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: to some level of human you know, exposure. If you
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: can figure out how to take advantage of that, you
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: can you can put yourself in a good position. It's funny.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I the first deer I ever killed was in an
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: urban situation. My parents had three and a half acres.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I think I probably told the story for but my
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: parents had three and a half acres behind our house
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood in Michigan, And so that's where I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: started bow hunting. And I was hunting in a little
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: pop up ground blind at the bottom of this hill
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: behind the house, and our neighbors or some neighbors from
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: down the way, we're walking their dog through this valley,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: walked right past me. I got all mad, got on
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: my blind kind of yelled at him, like, you're on
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: our property, blah blah, you spooked all the deer away,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: blah blah. And I was frustrated. And then like minutes later,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: here comes this buck. You know, these people just walk
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: their dog right through this little three acre patch. I
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: figured that was it, and lo and behold, here he comes.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Because those deer were used to people walking around and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: regular human stuff. Oh, there's definitely ways to take advantage
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: of that. I uh, I don't know, man, interesting stuff, right,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: What else do you got going on? Anything else coming
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: up for you? Any other projects? Anything else in your mind?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not going to talk to you for
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: two months, stand so I know, well you're gonna talk
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: to me. We're still going to do the Wired podcast, right,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Yeah, well of course I will be.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I'll be living with you, Mark, right right right right, Sorry,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I forgot I don't know, man, I just I'm as always.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: I'm excited. Checked. I checked one trail camera this or yesterday,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: got some velvet bucks, you know, with that eight inch
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: of main eight inches of main beams. Starting to see
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: the the growth of the brow times right now, and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to Um, I'm really looking forward
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: to seeing what the trail camera, the story that trail
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: camera tells me. I'm also looking at a piece of
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: public ground. Um, that is one of those. It probably
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: won't be something that I hunt a lot, but it's
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: gonna be something where you know, a majority I feel
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: of public land hunters, they access the property from the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: road to their stand location. And there where I where
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: I live, there's a big piece of public ground that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: has a creek, that's a river that separates the two.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna maybe try to do a canoe move
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: on one of these public grand lands hunts and access
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: this public ground from the river to a tree stand location.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Just basically it's gonna be something to do to relieve
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: pressure from other hunting properties, right. So it's yeah, I'm
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: not really concerned about if I'm gonna kill anything. It's
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: just something too. I'll be hunting, but I'm gonna be
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: laying off my other my other properties in there and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: try some new things and see at work. It's funny
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that I. Um. Two weeks ago, I guess now.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I was finishing up a magazine art clause working on
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: in which I had to interview a whole bunch of
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: different super serious like d I Y hunters, and um,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: we didn't talk about this, do we? And I don't
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: think so like something. I'm like, I feel like I'm
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: getting old. I can never remember what I talked about.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm having deja vu. But how old
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: are you? Yeah, you're old, Bud, I'm over the hill. Yeah,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: you're gonna You're gonna die at the way I'm living.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: I might what are you addicted to drugs? Addicted to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: deer addicted to deer um? But yeah, So I interviewed
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: all these guys who are super super serious d I
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Y hunters, who are doing like crazy stuff, like just
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: going above and beyond the average guy, and most of
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: them doing it, you know, all of them actually doing
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: it to stay on a on a great budget. So
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: most of them are hunting public land, and they're you know,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: having to you know, travel really far distances to get
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: to good land and camping out of the back of
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: their trucks or camping behind farmers houses. And almost all
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: of them were finding creative ways to access ground other
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: people couldn't, so whether it be hiking seven miles in
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: and just being willing to hike that far, or lots
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: of guys with boats. One guy would take his would
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: put his a little power boat into a river, take
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: that down up to ten miles down the river to
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: access to access good parts of public land. Another guy
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: would get these little canoes. I don't I can't remember
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: what they're called, but they're super lightweight canoes you can
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: one person can carry in so they're not very strong,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: but they're very light. And he would canoe rivers, canoe
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: across ponds, canoe across the lakes. Another guy had this
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: little inflatable zodiac boat he took with him everywhere he
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: goes um that he would break, take a little ten
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: horsepower motor with him, and then this zodiac boat which
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: would pack up until a duffel bag, and ever he
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: goes he takes it with him and then again uses
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: that to access these spots. And I think it was
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: just one of the biggest things that it took away
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: from all these interviews was that, especially when you're trying
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: to get it done in heavily pressured places or in
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: public land, you have to get creative. You have to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: be willing to go above and beyond the normal every day. Okay,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna park my truck and walk to our rears
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to the tree and sit there and have fun. Um.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: You know, if you really want to get one of
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: these more mature deer in these tougher areas, it's going
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: to take some out of the box thinking. Um. And
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: it got me kind of like re excited about trying
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: some new things myself. Like I'm I'm more intrigued with
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: trying to hunt more public land now than I have
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: been in a while. Um. You know, I've I've had
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: some great success on some private lands and least land. Um,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of interested in trying to you know, maybe
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: next year or the future. Yes, that's exactly what us thinking,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: you know, try to do the exact opposite and and
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: really dive into some of these different public land spots.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I'm sure it'll be a huge challenge.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm gonna kill fewer deer and have more struggles,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: But you know, there's something to be said about the journey,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, having some serious obstacles and learning
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: some different things and and see if I can't figure
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: something out. That's something I've been kind of intrigued with. Um.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm I'm geeked. I'm getting pumped up about it.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I U Every year though, I feel like, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: what's the new angle, what's the new whether it be
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: on a current place I'm farm I'm hunting, or a
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: new farm i'm hunting. You know, I'm always trying to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: tweak it, find a new way go about things, or
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: try a new idea, or go to a new place.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: I tend to get bored with doing the same thing
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: over and over again. I can't some I know a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: lot of people like to you know, get their spot,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: have their go to tree stands and just do the
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: same thing year after the year, and it works for
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: him and that's fine. But I'm just like finding it
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: with my own, you know, my own set of interests
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: and lack of patients or something that I kind of
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: like going into new situations, learning new properties or stuff
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: like that. So I don't know, I'm probably be doing
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: more of that kind of stuff this year, next year
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So I don't know. I've been
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: thinking about all this kind of stuff. So as a hunter,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: I am torn, right, So I got I always you know,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I talk about, um, you know, going after mature deer.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I talk about you know that that four
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: year old, that that four year old that makes my
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: hit list, you know, not necessarily antler type, you know,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: antler size, but you know, finding a target buck uh
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and killing him. And then on the other side of me,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I got that, Hey man, hunting is just a blessing,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: and um, you should be happy to hunt, and you
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: should be happy to harvest whatever comes by your tree
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: stand and and and that kind of thing. So I
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: have this internal struggle where every year I have this
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: this conversation with myself about, Okay, what are you gonna
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: kill this year? If something comes by you and it
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't meet your your quote unquote standard, um, are you
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: gonna shoot it? I mean, do you want to uh
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: you want to fill the freezer? Do you want to
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: kill a buck? Do you want to kill a mature buck?
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Do you want to kill a target buck? And it's
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: I got this every year. At the beginning of the season,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: I talked, do I need to change my standards? Because um,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: the past couple of years. I I've yeah, I've had
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: encounters and I've I've I've missed, Dear, I haven't had
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: to hunt as much as possibly know. All these all
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: these different things have you know, they come into play
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: when it comes to harvesting mature animal. But I always
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: have this conversation with myself about changing my You know,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: maybe you should drop down to a three year old.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe you should, you know, just shoot the first thing,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the first buck that comes by your stand. But every
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: time I do that, there's something inside me that pulls
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: me off that and says, wait for or four year old,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: wait for a mature buck, wait for. So I don't
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: know if it's one of those things where I need
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: to just talk myself out of it, pull the trigger
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: on something different and see how I feel afterwards, or
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: if I just need to stick to my guns and
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: continue to chase what I what I preach. I don't know,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: huh interesting, UM, I definitely have had similar thoughts too.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: I guess you know. My one thought on that, UM
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: would be maybe for people other than you. I think
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, I don't even know you.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: You didn't ask my advice, So I guess I'm giving
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: unslicited advice. Yeah, go for it. I'm just I'm just spitting,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: spitballing because you know, it's for someone who, for someone
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: who like myself. I write articles, you know, I we
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: have this blog. I I give my opinion and in
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: some sometimes advice of what the listeners should do or
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: shouldn't do. And at some point, you know, it's one
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: of those things where I feel I should be successful
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: at you know, what I've been preaching and what I've
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: been practicing, and uh, um, you know, this year I
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: missed that or this past year, I missed that booner
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: or that big buck. Um, I couldn't get a buck
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: to stop. Uh And then those were my really only
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: two encounters with what I would consider shooters this year.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: Well another one but he busted me, but because he
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: caught caught my set. But other than that, you know,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: the past couple of years have been a struggle as far,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: you know, since two thousand and twelve, I think was
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: the last year I shot a buck, so a mature buck,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: and I've had encounters. I just haven't capitalized, you know,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and on getting those to the grounds. So I don't know,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm spitballing here. I'm I'm talking what I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: I can totally related. Man, I know what you're saying.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I would say my typical recommendation to someone be, you know,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: just do what feels right. You know, if you feel
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: like shooting any buck would get you really happy and
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: fired up and you would feel fulfilled with that hunt
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: and that hunting season, then you should shoot it. Um.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: So you know, in your type of situation, you know,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: if you don't think you would feel fulfilled by killing
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: that buck or whatever it is, you know you shouldn't
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: feel bad about that. But on the other hand, I
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: know what you're saying too about you know, you haven't
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: killed a buck in a while, and you know you've
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: got all these questions about it. You know, do I
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: need to be Should I be lowering my standards so
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: I can start killing some more bucks? And then to
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: your point, you know, you know you're sharing your experiences
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and stuff does put some additional pressure on you, or
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: at least it has on me. I felt, Um, the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: only thing I would I would offer, I guess is
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: that there is something to be said. And this could
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: be like a person in your shoes or even anyone
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: just getting into hunting. Maybe in the opposite side of things,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: you know, there's something to be said about that experience
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: of actually successfully completing a hunt from beginning to end.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: That makes you a better hunter every time. So when
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: you actually do have a buck come in, you decide
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: to shoot it, you successfully execute that whole set of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: steps from deciding to shoot to drawing back to putting
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: a shot. Work needs to go to finding that deer.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: That set of experiences happened so few times for the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: guy or girl that passes on every deer for five
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: nine years that you tend to lose a little bit
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: of that experience of a hunt that makes you a
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: better hunter. So that would be the one thing I
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: guess I would offer is that there might be something
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: you might be able to learn something, or you might
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: be able to improve a little bit by going through
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: that more often. Not not not to say that, you know,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: you should not have standards or anything like that, but
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: I guess this one additional thought to throw in the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: pot to think about it, I guess um especially yeah,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if there's a buck that especially
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: I think if you at least for me, like if
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna situation where I've tried to diagnose a hunting
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: situation of property and I have this plan of this idea,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: and the dear do what I thought they were going
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: to do, and it works out, and I have an
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: opportunity at a maybe a teeter tyter buck um, you know,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: one of those I don't know, I don't know. You know,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: that's one of the situations where you should feel prettier.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: I would feel pretty fulfilled and pretty um content knowing
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: that I was able to actually put this plan together
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: from A to B and see it all the way
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: to the end, because that happens so rarely, even the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: very best deer hunters, when you you know, so rarely
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: does it actually come together that I don't think it's
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: a bad thing to occasionally reward yourself, um, but you know, gosh,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: it's it's such a it's such a different thing for
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: every person and what makes you happy, And I mean,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: in the end, that's what it has to come down to,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: is if you if you feel good about it, if
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: it was you know, the right thing for you, right.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: And the thing about it is I made those standards
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: for myself at a time in my life where I
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: was single, I was hunting, like, you know, up to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: forty to fifty days a year. I could do those things.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Now time and the tree stand has changed, and I'm
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: debating on like my standards need to change as well.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: So and it's not and it's not. It's crazy because
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of not making it about the
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: rack ah or necessarily even the maturity level, because I
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: find it just like this year, I shot two doughs,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: and I found just as much enjoyment killing those two
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: doughs that I did uh, you know, killing previous bucks.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: But let's be honest, there's I guess it depends on
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: where you hunt. But for me, hunting dose is easy.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: I can go to just about any field edge and
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: wait the first couple of weeks of the season and uh, kill,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I got some I got some fishing of
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: barrel type spots for dose, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: that's funny. I always do hunting always seems so easy
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: until I decided to just just be do hunting, and
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: then somehow they always become really crafty or I become
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: really stupid or something, because it always seems like, Okay,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get my buck and then I get my
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: buck and then it's okay, now I'm dough hunting, and
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: then something al goes wrong. Um. But taking one quick
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: step back to what you were saying there, if you're
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: thinking about, you know, making that adjustment based on you know,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: you're changing circumstances, which is a very fair consideration, I
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: would just encourage you to not feel bad about that,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: Like if if you feel like maybe that would be
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: something that would you know, given everything that's happening, like,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't. I don't personally think you should feel bad
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: at all for shifting from passing on three year olds
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: to now shooting three year olds, because that's still a
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: relatively mature deer, that's still a smart deer, and that's
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: that's a great deer to go after. UM. So you know,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: I would say go for it if if that feels
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: good to you. Um. And then, like I said earlier,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: you might also be able to learn some more things
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: from it, from those experiences that could then help you
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: to maybe maybe if you do it for you you're like, wow,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: that was fun and a couple of things happened that
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that so happened. And now next year I'm
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: gonna go back to shooting targeting four year olds, but
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: who knows, maybe there's some kind of experience you could
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: have this year by targeting a three year old that
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't have otherwise. I don't know. You know.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Another nice thing about now, I want to be careful
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: what I say here, because, like you, like, I think
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of benefits to passing on younger dear
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: and waiting till they're older. Um, And i'd encourage people
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: to consider that. But at the same time, there's also
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: something nice about having a target rich environment, you know,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: where there's more dear that you would be interesting killing.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: It makes the hunt more exciting. Um, when you know that,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: you know, this buck could be potentially the one. UM.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: Trail cameras, I think that has a lot to do
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: with it. You got these trail camera pictures of these
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: giants who are hitting scrapes, no turnal, or you know
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: they're on one side of the farm or another side
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: of the farm, or you gotta be in velvet and
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: you're always got these these hitless deer in the back
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: of your back of your mind. Um, you know, and
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: that's not for that's not everybody because I know a
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: lot of guys out there listening hunt public ground in
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: heavy pressured states where the hunting is not like where
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: I hunt. So and I'm just speaking up, you know,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: making this about me right now, which I probably shouldn't,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: but um, I think trail cameras can throw a guy
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: for a loop sometimes and and make it so this,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: you know, this great buck that walks by doesn't make
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: the cut because they're thinking about something else. Very true,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: very true. And then many times, nine times out of ten,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: you know that buck you could be obsessing over, you know,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: could you could have been a one time visitor, or
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: he might be almost completely nocturnal, or you know, because
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: annual pattern is somewhere else during the hunting season. Right.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: That's a very good point. It's tough. It's tough to
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: make those decisions. Yeah, yep. I kind of wish like
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: my wife would make some of these decisions for me,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: like what towels our bathroom needs, or what our bedspread
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: should look like, you know, or what pictures need to on.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: So what about this? I don't know if this is
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: what you actually want to do, but it would be
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: kind of curious. I'd be curious to see what other
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: people think about this type of thing, Like, would they, um,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: I'd be I'd be interested to hear if people think
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: you should know given the circumstances you just laid out,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: would they say stick to four year old or would
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: they say go for a three year old this year? Maybe?
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Be kind of curious see what other
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: people thought about that. How about this? How about this
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: on the Facebook page that mention mentions this. Um, I
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people comment on on this, but
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: I want every listener to go to the Wired to
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: Hunt Facebook page and comment on the post that mentions
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: this actual podcast that you're listening to and your thoughts
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: on just about everything that we've talked about today. Let's
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: get a giant feed of people in opinions rolling on
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: this and uh, that's That's one thing I really like
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: to do after a podcast is go let's read the comments,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: listen to what people others have to say. So, yeah,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: I think it would be particularly particularly interesting on this
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: topic especially, would be I like that idea? Go Go
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: head up the Facebook page, leave a leave your thoughts
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: there and maybe give Dan some ideas for how to
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: how to how to move forward on this one I
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, I I can already see it now.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: Hey Dan, why don't you stop bitching because I I
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: typically hide those comments that so you don't feel bad, Dan.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: But right, oh man, wh it was like a bunch
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: of other things I thought we could talk about today,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: But we are kind of coming up on time for me, um,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: so we're not to have another episode like this where
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: we just kinda see where the conversation takes us and
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: and talk about random things. So I think we should
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: shut it down. And a heads up, we are not
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: going to have an episode next week because I'm gonna
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: be on the road heading out west. So yeah, sorry man,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: but we'll give you a nice little break from this
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: podcast at least. Yeah, and uh, we'll be back in
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: two weeks. And we've got some great guests coming up
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: in June and continue this conversation and lots of good stuff.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: So with that said, we'll wrap things up with a
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: few quick reminders. First, make sure to check out the
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: One Wild podcast. That's our new show and collaboration with
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Drewy Outdoors. We have a new episode coming out very
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: soon with Jim Tomy. It is an awesome episode, so
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: make sure to check out One Wild on iTunes or
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Stitcher or Google Play or wherever it is that you'd
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: like to subscribe to your podcast, please check that out. Also,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: we need to thank our partners who helped make this
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: podcast possible. So big thank you to sick A Gear, Trophy,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds on Terror Maps, Ozonics, Carbon Express,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Maven Optics, and the White Tail Institute of North America.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: And finally, thank you all for joining us. Hope you
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this kind of casual deer hunting chat that Dan
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: and I just had. And like we mentioned, we're gonna
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: be gone next week but we'll be back soon, so
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: until then, stay Wired to Hunt