Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 436: What Would Jeff Sturgis Do?

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Ep. 436: What Would Jeff Sturgis Do? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and today in the show, I'm joined by
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Jeff Sturgis of white Tail Habitat Solutions to discuss what
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: he would do in a series of challenging deer hunting scenarios.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to you by First Late, and we're back today for
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: another one of our what would you do podcasts? If
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you've heard these in the past, the basic just is this,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We're gonna run our guests through a gauntlet of different,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: very specific scenarios and ask them what they would do
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: in that situation. Why would they do that, how would
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: they do that? This might be something like, imagine it's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: October fifteenth, and we've got this wind direction, we've got
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: these conditions, and you're in this state and this challenging
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: thing happens. Now what it's that kind of stuff. And
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I've found over the last year and a half that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: we've been doing these this gets us a different level
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: of insight into how these amazing deer hunters operate, how
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they think how they go about deciding what to do
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  Speaker 1: and how to do it. I personally have found these
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to be some of the most valuable conversations I've had recently,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that you feel the same way. In
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: today's guest, I think is going to be right up
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: there as far as the quality of all the other
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: what you Do podcasts that we've done, We've got Jeff Sturgis.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: He's been on the podcast three times, maybe four times
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: over the last seven eight years. He's amazing. He is
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the author of several books. He runs the website and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel white Tail Habitat Solutions. He is a consultant.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: He has a tremendous amount of experience on the habitat
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: management side and on the hunting side, whether that's private
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: land or public land. He's done at all. He's got
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a great perspective on things. Uh. He hails from the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Upper Midwest, but he's hunted elsewhere too. I think you're
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: really gonna enjoy this if you don't know Jeff yet,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this is a great introduction to him. And with that said,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I don't have much else for you. I think we
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: should get into my conversation with the Jeff I've got
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: some questions for him that I know you were going
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to be interested to hear his answer to. So thanks
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: for listening, and here we go. All right with me
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: now from the road in the middle of the god
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: awful traffic of Chicago, is Jeff Sturgis, Jeff, thank you
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: for being here. Oh it's my pleasure, Bark always always enjoyed. Jad.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: What even if I'm driving to do that gauntlet of Chicago,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I know how painful that can be. So I I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: recognize the sacrifice you were making right now to try
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to balance that chaos with this conversation. So I appreciate
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you making it all work. God, Yeah, no problem at all.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Where are you head? Were you heading towards you doing
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a client visit? Is that right? Um? Actually going to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the hunt Wise you grew over in Grand Rapids. Uh there,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: partner I worked with very closely. So I'm driving over there.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: We have a dinner meeting tonight that we're eating a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: bunch of videos in the morning, and I'm driving right back.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So kind of fifteen hours of round trip road traffic
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: over today and to farm nice. What do you what
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: do you do on a long road trip like that?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of people maybe listen to podcasts, hopefully this podcast.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: But but what do you do because you don't need
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: you don't need to learn anything from the wire Dune podcast,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So what do you do? Well? I do like listening
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to podcast here and there. But one of the things
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I do is this is a great time to actually
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: be on podcasts. So when I'm at home. A lot
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of times people want to do podcast in the evening
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: or on a weekend because they're doing something else during
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the day. For for me, this is my full time career.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: So I kind of like, you know, if I'm at
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Whole Weither shooting video, I'm working on the property, I'm
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: spending time with family friends. So I really like, uh,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: doing these while I'm driving helps pass the time. And
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and then I talked to people in the industry and friends,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and so I think I'm on the phone usually when
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I'm traveling. Boy, uh two thirds of the time some
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: people of the time. Yeah, I'm right there with it.
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  Speaker 1: It's a good time to get the phone calls taken
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: care of when when you don't really want to do
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: them otherwise and you've got to be in the field
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: or doing stuff like that. This is a great way
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to make use of that road time. Oh it's a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: really good way. So that's a and you know, like
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: with you, I always enjoyed making time for you and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: making sure the sports sound. But um it does work
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: out really well if it sounds okay, if the h
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: do this well on the road. So I do I do.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I listen to my music, I have my sports talk
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I like listening to. So there's there's all kinds of stuff,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but not mad. It's like my mobile office. I know,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty nice situation. Um well, here's here's my
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: game plan for this, Jeff. And this might be unfair
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna run you through a gauntlet, and I'm
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: gonna run you through a gauntlet while you're already going
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: through a gauntlet. So that's that's probably not kind of me,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: but but I've got confidence. It's kind of like a client.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: You can imagine what time, face to face they hit
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: me at all, all kinds of questions. So yes, yes,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So so while you're dealing with the Chicago traffic, I'm
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: gonna run you through what we call the what would
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you do? Gauntlet? We're basically I'm going to outline a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: series of very specific situations and then you know, ask
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you to explain to me what you would do in
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: that situation, in what your thought processes, why it was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: that you would do this thing. Um, So we'll kind
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: of start with some habitat related things, move into some
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: hunting season related things, and and you know, as we
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: as we do often it is feel free to get
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: as deep into the weeds as you want. Um. You know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: there's there's never a detail that's too far as far
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: as I'm concerned. So I'm gonna lay out a story
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: for you and then I'm gonna pitch it to you
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and then see what you think that's not okay, Okay, yeah,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that sounds really good. All right, I think we just
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: get right into it. So here's the first situation, Jeff.
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  Speaker 1: Let's imagine that you own a forty acre square of property.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: And let's say this is in north Ish Wisconsin, mostly
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: big timber. That part of Wisconsin's got a lot of
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: timber Northern Ish Wisconsin, and there's not a lot of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: agriculture around. Maybe there's a field within a mile or two,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: but you're you're not surrounded by it. And this is
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  Speaker 1: your first this is your very first year owning it,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and you just bought it in the spring. Maybe it's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: it's June or July. Maybe we'll say the summer when
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you purchase it, so you get access to it in
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: June July, your very first month or two of preseason,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: without knowing anything else, Assuming some basics, what's the very
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: first project or two you would tackle to try to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: get this property ready to hunt, other than getting stands
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: up and stuff. If you could improve habitat and some
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: kind of quick way with this basic understanding of the area,
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  Speaker 1: what do you think hypothetically you would tackle first? Let's uh,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I love that question because, um, you know, if you're
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: in a if that was in a northern Ohio area
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  Speaker 1: where there's there's no cover, then you know, covers at
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  Speaker 1: a premium and critical to address cover needs and you
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: still can't build a herd, but just cover. But in
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  Speaker 1: an area like that, you know, whether there's not a
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  Speaker 1: lot of cover northern Ohio, so the Michigan, northern Indiana, Illinois,
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  Speaker 1: or southern Wisconsin, then uh, then you can get away
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  Speaker 1: with utilize that cover and having a decent hunt. When
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  Speaker 1: you get in more mixed agg area food plots and um,
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  Speaker 1: and food becomes a lot more critical. And then when
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you get into a northern area, UH, food is always
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  Speaker 1: the most critical. And so what I like about an
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  Speaker 1: area like that when you don't have agg and you
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: don't have quality food, than a quality food plot program.
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  Speaker 1: You know it is in my area where I'm at
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  Speaker 1: in southis Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota is critical and accepts
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the foundation and movement. But up there, UM it's even
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: more so. And so my first step on a forty
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  Speaker 1: like that is I would not have purchased it if
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't get food plots in um, whether
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I was planning to hire a dozer and haven't come in.
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  Speaker 1: But I would have bought a forty that is somewhat diverse,
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  Speaker 1: probably had some open field cover or pasture or something
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  Speaker 1: I could easily convert to food uh pretty quickly. And
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  Speaker 1: so that would be the first step. And it's kind
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  Speaker 1: of like you can't have food without access, so UM,
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  Speaker 1: your food determines where your access your access, and how
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  Speaker 1: you can hunt. The land determines where the food goes.
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  Speaker 1: So it's hard to have one without the other. But
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  Speaker 1: then that sets the entire foundation and movement that sets
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  Speaker 1: up where betting area should go travel corridors, tree stands
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  Speaker 1: and so. Um, just like I did in my new
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  Speaker 1: property in Minnesota last year. The first steps for food
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  Speaker 1: access once that's determined, Um, then stand locations and uh.
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  Speaker 1: And then what I do is I put I put
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  Speaker 1: a moch scraped by every stand location and if I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: have the ability to put a trail camera at every
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: stand location too. So UM that's kind of the sequence. Um.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Just about anywhere, but up north where food is is scarest. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you can really draw a deer and especially in the
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  Speaker 1: dir box that will that have a tendency to travel
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  Speaker 1: a lot further to find quality food and find quality
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  Speaker 1: food that's not hunter pressured. Um. Then getting food and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: is something that can make or break your season for
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you just that first year. So it's not something that
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: takes years. Once you get that food in. That's a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: calling cards that will extend for you know, a couple
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  Speaker 1: of miles in any direction or more in an area
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: like that. So, so, knowing not much else, I'm giving
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: you a pretty vague situation here. Can you give me
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  Speaker 1: any more detail on ideally how large of a plot
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you'd want in that situation? Ideally, what you think you
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: would plant in that situation, UM anything of that. Yeah,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: there's and so, and this depends on someone's resources to um.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You know, for me, my southwest Wisconsin person that I
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: hunt a lot um that's uh thirty acres to cover
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: fifty acre property and on that would get away with
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and there's about fifteen acres of fields. There's horse pastures,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you know, house buildings. But there um, I get away
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with about two and a quarter acres of food food plot,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and I can offer something fairly diverse with a green base.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is, you know, a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Braska planet on one side will have oats feed and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: peas late planet Rye on the other side all plantings
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: August or later. And but we have the complement of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: agg lands. So what that means is that the the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: food that I plant in a situation like that lasts
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a lot longer because deer not feeding on that property,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: typically under the cover of darkness throughout in the agg
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: fields is around there. When you go up north and
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you don't have the compliment of those agg fields and
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you don't have that quality food, you find that you
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: deer feed five times in the twenty four hour period.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: As rhythmic pattern feeders, and you're familiar with rhythmic pattern
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: feeders with your kids, you know, young kids and when
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: their babies, I mean they're feeding what every two hours
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: three hours, and that you know that expands over time.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: But with deer, they're right at that five hours or
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: every four four hours five hours, and they feed five
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: times a day. So when they're doing that in an
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: updoor setting, they hit your food plots a much higher
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: percentage of time out of those five times than they
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: would an agate agg area where you have to compliment
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: an agg at night and you're trying to make your
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: property more a daylight parcel. They're eating brows in their
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: betting areas, and they hit your food plot in the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: afternoon for the third meeting of the day and then
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: at night a lot of times throughout in the surrounding agio.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: So but when you go up north, she might get
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: one one and a half times that they're really appreciably
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: eating your food plot. We're up north, I've seen it
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: in some cases they're hitting your food plots five times
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and that twice for our period. And so the two
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and a quarter acres I get away with the southwkings content,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I like to expand that in the northern setting to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: four or five acres on that forty. So there's no
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: set percentage of food plots that you'd have on any
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: parcels really based on the region. And what's interesting, you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: could probably have half as many tier or a third
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: tier in a situation like that, and you're still gonna
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: need double the foods, you know, and with that, the
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: more diversity we need. They you have Braska, late planet Peas,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: late planet beans, Oates, rye uh. Quite a few of
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: those are not very browser resistant. For example Braska Braska. Uh,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I've seen a rock fields and in the spring um
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and a very large agg area with have a lot
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: of cover and just a good complement of act fields
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and forges and southern or southern location. But then I've
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: seen him not make it to hunting season in northern
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Michigan before soils and not a lot of deer. So
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: it really depends on, uh, you know, how many deer there.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: But that's kind of a guestament. With that many acres,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I would try to get something diverse in there just
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: so I could offer something to the entire season. And
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: so that's that goes back to you. You really can
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: if you have one acres of plots that you're putting
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: it in two acres, then you can really go to
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: something more like layering Frye. I started doing that in
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the northern setting just because it was more browse tolerant.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: It's not a glamor crop. But again, if you have
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: more diversity, it's gonna eat a lot faster, especially with
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: some most not brows persistant varieties. So I really like, um,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: if there is a potential of high browse pressure, then
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do something like Player and Brian. What
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I mean by that is you're you're broadcasting a hundred
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: pounds per acre about a month before the first frost state,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: let's say in the up of Michigan, which is used
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: at the first frostate, which used to mid September, and
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and so mid August broadcasting a hundred pounds, and then
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a hundred pounds more about three weeks later, and then
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a hundred pounds after that towards the middle latter portion
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of September. You're trying to space still. Space horizontally was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: something that will continue to stay free even at the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: stone freeze, all the way into all the way into
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the end of seam. So that's that's what I look
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: at is you know, if I had to go with
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: something smaller, I would look at something more prows persistent,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: like flaring rye, maybe starting out with the hime on
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a piece and fite boats breaker a hundred pounds of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: piece the pounds of boats and then I top dressed
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that with two hundred pounds of rye maybe five weeks later,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: or just a straight rye. And if I could get
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that acre jump on that Wisconsin peace, that I'd look
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: at something a little bit more to first. Okay, So
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: so what about a reverse scenario. Let's take you out
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: of northern Wisconsin and let's take you to southern Michigan.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And instead of a lot of timber, now you're in
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of egg. It's mostly big, huge, wide open
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: agg fields. But again, you've got a forty acre square
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to figure out how to make the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: most of this in the month or so month and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a half or so you have because you closed on June,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: late June, maybe it's July August, you've got a little
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: bit of time per season to make these few changes. Um,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: what would you do in that scenario? Like the first project,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you would tackle on that scenario, I'm still I'm still
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: starting with food. Is that that's going to actually give
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: an attraction for the personal you know what's really without
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a good food program on private land, I actually wouldn't
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: buy the land. That's what I just go on public
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: land because on public land I can actually find a
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: food source of the moment I get into remote area
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and enjoy hunting. UM that that movement that that food
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: source stick taste privately and you have to offer that
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: food and and be good at it um or you're
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: not have that movement. So I would look at a
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: smaller amount of food um and then I would really
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: try to um gauge just that a little bit of time,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: how many geer in the area, how many geer in
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the field, and if I'm looking at average amountity here
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and I am going to plan it Abraska Base in
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a situation like that where I might worry about that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: basket not be eaten. And again the full reason I
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: like brasket. It's nutritious for deered, offer spot of moisture,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: it's easy for them to digest, but it's uh it
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: can create a lot of volume quickly, and so something
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: that you can really target towards late after for November December.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So I put that on one half of the plot
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: for plots, saying I mean that we're looking at more
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: like a two ac or the three acre or scenario
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: for food and um. You know, if I had more,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: i'd step that up to cord the following year if
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I could, But just in that short period of time,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I'd look at um, you know, late plated picture of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: beans and peace especially they're candy crops. So to establish
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the pattern of use for those plots right off the bat,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: that's something I've played around August first Southern Michigan and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: on the other half, i'd play at brask And now
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I'd want those two sides by side, not mixed together.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is you don't want to
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: mix them because boats fry weak can compete with Brassicas.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So you're just limiting the amount of volume between having
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: your plots. You're taking from the Braska, you're taking from
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the rye and wheats and actually be shaded out by Braska.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: So they're just fighting each other to separate that out
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: uh them apart because you're trying to maximize the amount
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of volume you can have in that given space. They're
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: working with making yourself as efficient as possible starting with that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I look at planking that um, that combination,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: but I started with wheat control right off the bath.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at how can I eliminate meats
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: because we need food plots during the summer, might be
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you know, more of an attraction on a scale of
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: attraction for year overall, because they're like diversity. But when
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: all those wats die in August September, they just take
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: from your food plots and they can turn on two
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: acre food plot into a quarter acre of food due
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to wheat pressure and competition, and so really addressing wheat
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: concerns um, you know, and some people, if you don't
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: believe the chemicals, you can try uh disking or killing
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the ground several times in a row to do that. UM.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I prefer the chemical route just because then I don't
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: have to use or buy heavy equipment and a big tractor,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and it's a lot easier to spray, and I use
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of rotations, um, you know, going forward to
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: try to limit my use to chemicals build the soil
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: at the same time. But um, but I really would
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: look at weeds, UM getting those food spots established and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: establishing that pattern of use right off the bat now
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: early August extending to September. You really want those food
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: possibly do it very well by the middle of September
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and the September here was during the area getting used
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: to it. And then that food establishes, especially if there's
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: food and it's adjacent to good betting opportunity, they're going
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to hold those against that food source. And then if
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: you have enough room left over your lat box behind
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: those doors and too locations on your property so then
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you can aunt, then you morning stands back by buck
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: betting areas for the rot pre rot and rot maybe
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: even opening dack on season on November siveteenth in Michigan
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: or UM. You're looking at evening hunting on the way
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to food or closer to food and uh. But really
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: starting with food establishes that entire pattern of use and
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you're hunting assemblage. Now here's the the worst case scenario. Though.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: You know, food is so important to this program that
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you're outlining. But what about this situation, which is something
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that I've called you and talked to you about in
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: past years, and it's something that so many of us dread.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But what if we go into the late summer with
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the game plan like you just described. We plant our
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: fall food plots, let's say August, and there's great rain forecast,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and we get our Braskas in the ground, and we
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: get some cereal grains in the ground, whatever it might be,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and it looks good. We get in the ground, but
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: then that rain that was forecasted for tonight ends up
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: just being a little drizzle, and then tomorrow it's gone.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: There's nothing, and the next day there's nothing, and the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: next week there's nothing. In two weeks, three weeks goes
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: by and no no rain appears. What do you do
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in that situation when you plan on August get a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: little bit of rain in the front, and then it's
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a drought for three weeks and now you're into September
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: opening days October one, and it's I don't know, September
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: fifte or something, and you've got nothing coming out of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the ground. What do you do? Then? The really cool
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: thing about that is you just don't have to worry
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: about it. It's not it's uh, there's you know, try
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to get that out of your mind. Like so many
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: people just stressed out about that loose sleep and that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was my Wisconsin last year that it was the first
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: time I had abraska failure due to a due to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: drought um anywhere, but in Wisconsin since two thousand to two.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: First time, So it's not very common this happens, especially
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: if you can pay attention to when you actually put
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the brass in the ground. For example, you're saying August
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: twenty four, Well, if there's really good rains, I target
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: around August one. But if there's really good rains the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: end of July, I'll stick it in before that rain
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: if I can. Um. If there's no rain in the forecast,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I'll wait till the fifteenth of August. So there's a
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: little bit of gray area there for when you plant
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and paying attention to the rain. But once that fails,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and most of the time, I'd say on most properties
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: that fails more because the deer eating down to the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: dirt and there's a lot of complexities to go into
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that too. But but really you're looking at if you
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: figured out it failed in early September in southern Michigan, UH,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: mid September in southern Ohio, southern UH, Indiana, Illinois, d Kentucky,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: then you're putting about two pounds of winter rye right
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: over the top of your failed food plot. And if
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: there's still um soil exposure towards the end of September
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: early October, you can add another hundreds to two hundred
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: pounds of winter rye right over the top of that.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And so it sounds like a lot of seed, But
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: at that point you're trying to fill space horizontally, not vertically,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and so you're just offering a fresh, young carpet of rye.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Do you love it? When you started to interrupt, Jeff,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: But when you say covering things horizontally versus vertically, some
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: people might not understand what you mean. What do you
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: mean by horizontal versus vertical coverage? What do I mean
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: by that? Is like a typical rye planting would be
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: about a hundreds a hundred ten pounds per acres, same
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: with wheats, maybe even oats, And so you plant that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: early and that's going to offer a lot of height.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But those stems are spaced out every two, three or
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: four inches, so you're really not filling space between stems,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of open, bare soil. So
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: when you plant late um and you plan for that.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: It's and it's good to plant late. It's better because
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: then you can plant more seed. You're not looking for
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: seed head production in the future. You're not harvesting this
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the following year, so you're looking at uh multiple stems,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: so your your stems per square inch is much higher,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: three or four times higher than a traditional planting. And
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: in that way, you're feeling space horizontally. Mean you're just
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: stem after stem after stem. So when you stand over
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the field looks like a thought. You know that a
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: lawn instead of um. A field where there's a stem
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: every three or four inches, so you see less of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the soil um and in that way, it's it's a fresh,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: young crop. Dear love. Rye wheat even oates when it's
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: young and uh and so you're taking that low, lush,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: lush carpet into the hunting season. That's very attractive and
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it gives the deer a mouthful every time they take
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a bite, so it's not just um and and you
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: can't do that early. For example, That's why I say
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you if you're layering rye and we're talking winner rye, fall, rye,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: rye grain, not right grass. But you're That's why if
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you're doing that and you're layering, layering it, you're starting
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: about a month before the first frost state here area
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: with just a hundred pounds. You don't want to put
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: three pounds down in that first that first hip because
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to uh fill that space with a lot
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of growth that is not fresh and not tender, and
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and you're really not um. You know, it's almost like
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: they are competing for nutrients at that point, and so
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you're gonna limit the amount of attractive forge you have
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: where if you layer that a hundred pounds hunder pounds
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: hunter pounds, that layer down to the bottom is always
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: fresh and tenor that middle layers okay, and then that
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: upper layers. You're really trying to fill that space that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you have as much as possible. And that's where the rye.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Whether you had a plot failure because deer overbrowsed it
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: or um because that it actually failed thue to drought,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you can still save the season. And I just look
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: at it like, yeah, it's a little bit of extra
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: money for the seed um and more time for playing thing.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: But it's so easy just broadcasts that I use the
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: handway or earthway handheld spreader, just a bag spreader. Um.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And and so it's easy to put out. You just
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: have to pay attention to see where your plots are
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: at early September to mid September. But um, I tried
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: to just not worry about it, you know, That's that's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: what I had to do. Last year in Wisconsin was crazy,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: just fifteen minutes apart from Minnesota, and we had great
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: rains in Minnesota and it was a real drought factor
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: in August into early September in Wisconsin. So just I
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: threw about three or four pounds awry over and two
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: different plantings total, and uh and just had a really
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: stick covering a rhyme, enjoyed the season, still had deer
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: hitting it and uh, you know, not the volume or
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: diversity i'd like, but at that point you just can't
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: worry about it. And the cool thing is we're not
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: like farmers where we're harvesting this and we we have
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: to rely on, uh for you know, for a living
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and to feed our family. We're just feeding deer and
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: just get something green on there. And you know, you
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: can try with different and that's even like you're up
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in like that first scenario in northern Wisconsin where we
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: try to have a diverse planting in three or four acres.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: But if the deer eat it to the ground or
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: we have drought, just throw rye on it and enjoy
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the season. So in that scenario, when you're broadcasting your
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: top seating that rye that went a rye, do you
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: have to time that with a special set of weather circumstances,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: like you need to do it just before rain or
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: do you just put it down when you can and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: it will germanate next time there's rain and you don't
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: need to worry too much, Like what's your process in
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: this kind of emergency scenario I'm getting I'm just getting
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the rye on the ground when I can. The good
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: The great thing about rise it's very um it's a
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: very resistancy to draw it. Um conditions were even cold.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: They've had a german ate now and I think Michian
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: State University to study were germanated down to thirty seven
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: degree soil temperature, so growing very cold circumstances. I've actually
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: had a german at in early October in the up
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Michigan and that was after three or four inches of
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: snow on opening day. UM of October. I spread that
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: riot into September, it melted over a week period. It
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: got back up in the sixties and seventies, and that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: melting snow actually germinated the rye. It's it's a very
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: hardy seed. Unlike clover or brastica. Those tiny little seeds
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: dry out quickly if they half germanate, and then you
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: don't get your rain, will just die immediately, where rye
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: is very very hearty. So UM, I would look at
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: more just getting it on the ground at that point.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: And the great thing about August and September and October,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: as rain and moisture only increases as you go into November,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: so it's it's on the increase at that time, not
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the decrease. August can be spotty with thundershowers, but once
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you get into September October, rains or range are definitely coming. Okay,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: all right, So let's just move this scenario forward a
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: little bit further, and let's say you managed to get
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: your first year of food plots and improvements in and
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: they actually performed wonderfully. You had the kind of deer
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: sightings and deer use you were hoping for. Um it
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: worked out great but you noticed one thing, and the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: one negative thing you noticed was that your neighbors on
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: all three sides of this square. Let's say you've got
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: road frontage on one side and then neighbors on the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: other three sides of your forty acre square. All your
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: neighbors found out that you were making a bunch of
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: improvements and that deer really like to hang out in
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: your property, and so all of them started posting up
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: right on the property line, and you were noticing deer spooking.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: You were seeing neighbors walking the property line, you saw
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: ladder stands right on the edge, etcetera, etcetera. You fast
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: forward to year two, knowing what the neighbors were doing
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in that situation, how would you change things or what
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: would you modify r or what might you do to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: account for neighbors that were trying to crowd your little
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: piece of heaven that you created. Well, the good thing
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: is is that um box in general, and uh, you know,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: especially if you look at those they might move fifty
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: hundred yards during the daylight on on an average day
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: during the entire season, especially if they have the food
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and the cover that they want. And that's what you're
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: trying to do a box in that situation where there's
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: not a lot of cover. He might only move one
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to three hundred yards during daylight. And I'm not talking
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: about his three mile home range. It's mostly at night.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It's during the daylight. And if he has that food
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and he has those conditions on your land, what I
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: find is when those neighbors start to pack it in
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: around you, then those deer heighten their movements or daily movements.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And so I'm not saying that you can hold a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: dozen mature box on your land, but you can really
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: have them focus on your land during daylight, especially that
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: afternoon feeding. And when that happens, you you take your
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: neighbors out of the out of the scenario quite a bit.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: And what I do to a situation like that is
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: where if I cabin in the middle of property or
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: something like that. But in general, UM, I'm actually seeing
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: around my borders a lot, and so that helps me
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: preserve a high percentage of the forty acres that they own,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: make payments on, pay taxes on. That allows me to
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: develop that core area in the center. UM. I really
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: like offering. You know, in a case like that, let's
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: say you had food in the middle of the forty
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: it's not a very valuable forty acre personal because you
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: only have about two hundred and fifty yards at depth
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: before you hit your neighbor's borders. You're expecting to hold dose, fawn,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: junk bucks, old bucks, and two hundred fifty yards at depth,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and it's just I'm sorry, a hundred fifty yards depth
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and it's just not possible. And so I'm looking at
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and even a twenty acre personal that has food all
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: towards the front, that'll have more depth three yards at depth.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is you're putting five
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: acres of food. Say a rectangle twenty acre personal is
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: two hundred twenty yards by four hundred forty yards. Le's
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: say it's a rectangle running north and south. If you
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: put all that food on the south side, close to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the road and you can get around it without spooking deer,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: now you have over three yards at depth to the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: back of your parcel. You have a lot of room
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to hold deer. And so if you're accessing around your
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: border that case and your food to one side, then
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: it allows you to extend a lot of depth through
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: your property. And that's where it becomes critical and you're
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: not bisecting your property and walking through the middle of
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: it and spooking deer from either side depending on which
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: way the wind's will and you're trying to conserve as
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: many core acres as possible that relate to that food.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Let's say acres acrest you have that exterior access road.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: If your neighbors won't, they're not coming through your land
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to get there, which means they're coming through their their land.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: And what I find is if they have a box
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: that's spending on their land wants to hit your food
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: every day, that bux just tightens his window of daylight
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: movement onto your land, and so he takes that neighboring
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure out of the equation. You know, in case
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: like that, you're gonna be limited as far as how
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: older box you can produce. Um. You know that's all
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: relative older buck. It might be if there's high high
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure, you might be looking to shoot it two
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: or three old buck every year, and that'd be great. Um,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: if there's lower hunting pressure and you don't have a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: scenario where they're on all sides, maybe you can actually
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: find a three to four year old buck every single year,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: even in southern Michigan. But you're you're still doing what
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you can to reach that um that bucket structure potential
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: on your land based on the constraints you have to
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: work with, so accessing around your borders, making sure the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: food is located to one side, primarily so you could
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: extend the depth into the parcel, and then working on
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the deer habitat within the parcel. That's stage two that
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: choose it. The second here where you're working on cutting
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and habitat so that you're layering those um those formations
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of quality betting cover so that you're separating deer more
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and you're giving them the illusion that this parcel is
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a lot bigger than it actually is. For example, the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: opposite of that would be just fourty acres open with
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: are hardwood. You can see all the way through it
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: with just an inches snow on the ground in November,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: where if you have those cuttings and you have those
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: different habitat features, then you can actually um create a
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: situation where deer feel comfortable only betting a hundred yards
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: away from a food source because there's so many layers
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: of cover to get to that point that they don't
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: see each other. They might smell each other, they might
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: hear each other, but they can feel like they have
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: their own space. So there's a lot of things you
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: can do to still improve your property and just kind
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of take your your neighbors out of the out of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the equation. Yeah, one of the main things you talked
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: about right there was access, and I wonder about how
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you would handle a challenging access kind of monkey wrench
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: thrown into the gears here. What if you had a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: property like this that you improved, and and maybe even
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: before you improved it, it it had a lot of great
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: things going for it. It It had great cover, It had
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: some great food sources already and places where you could
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: add more. So you were able to really fine tune
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: it the way you wanted to and provide everything these
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: deer would want to hang out on your property a
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: lot except one downside, And the downside of this is
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that this property only offers access from the west, and
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: so with the predominant winds that you get in southern
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Michigan or wherever this is, you're getting a lot of
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: those west northwest southwest winds throughout most of the hunting season,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and that means that most of the time you're trying
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to get in there, your wind is is blown right
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: in there where you want to go. So in that situation,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: would you would you avoid and actually let me let
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: me let me. Yeah, that's right. I think I'm describing
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: this correctly. Would you avoid purchasing a property like that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: at all? That would blow into No, I'm getting this wrong.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's the opposite. What I'm trying to describe
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: is that the cop did I get. Yeah, Yeah, if
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you're coming in in the last year predominant in our
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: west and you know, in most cases like that, you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: can still you can still go up to your north
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: line or yourself line, you know, to come in. Um,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: even if you can't start that point you have to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: angle over. And so then UM, I'm making those habitat
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: improvements accordingly. And a lot of times, like if the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: road is on the west side, then I'm trying to
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: position that food source um or those food sources as
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: close to the west border as possible, but not so
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: close that I can't moving in park without spooking deer
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: or access to cabin or a trailer. And then also
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I want to be able to get around that food
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: on the north and south side, so that way, if
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: i'm there's it's it's hardly ever straight west the wind.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: And so if it's just has a subtily component, I
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: mean I'm walking in on the north side, and as
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a northerly component, I'm walking in on the south side.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: And in that case, I'd rather have the food close
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to the road because that food offers a stopping point. Um.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not running a line of food that go extends
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: to the road. They get hit on the road, but
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I'm putting a big patch of food there so that
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I can get around it. And then the deer have
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: to move from the east side of the property all
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the way across my own property to get to that
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: food source. And then I can hunt those lines of
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: movement where if I get around that food in the morning,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I can go all the way to the back on
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the east side way for deer to come back to
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: me in the form of box in those further spending areas,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: or I can hunt the sides or even at the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: food source in the afternoon evening as dear moving to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that food. Um, and more predictable afternoon movement to that
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: food because I have a hunter pressured it, and they're
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: getting there about an hour before dark, you know, half
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: hour or at dark in the case of the box. Okay,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: So in that case, you know, as long as I
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: could cut up to the north and get around or
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: cut cut down to the south where where I see
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: problems or people running into problems. And then it boils
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: down to how good the area is, um and you
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: know what type of hunting pressure there is general in
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: the area. But there must be a big swamp south
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: side that cuts off the lower ten acres and so
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: you you can't move through there on the south side, um,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And so really it pinches all your movements up to
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: the north. And so I run into scenarios like that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes where then you just have to figure out where
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: you can put food, how it relates to your land
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: and your neighbor's land, and how you can actually get
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: around your property that was spooking deer and your improvements.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes people's improvements are getting in the way,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: and it's hard. You know, I come and looking at
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: a black and white people have problems. So I look
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: at it um as if there's a food source that's
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: allowing tear to pattern you more than them just get
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: rid of the food source or shrink it. I didn't
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: have to screen it better something. You know, there's some
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: people that I've talked to who look at a scenario
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: like that and they say that they will embrace the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: impact they make. And they'll say, Okay, I know that
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: deer will know I'm here, so I'm always going to
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: walk the same access path or the same I take
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the same route every single time, So dear, just get
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: used to the fact that there's always human activity on
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: this route, and they eventually accept it. And then you
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: stick to that and they almost patterned that behavior. That's okay,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But then you branch off of that and drop into
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: other places where they're not expecting you and you avoid
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: rather than a bunch of different access routes all over
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: the place that are all unexpected, that always spooked it
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: right away. And I don't know, is that general idea?
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense to you at all? Or does
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: that seem counterintuitive? Um? What are your thoughts on that? Um?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Extremely counter intuitive if you actually want to be the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: neighborhood influencer and shoot mature box on a consistent basis.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not talking about one every three or
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: four years. I'm talking about shooting eight of the target
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: box in the area over a ten year period. And
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: so you have to give them that space where they
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: have the illusion, because if you it's no I'm all
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: for that. If it's extra your access roads, but not
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: through the middle of the proper because they never get
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: used to it. A mature buck never gets used to it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: If you're hunting two or three year old box to
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Lower Michigan, then a portion of those two year olds
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: might might get used to it. The three year olds won't.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: But if you step up to um an area that
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: has four or five year old bucks, they won't put
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: up with that in any way. So it really depends
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: on what you want to get out of your hunting land,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and deer will never get used to you coming in
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: or out unless you're in a state like Kansas or Iowa,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: would I refer to as s fantasy land states. And
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: in those areas like Kansas, they have twenty five bow hunters.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I think Iowa has sixty five bow hunters. Michigan and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: over four hundred thousand bow hunters at one time. So
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the amount of pressure you can apply in some of
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: these other states, UM is a lot different than you
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: can apply in all white tail areas and and so
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: what you do down there, it can't be translated into say,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: a higher pressure state. At the same time, even in
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: those areas, you probably have six or seven year old bucks,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and so you know, you might be content with shooting
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: four or five year old monster Bucks. But if you
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: really want to step your game up to those oldest
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: bucks in the neighborhood, even in an area like Kansas
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: or Iowa, you're gonna have to really play to a
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: different tune where dear, just settle on the fact that
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you're never going to get used to other than those bonds,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and maybe some young bucks they'll get used to it,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: kind of like you drive a four wheler by and
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: here stand up and watch you um. And you can
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: even extend that. Uh. I know some of the guides
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: and outfitters in the Buffalo County are in Wisconsin. They
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: kill a lot of their bocks by um driving hunters
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to stands, but they also only experience about success rate
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: overall with their clients. I expect to have success rate
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: every single year. So my expectations are a lot higher
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: for myself than than putting up with just you know,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: no one there's good bucks in the area, you bump one,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: another one comes in, and you get one every three
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: or four years. Yeah, I would love to be in
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: this situation. Shouldn't you describe there where there's six and
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: seven year old bucks and you have to settle for
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: a four or five year old every year? That would
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: be great. I would. It's funny I go to clients
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and some of those areas because I have clients I've
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I've had one in Glord, Michigan where they hadn't seen
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: an antler buck in seven years during the daylight. Um,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: so they literally had not seen a pockets their hunting
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: group for seven years. So that's the bottom of the barrel.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And then I'll have clients and uh some of those
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: uh fantasy land states and they're looking at Yeah, they've
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: been doing great on the four and five year olds
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and seeing them hundred fifties, sixty, even a seventy. But
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: there's those one and people say, like, you know, two
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: inch buck is rare, But I know a lot of
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: different states in areas where um hunters and landowners are
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: seeing two dred inch plus year every single year, and
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: so it's not it seems like a pipe cream, but
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: it really isn't. There are a lot more common. It's
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: just in those areas they just have to at the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: age and a high percentage or fall into that category
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: a lot higher than you think. But even then, um,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of those clients are hiring me because they
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: want to step up their game. You know they have
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: those It it's no different than if you're happy shooting
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: two or three year olds of Michigan and then you
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: notice that some of your neighbors are starting to pick
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: off some four year olds and you think, man, I
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: just want to do things different, so why I can
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: start tapping into those a little bit. Yeah, So let's
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: let's move into this hunting season situation here. Let's say
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: you've got your property. Let's say it's uh why, but
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that is the least it's the least property. It's something
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: you've been able to kind of spend a little bit
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: of time on. It's in pretty good shape. And throughout
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the summer, late summer into September, you've been getting daylight
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: trail camera pictures of a good mature buck that you
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: would love to get a crack app and he's moving
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: in daylight here and there early September, you get a
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: little bit of him in mid September, you get a
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: little bit of him in late September daylight. But you
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: get to opening day and I guess we'll use one
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of those states that having October one opener, like Michigan
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: or wherever. And you get to just before opening day,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and you've been very excited because he's been moving in
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: daylight leading up to the opening day, and then the
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: day before the opener, a heat wave appears, and now
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: September it's eighty degrees, and then the forecast says that
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: October one is going to be seventy seven degrees, in
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: October two is gonna be seventy six degrees, and you
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: see that the first couple of days of the season
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: are not looking so good for what we would hope
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: as far as weather conditions for big buck movement. At
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the same time, though, you also know that, man, I
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: know all my neighbors are going to start hunting on
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: October one, and there will be out there hitting it.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: So you've got two thoughts in your mind. One side
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: of you says, wow, I should wait until the hot
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: weather dissipates and save my hunts for one of the
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: conditions are a little bit better the other side of you,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: says man. Every day, I wait, there's more and more
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: pressure around me, and this buck that was moving in
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: daylight in September is going to get spooked and turn
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: nocturnal or hang out just by his bedroom. What would
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: you do in that situation, Jeff? Would you hunt opening
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: night even though it's gonna be warm because you want
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: to take advantage of that first night of the season,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: or would you wait until the first front moves through
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: or weather improves a little bit. That's a really good question.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I love that question a lot, and it really depends
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: on the hunting pressure around me and how I how
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: safely I feel I can get in and out of
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a stand. So say, for example, um, likely because of
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: the heat, he's not gonna be moving early. And at
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the same time, if I can get into a position
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: where I'm taking advantage of food source movements or water
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: hole or something um even back in the woods, if
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I feel I can go hit that stand and not
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: leave a really good presence on the land um or footprints,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: then I'm definitely going in and try to hunt that deer.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: All boils down to where I think that deer is
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: coming from. And I look at it too. Again, I'm
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: looking at like you know I have in Wisconsin, for example,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of neighboring hunting pressure. Um, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: those guys really don't have. Those hunters don't really have
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: much of an impact on the daylight movement that I
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: have on my own personally, even though it's only thirty eight,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Because my food plots are daylight plots, my bedding areas
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: are daylight plots. The mocks creates, the travel bourridors everything
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: that they're moving on in that personal they can ventiate
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: even more when pressure comes that my my property is
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: even more daylight. Those big boxes, mature bucks still have
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to move during daylight. Um, there's still feeding five times
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: in twenty four our period. They're on their feet those
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: five times. And so I'm looking at like, if there's
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: not really that much impact to those that hunting pressure around,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: especially piece daylight focusing on my land, and I've done
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: my my job to do that, and so really that
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: boils down to um, if I feel I need that
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: front to get him to move early enough for me
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to go into that stand and actually hunt them, then
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I'll wait for that cold front. If not, then I'm
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: going in there and sitting as soon as possible, with
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the thought that I'm not going to have a great
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: amount of impact on future hunts by honey a stand
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: that might be kind of iffy on percentages of chance
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: based on the hot weather in four one. Yeah, alright,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: So let's take it one step further. Then. Let's say
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: that you decide that you need to wait for the
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: front because of those conditions and because of the way
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: your property sets up, and the front is going to
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: hit on October seven, the evening of October seven, maybe
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: just after dark, the peak of that's going to push through.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And you're thinking to yourself, Okay, cold fronts coming through.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: It's October seven, and this is gonna be great. Problem is,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: your wife says, things are really crazy right now at home,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and I do not want you spending a bunch of
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: time in the woods. You've got one hunt over the
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: next week, You've got one sit otherwise. You need to
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: be at home helping out with stuff. So you could
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: hunt that that evening that the front hits, you could
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: hunt the morning after, you could hunt the evening after,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: you could hunt the next day. You've got one sit
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: morning or evening. What sit would you pick for your
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: best chances given the light amount of information I'm giving you,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: how would you approach that? So that time of year,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: I'm typically not hunting morning stands unless it's a long
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: movement coming back from agg fields with no hunting pressure.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: And I feel, just by little scouting into all that
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: those boxes are hitting their bedding areas late just because
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: they're taking a long time and go through a fairly
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: safe habitat and get back to their beds that they
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: want to bed in back in the woods, somewhere back
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: in the cover. And so I'm not hunting a lot
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: of morning situations, and I don't really have a lot
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: of good morning early season stands on either my property
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota or Wisconsin until it gets about October twenty
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: in the pre rock Baby I eighteen and so um
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: right away, I'm starting to uh migrate towards evening and
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: and looking at evening hunt and if I had a
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: couple of evenings that choose from maybe the front's going
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: throughout one, I'm always looking for the first clearing conditions
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: after the front goes through, meaning that I don't really
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: care what the barre metric pressure is because there could
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: be another front coming through four days later and the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: pressure is down um or it could be that it
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: just cleared out completely in the pressures pressure is high.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: But if we just had a temperature drop of at
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: least seven to ten degrees or greater, And it seems
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: like the greater the front, the more volatility there is
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: in the weather, meaning higher wind speeds, maybe thunderstorms, lightning, snowstorms, sleet, hail, rain,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: but there's there's more of an extremity of weather factor.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: So I'm looking for that all blow through. I don't
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: care if the winds go from thirty to fifteen min
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: fifteen down to five. I'm just looking for that time
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: when everything's broken and everything's broken through, meaning in the weather,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: it's cleared up, and then that's that time that I'm
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: hitting that stands. So I'm really watching those winds at
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: that point. So if that first evening opportunity, let's say
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: the weather went through or is going through right then
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: and it's still at you know, the peak winds or
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: at um, and then the next evening they're gonna be
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: down to seven to twelve and it's cooling. That next
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: evening there's no chance of rain thunderstorms, then I'm I'm
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: definitely taking that evening when they when the conditions of
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: uh somewhat cleared. You know, like I said, it doesn't
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: mean that there's calm winds. I'd actually prefer a little
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: bit of wind because then with some assemblage of wind, um,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: whether it's five miles eight miles an now it's more dependable.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: And I think your moved. When it is more dependable too,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: there's less varience. So so anyways, I'm just looking for
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: those conditions to clear, the wind to subside a little bit.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: That temperatures definitely bottomed out, and then that's where I
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: kill a lot of my dear, a majority of my box.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Whether it was the morning after that happened in the ruts,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I really focus on mornings then or the evening m
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: after that weather went through UM in the early season
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: in October lall late season for feeding source or food
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: source opportunities hunting office. Okay, you kind of answered my
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: next question, but I'd love for you to go into
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit more detail, which is same question, but
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: changed the date from October seven to November seven. You
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: only can pick one sit, is it the morning after.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying. Yeah, definitely the morning after.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: So there's even you know people will say bucks move
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: all day, middle of our middle of the day, and
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: you know you see that, but you have to rest too,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and typically the resting in the heat of the day.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Um nice. I think a lot of times where you
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: have high hunting pressure, you'll see a lot of deer
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: moving the middle of day just because someone bumped them
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: from a half mile away when they get out of
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: the stand, and so we might want to sit a
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: little bit longer, but we're seeing a big drop off
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and deer activity um on unpressured properties during the peak
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: rot like that between one and two and three and four.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Let's say it's getting dark at five thirty, so you
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: have a little bit of window of movements in the evening.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: A boy, I've seen some outstanding I've had some great
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: sits Where've seen ten twelve box up till one o'clock
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon and it was just all morning long,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and so I'm really focused. I think there's in those times, um,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: if you're back by those betting areas, you're not sitting
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: on a food store somewhere or a food plot. You're
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: actually near their betting areas off to the side, down
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: wind between betting areas on a funnel. But UM, really
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: you get several hours out out standing hunting uh from
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: daybreak to uh. UM, you know, twelve one, one thirty
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: something like that. We had a time where we hunted
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: four days during the rut. We sat dark to dark.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: This would have been going back to maybe two thousand three,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: and we saw between the two of us proximately twenty
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: four twenty six different bucks during that time, and we
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: did not see one buck between eleven thirty and one.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: It was just because it's you know, it's teams twenty
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: during the morning and had warm up to five during
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: the day that bucks were just taking a rest and
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: then we'd see a little bit of flurry of activity
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: last hour or two of day length. So if you
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: want to maximize your time, even just a half step,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: UM definitely focused on those mornings. In fact, I'd choose
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: a morning hunt like that if I had to just
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: pick one day for the entire four months season besides
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: opening day a gun season, because I love the tradition
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: of that. UM, then I'd pick one of those days
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: in early November A morning step. Let's rewind a little
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: bit and let's go back into midish October. Let's say
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: we're in the window that a lot of people referred
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: to as the October law. Let's say October to give
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: or take. And you head out there for an evening
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: hunt on one of your spots, and you notice that
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: there is a doll getting chased by a buck. And
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: it's not a year and a half old just messing around.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: It's actually like a three year old buck, maybe even
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: a four year old buck that's seemingly chasing a doll around.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Some people would say, oh, man, the ruts early get after.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Some people would say, oh, it's nominally, don't worry about it. Uh.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Would you observe that on your evening hunt in that
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: window and change anything at all for the next day
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: or the next week, or would you continue as normal
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: and assume that was just an anomaly that you're not
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: worried about. Now, what was the date again, Mark, This
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: scenario is somewhere between October, okay, and I'm seeing that
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: running activity in the evening. Yep, you're seeing this early
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: running act. There's a decently mature buck, a three or
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: four year old maybe, and he's after a deal pretty hard.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Uh would you would that change your approach for the
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: next day or two or would you just keep on
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: with your mid October plan as usual? What would you
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: do in that situation? Well, it's it's tough because if
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: it is, like I'm looking at, we see a lot
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: of running active. And one of the one of the
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: best signs of early season or pre run running activity
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: is dear when they're sitting dry all day, meeting in
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: a betting area, they're eating acorns, um, they're eating buds, shoots. Uh,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: They're they're working up quite a bit of thirst. We
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: typically see them only hitting water holes in the evening,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: but right around the ninety one of October and it
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: starts to get cold, those bucks start to coming active
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: in the mornings and all of a sudden they're hitting
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: water holes that you know, ten o'clock noon, two o'clock
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon, just because they're thirsty. They're starting to
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: move around a little bit more. So it really depends
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: on that time. I'm starting to hit my morning stands,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: typically around the twentieth about cover at some point. So
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: let's say this was theft in the evening, I see
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: this mature box a little bit earlier than I typically
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: would go in. Then I'm going to figure out, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: if I think that buck is in a betting area
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: or around a betting area, that I can actually hunt
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: on that land and he's one of my target box,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely gonna try to get in there the next
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: morning if I can um and and try to go
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: after that box in his betting area or around a
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: betting area I think he might be moving. What would
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: that look like like? What kind of cnique paint for
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: me a picture what that type of morning set up
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: would look like in a snare that you would actually say, Okay,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going in there, and this is the type of
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: spot I would say yes. Um So, first things, when
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you're accessing then, I'm not going through food's horse I'm
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: typically going well around food plots agg fields, and I'm
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: going in almost like a back door to that betting area,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: off to the side of it, so I'm getting on
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the downwind side. I'm not just walking into the middle
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: of betting area knowing I have to smoke deer when
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I get out later in the day. I'm I'm hunting
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: to one side where I feel my wind um I
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: can blow my scent and not getting too much trouble.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at a lot of times those
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: betting areas. Even in that thirty acre parcel where we
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: had food plots, I'm hunting high up above in the
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: ridge tops. Most those betting areas I'm sitting by, or
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the movements between them, are approximately three or four hundred
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: yards away from the food plots down below in the valley. Um,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: we get a lot of surface areas, so it might
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: be literally four hundred yards away, three hu or fifty
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: yards away, so they're quite a ways away from food. Um,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going around those foods horses to get in And
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: then depending on where I'm blowing my scent, if I'm
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: blowing my scent into a swamp or a pond or
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: off a cliff where there's no deer, then i feel
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: like I get in there a half hour, four or
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: five minutes before light and there's no problem finn. If
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I need those thermals and I'm hunting in a hilly
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: situation where or or maybe I'm blowing my scent into
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: a horse passed here and upon the field where a
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: buck would not be here in the daylight, but he
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: might be right before, right before daylight, and then I'm
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: getting into that stand location what I call it just
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: in time, where there's a short window period where I'm
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: using the gray light to get into the stand. I'm
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: getting on that downwind side of the bedding area. I'm
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: blowing my scent into an iffy area before daylight, but
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: once it hits daylight, I'm relatively safe. And so I'm
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: getting into that stand at that time. Um, you know,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: just in time, where you're using the gray light you're
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: getting in and um, so that'll depend that'll you know,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the access time will be determined by the location and
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: how safe my scent is down wind to me before
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: it even gets daylight. Well, as you're discussing that, it
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: made me, it sent me in a kind of random direction.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: So bear with me on this, Jeff barely on my
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: on my my random digressions here. But as I'm thinking
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: about this, somehow it's sent me down this rabbit hole
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: in my mind where I started thinking about your your
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: hunting season last year and how well things seem to
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: pan out. You've got these plans that you put in place,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and you've got these contingencies and you've got to you've
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: got an answer to every question seemingly in the real
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: world when you're out there hunting yourself. And last year,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: from the outside looking in, it looked like everything went perfect.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: You killed all sorts of bucks, your kids killed bucks,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: your wife killed bucks. It seemed like you guys put
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: seventy two tags on big mature bucks across your properties
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: something like yeah. But but what it makes me wonder
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: is what's the situation that confounds you? Like, what's the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: question that you haven't had an answer to. What's the
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: situation you found yourself in that you were cussing to
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: yourself and like, damn it, I don't know what to do?
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Like when's the last situation the last time you found
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: yourself in those shoes that you were confused or perplexed
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: or frustrated by a buck in you got beat and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: you sat there in your bed at night thinking yourself, dang,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: what in the world did I do wrong? Or why
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: can't I figure this out? Can you think of a
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: situation like that over the last couple of years that
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: stands out that you could share with us, where you
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: where you got beat and you didn't have the right
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: answer and you've had to think about it and stew
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: on it and try to figure out what you should
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: have done different. Is there something that comes to mind? Yeah,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: there is, UM, And my approach to hunting is I
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: try to have this no nonsense, pragmatic approach. I look
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: at it very methodically. So here's the plan. Um, these
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: are the three stands out of eighteen that are good
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: for this morning's wind. I just punted by this one,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: and so I make decisions like that based on UM,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: you know, a very systematic approach to hunting, the low
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: pressure stand staying off the side. So I allow that
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: system to take place and not affect my emotion as much.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: There's been many stands I've shot my best bucket ever.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Out of that I never hunted again, or I didn't
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: hunt for two or three years just because it didn't
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: come in the up in the wind rotation the following year.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: So I look at things very systematically. One thing that
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: really UH confounded me last year was, UM, we had
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: a great season. UM, Minnesota was awesome. UM shot my
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: target buck I think it was October, and you know,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Diane got her first buck of the bowl. Just we
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: had so many good things happening um put in Wisconsin.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Um I went over there for the first time the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: end of October, and I promptly wounded a buck. And
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: you know, you look in the footage and the buck
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: drop six inches before my arrow got there. Fill and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: put even some illustration on there to show that. But
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: bottom line is I just didn't aim enough, because I
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: know when they're inside that bubble of yards and they
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: hear that noise as the boat going off or any
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: kind of disturbance, they have a tendency to just run.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: And when they do that, it seems like they ducked
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: the arrow. So that was the first fuck. You know.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Luckily we got pictures of him in January. He's alive,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: made it through the season, recovered from his high you know,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: high wound. And uh So the next set out, um
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: I promptly missed a buck at thirty yards Errol's stuck
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: in the tree. He was one that I was really
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: after for a couple of years, and nice five year old. UM.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I think the next sit out, um I had a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: big monster booner, I don't even know how big it was.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: UM that responded to a grunt of mine and then
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: he stopped. Um I knew I shouldn't have done it.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: He was at fort yards to the brush and just
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: standing there. I grunted again. He turned around and walked away.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I spoke to him to this day,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: but I feel like I'm messed up, because once you've
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: grunt and they moved your way, should put the thing
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: away and just shut up and not worry about grunt
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: again unless he starts walking away, you know, on his own.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: And so I really messed up there. My friend Mike
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: from Michigan, he came out and now I can say
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: I did have COVID during this time. We'll we'll offer
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: an excuse there, but there's really no excuse. But Mike
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: was over my shoulder. He just went come out step
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: with me. He was gonna hunt for a gun season opener.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: And um, I had a buck come in that was
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: point blank, a really nice one and nice mature buck,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: and I missed him right with Mike by my side.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: And uh uh, you know, fast forward to early January.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: I missed another five year old, but I passed up
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: uh two years prior um or the year priories a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: four year old then and uh and he made it
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: through the season. Two. So I didn't film my Wisconsin
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: tag last year, and uh, I just got really beat up.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: It's been about ten years since I had a season
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: like that, and I hope, I hope it's just gonna
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: happen every ten years. But um I I practiced a lot.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: We have a good outdoor range at the new house
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and stable shoot long distance, short distance, all over the place,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: and it just a shot with and a lot. Because
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: it was their first year using a vertical bowl, she'd
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: sent me pictures of groups. But um, I just, you know,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it had one of those years that
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: it seemed like, you know, still had my really good
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: buck opportunities. I think every three or four sets I
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: had a chance of another mature book. Um I just
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: really messed up my season and had deep my tag.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: And that's just the way it goes sometimes. So that
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: was a very very frustrating season that And the one
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: good thing is though the season was open till the
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: end of January for bow and so I got to
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: hunt all the way to the Enterchanger. Yeah, I wore
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: my tag out and you still filled several tags between
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Minnesota and and somewhere else, right, Yeah, I shot um
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: one in Kentucky and then two in Minnesota. UM, and
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: then I shot really good target buck with my muzzle
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: loader in Wisconsin, so I can't complain. Um, but that
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: bow tag is one that you know since two thousand
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: two in Wisconsin. I think ivan building maybe one other time,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: and no one's gonna feel sorry for me. But the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: whole point is that it was. It was a very
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: frustrating tonight. I really hoping I don't have another one
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: like that. I actually and just putting a new sight on,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: just this new look, um and uh, I'll get a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: different bo. I just usually trying to change things up.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: That's what I did after two thousand ten minutes, and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it worked for the next ten years or nine years
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: whatever almost, But that was that was it was fun.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I got to I got to experience a lot. It's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: almost like you know, really do you do you become
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: a better hunter if you go out and sit one
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: time and shoot a back or two times three times.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: I got to experience the whole season. I think I
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: learned more about the land. Even on the land that
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I've hunted since two thousand fourteen, I I have experienced
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: the same thing you who just described and it's no fun. Uh,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and you always go. But yeah, there's parts of it
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: that are that are fun to be out there hunter
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: more often, but the moments right after, the days right
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: after are not fun. Um, How how did you handle
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the immediate period after one of those misses or after
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: that wound. Some people are of the mind that they're like,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I'm getting right back out there, and they're back out
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: there the very next day, the very next hunt. Some
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: people they need to take time away, they need to
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: go shoot for a few days or a week. Uh,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: how do you mentally handle that? Where you've you've put it?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know you, Jeff, You've put in a
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of work and time and effort and resources
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: into getting a shot at one of these mature bucks
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: and to have that opportunity right there and then slip
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: through your fingers. I know how much that much. I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: know how much that must frustrate you, and what that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: feels like, what goes through your mind that night, that
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: next day. How do you rebound from that? Well, you
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: know that's a great question because I just I look
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: at it. You know again, what's my next opportunity? Once
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: my next set? I think, Um, the second time that
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: the first time that I missed, Um, that was on
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: election day and that was I had hunted in the
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: morning and I missed. And Uh, I'm just stubborn and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: determined enough that I hadn't planned on sitting all day
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: in that stand. But it's one that's a transition between
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: betting and food. It's kind of a big X and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: movement or it's located. Um, I thought I could offer
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: a good sit all day. And so even though my
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: glowing knock was sticking in the tree at twenty nine
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: yards and I'd just stare at it all day and
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: I had no food or water, I just didn't stand
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: because I'm very stubborn. That's my person right there. That's
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: me too. It's kind of like you all you deserve
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: to look at all day. So it's uh. And then
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: and it was crazy. I got down, UM walked all
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: the way down. Ended up going to vote that night
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: with Diane. UM. I was sweating in the election where
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: where we at Village Hall and I just didn't feel
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: I felt really tired it out And um that was
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: on a Tuesday. Well then UM we went to dinner
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: that night. I actually felt like UM, going back with Diane.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: She had driven separate, um and leaving my truck in
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: Coon Valley, just going home fifty minutes away in Minnesota
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: because I just didn't feel like I could stay awake
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: time the way home. And of course, you know, I
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: had a fever on Saturday, and we got confirmed the
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: following week we had COVID. But that was the start
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: of it. I just thought it was because I didn't
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: eat drink all day and it was kind of almost torture,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: but it was, you know, I have that more like
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: that approach, like, man, this is not going to beat me.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I'm even with coked. I went hunting three times when
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: that COVID walking up the hill thirty five minutes the
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: one time I literally took a team breaks. Normally I
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: take one or two and that's my stand, forty minutes
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: after I should have. But I just and then the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: next day I'd be in bed all day. Um, I
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: don't know how close I pushed it, you know, to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: being really sick. But um, it's kind of like that
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: stubborn to term the nation. And I'm just not going
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: to let the speak whether it was COVID or missing
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: deer or deer. I just my thought is to get
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: right back out there. You want to get right back
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: up the saddle and try to make something happen. Maybe
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: it would have helped me to take a week or
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: two off, try to reassess and shoot my bowl a
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: little bit, makes some changes, and but it's just not
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: my nature. Yeah. What about another one of these kick
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: in the nuts situations, which is uh not a missing
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: a deer. But you're up there, and we'll just continue
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: with the November time frame. Let's say you're up there
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: in the tree and the big old buck that you've
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: been wanting to get a crack at all season, he's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: coming in and you got your bow in hand, you're
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: getting ready, you're about to draw back, and something happens
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: and he bust you. UM, feel free to elaborate. How
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: you're answer here might differ base on the kind of bust.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: But let's say he busts you and he skidaddles out
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: of there, he knows something was up, and he gets
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: out of there on November twelve. Let's say, um, what
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: would you do in that situation? Would you give up
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: on that tree completely even though this big old buck
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: came through here today? Would you say that he spooked
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: out of there? This this spots burned and you're gonna
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: change up your strategy and try to catch him somebody
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. Or would you say, well, it's the rut.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah he busted me, but it's crazy times and he
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: might follow do right back through here, and I know
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: this is such a good spot the him or the
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: other the number two buck might roll through. Still, Um,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: how would you handle that scenario where you get busted
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: out of a tree in the rut? What's the impact
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: you think that's gonna happen? How do you react? I
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: look at it like, Um, in my mind, I write
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: that stand off for that one for the rest of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the season, and I've had gear that ten days later. Um,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: come into a situation like that, stop thirty yards away
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and start moving around the stand just because they know
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: something bad is in that direction. Um. And so I
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: really look at it that I'm not going after that buck.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: But what's really worked those to pivot and just go
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: to a completely different stand location on the other side
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: of the property. It's crazy how a bucketed wasn't regularly
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: using that side of the property all of a sudden
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: shifts his patterns because of that mistake that you made,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: and you can walk right in and shoot him the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: first time in that stand to low and behold your
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: number one block. And it was just because you're relocated yourself, Um,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you know, quarter mile away, four d yards away, three
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: hundred yards whatever it was, and he got into his
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: new daylight four range because you also been ultimately didn't
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: want to leave that area, or he was still around
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: and at the same time, maybe you have a small
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: enough property where he's gone. I'm just starting to focus
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: on number two then, and but really I found shifting over.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: We killed several bucks like that where he just shifted
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: to the other side of the property and we're able
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: to connect it with that buck that he let's say
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: it was a wound. We've shot box that where he's
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: got broadheads back. Um, the wound was still healing from
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: ten days earlier, a week earlier. But they were a
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: long ways away from that other stand or we messed
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: up on them. From what do you think that ranges
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: that you think what's the the the the epicenter of
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: the impact is like where the stand was that you
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: got busted. How far do you think you need to
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: get away from that to remove yourself from the impact
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: zone where you think that this buck might be forgiving Again,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: is it? Because you know, when you see the other
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: side of the property, that's obviously going to be very
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: different depending on how big somebody's property is. So is
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: this two yards? Is this a mile? On average? If
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: you had to give me some kind of range, like
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: how far away do you think you have to get
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: to be in a safe zone? Again, Well, I'm gonna answer,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: like you know, and this relates to a lot of
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: different scenarios, whether it's how far or dear beds away
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: from a food source, um, how far to find a
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: box betting area away from his his afternoon food source.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: But in a coverless ad region, that might be a
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: hundred yards away because covers limited and here and if
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: you're in a you know, fantasyland state where you have
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of mature box there's hardly any hunting pressure,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: then maybe that buck comes right back to that location.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: But in where most of us hunts, that's not the case.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: In the up of Michigan you spoken to, area might
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: be that he's across the swamp a mile a mile
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: and a half where you're gonna find him moving around.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: He's just done from that area, and he's used to
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of space and he takes it. Is his
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: afternoon movement from his betting area to his food source
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: might be three quarters a mile regularly on a daily basis,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: where that's a hundred yards in a coverless northern Ohio
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: flat agg region, So you know where I'm at. It's
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: more like, you know, I get three or four d
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: yards away, maybe an elevation change, and I'm right back
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: in that potentially movement for daylight movement where that buck
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: might be. So I would say to two to four
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: hundred yards in an average scenario in big wooded wilderness
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: area where there's not a lot of deer, that could
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: be a mile or more. And in a coverless agg
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: region like someone the once we've talked about earlier, and
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: that might be a hundred fifty yards. So I hate
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to do this, but I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: us focused on misery and and I think people that, yeah,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: so here's another here's another scenario that that at least
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: I've encountered, I think a lot of people probably have,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: which is you get into this this same time period November.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: It's the rut it's the it's the super Bowl, right,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: We've looked forward to it all year. And maybe this
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: is just me, But if you consume enough hunting media,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: if you daydream enough, if you're as voyeuristically of an
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: optimistic as an optimist as I am, you're just dreaming
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and imagining that November is gonna be amazing, Right, It's
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: gonna be everything you've ever imagined. There's gonna be bucks
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: running everywhere. But then inevitably you get out there and
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: there'll be some period during the rut where it's dead.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: It's November seven through the tenth, and it's supposed to
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: be dynamite, and it is not. You're hunting great spots
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: that are by the textbook dynamite rut hunting spots. You're
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: downwind of an amazing deal betting area, or you're in
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: the pinch point of all pinch points, and you just
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: know that a big boy is going to roll through there.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: But you sit there on November seven, nothing, You sit
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: there November eight, nothing. You hunt the best betting area
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: in the area in November nine and there's nothing, and
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: you don't get it, Like, what's going on in that scenario, Jeff,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: When You're hunting what should be the best days of
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: the year, and it's good conditions to it's not like
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: it's hot, it's nice, cool to cold weather, and you're
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: hunting your best rut spots and nothing for three or
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: four days. What do you do then, Jeff? Do you
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: do you stay in the spots because you know you
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: have faith that eventually he'll roll through, or do you
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: call an audible and totally change your plan? That's ah,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: I love that question because I try to get into
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: that situation the first place, because I'm I'm really making
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: the decision to use a stand. I would give you
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: an example, like even in the early season. I remember
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: we traveled down from the up to hunt in Wisconsin's
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: seven hour drive and um, it was early season. We
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: had a great cold front, and um, I went out
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: to a water hole that gives us a lot of
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: rut activity in some of our best box the entire
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: year daylight pictures. So I went in there. Let's say
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: it's October five, and and instead of being uh proactive
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: going back and changing the st car, checking it out
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: on the computer, you know, walking a mile and a
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: half round trip going back and forth to the truck
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: and we had time to do. So I just went
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: right into the stand thinking would be okay, and I
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: sat there just that one evening pulled the cards. There
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: hadn't been a shooter box yet that year, and I
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: feel like I wasted a set. And so whether I'm
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: going by sign current signed scraping activity, I guess I
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: have a MOX scrape at every stand, on every post
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: and location, and so you can tell just by tracks
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: if there's a big act there, if it's being work,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: even if you didn't have a camera on it, you
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: can tell by rubs uh frequency of scraping tracks in
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: the area. So I'm trying to make a situation where
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not even hunting a stand unless I have good
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: reason or intel to think that there's a box that
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: I want, or at least some activity and that that
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: spot to begin with. So if I sat in a
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: spot for three or four days in a row, I'm
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely moving. Now. If I'm on public lands, that's
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: a different scenario because they're not hunting big rut movement,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: and I might be shooting a box that's coming through
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: every four or five days in that location. He might
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: be three miles away when I go in and said
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: that stand so in a outstanding rut cruising funnel. On
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: public land, a lot of times it's more time in
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the stand, where on private land it's more timing of
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the current activity in that stand. If I don't see
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: that activity, I'm definitely leaving to look at somewhere else,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: because that means there's a hot dog somewhere else. There's
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: a combination of hot dose, a family group, there's something
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: that's drawing gear away from that position, and I do
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: my best to go find them. Yeah, and make sure
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: that I'm hunting at current times. And so I'm very
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: unforgiving when it comes to stand locations I think that
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: it's dead, I'm immediately moving, um, you know, and finding
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: the next best stand. And that's why a lot of
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: times I'm hunting completely different stands in the morning and
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: the evening. I might hunt all day, but here I
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: just had a dead stand. And you'll even see this
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: in the morning, like you have a hot stand in
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the morning, that's a dead stand in the afternoon. So
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of times a great stand in the morning
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: is not a great stand in the afternoon. And that's
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: why I'm switching stand most of the time, unless I'm
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: torturing myself watching a glowing knock all day because I
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: dismissed one. That's more of a sever personal things. But yeah,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely staying mobile, and uh, you know, you know,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: and just real quick, I know, my my buddy Carl
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: down in Georgia, we hunted in Wisconsin for many years, Kentucky,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania a couple of times, Michigan. UM, really good hunting
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: buddy to actually be out in Minnesota in the public,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: laying out of my place this year, but we we
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: hunted the same land. Um, he actually put it in
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit more time because he'd take an entire
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: nine day window off every years on the run where
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: I just go out and hunt the weather. And so
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: during that the twelve years we had to land, I
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: shot seventeen bucks out of fourteen different stands. He shot
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: nine bucks out of two stands, eight bucks out of one.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: So he would live and die by that stand, almost
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: like you're talking about if it was dead, it was dead.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: He just got hunting it where I was always looking
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: for the next freshest stand. In fact, it got to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: a point when where it chooses stands, we always drew straws,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: we narrow it down to the you know, the handful
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: of stands we thought were the best for the sin
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and he'd always want to go hump the horse backers stand,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: And so that gave me another twenty stands to choice from.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: And so to me, it was always about finding the
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: next freshest stand with sign. And so even you know,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: going a little bit out of your way and finding
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: you know, going to buy this out away stand and
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: you look over there and how there's as fresh scrapes
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: or fresh rubs, you know, the current sign, and then
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going in sitting on that. Even though that stand
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: initially might not have been my favorite, I was looking
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: at it like your There's something I live by is
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: that your favorite stand should be the next dame you
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: shoot a buck out um, not your last stance. I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: like that. I like that a lot. Uh So, speaking
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: of moving, one of the things that I always find
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: myself in debating during a day is that scenario where
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: you know you want to move from a morning stand
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: to an evening stand, and you're trying to decide when
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: the right time is to pull out and head out
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: to the next spot. All things being equal, I know
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: that if you were sitting at eleven o'clock in a
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: big Buck roll through, you might sit longer and wait
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. But if you had to just
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: if you had just pick, what's the perfect time, the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: best ideal time to make your move If you have
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: to go from a morning stand to a new evening stand,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: and we're talking somewhere in this rut time frame, it's
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: kind of tricky because that's times there can be that
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: midday movement. Um when would you optimally pull down your
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: set and moved to the new spotter or climb out
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: and move to another pre hung set. That's uh. I
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: would say usually that average time frame, how cold is it?
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: Mark lets northwest? Since that's where I'm staring into the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: wind and it's like eighteen degrees and there's a twenty
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: mile wind. But it's a really good day, and uh,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to get down to the leven. But
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: I would say between eleven and one um is typically
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: the time frame. And I'm kind of like you you
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: see a buck that goes through at eleven, Well, you know,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: if there's still some movement like that, I'm waiting waiting
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: another hour. Um so, But but it's it's good to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: point out that a lot of these mornings rut stands
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: are betting area related if you think about it. That again,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: kind of going back to a good stand in the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: morning might not necessarily be a good stand in the evening.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: Evening stands related to food sources. When you're sitting in
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: a betting area stand in the morning, it could be
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: great to one or two you know, bunch scruisy. Eventually
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: they lay up, they're taking a little siesta break, and
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: then they're heading towards food. Because every other year including those,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: are heading towards food in the evening. So as it
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: gets close to a dark year, leaving your position in
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: the bedding morning betting areas standing um instead of coming
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: to your position, So you're less likely diceed Ara before
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: dark than you are two hours before dark. And so
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: that's why it's a really good reason to flip and
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: change dance plot. Yeah, you know, I found myself more
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: and more often hunting something like you described, like a
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: betting focused type morning stand during the rut, but then
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: wanting to stay there until that two or three o'clock
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: window because those betting areas still get visited during the
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: midday window, and then I try to slip out like
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: two or three o'clock when I think that midday. You know,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: when I think that midday, little possible burst is over,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: and then I relocate to my evening spot. Um, but
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: I'm always sitting there the whole time thinking, Man, should
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: I go sooner? Should go later? Should I wait an
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: hour longer? Um? You drive yourself crazy thinking about it
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: too much. Yeah, and that's where I think. Uh, you know,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: I like having a time like so I'll just pick
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: a random time one or two o'clock and then he
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: just moved and so kind of methodically, you just don't
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: think about it. Kind of this is your plan. Um.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: I think the more you stew about it, you can
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: think of so many different scenarios. Um. But you just
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: pick a time, said till that time, and then I
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: look at it like if I said I was gonna
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: get down at one, and for some reason I cheat,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: I get out at five to one. Let's say, even
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I'm really cold and I spoke a deer. That's not me,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I I was being lazy, I didn't stay
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: till one. Or if I stayed at one and I'm
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: getting down and spook a deer. Yeah, you know, I
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: spoke to him, but that was the plan I got
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: out of one. I stayed till one. I did what
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to in my head. And uh so
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: you kind of you know, that's more forgivable to me
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: than getting out of a stand early. So you just
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: pick a time and and kind of go with it,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: kind of like whether it's plant food plots, Yeah, your
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: food plots failed. Will just throw some Ryan and don't
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: sweat it and enjoy the teas. And I guess I
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: look at it like two. There's just so many other
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: things that light to stress about that. For me, the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: fun is the whole system of coming up with the
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: plan of you know, hunt here in the morning, here
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: in the afternut, I think this time I'm gonna move,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: And if bad things happened because you were moving or
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: because you got down at that particular time he had chosen,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: I just don't sweat it. Yeah, that's it's, at least
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: for me, easier said than done. But I like the sentiment.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: But it always seems like I tell myself that in
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: August and then come November, I'm I'm sweating it still.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: Oh that's how old are you? Mark? They're thirty three
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: or thirty four, thirty three one or two somewhere in there. Yeah,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: I remember when you were here when you're a lot
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: younger too. But I'm fifty one, and I think it's interesting.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Last year when I shot my target bucket in Minnesota,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: and that's the funk I wanted. I was so excited.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: I went out to a stand um October twenty six.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: There was the evening hunt. I suspect that he would
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: be there. I got the stand and the wind was empty,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: and I only made it about fifteen twenty minutes. I
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: got down and went to another stand, and two days
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: later I shot him on that stands And that night,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: when I was sitting there during daylight, that buck walked
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: from that down wind approach, and I feel if I
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: was in that stand, I would have spooked him maybe,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: And when I've got him for the entire season. And
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: so that discipline at fifty one is not the discipline
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: I had when I was thirty or maybe thirty five,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: or certainly not twenty five. So it just becomes like
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: you you kind of have this stuff in your head.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: This is when I'm gonna do, This is what words,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: this is what's worked in the past. It's easy to
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: develop that discipline over experience. So what I'm trying to
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: say is, yeah, easier said than done, But if you
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: do it for many years and that's what works, then
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of easier at fifty one than thirty three. Yeah,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: that's a great that's a great point. And and I'm
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm curious about this, and maybe you just told
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: me the answer that might have been the answer where
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: you just told me right there. But when you look
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: back at yourself at thirty three, you zoom back from
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: fifty one back to thirty three, and you look at
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: those you know, eighteen years in between. What's the most
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: important change you've made from my age to your age
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: that has led to more success for you? If you
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: could try to condense all the lessons you've learned, all
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: the changes you've made, all the progress that has happened
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: between then and now, and you could put your finger
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: on one single thing, what would that be? Um that
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: less is more? And so what I mean by that
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: two thousands I said a hundred times in four different states,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: or practically twelve all days SIPs over a four month period,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: and I shot two box, I passed up fifty six
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: public lands in Michigan, Pennsylvania privately and two and now
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've burned myself out and I've burned
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: my stands out. You know, what I've found is like
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: a year like last. You know, I had all these
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: opportunities in Wisconsin, but I only sat maybe fifteen times
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: from October, November, December and January. In Wisconsin. I just
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: picked really good times, maybe eighteen times. But um, I
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: had really you know, an opportunity every three or four
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: six at b and it was because I was picking
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: the best times to go. I used, uh, you know,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: current time in activity and went in and to expect
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: the high rate of opportunity. Um, even in two thousands
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: two looking back or two thousand three looking back, um,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: you know, eighteen years or whatever, I remember, I put
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: a lot more emphasis on hunting the peak of the
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: rod in hunting five or six day window, where I've
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: learned that to take those five days to spread about
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: over the entire road and pick the best days to hunt,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: it was more valuable than taking five days off in
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: a row. Certainly nine days in a row, because I
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: can pick a juice and not everyone can do that.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people can say, you know, for example,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: I'd rather if I had to pick my time off
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: well in advance, I'd say, Okay, i'm gonna take these
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: three long weekends in a row. And I'm just sticking dates.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what they are this year, but
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: let's say it was the twenty October, the second of November,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and the ninth of November. I'd rather tick tick three
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: day weekends. And and then, if you're really lucky, your
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: your employer could say, you know, today, I could say,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: can I let you know if I'm gonna take Monday
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: off or Friday off for this long weekend. Um, But
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: even then, I'd rather spread out my impact on the land.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: And uh and funt Fresher stands in a methodical approach
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: like every day, I'm just gonna hunt these three weekends,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: long weekends, whether it's a three or four day weekends,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: and UH take my chance to spread out like that.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to put all my eggs into one basket,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: thinking that the more days I hunted a row of
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: the more opportunity I have. So thus is more certainly
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: over the years, my my sis, um my sits for
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: opportunity have decreased drastically. You know, in two thousand six,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: that was you know, a hundred and ten cents for
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: two bucks. Was that you know, I'm not saying I
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: didn't have any other opportunities, but that was you know,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: fifty sis per box, fifi cents per bocket's a lot
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: of cents per bock. Now it's down board like four
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: to six on any warm hunting um per bucket. And
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: that's because I'm being more timely. And for that then
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: I get to hunt more states. I feel like, um,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not burning out stands. I get to hunt a
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: longer amount of time. I get to learn more because
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: I'm in the field for a more extended amount of time.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just not hunting as much. You know, even if
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: I said forty five times, that might be over three
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: or four states overall four months period. You do the math,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: that's not many steps for bee. Yeah. So, gosh, I
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: don't know. Time's flying by, Jeff, and I'm getting old
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: really fast. But I think you and I did a
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: podcast maybe, and so you said, yeah, these two, these
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: two kids that one in three year old, make me
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: feel a lot older. But you and you and I
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: did a podcast together. I should know this off top
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: of my head, but I'm guessing it was two thousand fifteen,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen, so something like five years or so
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: ago in which we we spent We spent a lot
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: of time diving into your theories around the best days
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: to hunt, choosing which of these days are gonna be
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: selective about. And I know you've spent a lot. You've
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: you've shared a lot on your YouTube channel, and you've
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: done articles about this, and there's a lot you've you've
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: kind of an algorithmic approach to choosing the days that
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: have the highest odds of success. But what I'm wondering
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: about is how your thoughts, if at all, have changed
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: since two thousand fifteen when we did this two hour
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: conversation diving deep into your theories at that point. So,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: from from two thousand fifteen to two twenty one, has
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: anything changed in how you predict the best days to hunt?
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: Is there anything different now or that you view is
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: more important or less important than back five six years ago. Yeah,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: that's there's a couple of things. And what's interesting is
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: when we talked about then two thousand fifty, I think
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: that was around the time that I wrote that road article, yes,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: and that was that November rud issue. And what's interesting
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: is that kind of forced me to put my numbers
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: down on paper. And that's why I'm going to meet
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: the hunt biscrow you know, right now for dinner tonight
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: and for you bunch of videos tomorrow, because they infused
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: that algorithm into their hunt cast formula. And that's just
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: been an incredible ride journey over last year and a half.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: But I I hunted that a for you know, since
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: the early nineties, and so it's been really focusing on
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: whether change, especially temperature drop and and so what's really
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: changed I think during that time is one of the
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: things I noticed is that, um, you know, it's just
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: kind of an add on is that when things change,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: when things change and they get really calm where there's
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: no wind, I find that no wind isn't necessarily a
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: good thing. And you do seem like there's a you know,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: a modern amount of wind it's a good thing. And uh,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: and I have noticed that for about the years. Also
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: it's relative, like if you have forty mile winds and
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: drops to twenty miles an hour, dear, notice that change
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: twenty is still pretty windy, But if it drops from
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: twenty five miles an hour or to five miles an hour,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: there's still that same change. So I think it's all relative, um.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, same at temperature change. UM. I think
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: in the early days I used to focus on, boy,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: when it ends in the high twenties the end of October,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: I really need to be an woods. But if you
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: just had a string of seventies seventy one again for
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: five or six days in a row, and then all
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: of a sudden it's a high of fifty two, even
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: if it's early November, that's warm for that time here,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: it's still a huge drop the temperature. And and really
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: that eighteen degree overall drop the temperature for daytime highs,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: is it really that much different of an impact and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: that the temperature drop from an afrit And I don't
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: think it is. And so wind speed change, temperature change,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: it's all relative, I think. And then at the same time,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: para metric pressure. I used to pay attention to pari
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: metric pressure a little bit, was thinking, you know where
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: para metric pressure was high temperatures the lowest, it's in
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: those two. That's always a great data hunt. Those are
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: easy to pick out the forecast with the bari metric
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: pressure and temperature. Meat here will be on their feet.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: Um on finding my dear archer made up that saying
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: a few years ago. I thought that was kind of cool.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: But the very metric pressure can lie. And so I
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: look at it like deer. They're outside obviously three sixty five,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: and they relate to tangible changes in the weather, whether
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: that's changing wind speed, the moisture in the air, change
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: in wind direction, obviously the extremities of the weather and
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: volatility of the weather. They relate to all that. And
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: and so what I noticed is that, um, you could
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: have a big drop and temperature, a big, big subsiding
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: of the weather conditions that brought about that change, and
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: the very metric pressure is low because just two days
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: later there's another up front coming through. It's a double
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: front for that week, and so the very metric pressure
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: is low. Yet if you missed that time to be
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: in the woods, you just had a seventeen degree temperature drop,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: the winds went from forty to twenty one miles an hour,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: you had thunderstorms. Now there's no rain that's been dry
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: for several hours. If you missed that day, you're missing
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: one of the top ten days in the woods all year.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: At the same time, two days later, everything subsides. That
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: temperature bottoms out very mutual pressure is high, outstanding time
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: to hunt, but two days later the pressure could be higher,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: even though it's ten degrees warmer. And that's the case
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: where even though the pressure is high, if you're going
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: by a high pressure, very much of pressure meeting, that's
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: going to give you a false positive, meaning that the
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: best day was just two days earlier, when the temperature
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: bottomed out and the conditions cleared, and a lot of
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: that goes back to two even feeding, you go go
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: back to that fear feeding five times to the twenty
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: four hour period that talked a lot about this in
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: that Outdoor Life article Ture thousand fifteen. Then if if
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: gear are pressured back to their betting areas because they're
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: stressed out and they don't want to move because of
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: the extremity of weather, they're missing quality feeding times and
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: quality competing opportunities. So soon as that whether breaks, they
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: want to put the feedback on. But just like you
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: or I, if we were lost in the wilderness and
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: we didn't have anything to eat for five days. The
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: first thing we do want to get rescued is we
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: pick out and what do you pick out the second day?
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: In the third day, And so once you pass that
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: second day, third day, after that weather changes that feeding
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: influence and that really that binge feeding to replenish your bellies.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: And you think about it, when a storm goes through,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: they're stressed out, so they're losing energy just pure stress. Um.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: Even in you know, Minnesota, they rerouted snowbill trails around
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: deer yards because they found that that would extend the
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: amount of energy that deer could actually expand throughout the
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: wintertime to actually relate to saving their life. You know,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: my dad days at the end of winter, harsh winter
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: to their life because those snow bills aren't going by
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: and taking energy away just by stress. So when a
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: front goes through deer, there's loud noises, it's windy, uh,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: they can burn the energy for stress. And then on
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: top of that, it's getting colder, so they're burning energy
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: to stay alive and keep warm. And then third, the
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: big ones, they're missing quality feeding opportunities. They might be
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: stuck in their beds for five six seven feetings in
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: a row. So when that happens, it's kind of a
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: triple ammy where they just want to feed as soon
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: as that breaks, and so you know, as it relates
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: to perimentum pressure, to me, it's more related to their
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: their lost energy, the stress levels they received. They want
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: to feed immediately after breaks and who cares what the
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: level is at that point. And that's why I think
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: you can have the same perimentum pressure level. And there's
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: a snowstorm coming here, we've all seen it where deer
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: feeding out in the field. It's uh uh, you know,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: kind of a light packed snow that's coming down. It's
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: one two inches three inches and deer just beating out
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: in the field. They're running around like they have no
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: care in the world. But if there's a blizzard coming,
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: they don't even leave their be their bedding areas. And
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: you can have the same parimentum pressure reading at that time.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: I'm moisture in the ear. They want to win wind
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: speed um, maybe temperature change, ever might be. They know
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: to stay back to their beds, parking out into the
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: fields of beat even though you have relatively the same
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: pressure meating. So again, they they're acting to pure tangibles
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: that's something that I've really focused in on and it's
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, two thousand pen I wrote
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: my last book that all other white tens and so
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: at that time as really uh, it was a bit
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: opportunity to write and really not focused on very much
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: of pressure in and just be really clean about that
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: algorithm approach. And I feel like you take the very
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: much of pressure out of the equation. It makes things
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: take a lot more sense. But when you're actually when
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: they don't because you're eliminating a lot of false positives
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: and false tectives. Man, this is uh, this is exactly
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: the kind of the exactly the kind of just different
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: level of insight that I always know i'm gonna get
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: with you, Jeff, that I always enjoy because you and
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: I are both in the best possible way. We are
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: both super nerds. We love to geek out on these
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: little details. And uh, I always know when I get
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: you on the phone, I'm gonna have a like mind
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: the soul that I can that I can get into
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: this stuff with. And I love it. But I know
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: you've got you know it's the best. But I know
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: you've got to get rolling here pretty soon to your
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: evening meeting and I've got to go too, So I
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: want to shift to just a rapid fire. A couple
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: of questions here to wrap this up, and it's gonna
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: be handful questions. Just just give me a one word
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: answer to these five quick ones and then we're gonna
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: shut it down. So some of the stuff we've talked
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: about over the years, some of this we haven't. Um,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: but let's just see what you think on these. Just
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: first thing off top of your head, So are you
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: are you ready for the rapid fire session? I think
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: I am? Okay, all right? Does the moon matter to
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: dear movement? Yes? Or no? Um? Yes? For morning feeding opportunities.
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: That was more than one word, but I'll give you
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: a pass, Jeff, would you it was sure? Would you
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: would you take a fifty yards shot at a white
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: tail with your bow? Yes? Or no? All right? Yes?
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: If you could only have one of these tools for
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: the rest of your hunts, would it rather be a
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: set of rattling antlers or a grunt? To You're can
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: only have one grunt alright, expandable or fixed blade broadheads
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: for the rest of your life? Which one hybrid? That's cheating?
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: But okay, you meant to ask that one too, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: I really do like those hybrids. All right? Should you
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: stop a buck with some kind of sound before shooting
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: with a bow? Yes? Or no? Wo um most of
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: the time? Yeah? Okay, all right, Now, I know you've
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: got farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin, so this one's gonna
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: be tough. Which state? Which state has better deer hunters?
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: Minnesota or Wisconsin. Oh, I'm not gonna answer that. I
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: don't honestly, I don't. Can I expand on this slightly? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a path. I really have a lot
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: of respect for the wilderness type hunters and when you
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: get into northern Minnesota and some of those wilderness type settings, uh,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin can be really rough, brutal wilderness. But the
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: expansive aout of the wilderness in Minnesota and that people
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: that consistently pulled big box, mature box out of that
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: area without the eat of food or anything, they're just
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: going in a hunt them. I have, you know, bad
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: respect for them. Yeah, that is no easy task. That's
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: not even Wisconsin and Minnesota hunters in general. It's just said,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty pretty cool area. I know some people
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: are host monsters out of there and they do a
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: consistently with nothing is you know, nothing more than the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: woodsman chip and UH and honey experience to go back back.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: All right, So this can be a longer answer, a
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: little bit longer answer. But here's one less scenario. Let's
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: say I control the world. I I rule the world.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: I get to make all the decisions, and I'm going
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: to tell you, Jeff, that you cannot deer hunt for
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: ten years. I'm gonna take away your deer hunting privileges
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: for ten years unless unless you can kill a five
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: year old buck this year. So if you kill five
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: year old buck this year, you can keep on hunting.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: But if you don't pull it off, you're done for
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: ten years. But here's the rub. You only get one
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: day to kill that five year old buck and you
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: get one stand location, so you have a very high
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: stakes hunt. Tell me the date that you're going to
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: choose for this hunt, and describe to me the tree
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: stand you're gonna hunt. This is a very important hunt.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: You know that's interesting because you know we own we
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: own our acre to Minnesota. UM, it's two acres that
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: do talk about that? So Um, you know, basically a
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: lifetime so far to get to that point. We have
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: lots of stands, lots of activity. Um. I have a
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: long history of hunting Wisconsin, even on that short that
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: small parcel I think this would be my eighth season. Um,
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: it's going to be November, uh five, and it'll be
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: on a ridge top in Wisconsin, on that small parcel
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: um adjacent to a really nice betting area that's difficult
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: to get into that stand and uh it's kind of
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: in an X and a hubble movement, and I can
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: blow my scent off either side of the ridge, um
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: and even down the ridge because it's slopes down. And
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get into that stand about just in time
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: because I need to rely on thermals to carry my
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: sons away in the morning hours. I get there hour
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: before light. There's a good chance that a box if
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: during that area, could be down winded meba if the
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: thermost just sinking down belonging where That's not gonna happen
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: at daybreak when the sun starts rising and things eat up.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: So um, and I'm gonna sit in that stand right
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: there all the way toil dark, just sitting that one
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: stand and um, that would be uh, that would be
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: where I'd take my chance on that small person, on
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: a person that I know about. And uh, not to
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: say that there's not photo. I guess the history and
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: knowing some of those box pretty intimately in the area.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: And that's right. I take my chance, all right. I
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: like it, and I like your chances. A better workout
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: for you, Jeff. I enjoyed this. I always appreciate ats,
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: and I appreciate your time making making this work on
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: the drive. So, Jeff, you have made it through the
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: what would you do gauntlet? Nice and I'm almost through
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: Chicago fully, so that's a good thing too. I'm glad
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: that we could help pass the time through that sometimes
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: miserable stretch of I eight or ninety or ninety four,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: whichever what bit you're on. So man, thank you, Jeff.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the time this is. Uh, this has been great,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: always enjoyable talking to you, and I really appreciate you
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: have me on the podcast. All right, and that's a wrap.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one. Uh,
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: be sure to go check out all of Jeff's content.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: He does great work. You can find it at the
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: white Tail habitat solutions dot com website. You can go
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: to the white Tail habitat Solutions YouTube channel. Um he's
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: got a great set of online courses right now on
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: his website too that if you're trying to go deeper
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: into some of these topics, that will absolutely help you
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: do it. So check it all out. Uh, check out
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: his books. Like I mentioned, they're all worth your time
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: and energy. So with all out of the way, I
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: appreciate you spending time here. I hope you enjoyed this one.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot. Jeff always is a guy that
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: I can take something away from. So hoping you're feeling
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: in the same way. And until next time, thank you
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: and stay wired to HU