Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 432: A Deer Season in the Life of Mario Trafficante

Transcript

Ep. 432: A Deer Season in the Life of Mario Trafficante · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four two and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: today in the show, we've got Mario Trafficante from The
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Hunting Beast and we're gonna walk through his hunting season
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and how he would approach different phases of the year.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired Dunt podcast, brought to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: you by First Light, and today in the show, we've
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: got Mario Trafficante. He's from the Hunting Beast. If you
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hunting Beast podcast, if you're on the forum,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you've seen some of their videos on the YouTube channel.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: If you're familiar with Hunting Beast gear, this is Mario.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: He's one of Dan in False Partners and Crime in
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the Woods. They spend a lot of time and they
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: are pros at hunting pressure deer in a lot of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: different scenarios. Mario has a great what would you say,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: just just a great way of explaining what he does
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and why he does it. And this is not like
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: he's got these ten ten thousand acre preserves hunt. He's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: hunting stuff just like you and I do, and he's
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: having great success. And so today what I thought we
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: would do is walking through a few different phases of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the season. Let's talk you know, mid September, let's talk
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: mid October, late October, let's talk November, and then what
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: he's thinking about as far as how he's keying into
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: deer movement, Where does he think dear betting, where and
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: how do we think deer traveling and feeding? How does
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: he plan his setups, how does he plan his access?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: We dive into great detail on all of those topics,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: taking a walk, you know, week by week, month by
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: month into the hunting season. We're also get into some
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: really interesting background around you know, you know, learning as
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a deer hunter, about growing as a deer hunter, about
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: how to filter all the noise and all the different
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: ideas and then you know, testing things out. Really interesting
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: kind of introductory conversation around some of those topics. So
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: if you're relatively new to deer hunting and just trying
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, how do you handle this great,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: big learning curve, I think you'll really find value in that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So that's it for me today. I'm going to get
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: into the conversation with Mario. I'll just remind everyone there's
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a bunch of new outerwear from First Light available now
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in our new Specter whitetail patterns, so the Catalyst, the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: new white Tail, Catalyst jack and Bibbs, new Sanctuary two
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: point oh uh jacket and bibbs. You can find all
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that stuff over at first Light dot com. And then,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: finally make sure you're following all the other cool stuff
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: from Wired Hunt. We've got launched our new Wired Hunt
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel, new website, lots of articles from great deer
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: hunters like Andy Maybo, Martonic, Tony Hansen, Tony Peterson, myself
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and others. You can find that all at the Meat
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Eater dot com slash wire. So that's it now, let's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: chat with Mario. All right here with me now on
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the line, I've got Mario Troficante. Mario, thanks for being
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: on the show. Appreciate it. Mark, thanks for having me. Yeah,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I'm excited about this when I've you know, been following
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the work that that you and Dan and everyone has
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: been doing at the Hunting Beast for a long time now,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and it just seems like an an endlessly useful set
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: of educational conversations you guys get going and resources you
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: put out there. I know this is not news to you,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: but you guys are helping a lot of folks and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to get to dive in with you because
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I've I've talked to Dan quite a bit, but you
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and I haven't got to yet. So so thanks for
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: making the time to do it. Yeah, I appreciate it. UM.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I think one of the most rewarding aspects of this
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: is sharing the information. Get to meet different people, talk
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to them about their experiences. UM. I still learn a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: lot from from talking to different individuals and just getting
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: their take on different hunting scenarios that they're going through,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: questions that they have. They make me think about how
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I set up and what I'm doing throughout the year
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and really approach things in a different way. Um. Every
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: year adds a little bit of a different twist. And
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: so it's it's good at these conversations I enjoy. Yeah,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things that I love about it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You can never you'll never stop learning. There's there's always
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: something more to figure out to try to wrap your
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: head around. It's it's, uh, the never ending story that
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: we're taking part in here, and uh and kind of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: along those lines, you mentioned something before we start recording.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: You mentioned how important it is to you that folks
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: remember that anyone can do this, this kind of stuff
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that we're gonna talk about. And I think that that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: point is particularly important these days because there's more new
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: hunters kind of intrigued by hunting than maybe ever before.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Like the last year is brought a lot of new
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: people into the fold um that are kind of dabbling
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: or looking into this, and if they go online or
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: they look on TV, they see, you know, they see
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: us or Dan or someone on the outdoor channel killing
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: big deer all the time, having so much success. It
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: can seem a little bit daunting when you see that,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and then you go out in the woods yourself and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: you don't see a single deer. Um. So, so why
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is it that you bring that up? Why is that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: so important to you? Like? What what do you want
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to get across on that? I think it's important to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: me because everyone starts out at a certain base level.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: When you're trying to improve your hunting game, let's say,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: let's just call it that, or improve the learning curve
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: on what you're doing and I think a lot of it.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You know, everyone has a different background and experience of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: how they grew up and where they started hunting. Who
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: are the mentors and the teachers that they had when
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: they were young. That changes over time, and I think
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: people coming new in hunting or who have been hunting
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: their entire life. I believe it's really important. One of
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the one of the biggest tools you can have with
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: this is to have an open mind and to listen
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to the people around you. You're not always going to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: get good information, but a lot of times, uh, you
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: are going to get some good information and keen in
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: on those those things that you get. Um. One of
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the things I noticed early on. You know, I grew
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: up in central Wisconsin in a small town and really
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: my dad was from Italy. My grandfather, they did a
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: lot of really rabbit hunting, waterfall hunting, pheasant hunting. Um.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: That was a big part of what I grew up
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: experiencing that that type of hunting, being in the outdoors
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: a lot, and not just uh, not just for the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: capacity of of hunting, for sure, but it was hunting
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to put food on the table, and it was really
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a it was a different type of experience because through that,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: through hunting and fishing with my dad, my grandfather, and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the circle of friends that we had where I grew up,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I really just formed a passion for it, like as
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a recreational pastime. I mean, I would be out in
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the woods, exploring around, spending time observing and learning what
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: was going on in that natural environment. You know, if
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you compare it to maybe what's going on with you know,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: younger kids today or today's generation, there's a lot more
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: what I would call digital distractions going on, and it's
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it's not everywhere, but depending on where you're where you're living,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in the circle of friends and the things that you're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: associated with, there's a lot of other things that can
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: pull you away from hunting or if you're interested in
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the outdoors. And the one piece of advice I would
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: kind of like to give people if you look at
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: some of the predominant names or mentors that we would
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: say and hunting, and you look at their their history
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of kind of what they did growing up, one of
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the things I recognized with them is a lot of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: them they spent a long time in this exploration phase
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: as a kid, as I would call it, um. They
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of times just being out in nature,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: whether it was hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, um. And it's
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: during this time I think you you really observe and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: this might sound a little weird and a little uh
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I guess hippie issue, if you will, but you start
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to observe the natural rhythm of what's going on when
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you're in the woods. And and what I mean by
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: that is, you know, there's there's a certain rhythm that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: takes place with change in the season, uh, changed during
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the time of the day. You know, what are the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: wind patterns doing or weather patterns doing when they come
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in and out? How to different animals behave in the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: woods during different times of the day. You know, birds, squirrels,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and then you can get into larger mammals like deer
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: that we love to hunt and everything in between, you know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: hunting waterfall and pheasants and rabbits and doing that a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: lot when I was a kid. It introduced me to
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: all those different cycles and allowed me to really enjoy
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: that rhythm and getting into that. I find you know,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: as as you get older and you know, family and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: kids and work and all the other things that you
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: have in your life. A lot of times it's it's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: more difficult to just step back and focus on that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: rhythm that's going on. And I think from the perspective
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: of a hunter, being in tune with that can lead
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you to observe irving behavior and specifically how dear behave
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: in their natural environment, um, how they travel across different topographies,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: how different animals might signal when there's movement going on
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: in the woods during different times of the day. And
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: if you really take the time, you know, now everyone's
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: got smartphones, right, so you know you're out in the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: woods doing a sit and you might be scrolling through
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: some feed on your phone. But if you can force
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: yourself to put that away and and just sit and listen, um,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at at some of
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: these different signals that you see happening. A couple of
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: things I tend to notice or I picked up when
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, or just certain times in the
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: in the morning or the evening where you'll see when
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the birds will be into chirp or migrate to different
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: areas of the woods. Um. This different movement often signals
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: when deer are going to move from bad to food
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: or start moving out of certain areas. Um, we've probably
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: all encountered the scenario where you have a j that's
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: calling incessantly in a certain part of the woods, or
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a squirrel is chattering. And you know, I know this
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: stuff has been talked about before, but I feel it's
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a finer point that sometimes remissed because our minds are
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: all caught up in the end goal, which is, you know,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I want to get on I want to get on
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that book, or I want to see a deer, I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: want to see an animal, and we sometimes miss the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: reaction of the whole ecosystem together that we're kind of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: sitting in. You know, such a great point, very very
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: easy to do. And Uh, your point about trying to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: push away those digital distractions, especially when you're out there
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in the field, is it's surprisingly difficult. It seems like
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: such a silly thing. But I've realized when I start
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: paying attention how often I reflexively reach from my phone
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: without even thinking about it. It's it's embarrassing when I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: start catching how often my mind turns to that. Um,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But you brought up another point that I'm kind of
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: curious about how you approached this you talked a second
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: ago about you know, the importance of having an open
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: mind and you know, taking new ideas and things like that,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and so as I'm kind of envisioning what a lot
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of relatively newer hunters are going through, I think your
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: first point about learning to be you know, a little
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: bit more in tune with their surroundings is really important.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: The next thing I'm thinking about is these folks are
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: trying to learn the basics or the next level of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: foundations to becoming a deer hunter, and they're going to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: places like the Hunting Beast form or or this podcast
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: or wherever, and they're trying to learn, and they're hearing
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: from all these different people. They're getting all these different opinions. Um,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I think you're in a little bit of a unique
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: position because you're you know, you're in the field doing
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: this yourself. You're hunting with a bunch of really great
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: other people too, like Dan and others. And then you're
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: also kind of tapped into the forum and your community
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and hearing from all these other people and the questions
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: they have, the questions that they submit to you guys, etcetera. So,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So my question is this, given what you've kind of
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: picked up from all these different people and what you're hearing.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: How would you recommend people learn to filter all these
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: different ideas? Like how or how do you go about
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: filtering through all these different ideas and learning? Okay, what
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: do I take from this guy? What do I dismiss?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: What did this guy say? Should I try? What should
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I not? Um? Because it's really easy to hear it
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: from a hundred different people and get all confused and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: turned around and not know left from right because you're
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: hearing so many different ideas, sometimes conflicting. Um, how do
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you approach that or how do you recommend other people
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: try to do that? In this information overload world? Wren? Yeah,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: for sure. UM. I think the first thing you gotta
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: do is you gotta evaluate your history and where you're
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: coming from, Like what's the base you started with? You know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: if I take myself, I think back when I was
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: a kid. I'm really my dad, you know, coming over
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: this country and and moving up to Wisconsin. He was
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: we were hunting to put food on the table, and
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: he was learning from people and his friends and surrounding
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: area to hunt deer sort of at the same time,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: when I was growing up and it's it's interesting because
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: they ran across some old video tape that that my
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: mom had converted to digital, and there was a video
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: in there of my dad and my grandfather talking to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Italian discussing how they were gonna set up and move
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: this ladder stand from one part of the property to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: another part of the property to sort of in essence, uh,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you know, cut deer traffic off from where they had
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: observed of them moving predominantly. And I think back when
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, what I was taught and what
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: sort of the traditions were. And primarily at that point,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you know, my mom and dad, you know, they were
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: they had part ownership of a smaller farm. There was
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of public land areas around that high school
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: friends and I would would frequent, but a lot of
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the hunting took place on this farm and the things
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that were taught were, you know, a lot of it
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: was the kind of the sit and weight game. You
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: have a specific stand set up throughout the property, and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a whole lot of conversation around betting. It
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: was a lot of focus on location and food and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: waiting for the deer to come to you. So for myself,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I kind of had to do an assessment of when
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I really started get being back into this and saying, well,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: what are my goals and what do I want to
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: try to do, and like anyone you you aspire to, well,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I want to shoot a big book. It's fun this
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: The the big book is like this mystical thing in
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: your mind as a kid, almost when you're growing up.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of the circles that I was in,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you know, you knew that guy and you got a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: glimpse of that big book at the gas station when
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: it was being registered. And it always seems to seem
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to be this thing that was just out of reach,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: or it happened because of luck right, or it happened
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: because circumstances came together. And some people are fortunate enough
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to have mentors early in life that we're teaching them
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a format or a process where by which they could
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: they could take larger books, you know, when they were
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a kid. But now I think the majority of people,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: if you look at what was being you know, shown
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: in magazines and media at that time, um when they
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: were growing up, it was more of kind of the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the wait and bait or the sit and wait for
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the deer to come to you scenario without really understanding
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: behaviorally why the deer were doing that. So first thing is,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you know, understand your background, like what are you starting with?
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You know what what is your learning curve? And in
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: my case, um, I knew that I needed to change.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I needed to change my mindset on that because going
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: back and hunting the same locations, the same sets, the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: same farm and not getting outside of my comfort zone
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: was going to prevent me from getting to that next
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: level and shooting a mature animal. Right. Um. But the
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: exciting thing about that is, and I think we're having
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: an open mind and setting goals is is once you
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: decide to do that, it's like you're a kid again.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: It's like you're a kid for the first time going
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: out on an exploration in the woods with your compass
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and not worrying about getting lost because you're just doing
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a walk about on an adventure. You're experiencing all these
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: things again for the first time, and that's a lot
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of fun. There's a lot of fun or adventure in it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: So I think you know your history and then set
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a goal, like what is your what is your goal
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: that you want to accomplish? Do starting out, do you
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just want to get on a buck that's in the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: farm or the public land or the area that you're hunting? Um?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Do you have a certain age class that you want
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to shoot? Do you just want to shoot a dear period?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: You know, often I talked to people and obviously everything
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of things that are advertised. Now, like
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you said, there's a lot out there. You can scroll
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: through Facebook and it seems like everyone is shooting monster deer, right.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: You kind of get in this echo chamber where it's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: almost like everyone who's hunting or following these pad earns
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: is successful. And why am I not? I think what
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: people need to realize is that more often than not,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in the case it is true for me, you're still
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: doing several sits or having several hunts where you're seeing
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: very few deer um because you're looking or trying to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: set up on that that right set up that gets
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you in front of that target deer that you're after. Uh.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And I guess that you know, I'm kind of jumping
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: around a little. But one one point of that is
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is when people are hunting maybe on a private farm
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: or they have a location on public land where they're
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: comfortable with hunting. They may see a lot of deer
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: in that location, right, and it's attractive because they go
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: out and they hunt and they see deer. But quite
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: often when you switch to trying to hunt mature animals,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: you end up seeing a lot less dear. It's at
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: least that's been my experience. It's sort of the irony
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of of focusing in on these areas where mature animals
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: tend to hold up. Uh, you stop seeing you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: large herds of dough or several other deer come out
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of these betting areas because um, you know, they're more
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: reclusive and and these mature animals secure those areas up
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: for themselves. So history and set a goal would be
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the first two things that that I would say, Um,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and then as far as learning, there is a there's
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a ton of information out there right now. I think
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: what I tell people is you can spend a lot
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of time reading. You know, I would say you take
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: hill country, and obviously you know with with hill country,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of documentation, a lot of articles you
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: can read out there about following a two third elevation line,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: following the lower one third, getting on those scouting a
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: property looking for beds, you know, looking for the thick
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: on top. I think if you're new to let's say
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a scenario like that, my my recommendation is if you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: have the time to commit, is to get out there
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and observe, and you really have, you know, your whole
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: hunting season to do that. But more importantly, you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in in the Midwestern states, in Wisconsin, you know, we
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: have this change of season and a lot of the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: dear behavior movement as we know, they adapt to those
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: changes in seasons, and they're doing different things during those
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: those different times of the year. In the spring, which
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is well documented and well talked about, you can get
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: out and really look at where those deer are traveling,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and where that line was laid down, you know, for
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the previous season, and and what are those key areas
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that you want to look at. But then throughout the summer,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I really invite people to spend a lot of time
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: if they can get out in the woods and just
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: camp up next to a tree and again do some
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: observation and not only with the intent of seeing dear movement,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: but again observing the whole environment and how everything else
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: is reacting. How does the wind travel through that area.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Because how the wind travels through one area and one
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: topography based on the trees, the swirling openings, changes in elevation,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that pattern that you might see at that specific property,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it will be repeatable at another property that you may
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: encounter either later on that year or later are on
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: in life. You know, as you expand a broaden the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: scope of the properties that you hunt. So I can't
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: say enough about time in the field and drawing upon
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: those observations of not only wind, weather patterns, different topography,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and then how the deer and other animals react in
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: those environments. Yeah, um, yeah, I love that. I'd i'd
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: add to and you you kind of alluded to this.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: But the next like step on a lot of that
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is once you observe and learn some of these first areas,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: then a simple way to take that next step is
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: to go somewhere new, Like constantly put yourself in new
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: situations like that always forces the next learning curve allow
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: as you take that next step. Once you figure out, Okay,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: this hilly terrain in Wisconsin. Now I've got that figured out.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe a couple of years later if you want to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: really keep that growth going, maybe try flat farmland in Minnesota.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And if you figure that out, and then it's okay,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: let's go to Indiana and do big timber or whatever
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: it might be. Um, that seems to be another one
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of those things that that observation and that walking around
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and exploring. You've got to keep on kind of pushing
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: to the next thing. And then, like you said, you
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: start noticing patterns that relate back to this other thing,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: or you go somewhere new and you realize, oh, this
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: is actually a lot like this certain terrain in such
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: state or this corner of this area, and all of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a sudden, these things build off of each other. Yeah,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: So I would I advised to start out in small chunks. Um.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Obviously you can, you can read, and you can collect
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: all kinds of information on different different topographies in different sets,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: whether it's swamp, you know, river bottoms, hill country, farm country,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and all the different topographies that exist in those. But
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I would you're probably most people are going to have
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: in their home area, like what they're willing to travel
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and what they're schedule allows them to travel, there's going
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to be a certain type of topography there. So and
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: it's and most likely a certain area that they're comfortable
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: with hunting. So the first thing you want to do
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: is to say, well, if my goal is to suit
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: shoot a certain age class book, like do I believe
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: after what I've read and and would have been able
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: to do, I believe that this area that I'm hunting
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: even could hold that age age class of book. And
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you know, now with with cameras and and other technologies
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that they are able to use in a different mapping software.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier to determine
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: by use of cameras and other observation during the summer,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: whether it be you know, if you are allowed to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: shine at night and you have access to shine areas
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: or adjacent fields, which is another thing I you know,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I believe in if you have the time to do it,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: because even if you can get eyes on deer that
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: in adjacent fields, you could start building out a map
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: or a grid of where those deer might be traveling
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: in proximity to where you think they're bedded in a
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: location that you can hunt, and you can start putting
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: those pieces together. But I would focus on on that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: area that you're comfortable with, and then in an area
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that you might have hunted the same way for several years.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: You know, if I take myself and this small farm
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that I hunted for many years as a kid um
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: When I started to have this change in mindset, sort of,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the first thing I knew that I had to do
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: is get out of you know, these these fixed sets
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: right where I'm thinking in my mind, it's the afternoon,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go sit up in a stand and I'm
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: gonna wait for a deer to walk to me. I
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: have to get out of that mindset. So then the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: first thing I wanted to determine was, Okay, where on
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: this entire property if if any could dear be betting,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and if they're betting there, how can I access the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: property to not disturb them? And it was sort of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: interesting because I didn't put those two things together right away.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: The first step was really getting mobile, and for a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: lot of people, I think they're transition to mobile. During
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: a certain time, climbers were really popular and it was
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: an easy way to do that. So for myself, I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: started using a climber and I just set a goal
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: for myself that I wasn't gonna sit in the same
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: place twice. You know, kind of this arbitrary, silly goal
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: if you think about it a little bit, but it
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: it really hones in on the element of surprise. Like
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: my thought process was, all the stuff that I'm reading
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: is pointing me towards the virgin sit or the first
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: time that I'm in an area where I feel that
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: deer are going to be crossing through or I'm going
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to encounter them coming out of a betting area, is
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: my best chance at those deer After that, they're gonna
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: pattern me. And I observed this through doing the bad
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: behavior of sitting in the same sets over and over again,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and then over the years finding that observing deer actually
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: work their way around me, or other people that I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: was hunting with would tell stories of you know how
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: they would look up and look at the side of
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the field where the stand was, or intentionally navigate around
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: from year to year and avoid those areas where hunters frequented. Right.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: So it it was this idea of the deer are
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: pattering you as much as you're trying to pattern the deer.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: So I think a good first step is in figuring
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: out that property that you're hunting on is how do
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: you have to hunt it, And so the first thing
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I did is get mobile, So I started start hopping
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: around right, and by hopping around, it brought me into
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: areas where I would see dear travel that I normally
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: didn't observe them traveling right because I was always fixated
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: on going to these specific thoughts. And then through those
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: observations of seeing them travel in those different locations, I
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: started putting the pieces together and understanding more of why
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: they were there. I was asking the question, why why
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: did this deer show up in this location at this time?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Why are they using you know, this elevation or this ridgeline.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Because the area that I hunted had a lot of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: hills and valleys in it um adjacent to crop fields.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Why were they traveling in those patterns? And I guess,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to make a long story short, through that, the lessons
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that I learned about that particular property was that hunting
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: it any more than four to five times a year
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: literally was over hunting it. And primarily it was because
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: there was only really two key spots on that property.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: We're talking like in eight acre property where deer would
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: bed on a consistent basis. Now, the surrounding area had
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: three foreignered acres worth of farmland that dropped down the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: river bottom um which had houses along there, which was
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: really thick elevation. So what I what I began to realize,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: is that the deer primarily are not actually betting on
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: this property at all, um. And there's only a couple
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: of key times during the year when they're betting on
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: these certain ridge tops, and that was in the early
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: season when the foliage was much thicker and they had
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: more thick cover on top. But the problem was that
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the way that we predominantly, you know, I hunted with
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: a couple of buddies, would access this property. Um, they
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: had site advantage on us almost exclusively every time we
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: would enter and hunt it in a certain way. So
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I began to break down of you know, I guess
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a plan or a formula for how I would hunt
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the property going forward, and it really consisted of a
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: specific time of the year when I would go in
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: and hunt it. It would consist of specific locations based
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: on where I knew there was betting on the property,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and then it was highly dependent on access, like how
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I felt I could access it from the primary location
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: that we normally accessed it from, versus getting permission to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: access it from other sides, from the adjacent farmers. And
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: what's interesting, if I would have known what I know
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: now ah as a younger kid, you know, in my teens,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: when it was more free country, like a lot of
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the farmers they just let you roam around and hunt wherever. Um,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I probably would have killed a lot more bigger stuff
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: when I was younger on there because of the way
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that the deer patterned through. But what I but for
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: this particular farm, what I recognized is that during the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: early season, if there was a there was a predominant
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: line of oaks that ran on these ridges, and then
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: there was a line of oaks that ran on the
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: adjacent crop field. So probably about a there was a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: half mile ridge line that ran across multiple properties right
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and it's spilled out into a crop field, and then
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the adjacent farmer had another field where he had catalan,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and then on the back side of that where the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: woods where there was more crops, and then it drops
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: down into lowland swamp and marsh um. The deer were
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: predominantly betting on the neighboring property kind of in this
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: low where there was a lot of raspberry and briar
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and thick, but they would bet on these tops in
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the early season and they would come to feed in
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: these oaks. But if you over pressured it, meaning if
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: you went and hunted those tops or even the lows
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: of those tops where they had line of sight to you,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and if you went in there and hunted at time
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and time again and I'm talking like two to three
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: times in a row and got your scent in there
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: or pressured that area, they would vacate the entire property
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and then your your chances of seeing a mature animal
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: in that location outside of the rut significantly decreased. So
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: and that was that's one of the harder things I think,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: at least for me, it was to change, was to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: actually not hunting area as much, because anyone who enjoys
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: the outdoors, I mean, when you have the free time,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you want to get out and hunt. And um, so
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that's where I also think it's incredibly important to expand
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: your portfolio of properties every year. Right. Um, if you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: have the time, you know, put multiple properties on your
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: list that you want to go out and look at,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and start expanding that radius of the areas that you're
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: willing to go out and hunt and look at and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: even going blind and hunt, because staying away from those
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: key spots that you only want to focus on during
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: certain times of the year is really important and can
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: play into the success of that first sit or that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: virgin hunt that you have. So on that property I
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: developed like we can hunt it, you know, opening weekend
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: under these specific conditions, if these food sources are there
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and we have to access it a specific way. Predominant
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: wind is a southwest wind. We have to come in,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: you know, from the north and loop around the field
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: and set up in a specific location where you know,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: line of sight isn't to those hilltops were those mature
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: animals could be betting and coming down to us. Um.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: So that was one set and it was like you
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: do that hunt, it plays out and then you you
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: put it away, you put it on the shelf if
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: you will, um, and you go on to other areas.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing I observed about that it
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: was kind of a turning point for me for that
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: location and property was that during sort of the pre
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: month pre rut area, you know, so mid October to
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: late October and then you're getting into the rut um,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: mature bucks would use that ridgeline and they would run
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: it and there were two specific spots where they would
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: corral dough and it was thick enough on top where
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the dough would go into these areas to kind of
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: hide themselves from the bucks. And again I I didn't
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: really learn this. And still I started doing a lot
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of reading, like on the Hunting b site, and you know,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of advice and observations from other hunters
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: that were much more experienced in this in this arena, right,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: And so I started thinking, well, how can I put
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: these patterns together? So I started testing these theories out right.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: So I'd wait to that certain time of the year
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: when you'd start hearing posts about either late morning movement
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: or pre rut activity, because in this scenario, you know,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: you quite often see a lot of rubs, a lot
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: of scrapes along field edges and common draws. Well, I'm
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: going to set up over that scrape that's on that
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: field edge, but really not realizing that most likely that
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: thing was done during the evening. Um you know, it's
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: it's more random than you think directed, but it attracts
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you to want to set up there, versus actually understanding
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: how the deer are traveling across that specific piece of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: property and why. And I think the interesting thing about
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: being hunting a property for a long time is that
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: you've probably observed or spooked or disrupted deer movement on
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that property for many, many years. So through those mistakes
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: you can kind of trace back and say, well, why
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: why did I spook or disrupt these deer out of
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: this area and why were they there? And then if
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: you start applying some of the teachings of how you
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: hunt the leeward side of a ridge during the pre rut,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: or why a buck would be traveling that on a
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: specific wind, or why are those dough going to that
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: area on that ridge to bed And again it's timing,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: timing of the year, backing off and only going in.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And that property is no longer in the family. But
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the last um four years I hunted it, I was
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I was fortunately tagged out during that kind of prime time,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: but I had a friend local that would still hunt
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: it with me, and and I took him back on
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: that property and applied some of these principles of moon
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: phase movement in the morning as well as that pattern
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: that I figured out of how bucks would corral dough
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: in that specific area. And there were three years in
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: a row where I put my buddy on a buck
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: more than one buck that was you know, or bigger,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: which for him, you know, it was a great buck. Unfortunately,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and hopefully he doesn't get upset with me for saying this,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: he bagged the shot on all all three of them.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I have footage. I have footage of a couple of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: them because I was I was filming. But the reason
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: why I tell that story is is because I think
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: for people starting out on this, it's it's proof that
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: you can break like old patterns that you have, or
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: old ideas that you have about um a property that
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: you haunt, or even a certain topography that you haunt
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of. And during the course of doing that,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you get a lot of naysayers, You get
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that you're around, and you start
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: talking about these philosophies and maybe not so much now,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I mean again, you get you get a little bit
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: in these what I call an echo chamber. Everyone's talking
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: about mobile hunting, and these teachings have been told so
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: many times now that I feel like a lot of
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: people are teaching the same things, which is great so
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: now it's for me, it's about looking for the nuance
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: or looking for what you know those quiet killers are
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: doing that are killing big deer every year, but aren't
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: necessarily talking about it. That's that's what I look for,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know, what are the unique things they're doing. But um,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: you can change your philosophy and the way that you
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: hunt stuff, and I think for a lot of hunters
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: sometimes it means backing off and not being so aggressive
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and really think about how you go in access wise,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: why the deer are there, and how they're moving through
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: that piece of property. And then timing of the year
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: is super important, like when are you going in and
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: why you know? So I don't know if that answers
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: your initial question. It was a long ramble. It was
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: good stuff, though, but you you ended it right where
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted to take us, which was fast forwarding from
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: these learning experiences you had in previous years up to
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: where we are now and you're hunting approach today. And
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the way I thought would be an interesting way to
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: examine your current approach is to think about it from
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: a time of the year perspective, which which you just
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: mentioned how things do change at different parts of the season. So,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: so here's my idea for the restless conversation. I love
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the foundation we just said. Now let's talk about how
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you would apply all of these lessons you've learned over
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the years two hunting each different chunk of the year.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: So let's start in the early season and let's talk
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the first I don't know the first week
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: of the season. If you're hunting there in your home state,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: that's you know, mid September ish. Can you first describe
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: to me what you are keying in on and what
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you're assuming deer will be doing from a betting, feeding,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and travel perspective. Like when you think early season and
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: you're trying to lock down those three aspects, what does
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: your mind go to? Yeah, early season, Um, I'm thinking
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: primarily about summer patterns, and hopefully, if time permits, you've
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: been able to get out and glass or set up
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: cameras to start getting intel on your target locations and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: what animals are living in those target locations. Unfortunately, I've
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: been able to build up enough of a portfolio of properties,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Like just this past year, I did a lot more
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: hunting out in western Wisconsin and did some turkey hunting
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: this spring and added like four more properties that I
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: was quote unquote turkey hunting, but ended up scouting all
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: of them, uh you know during that time. So what
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I'm what I'm primarily thinking about when I'm walking those properties.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: And if you're thinking about early season, a big obvious
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: draw in these locations is oaks, um and whether or
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: not you know there's gonna be a healthy acorn crop
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: as a primary food source. Um. The second thing is
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: is whether you know adjacent fields on private h or
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: if you're on public and there's adjacent private that has crops,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: what crops were in there? Is it corn? Is it beans?
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I really like those scenarios where corn is mixed in
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and farm country and it creates those uh protective corridors
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: that are right next to or adjacent to betting. Because
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I've had a lot of success in that early season
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: again with that element of surprise, because I feel mature
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: animals get comfortable walking those areas when they're not pressured, right,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: And so for me, it's it's food and it's really
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: those behaviors of those patterns that the deer are betting
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: closer to those food sources in that early season. Um.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: The other thing that I like here in Wisconsin is
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: hot weather in that first week because I feel like,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like really hot weather degrees and nasty, buggy
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: weather prevents a lot of hunters from getting off their
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: couch and going out, which means that the opportunity uh
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: for additional hunter pressure in the woods or getting into
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: some of those key areas. Uh, they're they're missing out
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: right because they're like, oh, it's too hot, dear, don't
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: move when it's hot. And that was really one of
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the things that I learned when I initially started hunting
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: with Dan that that's you know, it's it's kind of hogwash.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: You know, deer. Deer are living in this environment all
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: year round right there. They're living through these different seasons,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: and whether it's ninety degrees out or fifty degrees out,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: they're going to get up and move. They're going to
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: get up and feed. Now, their patterns and what they're
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: doing during those different temperatures might be a little bit different.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: But I have had success in the early season keying
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: in on water sources and not necessarily man made water
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: sources or lakes or ponds or rivers, but low lying
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: areas that hold water due to rain um, that are
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: rather remote. You can get mature animals moving to those areas,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: and if you're monitoring them with a camera, they can
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: be a really successful spot to slide into in that
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: first week to put a kill on a mature book. Um.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: So I like remote food sources. One of the obvious
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: ones is you know, remote oaks on oak islands in swamps.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: That's kind of one of my favorite spots to hunt,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I would say, in the early season. Um it, it's
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: an obvious destination for these deer, and a lot of
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: times these deer will get up and move out of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: bed early, even though you might have daylight hours that
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: are you know, going past at night. These deer getting
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: up and moving at three thirty four o'clock in the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: afternoon onto these remote areas to feed if there's oaks
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: there and they're dropping a corns during a certain time.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: So I like keying in on on that, on those
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: remote food sources. So can you walk me through then
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: maybe either a hypothetical example or maybe an actual real
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: life example you can think of of how you would
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: set up on kind of an ideal early season situation
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: like this, you know, how you'd approach, how you would
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: think about the wind, how you would hang your set
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in relation to all these features. I'd love to kind
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: of get the nitty gritty of your whole approach there
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: in this example. Right. So, UM, one example on like
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: a remote watering hole. I mean there was there was
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: a specific property that I was that was hunting. Um
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: it had a low spot. It was really like a
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: mud hole in it, right, And so early in the summer,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I threw a camera up cell camera up on top
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: of this thing, and I was just monitoring it. And
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: what was interesting. You know, I still I'm a journal
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: or so throughout the season, even if I'm tired at
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: night when I come home. UM, I forced myself to
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: write down a quick journal and scrape a map off
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: of ONYX of how the hunt went, what I saw
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: and what was going on wind weather, uh, you know,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the temperature, a quick map of how I saw the
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: deer travel. And then I'll start to pair that with
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the data that I can collect off of trail cameras
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: of times that these deer are traveling to these spots, Um,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: what the temperature is, what day during the week it is, etcetera, etcetera,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: And then I try I'll take that information, and I'll
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: map it against what my availability is to hunt, because
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: that's another reality for a lot of people. There's uh,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: we're not. Not all of us are fortunate enough to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: be able to hunt every single day, which I think,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: you know, there's one key factor two for people that
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: are starting out in this. If you have the advantage
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: to just get out in the field every day and
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: get up to bat every day, it seems like an
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: obvious thing, but you're gonna put yourself in the game
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: more often, not even if you're making mistakes or you're
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: screwing up, because you're just you're getting more time out
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: in the field and you're learning and observing more. So
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I'll take that data with what I'm seeing on the
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: trail cameras and what I have in my journal, and
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and know it's from years prior of when I've observed
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: you know, box moving in this area. For this particular
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: watering hole. Was interesting is that does and fawns would
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: move into this watering hole and they would meander in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: this watering hole in broad daylight and in the evening hours.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: But you know, more importantly during daylight shooting times, they'd
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: walk right in front of the camera they'd spend time
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: in the watering hole drinking. Uh smaller bucks that even
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: go in there and do some sparring, and they would
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: constantly be traveling through there. The only time in this
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: specific area that I would see a mature buck on
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: camera was during the hottest days of the summer. And
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: what was interesting about this one spot is that this
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: particular buck that was a five by six, he he
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: would only show up. He showed up on camera three times,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: and it was during the three hottest days of the summer.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: And when he showed up, there were two different directions
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that he was coming from each time that he showed up,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and he would only extend far enough into view to
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: drink from that watering hole, and then he disappear. Now,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I know there's studies and theories of whether
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: or not Dear you know, you know, can recognize that
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the cameras in the area. I'm of the opinion that
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: you know, they do know it's there. They can sense
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: it's there, whether it's by sound, shutter noise, or what'sever
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: going on with the camera, electromatic, metic field, whatever you
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: want to believe or read out there. I think, Dear no,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: when something is added to their environment. That's odd. You know.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Part of the reason with getting them in there early
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: and letting them soak for a while is trying to
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: avoid that or putting them in locations that are away
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: from where you want to hunt. But for this particular set,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to know what was company that
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: water hole. So now that I know that a mature
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: bucks company to that area, I have a general idea
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: of what I want to hunt it. Well, I want
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to hunt it on one of the hotter days, right,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna wait for that really hot day during
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: the first week of that season to go in there
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: and make an attempt on this book because I know
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's traveling to that location. The second thing is
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I have an idea based on how this deer showed
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: up on the camera and how his body was positioned
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: as to where he might be coming from. Now, again,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: it's just an idea, right, because the deer could have
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: walked around outside the view, a camera could have came
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: from a different direction. But how do you break that down? Well,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: if you're going into this location, it's blind and it's
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the first time you're you're observing it through a camera
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: or hunting it, you may just have to guess, and
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and that educated guess is going to be based on
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: looking at an aerial map and coming to a conclusion
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: based on what you see on the topography as to
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: where you think this mature deer might be betting. So
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: then once I identify that spot where I think that
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: deer is going to be betting, then I start to
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: factor in wind and thermals into my setup for that
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: particular watering hole. You know, Um, again, predominant wind in
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of these areas is going to be a
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: southwest wind. So that one's a little bit tricky because
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: one of the areas where I felt the deer could
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: be traveling from would have me at not a wind
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: advantage um for accessing it. So, um, I had to
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: be creative with my access, meaning I had to think
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: of a non conventional way to access that watering hole
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: instead of taking what would be the the main preferred
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: trail that you know, every other hunter, maybe it would
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: take into that property or the trail that that was
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: predominantly everyone walked in. So so once I established that direction,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I think about access. So in this particular case, I
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: figured out that, okay, I need to access this location
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: coming from more of a northwest pitch to angle in
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: into that location. Um. Then I start thinking about trees
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: and obvious places where I can set up that I
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: know of in that location, and that's where I think
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: boots on the ground UM. And I don't recommend and
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: you know, boots on the ground a week before the season,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: you go in and get out. You might get away
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: with doing something like that if you have a large
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: weather event, if there's a storm going on or it's
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: it's raining rather hard. I think you can get away
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: with going into those areas and checking things out. If
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: you get a washout scenario, that's going to get your
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: scent out of there. But I don't recommend, you know,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: going on a walk about and kind of criss crossing
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: around the whole area if you plan on hunting it
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: in that first week because from a betting perspective, if
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: you think about those remote oak islands, there's gonna be
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer that are that are typically they're
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: not pushed back, you know. If I think of site
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: sound safety, you know, and smell, they're going to be
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: bedded closer to that food source, and they might be
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: bedded up out of the water on those islands, on
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: those fringes in the early part of the season, which
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: makes them much easier to bump off there if you
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: go in there and tromp around. So I really try
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: to stay out of that area altogether. But if I
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: do get a rainy or stormy day and you can
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: get in there and look at it if you haven't before,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: then you could take advantage of it and go in
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: and pick out a tree. Now, really from there, I
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: mean you've heard this. I'm sure you've heard this before
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: or we've all read about it. But picking the location
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: to set up based on wind, I always try to
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: be facing in a location where my set is facing
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: where I believe the deer is going to be coming from,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: and where I have some type of wind advantage. It's
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: not necessarily that the wind is going to be coming
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: directly into my face, because I would say, of the
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: time you don't have that advantage. But where there is
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: a just off wind, or so a wind that's cutting
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: across or at an angle where it won't reach that
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: deer before he's in an area where I can shoot him,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: I guess if that makes sense. Um. The other important
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: thing is is an access. I made this mistake a
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: lot early on when I was learning these theories, is
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to pick that spot where you want
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to set up, because sometimes you know you you I
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: go into these locations blind. I mean my schedule now
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: and what it allows me to do and where I
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: get to get out and scout. Sometimes I don't have
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: the time to go and pre pick a bunch of trees,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: if you will, or really get boots on the ground
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: to understand where I need to set up when I
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: get in there. So I'm doing a lot of it
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: on the ground, reading sign when I go in um
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: so as a lot of people do. I'm using milk
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: weed to check the wind as I'm coming in. But
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: what you want to do is get into the spot
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and just sit, sit and observe for a little bit
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: and take your time. I mean, I Dan he has
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: this knack for doing this where he'll just he'll just
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: sit and watch an area when he gets into it
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: and really take slow down and take the time to
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: observe what that wind is doing. And if there's an
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: idea of where that buck is coming out of bedding,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: think about how that buck is going to be traveling
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: out of betting to you because if you walk maybe
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: ten yards further and you cross the trail, you can't
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: take that back right. Or if you walk twenty yards
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: further and you cross the trail, now your sense on
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: that trail, and if you backtrack and set up behind
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that and I've seen this happen to me. If that
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: mature animal comes out and they cross your scent, the
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: game's up. They're not gonna get to you. They're gonna
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: smell you, and they're gonna bust out. So if I'm
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: in that situation where I've pushed too far, ali, I
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: may vacate the spot, or I just may say, you
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: know what, Um, I'm gonna set up here and I'm
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt and this is gonna you know, I'm gonna
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: see what's gonna happen. So I guess, to answer your
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: question more directly, it's it's taking the time once I
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: get into the location to really understand how the wind
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: is channeling through there, and the wind you're going to
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: have the predominant wind that the weather report tells you,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: but wind moves through these areas differently based on how
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: the layout of trees are. You know, in this particular
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: case where there's a watering hole, all the mature trees
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: kind of wrapped around it, and there's taller swamp grass
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: and cattails on the back side of it. But it
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: creates a bowl or a swirling effect, right, So as
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the winds blowing into it, you've got to think about
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: how that wind is wrapping around that bowl and when
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: that buck enters it, how are they going to use
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: that to their advantage to wind you. And I'm thinking
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: about the spot where that buck enters that bowl, where
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: that watering hole is that I can shoot too, where
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: he will not have the wind advantage on me. That's
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: what's going through my mind. And then obviously with wet
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: and water, right when it hits that dusk moment and
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the wind dies down, then you're thinking about the thermal
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: poll and how that's changing. So yeah, all that stuff
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: is going through my mind when I'm thinking about a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: set up that is that was perfect. I couldn't have
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: asked for a better detailed description of how you think
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: through that. So you are you're an A grade student
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: in the class of this This podcast ed him Ario
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: and what I want to do because I was so good.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I want to have you do it all over again,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: but fast forward a month. So let's go from that,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of mid to lay September time period
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you just discussed, and let's jump up to like October
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: give or take right around there. So part one would
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: be what are the things you're keying in on, you know,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the food, the betting, and the movement, and then part
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: two would be what you just did there, which is
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: then describe your whole thought process to setting up on that. Um.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm being lazy because I'm not asking
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of foul up questions, but you're you're covering
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: it so well, you're making my job easy. All right? Well, thanks, um,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: and I will know you know that one watering hole
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: scenario with with remote food sources. Um. There, here's one
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: thing I learned to when I first started hunting mobile
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: like this, and I started hunting remote islands and swamps,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: So I started hunting fringes, right, these edges or transitions,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: as we hear a lot that they're called these changes
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: in topographies. My first natural instinct early in the season was, Hey,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I gotta push to the edge on everything, right, I
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: gotta get on the edge. And what I learned, Um,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I got busted a couple of times on
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: some really nice deer. Is that that pushing to the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: fringe really doesn't come until later in the year, until
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that mid October later October, that conversation that we're transitioning
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: into that actually when you're hunting these food sources and
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: they are primary food sources on these islands, that those
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: deer will move to the center of those islands. So
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: you know, you want to find that. Like in the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: case of this watering hole, it when they would come
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: out of betting and they stage in a certain area.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: This was a destination that they were coming to in
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: daylight and it was an area that you could sit
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: act in that was further away from betting, but they
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: were still getting to in daylight right in that early
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: season pattern. Um, which because the foliage changes and the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: cover changes as you transition into the later months, they
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: likely will not be traveling, you know, that far in
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: daylight as you get later on in the season. So
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: that same spot that's good in the early season then
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: drives up or is not as good because of the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: change in the cover later in the season. And I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: feel like sometimes those those remote sets when it's hot
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: and humid. I mean, I've had a case one year
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: where I pegged betting to be to my north, and
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: really betting could have been to myself or to my east,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: but I made up my mind that I was gonna
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: see have bet income, you know, travel come from the north.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: And that was based on some previous years experience where
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: I observed a book that I didn't want to shoot,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: but he came right in set in the oaks, right
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: in the middle. Wasn't the age class book I wanted
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: to shoot, but I got a good video of him
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: walking right on through. So then I knew that if
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: oaks were dropping again, I wanted to get in there
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and hunt that. Now what I learned through that hunt.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: It was a super hot, calm night. And you ever
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: get in those sits on those nights where your scent
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: is literally just hanging in the dance do so everything
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: was just dropping right right below my stand, and in
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: that case, it happened to be where the betting that
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: was being utilized was directly behind me, unfortunately, and I
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: had three shoot bucks that came from behind me, one
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: of which was charging right in to go to the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: center of those oaks. But the way that the way
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: that they accessed that one ended up coming right underneath
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: me where I was set up, and he got right
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: underneath me, and there was a bunch of foliage and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: he froze, stopped deadness tracks underneath me, you know, started
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: licking his nose, raising his nose up, and he spent
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: about you know what seemed like an eternity there. I
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: didn't have a shot because it was directly underneath me
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: and there was branches, um, but that buck immediately pivoted
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: and slowly walked back off behind me, and I tried
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: to kind of swing everything around right because I'm facing north,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: because I'm expecting everything to come from the north, but
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: they actually came from myself. So when I spun around,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: I actually realized and I got the camera that there
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: were two other books, um, one of which was a
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: larger book that were back further in the thick that
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: we're also coming out to that oak flat to feed UM. Now,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: the lesson that I learned from that, I know you
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to get into October, which we'll get to. The
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: lesson that I learned from that. The point I want
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: to make two people is that's not yeah, it's a failure,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: but it's a failure that I can put in my
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: bank and put in my journals that the next time
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: that this scenario, and it may not be in that
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: specific property, right, it may be on another property that's
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: got a very similar scenario. How do I set up
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: in that location where I'm good to shoot to both
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: access directions for both directions where I feel deer could
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: be coming from. And so there there was a way,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: after I really thought about it, how I could have
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: set up in that location and where I feel all
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: three of those bucks would have walked to the center
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: of that oak flat um. And that was a you know,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: a hard lesson to learn, but a lesson learned that
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: the next time I'm in that scenario. That's another thing.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: When I'm boots on the ground and I'm looking around
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm determining where to set up, I'm not getting
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: hyper focused on one area that I know there's betting.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, well, if there's multiple locations they could
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: be coming from where I know that there is betting,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: I know that bucks could be betting there. How do
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: I set up to shoot the first time they enter
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: into this you know, my shooting zone. I'll call it
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: when they access the food source. So I just wanted
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: to share that because I had I probably learned way
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: more from the misses and failures that I've done than
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: from the books that I've killed, you know, listeners. So anyways,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: onto the I think, you know, my next favorite time
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: and to hunt is is the pre rut. So I
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: think the rut and a lot of people you know,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: talk about this. It gets a little chaotic, right, It's
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: hard to pattern mature animals depending on where the hot
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: dough is at in the area that you're hunting. Um.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: You know, this is pretty well documented, but a lot
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: of people start to pattern during the rut doll betting
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: areas and think about, like I think about how mature
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: animals are traveling through a specific area to scent check
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: doll betting areas more so during the rut than I'm
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: specifically thinking about where bucks are betted, maybe in a
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: primary betting scenario like I would think about in the
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: early season, um, because I think they start to bet
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: in different satellite loca sans to monitor dome or and
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: monitor that kind of traffic. So because of that, because
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: of that chaos, I think that the next favorite time
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: is really in that pre rut because, Um, during the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: pre rut, I feel like you get a lot more
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: daytime movement um earlier because bucks are out, bucks are
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: still betting in there what I call you know, safe
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: zones or their areas that they feel are they have
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: an advantage for you know, site, smell, sound, and and safety. Right.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of like that combination that they
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: it's their home area that they feel comfortable in, but
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: they're getting up and they're traveling earlier because they're going
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: out and they're checking community scrape areas, or they're traveling
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: around and there they might start to be checking on
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: dope betting areas and for that reason, they're getting up
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: out of their beds earlier or in the mornings, they're
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: traveling back to betting later. And I think, Um, that
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: particular scenario actually got me my buck last year, I
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: believe because the buck that I ended up shooting off
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: the ground. Um, I'm pretty confident that the only reason
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: that deer was traveling in the direction that it was
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: during you know, the between seven and eight o'clock in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the morning was because it was late getting back to betting,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: because he was out perusing around, checking scrapes and so forth.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: And so I like that scenario because if you've pre
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: scouted betting areas or you know how a piece of
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: property lays out, like where you know where the primary
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: betting is for bucks, or you've observed bucks betting there before,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: or you've gone in in the preseason and you've actually
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: found areas that you believe bucks are betting in, and
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: you know there's adjacent areas where those are betting. You
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: can start setting up um two key on those travel corridors,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: if you will, or those areas where bucks will be
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: coming back to betting in the morning late or they'll
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: be getting up out of betting early in the evening.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: And the particular hunt last year, I had walked across
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: on my way in and I there was a scrape
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: that opened up right and I would consider this was,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: you know, a scrape that I hadn't seen there in
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: years past, but it was kind of in a primary
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: area where a lot of deer based on how the
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: land laid out, because it was an area of high
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: ground that was adjacent to a Tamarack swamp that then
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: to the east and then to the west. There were
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: two cattail marshes right that was split by a peninsula.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: So if you think about it, it kind of looked
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: like a big cross or a big X if you will,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of how the high ground laid out with the adjacent
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: lowland around it, and this scrape kind of centered itself
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: in those travel patterns of the high ground in the
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: lower ground. And what was caught my eye on this
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: I remember snapping a picture of and actually sending it
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: to Joe, was there was a giant turd in this
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: scrape and it was like a It was like a
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: week a week earlier, two weeks earlier, when I noticed
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: that the scrape was active and it had this fresh
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: sign in there. But I had my mindset on, you know,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: like I said, I plan out kind of where I
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: want to hop around or these areas that I want
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to hunt based on previous patterns, or if I'm lucky enough,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: I've been monitoring a deer that's in an area, So
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: I'm hopping around, hunting down or grid hunting an area
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: to get closer and closer to where I want to
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: go in to hunt a specific animal or a specific
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: betting area, if you will. Right, that's holding has the
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: potential to hold multiple animals, and so I just walked
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: by this right. Um, the night before I was out
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: in western Wisconsin for a few days and I was
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: hunting down there. Had an encounter with a really nice book,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: one of those scenarios where we posted a video online
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: of it. But um, it was I was freezing my
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: butt off. I'm I'm a human being like everyone else.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: You know, we all again are mistakes that we make.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: It was raining, it was cold, I had it was
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: just getting like it was right on the ageless light.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: Dropped my bow down and sure if I hear, I
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: hear a snap. And I look over and here's this.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: After I watched immature buck. After immature buck walk past,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: I watched do walk past all this stuff. Put my
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: bow down, and here comes the big daddy. But I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: got a nice little show. He walked right past me
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: and torched a tree behind me, and I filmed him
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: and it was all good. And I put that on
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: my bank for right. I put that in my bank
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: for for you know, this year and years to come
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: if I if I get down and hunt that area again.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: So I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm like two and
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: a half hours away from home, drive back home, get
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: get back home at like eleven love and thirty and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, the first thing that pops into
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: my head is that scrape. Right, So it's late October
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: and I'm thinking to myself, there's there's a lot of
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of reports that there's morning movement happening,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: you know, reading online, and there's a lot more daylight
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: movement books are getting laid back to their beds. Um.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: I think that that scrape, that area that I saw
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: deserves a morning hunt, and specifically because of you know,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: where I knew from from previous years hunting, where the
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: betting locations can be and where these animals might be
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: going back. So I set up in that location. And
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of funny because at I was
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: deciding back and forth where I set up in the
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: standard set up on the ground. I ended up based
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: on just how the area laid out. I ditched my
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: stand and just set up on the ground and ended
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: up being on the ground. But at seven ten there's
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: there's like a walking trail, you know, I had other
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: hunter walked past me um and at seven fifteen, you know,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: after that that hunter walked through and went to where
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: they were going. A small buck came out of betting
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: across the woods and check that scrape. And then not
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: five minutes later, you know, the bigger eight pointer that
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: ended up shooting came walking right down that what I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: would call the human trail right you know where they
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: they will tolerate scent, you know, or access on that trail,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: but not off the trail, and paralleled me and then
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: immediately turned and went right to that scrape and check
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: that scrape. At about seven in the morning, and after
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: or I shot that book, uh, and that scenario played out,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: I went and I traced like the steps because I
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: had never you know, when I saw that's great, I
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: didn't follow it back to where I knew the betting
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: location was there anything. So after I shot that book,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: I actually took the time to walk back and go
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: look in the area where that trail angled back towards betting,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: and in the thicker areas that were covered. You know,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: we we have a lot of buckthorn that's really consuming
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of these areas that we hunt. Um, it
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: can be very tricky and troublesome to hunt because it
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: overgrows everything and you don't get a lot of sapling
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: trees that are growing up anymore. It's just literally walls
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: of buckthorn. But the deer oal form corridors through it
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and they like to travel in it. But what was
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: interesting is is once that once I got past that
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: open area where it actually shot the book, and I
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: got in on that armory trail leading back to betting,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: this whole sort of bedroom opened up. This book had
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: multiple scrapes, um rubs all inside this protective little comb
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: of of buckthorn ah that led back to his area
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: that he was. You know what, I believe at that
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: time he was obviously betting at so um. I don't know.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: That was a long I guess story about how that
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: particular time from you know, the twenty October through early November.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like you can pattern books based on where
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: their primary betting locations are, but they're going to be
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: on their feet more in daylight. And if you can
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: get on hot sign, like when you see it, get
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: on it within you know, in this case, it was
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: within a week of it. And I think the personality
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: of that book he was, he was probably a little
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: more outgoing than maybe you know, other books. I think
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: animals have different personalities and how much they show themselves
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: daylight and so forth. But I I believe that Buck
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: was late getting back to betting because he was out
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: rooting around and unfortunately he uh, unfortunately for me, he
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: ran into me, and unfortunately for him, you know, it
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: didn't end up so good for him. But real quickly
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: you mentioned how I think this is what you said,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: was that he came up that human access trail, right,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: And I know I've heard you in the past you
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: and and talk about sometimes using a similar approach to that,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: to creating your own access trails, and that you will
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: if you're hunting a given area and you think you're
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt it multiple times, you'll use the same exact
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: access trail, so that deer eventually become used to Okay,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: this is where there's where there's human scent and they're
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: used to that, but it's not everywhere. Um. Can you
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: just expand a little bit more on on that kind
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: of idea, or if I got it wrong, how you
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: think about some of these access concepts and how sometimes
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: there's somewhat counterintuitive ways to go about it so that
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: deer get used to it in some places, and and
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable elsewhere. But you can take advantage of that, yeah,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: I think. I mean, you can observe this. And if
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: you live in a subdivision and you have, like I
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: had forty acres, used to have forty acres behind me, right,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: and they clear cut part of it and they started
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: building houses. But there was a herd of deer fifteen
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: or so dear that lived back in that forty right.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: So I've lived in the spot I think for like
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: thirteen years now. Um So I would watch these deer
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: move up off the ridge and come down off of
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: bedding primarily though, right, you can go up there and
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: find their beds around there. I'd walk up there with
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: my kids and stuff. Um But what is interesting to
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: me is to watch as this area has been developed,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: watch how these deer move through this new subdivision. Um So,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: I knew the primary trails through watching them of how
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: they've come down off the hills, and even with all
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: the disruption of the construction, those deer would still follow
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: the same pattern down off those hills. And how they
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: get used to human pressure I think is interesting as well,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: because at a certain point, as you know, people would
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: start walking back there and you could observe people walking
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: next to the deer feeding right in the adjacent field. Um,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: they would tolerate you walking on the you know, newly
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: minted sidewalk right and they would watch to you and
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: observe you there, but the moment that you stepped into
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: you know, that field or that area, they weren't comfortable
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: with that. And then now as time has gone on
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: and there's more and more activity and more and more
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: houses being built in the green space, you see less
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: and less dear and there. And maybe that seems obvious,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: but they won't there. They become less and less tolerant
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: of those areas where people are walking or there's high
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: traffic areas. So when I look at a scenario when
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: you're hunting a piece of property and you're you want
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: to look at your access as not just I need
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: to get into the property and then kind of sprawl
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: from there and figure out where I'm going to hunt.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: You want to look at your access from an advantage point,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: like how can I get access the property and be
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: uh that the least disruptive as possible. So and you
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: have control over that, right. So we a lot of
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: times hunting groups, you know, or there's multiple ones of
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: us that know about different properties or areas. So we'll
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: we'll kind of split up during a weekend and we'll
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: all go and hunt these kind of go to target
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: areas and then you know, for successful great or we'll
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: report back with what we saw and then we'll move
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: on to the next What's really important between that group
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: is that everyone understands how to access it and why.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: So again, access is going to be controlled by you know,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: first and foremost what you have property rights too to access.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't have a choice, you can only go
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: in a certain way, but other times you do have
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: a choice. I mean, maybe there's a side row or
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: there's another non conventional way on the back side of
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: a piece of public that you can access it that
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: gives you a site sound, you know, safety and smell
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: advantage from accessing that property. And then once you determine that,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: you know, based on not just one location or one
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: area you may want to hunt in there, but the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: access that gives you an advantage for multiple areas that
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: you might want to hunt in it. And what I
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: mean by that is a lot of times we approach
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: these areas and and grid them out or stage them.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: If you will maybe if it's a larger, you know,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: thousand acre, you know, public, public area. There's a lot
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: of options, but you have to think about a specific
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: way that you want to access it. So when you're
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: accessing it, you're not burning locations that you want to hunt. Um,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: so access it in a way where you're going to
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: reach your first destination that you want to hunt. First
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: hunt it, check it off your list, and then continue
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: your access the same way. So the next time you
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: come in, you're going to access the exact same way,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: walk past that location that you already hunted, but then
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: push on to the next part in the grid that
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: you want to hunt, and be very kind of specific
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: not to meander around. Now I will say, uh, you know,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: the rules get thrown out the window. Obviously when you
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: see sign on you know when you have boots on
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: the ground, so you want to pair that with matching
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: it with the sign that you're seeing boots on the ground.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: So the other thing that we talk about is that
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: when you're going into these spots, we may have pre
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: scouted something and we might have ideas of where a
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: location is in a destination and how we want to
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: access it. But if you get there and the sign
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: is just junk, then then move on right, move on
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: to the next access point where the sign starts looking better,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: and set up there. Um. The key key point, I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: guess is what you're saying is is that if you
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: are going in there again, I already know that I've
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: got my scent, and I'm already assuming that any mature
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: animal in the area knows that I've been there on
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: that specific trail or that specific access route that I've
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: gone in. If I'm not bumping, dear constant when I'm
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: traveling in that access point, the deer will get used
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: to or accustomed to you or other hunters or people
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: in general traveling in those areas. That's why, you know,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of times on public areas sometimes they'll have
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of times around here. They create
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of free walking trails that run through these
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: different public hunting areas or as different communities or subdivisions
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: expand and build out, public land shrinks down, and you
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: get these little slivers of public land that are adjacent
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: to parks and areas where people are walking, whether it's
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: hikers or hunters or um access trails that you as
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: a hunter or your group of hunters that you hunt with,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: decide to make the primary access. It's really important that
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: you stick to that and um, every time you access
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: you use that same pattern and think about hunting these
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: different properties and a staged approach, right. And I think
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: if you don't, if you get into a scenario where
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: you can stick to those rules, um, a property, a
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: property could be hunted in that stage manner and you
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: can have a lot of successful haunts or have a
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: good success not over pressuring those deer or bumping those
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: deer out of an area because someone or a group
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: of people are walking all over the property with different
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: access points. And I know, um that can be kind
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: of loose cannon and and difficult on a on a
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: piece of public right, you have no control over where
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: everyone else is accessing. But I think at that point
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: it becomes looking at more of what human sign you're
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: seeing as you're entering in. You know, are you seeing
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: boot tracks, are you seeing other obvious things that indicate
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: like cat's eyes on trees or flags on trees, where
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: you see that people are accessing or traveling into an
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: area over and over. I mean, let's admit it. You
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: know there's there's a lot of people that you know,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: they get out in the woods, or if they're traveling
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: a far distance back, they they may get nervous about
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: how they're going to come back, so they're marking their
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: trail in and out of there. I think taking advantage
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: of those trails that are being used by the majority
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: of the hunter that are going into a location. They'll
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: be monitored and tolerated by the deer in the area,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: and you know that they'll stay away from there, so
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: you can sort of hide your access by utilizing those.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: But then obviously when you're thinking about your version sit
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: and you're set up, you branch off of that and
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: get into your setup where you need to be, knowing
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: that you know you didn't you didn't burn areas going
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: in because you you stayed on that access. I guess
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: it's the point. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: so let's in the interest time, let's move on to
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: one more time period because I want to make sure
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: we at least cover the rut before we have to
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: wrap this up. Uh So, can you give me a
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: similar rundown as we just did for these last two
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: time periods, but for like that November somewhere and there
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: were most people would think you're you're right in it
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: for most parts of the country as far as the
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: rut period, What what to your approach at that point? Um,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: I mean the most I think that the salad approaches
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: really understanding how dear and mature books use a particular
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: piece of property and the topography that's on that property.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is is no matter
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: if you're in swamps, hill country, farm, river bottoms, I
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: think there's a particular way, an efficient way that mature
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: animals travel through those properties to check out what's going
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: on and specifically to monitor dough that are coming into
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: asters or monitor other books that they're competing with for
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: those dough that are coming into asters. And I think
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: it actually takes for it to become less random. I
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: believe it it takes multiple seasons to really understand how
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: bucks are are navigating properties to do that. That's not
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: to say that you can't find a property, locate what
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: you believe to be a primary doll betting area area
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: or do or betting, and then key in on a
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: setup where it puts you at an advantage of monitoring
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: that you know, this is pretty common downward side of
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: that that betting area where bucks will be cruising. Um I,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: but understanding why the bucks are traveling there during what
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: times of the day A lot of times that depends
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: on how the topography lays out. And what I mean
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: by that in in those you know, really obvious pinch
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: points or funnels. You know, if you get a tape
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: ring of a small island or peninsula that connects to
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: a high ground between two uh cattail marshes, you know
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: that might be an obvious corridor where it pinches down
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: and you know that there's going to be travel there.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: You set up on there and you wait right and
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: if there's buck travel during the day, he may come
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: through there. But I think it's understanding it to a
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: further level as to say, well, I've actually observed that
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: during the regular season, um earlier or during that pre rut,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: there's actually no bucks betting in these what I call
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: satellite locations. Um. They they're just not in those areas.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: But then when the rut comes on, the bucks will
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: move into these satellite locations, whether it be edges of transitions,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: edges of fields, edges of changes from high ground to
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: swa ump like in cattails, and they'll monitor those locations
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: for travel of those that are coming into heat. Right. Um,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of like getting into those spots
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: where they're they're cut off points that they're monitoring points
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: for those mature areas. Those are the areas that I
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: want to get into and hunt. Now, how do you
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: know those things are there? Right? I think that's a
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: difficult one, Uh, to try to just pick out again,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: you know, the more the more obvious approaches to locate
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: the dough and then start patterning where the doll are
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: traveling and put yourself in a scenario where if you
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: get where the dough are and the doll comes into asterisk,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: the bucks are gonna be monitoring that area as well.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: But I think on top of that, if over the
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: years of hunting in these rout scenarios, if you can
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: begin to identify where and I've seen this primarily in
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: hunting cattail marshes on these islands, where bucks change their
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: bedding locations to monitor high ground where dough or traveling
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: across and maybe laying down scent on a scrape or
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: traveling across to an area which has a piece of
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: topography for whatever reason. It might be a dip in
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: the topography or a piece of high ground that bridges
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: UH three or four lower areas where it seems like
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: every deer in that area crosses that spot right. A
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: lot of times you'll find what might be called the
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: primary scrape there. But there's gonna be a lot of
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: scent activity or a lot of a lot of sign
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: where a mature animal can enter that area and get
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: an assessment of what other box are in the area
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: or what doll or an estis in that area. UM
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: and I would call that like rut betting or you know,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: satellite betting. That's UM betting that they utilize that is
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: more transient than they utilize it as monitoring during the
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: rut H and that's what I try to focus on
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: during that time. Does does your your approach when it
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: comes to you know, stage hunting as you described earlier,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: does that change it all during the rut? Will you
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: stick it out in a a spot longer versus you know,
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: moving in, moving in moving in because you know eventually
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: a buck will cycle through one of these places like
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: the cut off points that you've described them, or is
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: it similar still UM? I think by that time it's
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: I may have stage hunted. You know, it really depends
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: on what areas I've hunted. I've tried to hop around
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: and stage hunt. Maybe the key areas based on like
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: less random betting spots, like areas that I know there's
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: a history of Bucks betting in right during the rut,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: I believe that. I still believe Bucks will use those
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: betting areas, but I think it becomes much more random
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: because if a hot dough is in an area a
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: half mile away, I mean I've observed this, then every
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: book in the area is moving to that part of
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: that part of the property and you you may or
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: may not have access to that area, right, So so
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: I like to move around a lot and spend more
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: time on stand during the rut. So I think all
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: day haunts are obviously going to get you an advantage,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: but moving frequently, which takes some endurance and takes some
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: I guess fortitude to maybe set up in the morning
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: on a particular scenario where you believe m a Buck
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: might enter that area, access that area to monitor betting,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: and if it doesn't pan out and isn't working, get
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: down and then move and look where go to where
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: the sign is leading you. And by sign, I think
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: during the rut, you know, key in on where you're
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: finding scrapes that are adjacent to what you believe to
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: be primary betting areas, and in this a scrapes or
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: rubs that are adjacent to those dough betting areas that
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: are active or hot. That's where I think those scenarios,
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: you know, being mobile and moving multiple times during the
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: day can be to your advantage. UM, Because again, I uh,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I think there's a certain there is a
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: certain level of randomness. You know, I think hunting hunting
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: hill country is fun during the rut because if you know,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: if you know there are a lot of mature animals
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: in the area, UM, you can key in on those
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: high travel corridors or low travel corridors, and you know, yeah,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: if you spend enough time on stand, you're likely you're
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: likely to to encounter an animal. Right. But I still
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: think what I've seen with mature bucks is that if
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: you're hunting in a scenario, for example, and in a
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: swamp topography right in the earlier part of the season,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: I may stage hunt in and get myself all the
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: way up to the edge of that transition. Um that
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: mature animal, he may never leave that swamp during the rut,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: like all his activity might be in those corridors that
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: exist in you know, standing water, where there's small pods
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: of high ground underneath tamaracks or trails that criss crossed through,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: uh cat tails. So then you got to think to yourself,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: how can I set up where I either have a
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: vantage point to shoot to those access trails that that
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: buck is going to travel in out of betting, because
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: he's not going to come up onto the high ground,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: or how do I push in further and actually get
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: into that that lowland area. And that's really during the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: rut where I get a lot more aggressive, and I'll
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: get in and actually push in and set up in
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: closer proximity to those betting areas on those known travel
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: corridors that are coming in and out of there in
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: a in ah, you know, like a marsh or a
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: swamp scenario, which I think are a little to me
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: are a little bit more obvious and less random than
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: a helld country scenario for example. Yeah, well, Mario, I um,
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: I realized two things. Number one, I realized I need
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: to get you back on the show. Again some day soon,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: because there's so much more that I want to eventually cover.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: But I know I can't keep you here till the
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: wee hours of the nights, so uh so I want
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: to wrap it up and give you a chance, though,
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: to talk about something that's related to this whole idea
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: of being mobile and getting aggressive, which is what you've
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: got going on with Hunting Beast Gear and the and
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: all the products you guys are put an other to
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: the world. Do you want to do? You want to
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: wrap it up and kind of give us an update
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: on where things stand with the new gear and what's
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: available and all that stuff. Yeah, sure, you're happy to
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks for Thanks for Sharon. So Hunting Beast gear we've got.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: We just released our tree stand. So it's a sub
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: seven pound tree stand. Um, it's super lightweight and very quiet.
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: It's got del Ron washers across the entire setting system.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: And I know there's a lot of options out there
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: for mobile hunting, and you know, the one thing with
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: mobile hunters right now is they do have a large
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: palette to choose from. I think the key things with
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: the products that Dan and I developed, you know, we
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: really came at this from the point of trying to
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: solve a real human problem, which is walking back in
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: these scenarios and sometimes walking great distances back. And so
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: we wanted something that was lightweight, packable and quiet, and
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: there were other products that were out on the market. Um.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: You know, back in two thousand seventeen when we started
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: noodling with this stuff, we spent a couple of years
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: building prototypes, trying different um scenarios out. And I think
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: the key things if you look at our sticks and
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: what we did with that and the design around that
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: very popular right now is a fixed double step stick
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: uh that has a twenty in length, so it's compact.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: The double step at an angle allows you to get
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: up a tree securely, where you're not tiptoeing on either
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: side of the step worrying about your footing going up
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: or down. It also provides you the advantage and this
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: is another thing when you're setting up and trying to
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: be really precise and quiet, that you can, you know,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: balance the full width of your foot across the step
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: as you're setting up and setting up your stand um
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: the stand in and of itself being half the weight
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: of you know, the predominant model of mobile stand that
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: was out there it when you use it, You're really
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: gonna see the advantage of it when you get it
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: in your hand, because I think anyone who hunts like this,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: we've all been in that scenario when you're getting up
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: and hunting in these fringes. Not every tree that you
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: get in is perfectly straight up and down and on
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: every tree that you get in is completely bare of
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: any branches. It's actually quite the opposite when you're hunting
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: in a lot of these edge scenarios of fringe scenarios,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: and you end up having, you know, a lot of
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: branches or angled trees that are growing towards sunlight. Right
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: whether it be the open swamp or if you're hunting
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: in farmland, tree tend to grow on an angle and
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: towards the field and so on and so forth. So
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: by the stand being really lightweight, I mean I love
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: it because I get to the top of my sticks
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: and literally with two fingers, I'm holding the stand in
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: one hand and looking down and focusing on where I
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: believe that betting area is or where I believe those
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: deer are going to be coming from, and I'm using
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: that tree as a shield to shield my movement and
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: shield what I'm doing. And with that stand being ultra light,
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: I can slide it up, strap it on, lock it in,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: and then slowly wrap myself around the tree, minimizing the
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: amount of movement and noise that I'm making. Um. So,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that the big take home with
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: the things that that we're making. I mean, our passion
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: really is to try to share these experiences and this
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: hunting knowledge with the greater community. Right we want we
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: need more people hunting, We need more are people passionate
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: about this? And out of that spawned these these products,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: which were really you know, the idea that Dan and
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: I had of Hey, I think we can make some
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: really cool sticks for ourselves, and and we can make
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: a really ultra light tree stand. And you know, after
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: after we made them and started using them for a
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: couple of years, we really wanted to share this with
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: the community of hunters. And and that's what the company
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: is really all about. So I encourage everyone to take
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: a look at our stuff. Um, there's a lot of
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of options out there right now, and
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: I will I will say, pay close attention to the
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: details and look at look at where the trends in
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: the marketplace have gone this year alone. I mean, uh,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: you know, we were the first to come out with
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: an angle double step, and I think there's like six
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: other competitors that came out with that this year. So uh,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: I think we did some than right when we initially
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: came out with the design. But we've got a great warranty.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: You know, if you ever have any of the issues
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: with the with the stand or the sticks or anything,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: you know, we'll take care of you. And I think
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: it's a great option for someone that's getting into mobile
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: hunting and is wanting to hunt in this way. It
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: really provides you an advantage, um from from an equipment standpoint,
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: and many of us to do this, I think we're
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: very by the numbers. We have a system. You get
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: to the tree, there's specific steps that you follow, rehearse practice.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: That's part of your process, and your equipment is an
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: add on to that. Um it's it's the next step
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: and things that add a little piece to your game
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: to make sure that everything lays out just right. And
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of guys that you talked to
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: that kill big stuff, they're very particular about how they
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: pack their equipment in how they tear it down and
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: how they set up on these mobile hunts, trying to
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: protect against noise, limited amount of movement and so on
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: and so forth. So yeah, I love it. And what's
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: the website where folks can find that. You can find
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: it on www dot hunting b s gear dot com
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: and that has all our products out there, and then
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: there's links to all of our social media sites. As
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: everyone knows, Dan runs the Hunting Beast forum. There's also
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: the Hunting Beast YouTube page where you can get a
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: bunch of educational stuff and videos on hunting. Dan has
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: his DVD series that he fells, and there's a couple
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: of different Facebook forums for the Hunting Beast as well
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: as Hunting bes Gear that you can join and get
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of useful information as well. Awesome, alright, mar Well,
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this. I really appreciate the time. Um
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: just tremendous, tremendous resources you provide us here. That really interesting,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: getting this deep look inside how you approached this thing.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you so much, thank you thanks
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: for having me. I appreciate it, all right, And that's
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: it for us today. I hope you enjoyed this one
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: a lot to take in there as as probably as
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: every week we have these. I feel like I say
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: that at the end of every single episode, so I
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: think that's a good thing that we're covering so many
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: different bases. But I hope you enjoyed it. I appreciate
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: you spend time with me and Mario here today and
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay wired time