Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #96: Tony Peterson’s Public Land Whitetail Plan

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #96: Tony Peterson’s Public Land Whitetail Plan · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number nine
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Toy in the show, we're joined by Tony Peterson, who's
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: sharing his in depth tactics for hunting public land white tales.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to you by Sick of Gear, and today we're talking
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: public land white tales and joining us is one of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the foremost experts on this topic, Tony Peterson. Now, Tony
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: is an experienced outdoor writer and a dead serious deer hunter.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So with that mind, in just a few minutes, we're
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: going to get Tony on the line. We're gonna get
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to know him a little bit better, and then we're
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: gonna get into the nuts and bolts of how he's
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: been able to have such consistent success hunting mature bucks
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: on public land across the country. But before that, Mr
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: co host Dallas fort Worth, Dan Johnson, what news do
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you bring from Iowa? Um mm hmm, not too much.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I just finished the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I'm working on my first beer the night. So I
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: saw your picture on Instagram. It looked like just a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: bread sandwich. I didn't seen any peanut butter and jelly,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: and my first thought was like, is he just eating
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: two slices of whitebread that's what it looked like. Oh no,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: trust me, there's plenty of peanut butter and jelly in
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the middle of that. Okay, Now, I like, I like
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to keep it towards the center because if you bite
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: into it and then it all comes out the side,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not into that. See I disagree. I feel like
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that's the sign a good p B and J. You
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: need to have enough filler to have a little bit
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of skirtage or whatever you want to call it, squirtage.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: What's the squirtage factor? I think probably a good thing
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: for us to be devoid using the term squirtage factor
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: ever again on this show. But at the same time,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I think that squirtage factor could accurately accurately describe a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: quality broadhead elaborate maybe you know, like you just you
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: just smoke a deer and some some squirtage factors are
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: higher or lower of the broad head, which makes the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: blood trail harder or easier to follow. The higher the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: squirtage factor, the easier the blood trailer follow. Okay, I
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: guess you know you're the gear guy, so I'll let you.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Let's roll with that. Other than P B and J
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in your first beer, the things going pretty well, Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: pretty pretty well. You know, only one of my kids
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: is sick this week, and uh and it's not really
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: even a sickness. It's just like snotty nose and he's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: teething again, which I think last for eighteen years. Ship,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, that's good. Only one out of
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the family. That's better than sometimes, right. I I actually
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: got sick this past week for the first time, and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: probably this this past year, at least that I can remember.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I've had a nasty cold, Like Thursday through Sunday. I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: was kind of out of it. Yeah, so I'm gonna
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: better today. I do. Today. I finally feel better, really
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: really yesterday afternoon I started feeling like my normal self again,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and today I've been able to get back to work
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and get into stuff, but it kind of cramped my
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: weekend plans. I didn't get to get out and do
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: any shed hunting here in Michigan. Like I was hoping to.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Didn't do any of the things I want to get done,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: so that's a bummer. But weathers warming up here and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: getting a little bit nicer, so hopefully gonna get outside,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: do a little bit of scouting. Want to start some
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: some new habitat projects here on my main Michigan property.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do some hinge cutting and improve
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: some betting areas, so I got that on the to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: do list. Um. Another thing I gotta do my hay
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: bail blind that I had out behind this property. Um.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I had it strapped to some trees to hold it
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in place. Um, and we had a massive windstorm come
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: through recently and blew that sucker way far away. So
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I need to go retrieve that with a friend because
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: it's too big to carry just myself. I need a
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: friend to come on me and help carry that back
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: into positions. So that I need to get done pretty soon. Um.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I've been pushing it off, and probably my procrastination is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: gonna bite me in the butt. I bet you if
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I if I come back too late, it's gonna be
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: on the neighbors or something. So I gotta do that soon.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: But that's that's all in this new with me and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: my white tail chores. I know that me and you
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: talked earlier or was it late last week about food plots,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and I think that this year I am going to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: be able to plant my first official food plot. And
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I think we discussed a little a little bit um
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: that I might try Braska's out, so I'm looking forward
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to It was an old garden, had fence put there's
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: fence posts and a gate in it, and uh here
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: pretty soon I'm gonna start clearing it out, cutting the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: trees above it to get more sunlight in and uh
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: all the all the fence posts out and start spraying
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: weed killer in about two months. Nice, and I think
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: you're gonna enjoy that. I uh, you know, I've hunted,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know, hunt all sorts of difference different Excuse me,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I cannot talk to the different types of situations. But
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you know, on this couple of properties I have where
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I do have permission to plant food plots, it is
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a really fun thing to do. You get to you know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, give back in a way.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of neat to be able to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: put something in the ground that the deer can benefit
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: from and and seeing deer feeding in a food plot
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that you planted and did yourself. It's pretty cool. It's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: pretty cool thing. So right right, I'm I'm excited my buddy,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, he he pretty much told me I have
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: rule the roost on on his piece. If I want
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to cut down some trees and hinge cut if I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: want to plan a food plot, He's like, just do
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: what you want, man. Um. So that's sweet. Yeah, So
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. Very exciting, very exciting. Um.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: So kind of the opposite of what we just talked about, right,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: we were just talking about planning food plots. Well, our
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: topic today is going to be talking about places where
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you usually can't plant food plots, which is public land hunting. Um.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And this is kind of particularly interesting for me because
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I am going to probably be doing some public land
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: deer hunting this year. I don't think we've talked about
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: this on the podcast yet, um, But did I have?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: We talked about my new Western white tail trip that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I finally decided on. I think you I think you
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: wrote about it, but I don't think you mentioned anything
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: on the podcast. Yeah, So I've been thinking maybe maybe
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I briefly mentioned that I was thinking about Heck, I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: don't know where it. Maybe it was another podcast. But
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about trying to do a totally different
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: kind of white tail hunt than I've ever done before. Um.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You know, for the past five or ten years, I've
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: done a lot of hunting in the Midwest, but I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to try something out of my comfort zone this year,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and I thought that might be going to a western
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: state and trying to either find some public land hunt
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: or get permission on some random peace out there learning
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: on the go, and um, try to get down to whitetail.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: So I finally decided I'm going to do that, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I applied for a tag to hunt in Montana. So
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be chasing white tails in Montana this year,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: something very different than anything I've ever done before. So
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure yet part of the state yet, I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: have a I have an area I think I will
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: be hunting. Not sure yet. You don't need to you
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: don't need to choose a unit or anything, but it's
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be down there, um in the southwest part
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of the state, since that's are gonna be living this summer.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: For a month. So I figure I'm gonna maybe do
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: a little scouting while I'm out there, So if I
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: can find a place to hunt that's nearby where we're
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: gonna be, that'd be ideal. Um. So we'll see, it's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: gonna be it's gonna be a different kind of adventure.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I'm planning on, you know, probably camping out of my
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: truck for a week ten days, and uh, you know,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I think my game plan right now is to try
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: early season. Um their season out there opens like September three,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I think, Um, so it'd be a fun way to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: start whitetail hunting way before I usually would. And um,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I can get out there and just try to try
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to figure out what that what that evening food source
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: pattern is and probably do a lot of long distance
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: scouting and then you know, try to plan a drone
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: strike going there and hit them. So I'm excited. It's
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: gonna be something something definitely new. But this public land topic,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I think is gonna be a good one for me
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to hear since I've not I've done some public land hunting,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: but not a ton um. I think Tony has done way, way,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: way more than than either of us have probably, So
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I think he's gonna have some really great insight to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: share about the whole process of picking a piece of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: public land to hunt and how to go about learning it,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: hunting it, adjusting the hunting pressure, and all sorts of
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. So where is this guy from? Uh?
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I honestly do not know where he Tony lives.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So we'll have to ask him that, um here in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of minutes. Perfect um. So I don't know
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you you want to cover anything else before we call Tony?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Um no other than I mean, do you eat Girl
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Scout cookies? Do I eat Girl Scout? Am I American?
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Well that's a I love how you answered my question
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: with the question because for those of you guys who
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: don't know, it's Girl Scout cookie season and so, you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: just make sure you stock up on your Girl Scout cookies.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I've I've been ben Jet for the last couple of weeks,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So just just a heads up. What's what's your what's
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: your favorite girl Skill cookie? I'm the I don't even
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: know the name of them, the ones that have the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: well man, there's three of them. I really like, actually,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the lemon ones with that like lemon frosting, and I
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: eat I eat those with some coffee, and then you
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: have your thing it's obviously, and then you have the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: other ones that are covering. It's like a rich crack
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: peanut butter rich cracker with chocolate around it. M Okay,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I have I think I know the one you're talking about.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: You have you have left out what I think is
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: by far, by far and away the best girls not
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: even just the best girls, skoll cookie, just the best
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: cookie in the world. Okay, Well that the formally the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: cookie formerly known as a Caramel Delight, now known as
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a Samoa. It's a gift from God. I'm talking about
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the the kind of cookie. It looks like a wreath,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's a circle cut out in
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the middle, and then there's caramel and coconut and chocolate,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: kind of the Boot and Crockett of cookies. It really is.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: It is. Oh my gosh, I am getting starting me
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: over there. Yeah, yeah, I really am. I'm not even exaggerating,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Like this thing has got my finger shaking, my mouth salvating,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: my stomachs grumbling. And let's get with that. Let's get
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: tony before before we do give Tony Call. Though, let's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: take a quick break for a word from our sponsors
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of this podcast, Sick Gear. Alright, So, as we do
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: on every episode, I'm joined by Dennis Zuck, a SIA
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: product category leader, and my question for Dennis today is
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: about this strong relationship and I know that SIA has
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: with Gore, the makers of Gore Tex and those types
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: of fabrics, and I'm curious, Denis, how does that manifest
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: itself and the products you guys create. Yeah, well, I
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: think you know, the low line is a very good
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: example of that. You know, so when we look at that,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that statement we make that, you know, we want to
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: do this with our product and make it better than
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: anything else. We're able to take that same statement and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: cross it over to the to the Gore guys who
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: are really material experts, you know, so like the fanatic
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the stratus is, you know, making a quiet system was
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely important to us. You know, there's lots of things
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that go into those materials that people don't know. There's
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: there's there's ePTFE films, which is, you know, the thing
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that makes things breathe, and you know there's adhesives that
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: make it all locked together, and you know, they all
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: they all make different noises and they all work differently
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: in systems, so we're able to bring that that hunter perspective.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: We're able to bring that ask to them and work
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you know, across that to to create really great products.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So it's really a capability that's made us um you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it's enabled us to be to be a company that
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: can provide that that next level solution. So there you
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: haven't If you'd like to learn more about sick Gear,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you can visit sick of gear dot com. Now let's
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: get Tony on the line. All right with us. Now
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: on the line is Tony Peterson. Welcome to show. Tony.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having you. Guys. Yeah, we're we're excited chat
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: me and me and Dan. Actually we're just talking about
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Girl Scout cookies. So you're you've got a lot to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: follow on, but we think that this will be a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: good transition onto two good stuff. So before you joined us,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: other than Girls Scout Cookies, we were I did kind
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of give a brief introduction to to who you were.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I mentioned that you're an outdoor writer, serious publicly and hunter.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: But I know there's a lot more to you. Could
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: you give us us a little bit more detail on
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: exactly what you're doing these days in the white tail world. Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I you know, my primary gig is with bow Hunter Magazine.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Um as the equipment as is here there, so I
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: get to I get to try out a lot of
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: different equipment and uh, test out bows and arrows and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. But the with with the white
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: tail thing, you know, just having grown up in Minnesota,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest, Um, I've just naturally gravitated towards white tails.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I love hunting every thing else too, Western critters especially,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: but white tails are just they just they just get
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: into your you know, under your skin, and it's just
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: something that I've I've focused on so much and it's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: just become a part of my writing career to focus
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: on white tails. And uh, I can certainly Dan I
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: both can certainly relate to how they get under your skin,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. Um. Yeah, Now you're writing for bo
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Hunter magazine, You're writing about white tails a lot. How
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: is that? You know? How is that as a job
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: is a pretty pretty pretty good gig. Do you get
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to do as much hunting as as most people think
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: outdoor writers get to do? Um? You know, it's the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: best job I've ever had, believe me. Um, But you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: there there's four or five months a year where you're
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you're locked onto the computer and not really hunting very much.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And because you know, and I'm not complaining about this
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in any way, I love my job, but because I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: have to hunt, you know, I have to have dead critters,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you know, to write about and the experiences of hunting them.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: You know, some of the other some of the other
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: things that kind of took for granted before, like fishing,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: you know, they take a little bit of a backseat
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: because there's only so much time that you can have
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: away from home. So yeah, I do hunt a lot.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I try to hunt, you know, at least five or
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: six states a year and have at least half of
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: them be all public land. Um, So it's I'm gone
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a fair amount. But I also have four year old
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: twins at home, so I can't be gone too much.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: So it's you know, it's a little bit of a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: tight roll back there. But if you have a meet up,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you know, a real outdoor writer that complains about his
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: job a lot, he should probably just go away because
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty creek pick. I don't have I don't
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: have a fun to really complaint about. Believe me, I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: can definitely relate. It's uh to your point there, they're
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: definitely it's not always sitting in the tree stand and
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: watching giant bucks come in. There's a lot of work,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of computer time. But but you can't complain.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: You're right, it's it's pretty and you you just gotta
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you know, you just gotta make sure you can still
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: have on doing it somehow because it does become a job,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and so you gotta challenge yourself or figure out new things.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And one of the one of the things I've realized
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: about about my hunting career my writing career is I'm
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: also really big into bird dogs. I love, you know,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: duck hunting and upland bird hunting, and so that's kind
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: of my release now. You know, sometimes you take the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: deer hunting things so seriously, and then for me just
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: to go out for a couple hours in the middle
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of the day and chase rough grouse with my lab,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you just breathe a huge side
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of relief because there isn't that pressure there. But once again,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not complaining about getting the deer hunt for my job. Yeah,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I know what you mean about having those other hobbies
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: where you can where you can release some of that
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: tension and not be so stressed, because I definitely felt
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: that same thing. Um, you know, when I started doing
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: this full time, or even before it was full time,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I definitely felt that pressure, like you have to produce,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and I think it's kind of a bummer. How it can.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: You know, if you let it, it can definitely make
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: it less enjoyable than it really should be. So I've
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: done try to make a conscious effort not to not
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to get too worked up about it because in the end,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and maybe I don't know what your thoughts are on this,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: but for me at least, um, for me, it's always
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: been in the end. You know, yes, you want to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: get a kill, you want to show that success, but
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: really it's it's how you can share your experiences, whether
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you had success or not. How can you share your
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: experiences and what you've learned from it and why you
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: did or maybe did not have success. Um at least
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: that's how I've tried to I've tried to tell myself that,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: so I don't, you know, gouge my eyeballs out every
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: time I spook a buck or something like that. So well,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: you can't. We're we're in a weird place with deer
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: right now. And I don't think this is even any
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: more evidence than shed hunting right now. It's so people
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: are taking it so seriously and it's getting so crazy,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and I have to just remind myself, you know, we're
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: hunting rabbits with antlers here. It's not like we're curing
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: cancer or something. You know, it's it's you know, it's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it's fun, it's a passion, it's it's a lot of
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: things to a lot of people. But when you take
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it so seriously that it starts really affecting your life
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in a negative way, that's bad. It's time to back
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: up and you know, look at it, look at the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: big picture a little bit. Yeah, and and maybe not
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: take ourselves so seriously, like you said for me. Sometimes,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody wants the story about how you went
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: out and figured out how it killed this big buck
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and you did it. But a lot of the best
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: stories come out when you screw up and when when
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: things don't go according to plan. That's that's way more
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: relatable to people and and far more common than going
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: out and killing booners every time you, you know, set
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: your mind to it. Yeah, I'm very thankful to people
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: enjoy those types of stories. Otherwise I wouldn't make a living.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So no, I hear you. I mean, the only thing
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you could write about was a fresh jel every time.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: None of us would have a jack. You just couldn't do.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: It doesn't happen as often as we were like, but
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: but it's it's sure has a lot of fun trying,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. So you mentioned a couple of minutes
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: ago that you try to have about half of your
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: trips every year, or half your hunts be public land hunts.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Why why do you hunt public lands so much? Um
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to two reasons? Well, probably several reasons, but for me
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: being in the industry and being an outdoor writer that
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: focuses largely on bow hunting white tails. I was sitting
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I was sitting in my office about six years ago,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and I just I kind of had this revelation, like
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I got to set myself apart from the crowd. I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: needed more work. I just wanted to do something different.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And what I realized is there just weren't very many
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: people out there in my position that we're really getting
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: after public land. I mean, most of the trend is
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to go the other way and try to hunt these
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: highly managed properties, which you know, there's nothing wrong with that,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: but I felt like, if people are going to pay
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: me to do seminars and write articles and disseminate information
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: from sort of an expert perspective, I was like, I
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: really need to challenge myself. And anybody that's done it
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: knows there's no better way to really challenge yourself as
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: a bow hunter than to target good box on public land.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And so I just said, That's what I'm gonna do.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And I've come to just truly enjoy that challenge because
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it encompasses every part of bow hunting, you know, from
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: from the scouting, which is something I just absolutely love,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to the actual hanging stands and getting it wrong and
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: getting it right and those other kind of hunts. You know,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: if I if I get invited on a guided hunt,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and sometimes I do those hunts, but you show up
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and so much of the work has already been done,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and so much of that process is taken away, and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: some people are okay with that and some aren't. And
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I just kind of like having everything I like it
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: from you know, deciding Okay, this is the state I'm
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: gonna try this year, to butchering the animal myself, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: everything that's in between. Yeah, it's it's that process that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: that's really the hunt, at least for in my opinion,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: agree with you. It's that it's that process of everything
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: from the beginning to that that final act of you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: butchering eating an animal. I want to be engaged in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that entire process, um. I think that's where the real
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: fun is. And much rather do all the work versus
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you know, being put in a tree and shooting something
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: that happenstance, at least for me, I understand you. Like
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you said, I totally that's totally fine. Other people like
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: doing that, just a isn't my wouldn't be my preferred
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: way to go about it. Um. But how how important
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: is it for someone in your position who is a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: writer and you write about hunting white tails, tips and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: tricks and how others can become a better or more
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: successful hunter. How important is it for you to or
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: for not you, but for others in the industry to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a realize who their actual audience is and the actual
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and the audience to realize what the quote unquote hunting
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: celebrity is actually hunting. Well, so that's that's kind of
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a multifaceted question, and the the reality of what's going
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on with the hunting industry is we've blarred the lines
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: between entertainer and expert. And so if you you know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: if you flip on the Outdoor Channel or something, some
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of those shows are purely for entertainment. And if that's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: that's what it is, that's just fine. Um, you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: you turn it on. You want to see big critters
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: get shot, that's okay. Um. It's where some of this
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: stuff starts to come from. The perspective where people that
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: are doing some of those hunts say they're experts or
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: that you know, they're really getting after it, and you
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: can kind of see through that, and that's where it's tough. Um,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not I'm not knocking anybody specifically,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but that perception out there. I feel like the hunting
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the hunting demographic, the people out there that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: are that are just you know, your your weekend warriors
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: or your average hunters out there, I feel like they're
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: kind of getting turned off from the hunting industry. As
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a whole because it's being presented that way where maybe
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: it's just entertainment, but a lot of those people producing
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: that are trying to come off as experts too, and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of that just doesn't jive. Um, you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: if you're hunting, if you're hunting a premier place in
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: southern I was, it's you know, four thousand acres of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: supermanaged land, and that that's what you do. That's okay,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: but you probably maybe don't have very much to offer
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the public land hunter in Pennsylvania, for example, who's living
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: in a completely different world. So it's a it's kind
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of a tough deal to manage the expectations from the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: audience as far as you know, is this entertainment, is
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: this education? Is it a little of both? And and
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: some some of the shows out there, some of the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: writers out there, do a really good job of both.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And that's that really kind of is your job. But
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: not everybody does a good job with it, you know.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So there's a really long winded, convoluted answer to your question.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank goodness, because if those types of answers
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: weren't allowed, then both me and Dan couldn't answer any
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: questions either. Um, but I think you know, to your point, Tony,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the other side of what you mentioned is that type
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: of show and again not knocking at all. There's a
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: there's a place for it. Like you said, entertainment. I
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: enjoy them too, But I think the other and we've
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, the other kind of risk
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of that type of entertainment is that it can sometimes
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: skew our expectations or other people's expectations about what hunting
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: should look like. You know, they will think that, well,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: because so and so killed hundred sixty six year old
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: every time I've ever pulled up their TV show, how
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: come I can't how come I don't see that dear
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: all the time, or I'm doing all this stuff, how
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: come it's not working out for me? And I think
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: it leads to a lot of frustration for people. Um
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and So it's something you know we always try to
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: talk about, is is you know, trying to set realistic
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: expectations based on you know where you're at and you
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: know what some you know real goals could be versus
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you know, setting your sights on trying to be the
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: next so and so on the outdoor channel. I think
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that's that's an easy way to get disenchanted and disappointed
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: with hunting, which is which is obviously not what we
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: want to do. Well, absolutely, I think I think you're
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: spot on there, and I really think one of the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: reasons that we shed hunter numbers is I run into
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of let's say, kind of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty five year old crowd that comes in
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and they're they're setting their sights on you know, us
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: box every year, and they're not They're not able to
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: do it because that's so difficult, and they become frustrated
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: with the process. And we've in in some ways, we're
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: kind of skipping that natural progression of the hunter where
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: everybody used to start out, you know, hunting squirrels with
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the twenty two and maybe moving up to rabbits and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: maybe pheasants and turkeys and then deer, and you were
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: happy with whatever dear you shot first. And we're a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: lot of people are starting out with expectations that are just,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you know, to me, kind of insane um And I think,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm part of that problem too. I mean,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I work for these magazines and these TV shows where
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: we present this this false reality out there where. If
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you look at you know what the average with the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: average person kills with a bow per year. I mean,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, anybody that's out there killing a
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen inch bucks every year, I don't care
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: if you're in Iowa or Michigan or Pennsylvania, South Carolina
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: or wherever. If you're killing a buck like that, you're
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: doing something better than most people out there. And you
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: bump it right up and go, Okay, how about which
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: is a great deer. If anybody's out there consistently killing
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: those deer, even in the good States, they're really doing
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: something right. And like you said, most people with their
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: with their goals. I tell people all the time, just
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: hunt for what makes you happy. Nobody else cares what
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you kill. There's like three people in your life that
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: actually care what size of a buck you kill. The
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: rest of them really don't. So if that deer walks
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: in and you'd be stoked to shoot it, just shoot it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Who cares what everybody else thinks? Yeah, yeah, I I agree.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: It's something we we try to we try to emphasize
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a lot when we talk about this topic too, because
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I think you know, to your point, it's it's easy
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: for or you know, when we present what we're doing,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: or on a TV show or a magazine article, or
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: me and Dan here talking about you know, our goals. Um,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you know those are those are our personal goals. But
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: they do not in any way need to dictate what
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: you the listeners doing, you know, just because then because
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Dan hunts in southern Iowa and he waits for four
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: year olds, or because I'm you know, on a trip
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to Ohio or here in Michigan and I'm you know,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: shooting such and such. You know, do what, like you said, Tony,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I love that. Do what gets you stoked, what makes
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you happy, and um, you know all the other things
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: will fall into place. I've always thought of hunting. You know,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it should be like a ladder. You should take steps
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: up that letter, one step at a time, and you know,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: don't let the media or social media or anything like
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: that dictate you know where you set your sights, um,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: because that you know that that's just setting yourself up
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: for failure. Yeah, big time. And you know the people
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: that are really passionate about that, they like they, like
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you said, they move up the ladder. So they go,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: all right, this this kind of age Classic buck really
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: isn't challenging for me, So I'm gonna bump it up
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and go for that three and a half or four
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and a half year old or whatever. But some people
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: don't have the time, Some people don't have the spots.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Some people just don't have the drive to go out
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: all the time. If that's the case, that's fine. Just
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: admit it and go for what's going to make you happy.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: There's there's no there's no reason to get all bent
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: out of shape over going after year that he just
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: can't or won't kill. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, so true,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: so true. So so let's let's take a step back
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to public land now. And I think a lot of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: these things we just mentioned about setting realistic goals and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: everything can can definitely be something you to think about
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: when it comes to hunting public land. But you just share,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you just share with us why you hunt public land. UM,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: let's let's talk about now for someone who is hunting
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: public land, whether it be you know, by choice or
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: by necessity. UM, can you kind of I really want
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to dive deep into your entire process of how you
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: go about hunting public properties, everything from finding a spot
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: to learning about a spot to actually being in their hunting.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: So I guess, can we start at a high level,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: you know, how do you go about actually choosing a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: property or finding a public peace to hunt? How does
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that process start for you? So for me, it depends
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: if I'm looking for I live just north of the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Twin Cities, so if I'm looking for a place around
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: here to hunt, my process will be a little bit
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: different than. Let's just say, last night, for example, I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't sleep because I kept thinking about some of these
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: walking areas in South Dakota I started hunting last year,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and so you know, it's snuck out of the bedroom
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and started looking on my iPad aerial photos at midnight
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: last night, looking up just some of the public land there.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: And and for me, the biggest part of the process,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: especially if I'm looking for an out of state hunt, um,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: which I do a lot, is just that time on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the aerial photos. UM. I know. I know some people
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: like to go on the internet forums and stuff and
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, any good places in southwestern Oklahoma or
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: something like that, But you know that information is just
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: not vetted. And I'm not saying you can't get good
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: information that way. But for me, I pick a state
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I want to hunt, and I'll just let's let's just
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: use like Nebraska as example. I love Nebraska. I'll say
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I want to go to Nebraska and hunt the rut.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: The first thing I'm gonna do is figure out where
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the big cities are in Nebraska. Now, there really aren't
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: very many. There's only a couple and they're on the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: east side of the state. So I'm gonna look for
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a place in the state that has no people. I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: want to get away from people because hunting pressure. Anybody
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that hunts public land knows hunting pressure is just like
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: your number one enemy, no matter what to me, it
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Trump's everything at Trump's whether Trump's season, timing, anything, And
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: so I just want to start looking in an area
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: where they're just probably won't be very many people. And
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: then once I started identifying some public land places there,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: then I get on the aerial photos and really dig
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: in and look and see whether those specific parcels have
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: something that offers a white tail hunter's kind of how
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I start celabrate on that last piece for us, um,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: what are you looking for when you're on the area.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: What does quality public land, terrain or property look like
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: for you from an aerial view. Uh. First off, the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: first thing I'm gonna look at is access. If it's
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of you know, walking trails or
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: logging roads, or if it if it looks like it's
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: really easy to access, I'll skip it. But if I
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: find a place that you know, maybe has one access
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: point or two access points, um that, then I'll start
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: digging in. And then I'm looking for with white tails.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: One of the first things that I always look for.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: A lot of people go and look for food sources.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: They look for those egg fields or you know, some
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: kind of food source on there. But for me, I
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: look for water. Um I. My my absolute favorite type
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: of of white tail spot to hunt is something with
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: with moving water in it. I just love creek streams,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: rivers something like that. I know, if I find moving water,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I'll find probably pretty decent white tail cover. I'll be
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: able to find mind a crossing somehow. Whether I can
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: actually see the low spots on the river in the
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: aerial photos. I mean this aerial photography to satellite photography.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Now you can actually zoom in and see rocks sticking
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: out of the water and tell which way the river's flowing,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: tell how shallow it is. Um, it's just amazing. But
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: for me, that's what I start with. I want I
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: want some kind of moving water to start with. And
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: so you're looking at that moving water as something that's
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: going to be a tool sort of for you. So
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: you know that you can you'll be able to know
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: some things right out the gate because of the fact
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that you know the deer will relate to that moving
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: water in some certain way or what you mentioned, cross
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: it and I imagine maybe you use that type of
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: thing for access in and out of a property too. Maybe.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, access is huge, covers your noise. You're usually
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: below the banks. Uh. You know, provided it's not too
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: big of a river. Um, you can wade most of them.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: But there are a couple other things. If I have
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to cross a river to hunt the other side for
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: some reason, I can leave my competition behind because they
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: won't do it. Um. Just this. It's the same thing
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: like climbing a great big hill or a block. I'll
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: look for that too. But with the rivers, especially if
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: you get on bigger chunks of federal land, there'll be
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of public grazing on their cattle. Grazing, and
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: so there's only going to be so many places with
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: decent cover that white tails like now, this is this
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: would be different if I were looking for meal deer,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: antelope or something, obviously, but for white tails, you want
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the best thickest cover you can find. Most of the time.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: That's that's right next to the rivers of the creeks um.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: You know, it might be only just you know, patches
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: of cotton woods or something, but it will be better
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: than the surrounding area. And so you know that, you
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: know the priabe white tails there. There's usually agriculture pretty
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: close to those river you know, those the watersheds. There's
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: usually the right stuff there. And on top of that,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: because rivers are low, you can use them like use
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: them for access, like you said, but there's also a
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: lot of times a lot of really good pinch points
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and funnels along rivers because the bends, and it's just
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: it's just a great starting point most of the time.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that and that makes a lot of sense.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: But taking a step back, I guess I didn't kind
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: of probe on this before you even get to the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: actual aerial photographs. I'm just kind of curious, actually, trying
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to figure out where these public parcels are. Is there
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: a resource that you found that that's helpful for that?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, are you just going and looking at Google
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Earth and seeing where the marked you know, national forest
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: or National Wildlife refuges or whatever a government website you've
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: been able to find for different states it's helpful or
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: anything like that. Mostly the state game agencies now have
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: really good interactive maps, um. And so what I'll do
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is I'll pull up Google Earth and then I'll go
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to you know, Nebraska's Game and Fish or South Dakota
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Game Fish and Parks or whatever, and start looking for
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: decent sized chunks of public land in the area I
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: want to hunt. And I'll just look at i aerial
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: photos on Google Earth or whatever and and take a
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: closer look at them and just kind of decide. But
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you know this, this process used to be so much
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: more difficult, um to figure out where you could hunt,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: what looked good and stuff. And now you can do
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: so much of your scouting from home. It's it's just amazing.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: And so the some of the state game agencies have
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: taken a little while we catched up to this, but
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: an awful lot of them have really really good interactive
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: maps on their websites, and that's just the easiest way
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: for you to go out and see every piece of
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: public land in that state and then you can start
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: your search. Yeah, okay, so let's say we've we've done that, right,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: We've said, okay, we're gonna hunt in Nebraska. We've decided
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: that we like this general area here. Do you usually
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: do you kind of pick one piece of public land
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you really like, or do you kind of head your
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: bets and say, okay, I know I want to hunt
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: this general area, but I haven't been there on the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: ground before, so here's one piece I like in then
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: do you try to find a couple of backup plans
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: just in case, or do you usually find a spot tails?
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It depends a lot of times on my white tail
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: spots that I find, they'll be smaller, so it might
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: only be an eight acre chunk or chunk or maybe
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: a section, And I always try to have a plan B, C, D,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: at least at least a couple because you never know
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: when you get there how many people are going to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: be there, or it might not look the way you
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: expect it to. Now, if I'm hunting you know, a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: great big national grassland or something, and that that might
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: be a different story because I know I can probably
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: get away from the crowds in there, but primarily for
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: white tales. If I'm going to travel the hunt him,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I'm always going to have at least a couple of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: backup spots to check out because you just you never know,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: I've showed up to these places and they've been just
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: overrun with people. Um, it doesn't happen very often, but
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: when it does, you need another place to go, you know. Yeah,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: that that definitely seems that, you know, that's the best
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: way to go about it, because I haven't in a
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: situation like that. Well, I guess I have been in
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a situation like that in public land, but the same
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: thing even on private when I've done state hunts and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: gotten permission on a private peace, sometimes you arrive and
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, like I found out
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: this past year, I got permission on a spot in Iowa,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: but I didn't realize that they've given permission to just
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: about every other hunter in the county too. So you
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: have to be able to just and adapt to that
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: type of scenario where the plan B C etcetera. Well,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and to that point, Uh, one of the things that
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I noticed about public land is people get really soured
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: on the experience, especially you know, you guys in Michigan
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: or here in Minnesota. We have a lot of hunting
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: pressure over in Wisconsin, a lot of hunting pressure, and
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: hunters will get really really cagy about going out on
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: public land and other states, and man, if you've been
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: out there to some of these states where they just
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: aren't as many people and as many hunters, public land
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: hunting can be really really good, and most people want
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to go out and find that private land because there's
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: that stigma attached to public land. But if you do
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: your homework, I've got spots in several different states that
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: are better, better overall for for just more deer activity
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and my chance to run into a truly mature buck
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: than a lot of my private spots here in Minnesota.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: That's a great point. And I know you probably don't
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: want to give away any of your secrets here, but
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: are there any states out there that you recommend as
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: pretty decent options for public land hunters that maybe some
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: people aren't considering or um, you know, guys that want
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: to make a trip out somewhere, maybe the hunter of
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the East Coast. Something they're considering a trip out that
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: might be worth trying to look into. For public land, Uh,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: there's a ton of them. I mean, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa's
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: public land. It's phenomenal if you can stomach the tag um, Kentucky,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and if you get west to the Mississippi a little
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: ways there's there's kind of that flyover area. I love
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the Dakota, that love Nebraska. Kansas had some unbelievable walk
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: in stuff last year. I spent six days in Oklahoma
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: hunting public land and we recovered in deer um. There
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: are a lot of really good options out there that
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: aren't necessarily the premier st I mean, most of the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: attention goes to Iway, Illinois and in Kansas, so I
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: don't ever want to dissuait anybody from hunting those, but
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: there are some really good options out there with really
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: inexpensive non resident tags where you can go have a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: good hunt. You know, and I know people like to
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: focus on traveling for white tales. Is you know that
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: that trip to kill a giant, But if you go
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: in some of these with ree electic expectations you'll have
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a blast, You'll have good deer hunting, um if it
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: provided you do your homework and it's not going to
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: cost you, you know, more than it depends where you
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: come from, but you might you might get a really
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: good hunt for five, six, seven, eight hundred bucks. Yeah,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I think I think so many people. I think that's
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: maybe it's changing. But in the past, I think there
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: maybe wasn't a umption for a lot of folks that
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: they wanted to have that you know, Midwest experience or
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, chase some of these great big bucks,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: so they'd have to you know, pay three thousand dollars
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: for an outfitter or have to have like a five
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: thousand dollar lease or whatever. But to your point, there
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: really are so many relatively affordable d I Y options
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: if you're willing to put in the work, if you're
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: willing to you know, save a little money for gas
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and food, and you know, if you're okay with not
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: staying in somewhere fancy. You know, I like to sleep
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: in the back of my truck and eat a Mountain
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: house meal and head out into the woods. And that's
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: a great way to get a hunt in for you know,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: on a on a budget. Well, and that's that's just
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: about everything I do. And that's that's what I try
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: to get across to people, is you know, because especially
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: now when I you know, with two little girls at home. Yeah,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not going for ten days at a time on
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: these crazy hunts. I'm going for four or five days.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: And since I'm paying for it myself, I wanted, you know,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: a reasonable price over the counter tag. I'm gonna go
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: camp with a couple of buddies and the whole thing
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: is gonna cost me six bucks, you know, and on
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: top of that, you're gonna have a really good chance
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: of killing something. And these opportunities are out there, and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of people get intimidated by the process. But
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: once you do at one time, you know, you just
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: get that comfort level up and it's not so intimidating
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: any longer. Yeah. Yeah, And I think I think a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: lot of the fun is in the process too, you know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: doing doing all this it's different. And again, you know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: this can be applied. I think in a lot of
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: ways that we're talking about could be just applicable to
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: hunting in your backyard. I mean, you know, if you
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: in your general area, let's say, if you need to
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: find a new spot and you're going public. But you know,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: if you are doing this out of state type hunt
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: looking for public, it's a fun new experience. I think
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of people would enjoy trying. Yeah. Well,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and you know, on the on the note of hunting
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: close to home, you know, the benefit there is you
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: can get your boots on the ground and look at
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: every inch of the cover that you might want to hunt,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: and you're not gonna you know, this is a different
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: world when you're traveling to go have one of these
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: little adventures. But if you're just looking for a place
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: close to home, I mean, you have the benefit of
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: if you want to walk enough miles, you can really
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: look over the ground and decide what you're gonna hunt,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: what you're not and that that's a big deal if
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: especially right now, you know, we're sitting here right before
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: spring green up in this perfect time where the woods
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: just reveals all of last fall secrets and it's so
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: so nice to go out and wander around and figure
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: out what you're gonna do next year. Right now. Yeah,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that public land scouting. What does
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: your scouting process look like? Um, if I'm close to home,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: it looks like I'm walking every inch I can, because
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: that's what I try to do. And you know, I'm
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: looking for the typical winter scouting stuff, of course, you know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the old scrapes and rubs, rubs mostly I really like rubs, um.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: But most of the time I'm halfway looking for hunter sign.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: If I go into a property and I see, you know,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the trees are trimmed up or their stands left there,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: there's litter all over or something, and I just can't
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: get away from the the obvious sign of hunters, I'm
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: probably gonna write that off and look for somewhere else.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Um when I travel out of state, I'm starting to
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: do this more, where I'll go on a turkey hunt
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: somewhere and scout out new properties while in turkey hunting.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: In fact, you know, in on April one, I'm heading
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: out to South Dakota to turkey hunt some walk in
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: areas that I hunted last fall, and i just want
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: to check out some more ground. And then a little
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: later I'm going down to Missouri, Northern Missouri to hunt
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: public land for turkeys, and I'm gonna scout that out
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: for deer. Two and that's a good way to get
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: familiar with the area without having the pressure of killing
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a big buck um. But if you can't do that,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: that's one of the most important things about this process.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: If you if you know if you're gonna make a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: go at it and decide you're gonna hunt public land,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: especially if you want to do one of these out
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: of state trips with your bloodies, If you have any
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: way to build in a day or two or three
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: to scout, just glass, just walk and figure out if
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: you're your pre hunt research was correct. That is so
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: valuable compared to showing up and having to hunt from
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: day one. And I think one of the reasons that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I've had quite a bit of success public land hunting
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: is because before I had kids, I used to just
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: leave for like four days, five days ahead of the
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: hunt and just tell my wife I'll be home when
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be home, and I would scout NonStop
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: for four days before I started hunting. And you got
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to I got to glass all those river bottoms and
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: walk them all and figure out if that you're we're
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: moving there or not. And that information without having the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: pressure carrying your boat is just so valuable. When you
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: start hunting, you just you just solidify all your beliefs
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: or you know, if what you thought was gonna be
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: awesome turns out to be bunk, you've got time to
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: move on to the next one and figure it out.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And scouting, scouting that way is is just ridiculously valuable.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: It's more valuable than hunting in a lot of situations.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: And sorry, Dan, we're gonna say something. Well, I just
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: had a question in regards to maybe different states and
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: different terrain. Um, you know there, you know, obviously there's
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: places where your main method is going to be a
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: tree stand and then maybe uh mate, your main method
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: maybe a ground blind or spotting stock. Is there is
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: there a differentiation between how you scout based on how
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: you're going to hunt? Um? No, well I shouldn't say that.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I kind of know going into it. Um, if if
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be doing the tree standing or spotting stock,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: or maybe I'm gonna have to build a natural ground
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: blind or something, So I I guess I will say, yeah,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I might watch different areas. If I think I'm gonna
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: go out and hunt for every white tail somewhere, I
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: may pick a peak that I can see for five
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: miles in every direction to watch. Um, if i think
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tree stand hunt, a creek bottom or a
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: river bottom, I may sit on the same point in
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: glass it for three days in a row to watch
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and see exactly where they like to walk. So yeah,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I guess you're right. I do look at it differently.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: But for me, even though I love the spot in stock,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I grew up as an ambush hunter, you know. I
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: grew up hunting smaller properties and in the Midwest, And
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: so even though I loved the spot stock, I'm just
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: not very good at it. I blow a lot of
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: stocks when I go. I have fun, but I'm just
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: not that good at it because it's not in my wheelhouse.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: So most of the time when I go out, my
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: plan is just to hang stands or use blinds and
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: wait them out because that's just what I'm better at. Um.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: So I guess it just depends on where I'm going.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: So so continuing on that through that process, then a
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: little bit, let's say you we we've you know, picked
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a property, you've maybe maybe you went through in the spring,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: you did a little bit scouting when you went turkey hunting.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Now it's the season the season's opened. You you mentioned
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: that lots of times you like to get there a
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: little bit before your actual hunt happens. So is that
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the case even if you're showing up for a rut hunt,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: So you arrive and you could hunt, but you just
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: actively choose not to and you just choose a scout
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days. Is that what you're saying
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: or are you saying this is like an early season
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: you show up before the season opens. Both. So if
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I show up and it's during the season, I'll hunt,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: But a lot of times I'll do kind of what
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I call an observation stand where I may not move
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: right in on where I think it's gonna be just popping,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: and I'll watch and see. Um. You know, obviously, if
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I go into early season hunt and I can show
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: up before the season, that's the easiest way to do this.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: But I really like spending some time observing and if
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I see something going on during the season, and if
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I show up in a rut hunt in Nebraska, if
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I see these deer running through a certain patch of
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: theaters or something, I'll move there as soon as I
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: possibly can. So it's kind of kind of do a
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: little bit of both. But one thing I should say
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: about this is so much of the the white tail
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: hunting is focused around the rut, and we all love
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: the rut. But I grew up in Minnesota. I live
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota, and our gun season opened the first weekend
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: in November every single year, so I never had the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: rut to count on, so it wasn't It's not as
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: big of a deal to me. And so I've always
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: hunted September and October heavily because that's when our best
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: chances because once it gets to November, we got five
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: done on ourselft there. And so I do go hunt
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the rut every single year, um, somewhere on public land.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: But I'm definitely not afraid to hunt early season stuff
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: and hunt October on public land. Um. I think, hey,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I might get way off on a tangent here, but
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I really think that we give way too much credit
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: to hot weather, to the wall, to to you know,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: win as cutting down deer movement. And I go hunt
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: these places, you know, early season in North Dakota, Johanna,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: it will be ninety degrees and the year will be
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: moving all over. Um, it just just go hunt them
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: when you can go scout them when you can. Don't
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: don't rely necessarily on the rut now, and I'll tell
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: you something on that. Um, probably my least favorite time
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: to go hunt public land is like November seven through twelve,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: which is like my favorite time to hunt overall in
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: some ways because everybody is out. If you're out there
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: on October fift and it's kind of hot and windy,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: nobody's hunting. Everybody's waiting for the rut. But when you
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: get out there on November seven and it's you know,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: twenty two degrees in the morning and the conditions are perfect,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: it's like everybody and their brother is out there rattling
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: and grunning and hanging stands, and it's just a different
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: world out there. So the rules that apply to public
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: land for maybe the best times for me to hunt,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily believe those on public land. Yeah, that's
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that's an interesting point. So if you had to pick,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: let's say you didn't work the job you do and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: you can only have one week vacation to hunt one
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of these public land spots. Maybe let's say for an
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: out of state public land trip, what week would you
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: pick during the hunting season The very first week I
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: could poss we go the earliest I could possibly go.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I In fact, I was talking to the buddy of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: mine that I'm going to South Dakota with next year
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: in South Dakota's openers a little bit later at the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: end of September. But I hope it's a hundred degrees
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: when we go out there, because I'm gonna sit on
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: ponds and I don't want anybody else out there, you
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: know I would. I love hunting crappy conditions. I love
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: it when it's really hot, really windy, and people will
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: stay home. Makes a lot of sense, especially in that
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: public land situation where one of your biggest factors is
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: simply avoiding hunting pressure. So if if you're out there
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: when nobody else is, you're right there, You've you've checked
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: off the first point in your list, it's everything. And
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you know, people they have a hard time believe in
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: that because we've been so ingrained to believe that windy
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: conditions shut them down or hot weather shuts them down.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the benefits of doing what we do.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't. I don't really get to take
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: days off if I have, if I have the opportunity
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: to hunt. I gotta go. And what you learn about
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: that is hunt all these conditions that aren't supposed to
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: be any good, and we give them way too much
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: credit for knocking down deer movement. You know, I always
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: look at it, like, you know, if if it's warm
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: during the rut, everybody says the running actually just doesn't happen,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: it's just not going on. And you know, I know
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: there's some suppressed movement, but those fonds are born the
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: same time every year, you know, next spring, and I'm
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: always sitting here going I don't believe all of that
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: chasing and breeding activity happened at night. Maybe you just
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: missed it. Maybe it was in a lower bottom that
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: was a little cooler or something. But I really think
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: we love excuses to not hunt, and we use them way, way,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: way too much. I think there's there's definitely some truth
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to that. I think it's I think and and this
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: is my personal philosophy for whatever that's worth. I think,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you know, when you have a piece of private land
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: maybe where you can control what's happening on it, and
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you can be a lot more selective about you know,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: how hunting pressure is applied to that deer heard. I
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: think in those types of cases, it makes a lot
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: of sense in my opinion to be careful about when
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: you hunt, because you know, if you're an hunting they're
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: not getting pressured and so you can kind of dictate.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: But on a public land hunting situation where you have
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: no control, I think then you know you need to
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: take advantage of the opposite of what most people would say,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: because to your point, um, it's it's kind of totally
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: different situations. So I think that makes makes a lot
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: of sense. Um, So let's let's say the hunting season
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: just started, or you you've arrived at your trip. Now,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: can you kind of walk us through what your process
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: looks like. You mentioned that you typically like to start
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: with an observation stand but are you you know, I'm
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: wondering about the actual like nuts and boltsic are you
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the night you get there, are you sitting down and
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: looking at your maps really hard? Or do you already
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: know exactly where you're want to go in on the
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: first day or what what are you doing that first night?
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: And then from there? Most of my map work is
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: is gone long before I get there. Um, you know,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: it just depends if I go like like Oklahoma, for example,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: last year we hunted the Blackheadle National grass Land and
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: it's think thirty one acres, but it's all busted up
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: into different little chunks, and so my plan going into
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: that changed a lot because of the hunting pressure. So
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: if there was one truck parked at a place that
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go into, I kind of wrote it up.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: So I was kind of going on the fly. They're
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: looking for new places didn't have people in. So sometimes
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: when I get there, I'll be pouring over my maps
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: because there's people there. But if I've done my homework
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and found a place where there just aren't very many hunters,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't need maps a whole lot after
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: I've been there. I should have done enough research ahead
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: of time to kind of have an idea where to go,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: and for me all that the reason you do that
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: is so you can hit the ground running. Um. I
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: use a lot of really lightweight portable stands and sticks
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: and have a pretty good system for just getting out
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: and going and hanging a stand right away and getting
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: set up and and hunting from the minute you get there.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Because like I said, you know, a lot of my
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: hunts are four or five days and you're traveling to
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: a new state to try to kill a public land beer.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I don't really have a luxury of you know, waste
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: in any time. And if I'm doing an observation stands
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: still hunting. Um, you know, so you might see a
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: deer you could call in or something. But I like
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: to I like to get there and go. That's why.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: That's why to me, at least, the pre hunt research
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: is just so important. Yeah, can you tell us about
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: your running guns, set up, your your stand sticks and everything.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: What specifically are you using and do you have any
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: tips or you know, things that you always do now
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: that you're so experienced with it that kind of help
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you get up in the tree quietly and ready to go. Yeah,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: you know, so I use several different kinds of stands
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: and sticks, but generally speaking, what I do is I
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: have a I have a real lightweight Honor safety system
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: harnesses two pounds. I carry a lifeline with me. I
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: carry a Holy Man extendable saw, and I carry a
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: stand that I like. I like stands that are in
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: like the eight to twelve pound range. Just simple hang on,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: nothing fancy, no, no big platforms or anything. And then
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: just a good a set of sticks that I can
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: marry together with bungee cords so I can kind of
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: carry my entire setup. Will depending on you know, what
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: else I bring with me. Um. You know, I'm looking
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: at maybe like twenty two pounds total, maybe a little
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: more if it's later and I'm carrying extra clothes or whatever. Um,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: But I always pick stuff that I'm really comfortable with
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: so I can get in there and hang a stand
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: as quietly as possible. In some places you can use
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: screw in steps, not very often on public land. And then,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: and that's another thing I should bring up. You always
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: got to know the regulations because a lot of places
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: you can't even use a screw in bow holder. So
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: you gotta be a little careful a though where you're
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: hunting and what the specific regulations are. But so because
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: of that, for me, most of the time it's climbing
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: sticks in a stand. But just have your system for me. Um,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: when I go out, you know, I know exactly where
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: my release is gonna be, my toe rope, where everything is,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and so you don't run into those little things where
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: you forgot this or you forgot that. When you get
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: to your tree, you can get up it and and
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: get in as quietly as possible. And it's not the
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: most comfortable set up, you know, it felt like you're
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: carrying a big ladder stand in there that you can
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: stretch out your legs and relax and take a snooze
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: or something. But it's a really good portable stand that
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you won't struggle to set up. Um, that's really important
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: to me. You mentioned you bring a pulse out with you.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: What's your kind of thought process on trimming lanes in
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: these types of hunts, in these types of situations, are
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you a minimalist or do you clear as much as
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: you can? Or what do you think about that given
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the fact your turning lanes during your hunt? Well, you know,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: it's that depends to on where you're at. Some places
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: you can't unless it's dead. But I'm a I'm a minimalist,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: especially when I'm when I'm walking in and hunting. You know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: some of my private places all cut good shooting lanes.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Um because I can do it right now and it
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't affect anything later. But you know, it is the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: more stuff he touches, the more stuff you're knocked down. Um,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the greater your chance of getting busted. So
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I try to keep it, you know, really really simple
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and called as little as possible. But you know, the
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: one thing I've noticed depending on which states you go to. Um,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: you know where I live and where I hunt in
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin and Minnesota, you know, those deer look up a lot.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: We've been hunting out of trees a long time. But
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: some of these states I go to that have just
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: a lot less pressure. I don't have to be nearly
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: as careful about, um, you know, trying to hide my
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: silhouette in the trees or you know, just getting busted
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: as much because those deer just darn's used to looking up.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: So there's sort of a benefit to that too. When
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you go to some of those flyover states, the deer
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: easier to hunt. Yeah, I've definitely seen that compared to
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: compared to my home here in Michigan. When I've gone
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: and hunted some spots in Iowa, they react very very
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: differently to to to huge to human pressure presence, and
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and you can get away with a lot more. Um. Now,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: question about your stand setups. So you talk. You mentioned
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: you're using this horrible setup. You're going in there hanging
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: and hunting. Are you are you usually working with just
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: one stand and you go and hang it hunted, pull
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: it down if you're going to move the next day,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: hang it hunted, or do you come with four or
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: five stands or something, and over the course of your
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: four or five days you're hanging different sets, leaving them
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: or showing up in the morning and hanging something for
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: the next day, or things like that always bring you know,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: usually probably at least four some states you can leave
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: them up overnight. Some states you can't, and so the
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: states you can, it's a pain in the butt, but
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: you just have to live by it. So a lot
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: of times I'll pull a stand, stash it right at
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the base of the tree, and put it back up
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: the next morning. Um, some states you can leave them up,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and so that that The one thing about this is,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: especially if you go to a state where you can
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: leave them up, if you go in the first day
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: you get there and kind of speed scout a few
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: of those areas and just get some of your options
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: set up, some of your stand set up. You'll hunt
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: so much better because you can play the win better
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: and everything. And one of those things I've seen even
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: with some of my buddies that I travel with. Is
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: there kind of k g about going in and hanging
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: stands or getting set up or there. You know, second
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: guests themselves a lot, and when you do that, you
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: have fewer options. And when you have fewer options, you
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: just don't hunt as well. So it's just easier to
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: have easy to set up stands, go in, hang you know,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: maybe three of them in good spots, and then have
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: that one float or you can carry with you if
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: if something cool comes up and you need to sit
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, and just give yourself some options, because you know,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: we take it for granted when you hunt. You know,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: let's say your home farm, you might have twenty stands up,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: so no matter what the wind is doing, you've got
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: a place to sit. Now you go something like this,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: you might have two or three stands in a river
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: bottom and the wind stinks for every one of them,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and then you either got to hang a new one
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: or go build a natural blind or just not harn't
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: And so you just gotta try to give yourself as
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: many options as possible that way. Yeah, what are you
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: thinking about this, Dan? Yeah? I mean it's uh it's
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: good information. I've only been out of state one time,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: and it was as far as hunting deer as concerned,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: hunting white tails, and there was no trees. I mean,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: it's it was in the least populated county in the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: United States in Nebraska, and it was in the southern
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: part of the Sandhills. So my, my, the way, I mean,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was really doing. So I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: got to the highest point and I pulled out them
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: and sat down and pulled out the binoculars. And that's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: how I would That's where I would spend a lot
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: of my time. And if I didn't see anything, off
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: to the next little dune that the highest point, you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: half mile away, and then start all over again. So
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: so I guess you know, like you mentioned, Dan, you're
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: sitting somewhere seeing what you can see and then adjusting
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: to that, to to that kind of point. Tony, when
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you get in there, Okay, you've gone in that first day,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: maybe you've set a handful of different stands up. How
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: how do you think about you know, giving a spot
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: time for says, reacting to what you see and moving
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: So if that first night you hunt and you see
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: a good buck. Are you moving immediately to right where
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: you saw him? You are? Ye? Oh yeah? And unless
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: unless I have faith that you know somebody's coming by
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: the stand I'm in, I'm moving. I mean, I think
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: you dear are pretty predictable. They like doing the same
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: things over and over again. And the one thing is
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: if I see, even if I don't see a big
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: buck doing something, if I'm sitting there where I think
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen, and I watch all the doors
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: walk through a different spot or the little box or something,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I'll move right on top of them. Um. And you
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: know it's especially true if I see a good one
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: do something. I don't like to wait around. I'm not
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: a passive bow hunter. I like to get in on
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: them and and capitalize on what I see right now.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: How important is that aggression? I mean, you have to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: know when to make that move, and you have to
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: know when to say, Okay, maybe I gotta wait for
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: this wind to shift. Are you Are you connected digitally
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: to weather patterns and stuff through your phone when you
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: go out here to know when all that's happen happening
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: and when to make your move. Yeah? And you know,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: like Dan said about the county and Nebraska with no trees.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you run into something like that, you
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: can still you can still make moves and do things.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: You're not just locked into doing tree stand. So if
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: I see dear do something. If I if I'm sitting
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: on a tree stand, I watch a big buckle through
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: a patch of sumac or something that's you know, a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: hundred yards out in the middle of the open, there
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: might be a way to get in on him, and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: it might not be move a tree stand, might be
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: going to build a little natural ground blind, might be
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: you know, carry a feeding dough decoy in there's something
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: that hide behind it. There's there's options out there. But
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I really think a lot of bull hunters are We're
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: kind of conditioned to be passive, and the industry, you know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: really really thrives off of that by selling you know,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: scents and lures and calls and all kinds of stuff
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: that promised to bring deer to you, not go to deer.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: And so for me, I'd rather just figure out where
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: deer like to walk, move right there and kill him.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: I don't rely a lot on on calls and sensive
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: lures and things like that. I like to figure out
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: where do you like to go? And I like to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: get in there. And I think it's it's easier for
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: people to sit there and say, well, I saw that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: buck walk to hundred yards away and tried to rattle
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: him in Well, if he does that three times, you
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: mightly want to get over there, you know. Or even
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: if he does it once, if a big buck walks
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: through somewhere, especially if it's just if he's not pressured,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: he's just doing his thing king of the forest walking through,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: that deer will probably do it again, or somebody else
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a good deer will do it. Get
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: on it, you know. I don't I don't like I
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: don't like being passive that way and worrying about bumping
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: him or something like that. I'd just like to get
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: in there and try to get him. Yeah, you make
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: a good point too, if if you see a mature
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: buck traveling through a certain area, there's a reason why
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: he's doing that, why he feels comfortable there, And whether
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: or not that same deer does it again, there's likely
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: other bucks that would that know that's a safe place
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: to travel or know that there's a reason to move
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: through there. So it does make a less sense to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: to get in there. Now Here's here's my next question, though,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: When do you like to make that move? And I
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: mean specifically, I mean are you moving in the after
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: dark at night? So let's say you hunt in the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: evening and you move your stand after dark then or
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: do you like to come in super early the next
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: morning and hang your stand before daylight or do you
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: like to wait until the middle of the day to
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: move your stands? When do you do that restand shifting?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: When I can so A lot of times, you know,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the easiest to do it is if you're out there
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: in the morning and you see something, because then after
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: everything settles down, you can slip over there, have good
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: daylight and just get it done. But a lot of
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: times at night I'll see something and I'll glass and
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: mark a tree or a spot, and when it gets dark,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I'll slip over there and and rehan my stand or
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: build that natural blind or something. Or sometimes you just
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: gotta wait. You don't want to fumble around, and so
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: just come in the next day when it's daylight and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: get it done. It just it just depends on the circumstances.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. I've tried all three and uh, you know,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: to your point, it can be frustrating to be stumbling
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: around in the dark trying to hang a stand, And
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: there's definitely benefits to it. I mean, if you can
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: get it done, then um. But at the same time,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: sometimes you do that and then you get in there
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the next day during daylight and you see there's seven
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: lanes that you thought were to be clear and instead
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: of all covered up your branches or something like that.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, now let's say you're I'm continuing down to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: this hypothetical hunt. You're now you're hunting, You've hung some stands,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: you get up there, you've seen the much a buck,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: maybe you've made a move. What happens when other hunters
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: screw up your hunt in some way? You're out there hunting,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: you think you're on it, and then all of a
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: sudden another guy comes in. How do you react to that? Uh,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: you know, restart, go somewhere else. It happens all the
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: time time. I mean, I don't ever go on a
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: hunt like this without having somebody come in on me.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: At some point. It seems like or you know, just
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: stupid stuff like just as an example, last year in
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Oklahoma had a spot that was about as far away
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: as you could go on any of these public land chunks,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: and there was a really cool pond with a kind
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: of a wooded draw leading to it, and it was
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a good spot. I went in there and hunger stand
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: the first day I got there, and uh, I went
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: to go back in there like three days later, and
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: there was some idiot driving is cheap around on this
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: closed road, just tearing it up, mudded it up, and
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I knew it was over because you just
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? And stuff like that happens.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: You know, people will move in on you. Um it
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: just it just is what it is. And so that's
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: another reason why you want to have your options. And
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: I'm always thinking about that. So if I've got my
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: heart set on, you know, this river crossing stand, I
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: may go there and there might be two trucks parked
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: there in fresh track leading right in there. And so
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: then if you don't get too frustrated and you've got
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: to back up, you can get there and and not
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: lose your hunting time. But it's a constant struggle when
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: you're on public land, especially if you get around the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: rud or opening week where just more people are out,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: You're just going to run into that. Uh, And it's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's part of the process. But like
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: you said, I run into that on private land all
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: the time on some of my farms. So it's just
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: it's just hunting. It seems like there's a lot of
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: bow unders out there now. Yeah, so true. Do you
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: what happens in that case? I mean, do you if
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: if a hunter comes in, let's say, like you said,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: and we've we've had it happened many times myself and
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Dan too. If if that happens, do you immediately say, okay,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I need to I need to scrap this spot entirely,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: or are you willing to give it one more day
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: and see maybe this is a one time thing. They
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: came through, they walked through the area once and maybe
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: the next day though, you know, maybe they won't be
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: there and a big buck comes through. Do you give
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: it a little time or do you say, right, there
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: been one human invasion, I'm out, I'm moving on to
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: the next place. It depends, It depends how it happens. Um.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Just as an example, last year, when I went out
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: to South Dakota, UM, I found a spot that was
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: this walk in area had a cutcorn field, it had
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: it just a phenomenal cedar choked draw that looked like
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: a great betting area. And so I went in there
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: hoping for a gimming you know the field edge buck.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: And I was sitting there and you know, hour and
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: a half before dark, two bow hunters came walking through
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: carrying a full body decoy, just banging it on everything.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: And I had backup spots that I couldn't get to
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: in time, but I had one area that I didn't.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: I hung a stand, but I didn't convince myself to
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: go sit yet. And when they came walking through, I said, okay,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: I got two days left. I'm gonna go sit that
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: pond stand that I've been avoiding because I knew it
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: was probably not going to be I was probably not
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of deer down there, but it
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: was probably the right set up to just ride it
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: out because I didn't think anybody would go in there.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: So when those guys came through and mean, I said, okay,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: two days left, I'm going you know, sunrise the sunset
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: on that pond stand, just because I thought it's good
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: enough and people won't be there and I went in
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: there and fat and kill the buck. You know. I mean,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: it's just you. We talk about a lot of different
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: things with bow hunting, but every one of us has
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: that buddy that's like gets really down really quick. You know,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: he's not a he's not a zen master at all.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're if your attitude starts to tank
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: with running into people, you're gonna hunt like you've never
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: done it in your life, and it's gonna get worse.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: And so you just got to learn to accept that
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: and move on quickly because people are going to screw
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: up your hunts and you know somewhere along the line
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: you're gonna bumble into some dude set up too. You
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: know you're gonna be that guy. So it just happens. Yeah,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe that's probably like you said, that's that's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: got to be one of the very most important things
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: when you're hunting this type of situation is just going
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: into with the right attitude and knowing that you're gonna
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: have to adjust and make the best of it, because,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: like you said, if you know, if your mindset is gone,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: if you lose confidence and lose your focus, you know
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: you're your your odds success are are really dramatically plummeting.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Just based on that becomes a self flfilling prophecy. Oh
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: big dining. Everybody's been in deer camp with somebody whose
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: attitude stinks, and hey, they're no fun to be around
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: and be they don't kill anything because they're just not
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: hunting like they should. And I've I've got a couple
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: of buddies I traveled with a lot. One of them
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: really struggles with that. And I didn't tell him this,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: but I wrote an article for North American White Tail
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: about him versus some of my other buddies and their attitudes.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: And I didn't think he'd see it, but he did.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: But I wrote about how his attitudes socks and he
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't kill anything because he gets bummed so quickly. If
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: he goes out on day one and missus a deer,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: bumps a deer, he's done for the entire trip. And
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: I wrote about that, I've got other buddies who just
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: stay positive and believe they're going to kill stuff, and
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: they kill a lot more stuff. And after he read that,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, dude, it's true. I mean you can.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: You've got to stay more positive. And that year we
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: went out to two different states and he killed his
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: first two lot of state creditors after trying for like
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: six years. And I mean, part of it's just because
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: the haunts worked out that way, but part of it
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: was because he decided to just stay more positive. And
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: I know it sounds like kind of hippie bs to
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: be talking about, you know, you know, positive vibes and
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: all this stuff, but man, if you don't, if you don't,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: you know, keep a good at about you over this stuff,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you're gonna not do very well out there in the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: deer woods. Yeah, I can't. I can't agree with you more.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: And I think that applies even to private land hunters too.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: I mean regardless, I think attitude and in your mindset
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and all that it makes such a huge, huge difference
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: matter where you hunt. If your mind's in the game,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: you've got a much much better chance, because that's what
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: this really is. It's a mind game. It's it's a
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: it's a game of chess. And if you aren't there emotionally, mentally,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: and physically, you're not gonna be able to outwit a
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: mature buck, especially on public in so absolutely, and you
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: know you won't have as much fun either, And this
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: is supposed to be fun. And you know, when you
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: go out there and you're enjoying it, you do a
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: better job of hunting. You just do. Yeah. I have
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: one question, one last question for you, and that is
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: how often do you play the position of another hunter
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: into your strategy as far as where you're going to
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: be hunting? Uh, as far as if I know somebody's
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: gonna be hunting somewhere and I hunt somewhere else because
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: of that. Well, let's say you you there's a buck
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: and you see him and you're like, Okay, I go,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: I want to kill this this deer. I know where
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: he's coming in, but I also know where another hunter
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: is going to be at. Are you ever trying to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: flank another hunter's position to try to gain access to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: the same area or hunt the same deer based off
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: another hunter's position. No? Um, I I really try to
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: away from people. UM. I don't like hunting around other hunters. Um.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: The only time that I've really done something like that
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: was this is kind of a long story, but a
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago in North Dakota, UM out in
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: public land there, I killed a hundred fifty in velvet
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: ten pointer. In the first day of the season, Beautiful
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: buck had him in camp and had a guy walk
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: into camp and look at that buck, see it, you know,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: And he ended up righting his four wheeler down the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: river and saw my stand. I left it up for
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: my buddies. And the next year I drove out there
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: and U went to go that river bottom and there
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: was a brand new stand in my tree that I
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: had set up in the year before, and I've never
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: seen anybody in there in like five years of hunting.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: The fresh branches trimmed underneath, and I thought, man, that's
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: got to be that guy. But I didn't know for
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: sure because there wasn't anybody else in camp at that time,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: and so I just had to find a way to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: get to the deer before they got out there. And
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: I ended up finding some white tails kind of living
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: in Muly country and got ahead of them long before
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: they crossed the river. They went through this patch of
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: cotton woods. I ended up killing a velvet buck opening
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: day that year, and as I was taking pictures the
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: following morning of that buck after getting him out, I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: saw that guy drive in and go down and set
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: up his camp, and so in a way, I kind
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: of did get ahead of him and cut those gear
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: off before they got to him. But I kind of
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: feel like he deserved it because he came in and
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: took my santry, you know what I mean. And so,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: but no, most of the time, I just if if
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: somebody's in an area, I try to stay out, and
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you can't. I mean, I've got a
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: spot in Nebraska. Um that's so good, but it's not
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: very big, and during the rut it is just overrun
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: with people. So you just accept the fact that you're
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be around other people. But it doesn't really matter.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: It's really really good. Uh. But I don't ever intentionally
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: go in and try to be close to somebody. I
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: would rather I give up on a lot of spots
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: to stay away from people. Do you have a distance?
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Do you have like a a usual kind of what's
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: the word? I don't know. How far away do you
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: need to be from another person for you to feel
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: like you are quote unquote away enough to to possibly
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: see the type of deer? Is it? Is it four
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: hundred yards? Is it a hundred yards? Is it half
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: a mile? What's that kind of zone? Clearance you need.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: It depends where you're at. But we my buddies and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: I have a one mile rule, so like when we
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: growse on and we have a hundred yard rule where
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: we get at least a hundred yards off the four
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: wheeler trails so we can find grouse that aren't blasted
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: from every hunter around in a g V. When I
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: deer hunt, I like to get a mile away from
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: the access. So if I can go one mile in,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: I can leave a lot of the competition behind. And
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: it only gets better if you have to cross a
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: river or climb a hill to get that all away. Um,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: if you can do that, then you can leave a
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: lot of people behind. And I don't have a specific
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: rule for how far away I want to be from somebody, um,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: somebody else that might be in a stand. You know,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: far is a good answer, because a lot of times
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: I've sat there and I've listened to guys rattle their
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: heads off or something, and I'm just like, just shut up.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: But that's just part of the process, you know. So
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: I'd rather just be away from the crowds in any
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: way possible. And my entire strategy evolves just that. Just
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: either hunting when they're not there or hunting far enough
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: away where they're not going to go most of the time. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: makes sense. Here's something we've you know, we kind of
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: haven't talked about this at all. I'm curious if it's
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: part of your strategy on these public land hunts. It's
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: such a huge part for so many other people's hunting
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: strategies and private land and other places, and that's trail cameras.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: The trail cameras factor into your hunts at all during
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: these public lan hunts. No, So I have a love
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: hate relationship with trail cameras. I love them. They're like
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: they're they're so addictive. It's just it's stupid. But I've
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: got a hugged Wisconsin, a lot on private land in Wisconsin,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: and just as an example, I'm really working on a
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: couple of public land spots over there. I'm telling everybody
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: that will listen, I'm gonna kill a big buck in
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: public land in Wisconsin. So I forced myself to try
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: to do it. But two years ago, I've I've been
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: on a really good tear the last couple of years
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: for philling tags, but Wisconsin, Northern Wisconsin has kicked my butt,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: and two years ago, I was running cameras over there
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: because it's two hours. Where I hunted is about two
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: hours and twenty minutes from my house, and so I
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: can't just skip over there quick and scout, you know.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: When I go over there, it's a dedicated weekend. So
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'll just rely on my trail cameras,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: and I had the I hunted during the rut, and
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: I just had the worst time because I would check
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: like five or six trail cameras every day, and I
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: felt like I was chasing ghosts where I get a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: picture and I'd go sit there and it was just
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: over and I didn't feel like I was hunting the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: way I should I had. I felt like I should
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: have been walking and in looking for signing hanging stands,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: and what I was doing was waiting for a camera
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: to give me the green light to kill one there,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't happening. And so I've really backed off
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: the trail cameras on these public land hunts to the
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: point where I don't bring one on most of them
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: because then I rely on something that just it changes
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: how I hunt in a way that I don't like now.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: When I'm at home, I love running trail cameras. I
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: set a camera up yesterday on a little food plot
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: here in Minnesota, just hoping to catch some pictures of
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: some turkeys and random deer or whatever. I'm not against them,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: but when I'm trying to figure out right now what
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: the deer doing, um, it's almost like trail cameras set
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: me back a little bit. And I think, you know,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: this probably sounds really weird, but I kind of feel
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: like we're using them way too much to supplement actual scouting,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: and not to mean that they're not, because they can
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: be so valuable in the right situation, but they aren't.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: They need to answer to all of our problems, and
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: we rely on them a lot. Yeah, to that point
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: you mentioned real scouting. We talked a little bit about
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: scouting in the beginning, but we didn't really get into
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: the actual things on the ground you're looking for. Do
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you pay any attention now I'm talking in season. I guess,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: well either one, I guess preseason or in season? Do
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: you pay attention? Are you just looking for where's the traffic?
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: You know, from a trail standpoint or river crossing standpoint
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: or something that or do you pay attention to rutting
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: sign like rubs, scrapes, etcetera. Uh, you know, big tracks,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: beaten trails, I love them. Um, you just you can't
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: take a track, you know what I mean. If it's
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: a big track, it's a big deer. Um. Scrapes, you know.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: I can remember when I when I turned twelve, I
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: started boat hunting, and scrapes were such a big deal.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: Then that's all my dad and his buddies talked about,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: and so I sat. I've sat over so many scrapes
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: in my life, and so very rare really killed a
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: buck on him. Um. In fact, I've probably only killed
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: maybe like two bucks because of scrapes. And so I
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: totally kind of backed away from that. And I really
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: really like rubs. I like rubs that show me where
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: a staging area is. That's probably my favorite thing. Where
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: there's kind of a cluster of rubs here and a
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: cluster rubs there, and it's not just a straight rub line. Um.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: It looked for that a lot, especially as you get
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: into October. But there is a time period kind of seems,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: at least around here, it seems to be like October
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: tent through October twentieth kind of where I'm starting to
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: like scrapes more. I killed a buck on public land
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: here in the Cities a few years ago, UM by
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: just observing, and I watched this buck that I hadn't
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: seen since July. He came out in the middle of October,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: made a scrape. Another the light pointer, came out next
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: to him, made a scrape, and they sparred. And then
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: the next night I moved in over that scrape, thinking
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: what do I gotta lose. It's middle October, it was
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: hot and windy, and that buck came out and I
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: killed him on that scrape. And so I started paying
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: more attention to scrapes during that time period. Had some
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: other kind of random positive encounters around them during that time.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: But I'm still there's still kind of a minor part
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: of my my strategy. UM But I really like so
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: there's another long way to answer for you. Tracks, trails
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: and good rubs I like a lot. I love it,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: love those long answers. When you mentioned the staging areas
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: that you identify by way of rubs, can you elaborate
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit on what that looks like in what
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: type of area you might find that? So yeah, absolutely.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: I think I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: I really think staging areas are probably the most valuable
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: kind of if you understand the staging areas and how
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: to find them, if you hunt pressured land. They're so
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: important because we all know, you know, you get out
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: there on opening weekend and everybody's sitting there field edges
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: hoping for that kidney and they want to see a
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: long ways. But those bucks and the does, and every
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: year out there figures out pretty quickly that you know,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: the hunting pressure is concentrated on those field edges. And
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: so instead of going totally nocturnal like we like to
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: think they do, a lot of them just start moving later,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: and they start finding these places in the cover where
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: they can mill around, they can make a rub, they
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: can you know, maybe eat the main corns, grab you
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: brows a little bit, and not leave the cover. And
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: so for me, if I don't kill a deer, you know,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: opening weekend or opening week I start immediately backing off
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: and getting into the cover. And you can walk into
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: these places and you know, it might be a hundred
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: yards off, the food source might be two yards, but
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: you'll suddenly start to see just random rubs, and you'll
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: see a big pile of buck poop here and maybe
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: a little scrape here, and you can just look around
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: and it just looks like a place where a buck
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: killed time. And if it's in the cover, he probably
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: did it in daylight and you might be able to
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: kill him there right then. I really like those those
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: types of areas for the timing of the season, when
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: most people are kind of shutting down and going okay
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: nominally for Halloween, you start getting into the lull a
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: little bit. Those staging areas can be unbelievable. Yeah, it's
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: a great that law words a bad word. It's a
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: bad word. So do you do you believe in the
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: low No, not to the extent most people do. Um.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: I think the law. I think the law exists to
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: some extent. Maybe there is some suppressed movement. But I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: you know, haven't grown up in Minnesota. I had to
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: hunt October every year. I didn't have a choice, and
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: I've killed an awful lot of bucks in the beginning
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: in the middle of October, and I just I think
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: we give it too much credit. Now. If I lived
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: in a state like Iowa where I could hunt the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: rut all of the work. I'd probably be like, oh,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: the low stinks, I'm not hunting it. But here I
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: don't have a choice. And so is it your best
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: time to kill a buck? No? But is it as
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: bad as we make it to be? I don't think So.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: What about what about mornings? I love mornings, So I mean,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: are you asking me maybe like early season mornings? Yeah,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: early season mornings. You know, let's say, because in some
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: of your previous comments you mentioned, Hey, I'm gonna go
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: out and hunt these states the very first week possible,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: and depending on who he asked, those are are the
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: deer don't even move till dark, so why hunt, you know?
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: And then you don't want to hunt mornings because by
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: the time you get in there, they're already on their
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: way or back to their bed before the uh before sunrise.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: So um me, I'm a huge fan of hunting mornings myself. Mark,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, is not a huge fan of
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: hounting mornings early season. Um I just was curious about
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: what your approaches. I hunt every morning I can. Um
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: this is another thing. So there's that always a never rule.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: So when you say that you're always do this or
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: never do this, you're gonna be wrong. And I hear
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: that constantly. People say, don't hunt mornings in the early season. Well,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: there's there's an infinite number of set ups out there
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: and situations for bull hunters that that just beg to differ.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, in general, maybe it's not as good as evenings.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: We all know that. But nobody will sit there and
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: tell me that every book on this farm is going
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: to be in bed before first light and not moving
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: through this wooded drawer or something at at first light.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that, And I go out and hunt
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: enough where it just it just doesn't hold water. Now, again,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: if you're if you're really managing pressure and you want
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: to make the most of every sit you want to
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: be a careful around that. But I hunt mornings. You know,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: we we'll start in North Dakota on August thirty one
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and I'll hunt mornings right on
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: through until the end of the season. And I don't
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: kill as many books in mornings as they do in evenings,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: but I have a lot of encounters and I kill
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: enough bucks to just I just don't buy into that
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: that you can't find a situation where you can't get
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: in there and hunt. Now, granted it, maybe you know
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: on certain properties there are there are you know there
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: isn't the possibility to get in and hunt good spots
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: in the morning. I mean that exists to where you'll
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: get busted. I've got places like that where you just
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: can't risk it. But if you have enough places to hunter,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: you go out and find a big enough place to hunt,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: you can find a place to slip into in the
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: morning and try to kill a big one. I think
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: that's one of the most fun things about bow hunting.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: And if somebody sits here and says you can't do this,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: I want to try really hard to prove that you
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: can um. And so I don't you know that's I
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: like mornings a lot. I think you make a good
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: point about you know, it's situational, right, Everything situational. There
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: there's there's never going to be a hard set rule
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: when it comes to deer um and in you like
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: a situation like you mentioned where if you have a
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: large enough property where you can find that certain right
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: spot and there's you know, less risk because you know that, yeah,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: there might be have a chance I might spook something
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: even though I go in here but I've got lots
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: of other options, or if you've got multiple different properties.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: But I think, on the other hand, at least in
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: my opinion, you know, in a situation where if you're
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: hunting one small property in a heavily pressured place, that
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: might not be your best time to go in there
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: and risk spooking deer and ruining your other hunts that
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: might have higher odds. So I think it's it's something
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: that all these things, I think a big takeaway from me,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: or it's a good reminder is that everything situational. Don't
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: take something that so and so said as a given
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: rule for everything in your exact situation. And there's that situation.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: But but think about how these different things can apply
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: to your circumstances. Figure out what fits given your situation,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: where you hunt, and all the other factors surrounding it. Yeah. Well,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: and you know end a point on that too, is
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: to effectively haunt in the morning, especially in the early season,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have to work a lot harder than you
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: do at night. So for me, when I think about
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: just the random places I hunt, I most always have
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: to walk farther and be more careful by far in
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: the mornings to get into spots than I do in
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: the evenings, you know. So it's it's just more work
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: to hunt them the way you should. But it doesn't
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: mean that you can't do it successfully. It just it
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: just takes a lot more effort. Yeah. Yeah, So, so
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: I want to kind of rewind back to something you
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: talked about, like forty five minutes ago or something like that.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: You talked about how you typically like to go to
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: the deer. You don't like to try to bring dear
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: to you. As you mentioned, you don't particularly care for
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: calls and sense and decoys and stuff like that, at
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: least on public land. Is there ever time for those
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: types of things in the public land situation? And if so,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: you know what, do you like a little more than others? So, yeah,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: I should clarify that. I mean I call in deer,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: I do some of that stuff, but my strategy is
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: to always get where the deer want to be. So
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: I look at it this way. Uh. You know, if
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: you let's see, you go out and you rat blindly
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: a bunch of times, and you're hoping to just call
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: one in from somewhere you're you're maybe hoping to reach
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: out three yards to that book, and in a in
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: a place with some pressure, most of those deer aren't
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: going to do that. They're not coming in. And so
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: for me to to really be effective with calling, especially
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: and to a lesser extent, you know, scents and lures
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: or whatever, it's if I'm eight yards away from that
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: book and he's already where he feels comfortable, you know,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: giving him a snort, weaves or grow outing at him
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: or something, he's he's a lot more comfortable covering, you know,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: forty fifty yards to get to me, as opposed to
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: sprinting across a five acre cornfield or something. And so
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: if you're already where that deer feels comfortable, because that's
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: that's the one thing about those big bucks. When you
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: watch them move through the woods, they don't walk around
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: like they're all neurotic and cautious. They walk around like
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: they're kings of the woods, and they can kick everybody's butt,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: and so they're confident where they're at. And if you
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: get in there and he's in his zone, his place,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: and here's that contact grunt and it's not very far away,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: getting him to come over is a lot easier. But
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: you have to do the work ahead of time instead
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: of just going out hoping that cal will do the
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: work for you. You know, I always look at it like,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: let's see your turkey hunting, and it's eleven o'clock in
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the morning, and you see that gobbler out strutting in
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: that cut corn field, and he'll gobble his head off
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: at year, but he's three d yards away and he's
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: just not going to cross that distance. Well, if you
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: can sneak around and crawl up into a wood you know,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: wooded point or something, and get to fifty yards from
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: him when he's doing his little loop strutting back and forth,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: you know, if you offer him up some helps when
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: he's at that fifty sixty yard mark, it's a lot
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: easier for him to just sneak over and check you
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: out there than opposed to calling him all the way
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: across that field and dear the same way, if you're
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: pecuardy in there where they where they like to be,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: those all those other kind of get rich quick products
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: out there, those work a heck of a lot better. Yeah,
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: so so true. I think that's that's a big part
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: of my I guess mindset when it comes to two
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: calls and anything like that. Is is it's much better
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: to have a smaller room for error by just being
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: right in their wheelhouse and you only need them to
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: get gonna come maybe ten yards further, versus trying to
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: make something perform a miracle for you, because most of
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: them it's not going to do that. Yeah, so we're
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: getting pretty close here on time, Dan, Do you have
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: any final question for Tony? No, I think I asked
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: all the ones I needed to ask. All right, well,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: then great information. Yeah, yeah, definitely, So I've got one.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: I've got one more for you, Tony. That's a little bit.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: It's related, but but different. So given how much time
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: you spend on public land and your focus on that,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: I'm curious have you have you been paying attention to
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: her hearing it all about the recent push to transfer
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: public lands to states or sell or sell in general.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: If so, you know, what are your thoughts on that?
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: Is that concerning you? It's hugely concerning And if if
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: any any hunter out there is sitting there saying this
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: isn't a big deal, they're not paying attention. Because if
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: that land, the big push to transfer the land from
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: federal ownership to state, if if that keeps going, because
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: it's already happened. This is this is the reason that's
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: so scary is we've seen it happen, and the results
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: never favor the hunters. They never favor us. They favor
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: wealthy people who can buy that land when it comes
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: up for sale, which is inevitably will if this trend continues,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: these opportunities that you know, we take for granted to
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: be able to go to Colorado for l hunting or um,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: you know, Montana or wherever, and it will creep to
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: the Midwest as well. Um, if this trend continues, it is,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: it is, they're gonna affect us so much more than
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: we believe right now. Um, it's it's tremendously dangerous to
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, I think I think Dan and I
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: are definitely an agreement on that. And I've even been
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: recently hearing a lot more about you know, this is
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: already happening in Wisconsin. There's been a ton of their
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: land out there, their public land being sold off. Um.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: And I think there's a lot of states, even like
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, in the Midwest or or in the east
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: part of of the country where there's some of these
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: national forests still that if this happens, they could definitely
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: be impacted to UM. So yeah, I think to your point,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: this is something that even US white tail hunters need
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: to be concerned about paying attention to and um, you know,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: making sure that we are fighting for our public access
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: in these in these different properties, because once you lose them,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: they're not coming back. Well, and that's exactly it, and
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a we should clarify. There's a difference
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: when we say selling off public lands. Some states have
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: a known that loss um law, so if they sell
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: off something, they have to buy something. So there may
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: be public land sales that are okay in that situation.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: But what we're talking about here is the wholesale transfer
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: of federal lands to state ownership. And when that happens,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: the state becomes responsible for generating revenue off of them,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes they can't and so then they have to
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: sell it. And what's worse is if you look at
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: some of the examples out there in Oregon, for example,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: there's situations where um, the Endangered Species Act is coming
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: into place. So now maybe we turn over this national
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: forest to the state and they say, okay, we can
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: you know, we can mind some minerals off here, we
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: can do some you know, pull some oil out of
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: the ground or whatever, and and pay for this land
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: and justify it. Well, then along comes the Endangered Species Act,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: and there's some kind of warbler out there or something
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: that's endangered, and now you can't do that, or timber harvest.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: You can't selectively timber harvest, and that handcuffs these states.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: And the only option they have left is to sell it.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: And when they sell it, it goes from public to
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: private and you lose and you'll never get it back.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: And so it's a it's a dangerous thing out there
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, yeah, it really is. And uh, you know,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: for all our listeners, if you've heard some of our
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: previous episodes on this, I know you you're well versed.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: But if not, make sure to check out our past
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: episode of Randy Newburgh all about this topic. UM. I
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: can't remember which number that was, was ninety or eighty
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: seven or something like that. Um, but if this is
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: something that you're hearing about for the first time, definitely
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: spent a couple of minutes try to learn a little
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: bit more because it really is an important topic, even
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: for white tail hunters for us guys here in the
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: Midwest or out west, east coast, south, wherever it is.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: I think we need to make sure we stand up
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: for our public lands. So absolutely everybody could learn something
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: from Randy Newberg. Everybody. That's the truth. Great, great guy. So, Tony,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: I guess final question for you, is uh, anything that
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: we should be looking forward to in upcoming issues of
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: bow Hunter magazine from you or anywhere we should be
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: looking out for some interesting stories in the future. Oh yeah,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: I got a whole bunch of stuff coming up in
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: bow Hunter, UM, starting in the July issue. UM, I'll
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: be writing about these these public land hunts UM that
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: I did last fall. But I'm always I'm always righting
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: something in there. I got a pretty good schedule lined
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: up this ball to go on a bunch of public
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: land stuff, so I'll keep pranking out the content in there,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: so if anybody wants to read it, it's it'll be
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: in bowl Hunter. Awesome. Well, I'm gonna make sure to
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: take a look at that. I've enjoyed reading your stuff
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: in the past, and now now getting the chat with
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: you more, I'm I'm even more excited to follow those adventures.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm definitely gonna do that. Tony, thank you so
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: much for joining us today. I think I think everyone
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: learned something, whether they hunt private or public. And for
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: those out there who are going to be doing some
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: public land hunting, I think you just opened up a
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: huge wealth of knowledge to help them in the future.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that. Well. Awesome thanks for having
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: me on, guys. Absolutely good luck to season Tony. Thank
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: you you too, alright, bye bye, alright, awesome stuff. I
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: personally really enjoyed that episode, and, like I kind of
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: alluded to at the beginning, since I'm probably gonna be
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: doing some more public land hunting, this was maybe of
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: particular interest to me. But man, Tony had some great
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: stuff to share that I really do think you can
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: apply even on private land and have more success. So again,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: big thank you to Tony for joining us. I ma'am stoked,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed that. So I guess before I continue raving
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: about how much I enjoyed that conversation, I do want
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: to share a couple quick updates before we let you go. First,
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: and foremost want to let you know that we have
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: launched a new vlog, a video blog series on Wired
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: Hunt on the Wired to Hunt YouTube channel, in which
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be posting weekly short videos bringing you along,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, in some cases the day in the life,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing in the white Tail Woods, or maybe
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: during the season of what's actually happening on a specific hunt.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about different strategies, tips, sometimes sharing stories,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: profiling different hunters, I know, sometimes answering your questions, doing
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: some Q and A sessions. A lot of cool different
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: things we're gonna be doing on that video series, So
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: make sure to check that out over at wired hunt
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: dot com and our YouTube channel which is at YouTube
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: dot com slash wired to Hunt. Make sure you subscribe
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: to our YouTube to change so you can get those
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: videos every week. Speaking of subscribing, if you haven't yet
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: subscribed to the Wired to Hunt podcast, please do that.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: It would be a huge help for you. You You get
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: these episodes right on your phone or tablet or wherever
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: you listen. It'll be sent right to you every week
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: when we release a new episode, So definitely check that out.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: And while you're on iTunes maybe doing that if you
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: haven't yet, could you leave us a rating or review.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: That is a huge help and we really appreciate it. Now,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: speaking of showing our appreciation, we also, excuse me, we
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: also need to thank our partners who have helped make
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: this podcast possible so big thanks to Sick of Gear, Trophy,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Hunter a, Maps, Osonics, Carbon Express,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of North America.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: So with that said, finally, I also want to thank
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: you really appreciate taking the time to join us. I
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this as much as we did, and
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay wired to hunting word. Do be
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: that