Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 699: Mark Drury’s Masterclass on Mature Buck Behavior

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Ep. 699: Mark Drury’s Masterclass on Mature Buck Behavior · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
0:09
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
0:13
Speaker 1: Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
0:23
Speaker 2: the show, we got an absolute masterclass with Mark Drury
0:27
Speaker 2: about the habits, personalities, and behaviors of the biggest oldest
0:30
Speaker 2: bucks he's ever hunted. All right, Welcome to the Wired
0:42
Speaker 2: to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and
0:46
Speaker 2: their cameo for Conservation program. A portion of every sale
0:50
Speaker 2: of their white tail camel products goes to support the
0:53
Speaker 2: National Deer Association. Pretty cool stuff right there. Proud to
0:58
Speaker 2: have them support in this podcast, and I am proud
1:01
Speaker 2: to be bringing you a dang good episode today, folks,
1:04
Speaker 2: We've got a banger for you. Every year, I like
1:08
Speaker 2: to get my good buddy, mister Mark Drury on this
1:11
Speaker 2: show because I think he's, without a doubt, one of
1:14
Speaker 2: the very, very very best out there. He's a great communicator,
1:18
Speaker 2: a great hunter of course, and just someone who has
1:24
Speaker 2: a mind unlike many others when it comes to understanding
1:28
Speaker 2: big old bucks. And as you hopefully know by now,
1:31
Speaker 2: our theme this month of September has been getting into
1:35
Speaker 2: the minds of those biggest, oldest deer. What do these
1:38
Speaker 2: super mature deer do think? Why do they do things?
1:43
Speaker 2: What can we learn about these mature bucks that can
1:46
Speaker 2: help us as hunters if we so choose to chase
1:49
Speaker 2: that kind of buck. So today that's what we're doing.
1:53
Speaker 2: Mark has got all sorts of experience over decades and
1:57
Speaker 2: decades and decades of watching these kinds of deer, studying
2:00
Speaker 2: these kinds of deer, and successfully hunting them. So today
2:04
Speaker 2: I'm breaking it all down with Mark. We're asking him
2:07
Speaker 2: everything from, you know, the different personality traits he's seen
2:10
Speaker 2: in super mature bucks, to the consistencies he's seen with
2:14
Speaker 2: those types of deer as well as the weird quirks
2:17
Speaker 2: and the weird personality traits that he's seen that have
2:20
Speaker 2: kind of bucked the trend, and how he've studied those,
2:23
Speaker 2: how he's learned those, and how he's been able to
2:25
Speaker 2: apply the unique insights that you can get when trying
2:28
Speaker 2: to figure out a specific old buck and then try
2:31
Speaker 2: to catch up with him. So we get into a
2:33
Speaker 2: lot of good stuff. This is a terrific episode. I
2:37
Speaker 2: want to just give you a couple quick reminders and
2:42
Speaker 2: updates before we get into the meat and potatoes here.
2:45
Speaker 2: So number one, I've mentioned this over the last three weeks,
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Speaker 2: and I'm gonna mention it again. Yes, today's episode is
2:53
Speaker 2: about big old deer, mature bucks. I want to make
2:57
Speaker 2: sure if you're listening to this though, and you've never
3:00
Speaker 2: killed a big old buck, or if that's something you're
3:02
Speaker 2: not sure you want to do, or you're not sure
3:05
Speaker 2: if you're gonna do, don't worry about it. That's fine,
3:09
Speaker 2: that's cool. Shoot the first dear you see if that
3:11
Speaker 2: makes you happy, Shoot a dough if that makes you happy,
3:13
Speaker 2: Shoot a spike if that makes you happy, Shoot a
3:15
Speaker 2: two year old, a three year old, whatever it is.
3:18
Speaker 2: Have fun out there. That's what deer hunting is all about.
3:20
Speaker 2: Do not worry at all about what you see in
3:23
Speaker 2: the magazine covers or what you hear Marjory talking about
3:26
Speaker 2: when it comes to the kinds of deer he's personally
3:28
Speaker 2: choosing to hunt. Don't let what I choose to hunt
3:30
Speaker 2: impact you at all. Hunt your own hunt whatever it
3:33
Speaker 2: is that you want to chase. That is awesome. If
3:36
Speaker 2: I could, I'd give you a big old high five,
3:38
Speaker 2: no matter what kind of deer you're shooting, because this
3:40
Speaker 2: is about hunting your own personal hunt for your own
3:44
Speaker 2: personal reasons. As long as you're doing it ethically and legally,
3:47
Speaker 2: we support you and we want you to have fun
3:50
Speaker 2: out there, so make sure you're doing that. Do not
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Speaker 2: let anyone's personal goals influence or pressure you into doing
3:58
Speaker 2: something you're not sure you want to. All that said,
4:01
Speaker 2: we are excited to talk about old deer because they
4:03
Speaker 2: are cool, they are fascinating, they are challenging, and if
4:07
Speaker 2: you are at that point in your hunting journey where
4:09
Speaker 2: that's what you're doing, Mark's got a lot to share.
4:12
Speaker 2: So that's point number one. Point number two. Last week
4:16
Speaker 2: actually last weekend, I was down in Mississippi for one
4:20
Speaker 2: of my Working for Wildlife Tour events and it was awesome,
4:23
Speaker 2: and I just want to say thank you to everybody
4:25
Speaker 2: who came out. We had more than eighty volunteers who
4:28
Speaker 2: came out to work on this National forest to do
4:31
Speaker 2: some good work on public land. It's gonna help deer,
4:34
Speaker 2: it's gonna help quail, it's gonna help turkeys, it's gonna
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Speaker 2: help birds and butterflies and endangered go for tortoises and
4:40
Speaker 2: all sorts of critters are gonna benefit from the work
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Speaker 2: that these hunters and anglers did. We planned thirty five
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Speaker 2: acres of food plots and two hundred crab apple trees.
4:50
Speaker 2: Let me say that again, thirty five acres of food
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Speaker 2: plots and two hundred crab apple trees on public land.
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Speaker 2: How awesome is that. It was just a terrific event.
5:00
Speaker 2: We had a lot of fun, got to share stories.
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Speaker 2: I just I loved it. It was charging it, it
5:08
Speaker 2: was energizing, and I'm feeling great about that. And I
5:11
Speaker 2: want to give you guys all the heads up that
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Speaker 2: our last event is coming up in Kentucky on October fourteenth.
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Speaker 2: So if you are in southern Illinois, southern Indiana, southern Ohio, Kentucky,
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Speaker 2: anywhere around there, this is your chance. This is your
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Speaker 2: last chance for the year to come and hang out
5:27
Speaker 2: with me. And this week, my good buddy Yannis Putellis
5:32
Speaker 2: is gonna be joining me for that event. So come
5:35
Speaker 2: on down hang with me and Yanni. We're gonna be
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Speaker 2: working on the Daniel Boone National Forest near the town
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Speaker 2: of London, Kentucky, and we're gonna be doing a white
5:43
Speaker 2: oak acorn collection project so they can use these acorns
5:48
Speaker 2: to reforce other parts of the national force. So it's
5:52
Speaker 2: gonna be a great event. We're gonna have fun together,
5:55
Speaker 2: We're gonna tell some stories. We're gonna share some hunting
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Speaker 2: tips and tricks, probably along the way since we'll be
6:00
Speaker 2: leading into the pre rut. But hey, it's October fourteenth,
6:03
Speaker 2: that's not a bad day to take the midday off
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Speaker 2: and go do some good work for a while. If
6:08
Speaker 2: take that middle of the part of the day off,
6:10
Speaker 2: if you want, you can hunt that night. Still. You
6:12
Speaker 2: can get out on Sunday and still hunt, but give
6:14
Speaker 2: me just a little bit of your time if you're
6:16
Speaker 2: in that zone, to give back to these critters, give
6:19
Speaker 2: back to public land, have some fun with your fellow
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Speaker 2: hunters and anglers, and then we can all dive in
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Speaker 2: with both feet into the pre rut, leading into the
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Speaker 2: rut and all the crazy stuff that's about to come in.
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Speaker 2: But I'm telling you, it's gonna be some good karma
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Speaker 2: if you get out there and pick up some acorns
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Speaker 2: with me. So now, my friends, my family, my people,
6:40
Speaker 2: my fellow whitetail nerds, it is time to chat with
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Speaker 2: the one and only the mad scientist himself, one of
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Speaker 2: the best to ever do it, mister Mark Drury. Here
6:55
Speaker 2: we go all right back with me on the show.
7:04
Speaker 2: We've got the one and only mister Mark Drury. Mark,
7:08
Speaker 2: thanks for being here.
7:10
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me. Mark. Good, good to see you.
7:12
Speaker 3: Congrats on that Wisconsin buck. That was pretty awesome, Thank you.
7:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a really nice surprise to start the season.
7:19
Speaker 2: You always always hope for those early starts like that,
7:21
Speaker 2: but you never know, and uh, it's it's great when
7:25
Speaker 2: it works out that way.
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Speaker 3: So absolutely absolutely.
7:29
Speaker 2: With that mind, I gotta ask you. Your season kicked
7:33
Speaker 2: off right about the same time that mine did over
7:36
Speaker 2: there in Missouri. For you, can you give me a
7:39
Speaker 2: quick loadown of what's what's been happening so far?
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Speaker 3: Not a lot, it's a quick loadown. They've been really
7:47
Speaker 3: dark here. The first night was pretty good. We had
7:50
Speaker 3: two different camera crews out and both camera crews saw
7:54
Speaker 3: mature deer. Both of them saw We saw a five
7:57
Speaker 3: year old and coon dog think that deer kudndogging way.
8:01
Speaker 3: That deer is probably five or six. So we were like, man,
8:04
Speaker 3: this is great. We're off to a great start, and
8:06
Speaker 3: then slowly but surely, over the next three or four
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Speaker 3: nights it got worse and worse and worse, less age
8:11
Speaker 3: class walking to no age class to very few deer walking.
8:15
Speaker 3: As the temperatures heated up, the pressure dropped, and acorns
8:19
Speaker 3: have started to fall, very typical this time of the
8:21
Speaker 3: year Phase one from a thirteen perspective, they just all
8:25
Speaker 3: kind of kind of vanished. So we'd made a collective
8:29
Speaker 3: decision to stay out until conditions got better. Rather than
8:32
Speaker 3: burn our spots, we just let our self cams kind
8:35
Speaker 3: of dictate what we're doing. And we really haven't hunted
8:38
Speaker 3: the last four or five days here, so we're going
8:41
Speaker 3: to go again tonight and tomorrow night, and then probably
8:46
Speaker 3: relax a day or two. And then there's a little
8:47
Speaker 3: front coming through. It's not a major, it's a minor,
8:50
Speaker 3: but the pressure is rising after this front, which I
8:53
Speaker 3: think will help because we're getting not only rising pressure
8:55
Speaker 3: but into a rising moon, and I think both of
8:58
Speaker 3: those conditions will help as we we go into next
9:01
Speaker 3: week and next week our catcher dream family arrives. So
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Speaker 3: I always try to plan that hunt in and around
9:07
Speaker 3: favorable conditions. This year, I put it exactly on the
9:11
Speaker 3: three nights that the rising moon was perfect in terms
9:14
Speaker 3: of daylight activity for an afternoon movement. So they're going
9:18
Speaker 3: to be hunting the twenty seven, twenty eighth, and twenty
9:20
Speaker 3: ninth of September with us, So that'll be here in Iowa.
9:23
Speaker 3: Of course, we've been hunting in Missouri because the youth
9:26
Speaker 3: the youth season is going on here in Iowa. So
9:28
Speaker 3: that's that's what we're preparing for. We've done a lot
9:30
Speaker 3: of work getting ready to make sure we've we've got
9:33
Speaker 3: Cooper in the right spot. So that's always a fun,
9:36
Speaker 3: fun hunt and one that we want to make sure
9:39
Speaker 3: we're prepared for.
9:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Now, speaking of Iowa, you guys open
9:43
Speaker 2: October first for the regular season there, right, Yeah, so
9:47
Speaker 2: you can see the extended forecast. Now I've got the
9:49
Speaker 2: October first opener here in Michigan, so I've already been
9:51
Speaker 2: looking at that extended forecast, kind of stressing about it
9:54
Speaker 2: a little bit because we've got pretty warm temps here
9:56
Speaker 2: for those dates. What's it look like for you there
9:59
Speaker 2: in Iowa? How are you feeling on that?
10:02
Speaker 3: Not great? It's pretty warm. And the other thing that
10:07
Speaker 3: I've noticed for into a pattern where they might predict
10:10
Speaker 3: some cold weather ten twelve days from now, but you
10:12
Speaker 3: get there, and by the time you get there, the
10:14
Speaker 3: tempts are warmer than what they predicted, you know, a
10:17
Speaker 3: week and a half ago. So and I've said it
10:20
Speaker 3: many times and I'm sure I've said it on your podcast.
10:22
Speaker 3: When you get very stable air that's the same every
10:24
Speaker 3: single day, you can't expect amazing daylight activity because deer
10:32
Speaker 3: really react, I think, to change with weather. You know,
10:34
Speaker 3: if you watch deer cast and you see those changes
10:37
Speaker 3: come and go, and you have a bad period and
10:39
Speaker 3: then it dips down and all of a sudden, boom,
10:41
Speaker 3: there's a high pressure system with cold weather and rain,
10:45
Speaker 3: they get up and they get moving. But when everything
10:47
Speaker 3: is just the same, the temperature, the pressure, especially if
10:50
Speaker 3: the pressures down below you know, twenty nine point nine
10:53
Speaker 3: or something, and nothing's changing, it's very difficult to get
10:57
Speaker 3: a target deer on his feet during daylight. You can
10:59
Speaker 3: still do it, but you've got to be you know,
11:02
Speaker 3: you know, it'd be risky to get as close as
11:05
Speaker 3: you need to be to get him during daylight. It
11:07
Speaker 3: can still happen, but it's not going to be with
11:09
Speaker 3: the frequency or the likelihood as if you had those
11:13
Speaker 3: changes coming through with weatherfronts. It's just not. So that's
11:17
Speaker 3: what I see in the future here. Hopefully it gets better.
11:20
Speaker 3: But you know, we are coming out of the darker moon,
11:24
Speaker 3: getting into first quarter. It's starting to rise, and hopefully
11:29
Speaker 3: it's real good next week when it turns full. I mean,
11:32
Speaker 3: we historically we've killed so many deer in and around
11:34
Speaker 3: our full moon. If you get the right weather conditions
11:37
Speaker 3: that it's generally more daylight activities. So I'm hoping it's better.
11:41
Speaker 3: And I'm certainly hoping it's better for Terry. He's really
11:43
Speaker 3: on a big deer this year and it's big, big,
11:48
Speaker 3: so I'm hoping he gets the right conditions to get
11:50
Speaker 3: that deer killed.
11:51
Speaker 2: That's exciting, like his biggest deer big.
11:56
Speaker 3: I think it could be. It's right, it's knocking on
11:59
Speaker 3: that door. You know, when you look at a deer's
12:01
Speaker 3: rack on pictures, you really don't know how large that
12:04
Speaker 3: body is. Are you looking at a deer that's going
12:06
Speaker 3: to feel dressed two twenty five or one that's gonna
12:08
Speaker 3: feel dressed one ninety And that changes the perspective of
12:11
Speaker 3: the rack, So you know, he thinks it's a smaller
12:14
Speaker 3: body deer, so therefore it wouldn't get up to his
12:17
Speaker 3: largest I personally think it could, but we'll see. Hopefully
12:21
Speaker 3: we get to find out.
12:22
Speaker 1: You know.
12:22
Speaker 2: That's exciting. He's been on some he's taking like another
12:25
Speaker 2: step the last like five years as far as like
12:27
Speaker 2: some of these really really really big deers. Seems like
12:30
Speaker 2: I'm excited for him.
12:31
Speaker 3: That's great, Absolutely, I am too. Man, He's he's really
12:35
Speaker 3: he's really good at what he does, and it's exciting
12:37
Speaker 3: to see him getting into these giant here. And he's
12:39
Speaker 3: always killed big dear, you know, but lately these last
12:42
Speaker 3: few years he's had some some upper end stuff and
12:44
Speaker 3: that's that's fun to see. But he's spent the majority
12:47
Speaker 3: of his life hunting there in Missouri, and I've spent
12:50
Speaker 3: the majority of my life hunting in Iowan. That truly
12:52
Speaker 3: is the difference between the two states. I mean, you're
12:54
Speaker 3: only as good as your spot, and you're certainly only
12:56
Speaker 3: as good as your state, you know. So I think
13:00
Speaker 3: that's that's a big tell because when we go to Missouri,
13:03
Speaker 3: our results are very similar to Terry. But here and
13:06
Speaker 3: I where they they they are generally just bigger deer.
13:09
Speaker 2: To Yeah, yeah, well speaking of like top tier, top
13:13
Speaker 2: tier deer, as we were talking about off the air,
13:15
Speaker 2: and as everyone who's been listening this month knows are
13:18
Speaker 2: our theme this month has been old bucks, like getting
13:23
Speaker 2: kind of behind a couple layers of the onion, peeling
13:26
Speaker 2: a couple more layers of the onion off of trying
13:27
Speaker 2: to understand those like top tier, oldest mature bucks. What why,
13:34
Speaker 2: when where do the oldest, most gnarly, most savvy deer
13:40
Speaker 2: do their thing? And you are someone Mark who has
13:44
Speaker 2: you know, literally made a living on understanding those questions
13:49
Speaker 2: and have have become someone that a lot of us
13:51
Speaker 2: have looked to as far as figuring out the answers
13:54
Speaker 2: to those questions. So so my first question for remark
13:57
Speaker 2: on that topic then, is just why that kind of
14:02
Speaker 2: deer gets you the way it does the way I
14:06
Speaker 2: know it does. I mean, I think we've got some
14:08
Speaker 2: assumptions about why it probably does. But what is it
14:10
Speaker 2: about those oldest deer Mark that just keeps you up
14:12
Speaker 2: at night and keeps you looking at the phone or
14:14
Speaker 2: the hard drive with all your cell cam pictures or
14:17
Speaker 2: whatever it is and the maps? What is it about
14:22
Speaker 2: that kind of deer that that really gets you excited.
14:26
Speaker 3: Well, they physiologically matured about age four and a half,
14:29
Speaker 3: so by the time they get to five, six, seven,
14:32
Speaker 3: somewhere in that range is generally when they're going to
14:35
Speaker 3: top out from an antler development standpoint and body you know,
14:38
Speaker 3: body mass, body weight, and those deer are just different.
14:42
Speaker 3: They're they're difficult to run into during daylight hours. I
14:46
Speaker 3: think that's the thing that differentiates them from say two
14:49
Speaker 3: and a half three and a half. As you're looking
14:51
Speaker 3: through your pictures, the more likely deer that's going to
14:55
Speaker 3: be in front of that camera during the daylight event
14:57
Speaker 3: is something that's that's immature two and a half three
15:00
Speaker 3: and a half, and I personally think the species is
15:02
Speaker 3: built for about three and a half. If you look
15:04
Speaker 3: at how many get to four, five or six, it's
15:07
Speaker 3: not a high likelihood that they're going to even live
15:09
Speaker 3: to that age. Natural mortality is much greater on mature bucks,
15:14
Speaker 3: and by the time they get there, they've seen it all,
15:17
Speaker 3: done it all, and not only that, their metabolism is
15:20
Speaker 3: starting to slow down and they're not moving as much
15:24
Speaker 3: to food and back and forth. I always correlate them
15:28
Speaker 3: to an older pet. If you watch a dog when
15:31
Speaker 3: the dog's one and a half to say five and
15:33
Speaker 3: a half, when they're still in their youth or their prime,
15:37
Speaker 3: they're quite active. And then by the time they say
15:40
Speaker 3: they get to that twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old status,
15:44
Speaker 3: they've slowed down. They're sitting on the porch and not
15:47
Speaker 3: getting up much during daylight hours, or not getting much
15:50
Speaker 3: at all. They sleep a lot, and I think you
15:53
Speaker 3: can relate that to an old buck at age five,
15:56
Speaker 3: six or seven. At age five, they're still in pretty
15:59
Speaker 3: good shape. Age six, I call that the ghost here man.
16:03
Speaker 3: They are really really tough to run into a six
16:06
Speaker 3: and a half year old buck. You have to be
16:08
Speaker 3: extremely lucky or have really optimal conditions and be hunting
16:15
Speaker 3: close to his bedroom without him knowing you're there in
16:18
Speaker 3: order to kill a six and a half year old deer.
16:20
Speaker 3: By the time they get to seven and eight, all
16:23
Speaker 3: of a sudden, things turn around a little bit and
16:25
Speaker 3: food becomes more important all of a sudden, so you
16:28
Speaker 3: can really break down mature deer into some categories. Five
16:34
Speaker 3: they'll still daylight a little bit much like they did
16:36
Speaker 3: at four six. I think it's the ghost year in
16:39
Speaker 3: my opinion, they're very tough to run into seven, still
16:42
Speaker 3: pretty tough by the time they're eight and nine if
16:45
Speaker 3: things haven't hampered their antler development. They get a lot
16:49
Speaker 3: of health issues the older they get, and a lot
16:51
Speaker 3: of reasons why all of a sudden they don't look
16:54
Speaker 3: so good, you know, because they've gone through multiple ruts,
16:56
Speaker 3: they've gone through you know, potential EHD or other diseases
17:00
Speaker 3: and little bitty things affect them, and all of a
17:03
Speaker 3: sudden that antler development doesn't look as good when they're
17:05
Speaker 3: eight or nine. So the likelihood of killing a trophy
17:08
Speaker 3: nine year old number one, is it great? Because you know,
17:11
Speaker 3: chances are they're dead by the time they get that
17:13
Speaker 3: age Number two, if they are, did did they have
17:15
Speaker 3: enough health throughout their life that they are of trophy status?
17:19
Speaker 3: So that's really taking a deep dive into different ages.
17:23
Speaker 3: But in reality, I think, probably realistically, this question is
17:27
Speaker 3: about five and six year old deer because it's not
17:30
Speaker 3: likely you're going to be hunting one much older than that.
17:32
Speaker 3: If you are a blessing and a rare occurrence, and
17:35
Speaker 3: you may not get to hunt another one the rest
17:36
Speaker 3: of your life. That's seven or eight. So I really
17:41
Speaker 3: hone in on what that deer's home core area has been,
17:46
Speaker 3: and then where I think he's going to be, because
17:49
Speaker 3: that's the other thing I've seen through time, as the
17:51
Speaker 3: age that home core starts to shriek just a little bit.
17:54
Speaker 3: And what food sources did he daylight on in years past?
17:58
Speaker 3: What food sources am I hunting this year? And sometimes
18:02
Speaker 3: that slot machine. I always say, it takes so many
18:04
Speaker 3: events to be in your favor for the slot machine
18:07
Speaker 3: to be all all jokers and you're going to kill
18:10
Speaker 3: that deer. You know, is the food pattern and the
18:14
Speaker 3: weather matching something that he daylighted on in your hunting
18:17
Speaker 3: area in years past. The likelihood is less that he's
18:21
Speaker 3: going to do it because he's more mature. So long,
18:27
Speaker 3: long answer to your question. That's what keeps me up
18:30
Speaker 3: at night trying to figure those things out, to get
18:32
Speaker 3: that slot machine to line up to where I actually
18:35
Speaker 3: have a chance of seeing that deer during daylight and
18:38
Speaker 3: having him close enough for a bow shot. They're very
18:42
Speaker 3: tough creatures to run into, and you've got to have
18:45
Speaker 3: your A game on in order to succeed with them.
18:48
Speaker 3: That much. I know, man, they're tough critters. Your access
18:51
Speaker 3: has to be right. You got to pick the right days,
18:54
Speaker 3: and then when you get your shot, you can't fall apart.
18:57
Speaker 3: You got to make that shot because you're probably don't
18:59
Speaker 3: going to get one chance to get two not very high.
19:02
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of pressure and just just a
19:05
Speaker 3: lot of things that go into you know, put yourself
19:07
Speaker 3: in that situation.
19:08
Speaker 2: He speaking of this is a random aside, but speaking
19:11
Speaker 2: of you're probably only going to get one shot. When
19:14
Speaker 2: we talked on the podcast last year, you had just
19:19
Speaker 2: had that encounter with a big shooter buck This would
19:21
Speaker 2: have been like early October.
19:24
Speaker 3: I think maybe you.
19:24
Speaker 2: Had to oh I remember remember, Okay, yeah, so that happened.
19:28
Speaker 2: You didn't get the shot of that deer. I'm trying
19:31
Speaker 2: to recall the deer that you did end up shooting
19:33
Speaker 2: throughout the rest of the season. Did you end up
19:35
Speaker 2: catching back up with that buck er? Is what happened
19:37
Speaker 2: to him?
19:37
Speaker 3: No? No, he was seen one more time and then
19:41
Speaker 3: trail pictures through November eleventh and nothing since. Didn't show
19:44
Speaker 3: up this summer. So I think we know how that
19:46
Speaker 3: story heartbreak. Well, I had my chance and I blew it. Man.
19:53
Speaker 3: I mean that deer should have been uh should have
19:55
Speaker 3: been dead there. I think it was October second or third,
19:57
Speaker 3: and and I just was rusty and didn't didn't make
20:00
Speaker 3: it happen. I mean that one was on me.
20:06
Speaker 2: Live and Learn. So back to your answer to my
20:19
Speaker 2: original question. There was a whole bunch of things in
20:21
Speaker 2: there that I want to drill into, but one thing
20:24
Speaker 2: I want to clarify a little bit. You made a
20:28
Speaker 2: really interesting point, and I talked to we talked to
20:30
Speaker 2: Don Higgins last week and he said something similar when
20:33
Speaker 2: it comes to the trajectory of uh almost of difficulty
20:38
Speaker 2: of killing these deer, and that they have that window
20:41
Speaker 2: like five six maybe where it's really really hard, and
20:43
Speaker 2: then because I become so mature, it starts to maybe
20:46
Speaker 2: slope down a little bit. If you were to imagine
20:48
Speaker 2: like a line graph that were to show, you know,
20:51
Speaker 2: the the rising difficulty of killing a deer and then
20:54
Speaker 2: the peak of difficulty and then that slope down. Am
20:58
Speaker 2: I right? And that you're saying it is a slow
21:01
Speaker 2: rise from one, two, three, four, and then it peaks
21:04
Speaker 2: at five and six, and then it drops down a
21:06
Speaker 2: little bit from seven to eight and then kind of
21:08
Speaker 2: plateau's there? Is that right? Or is there a big
21:10
Speaker 2: jump somewhere, And if so, where is that biggest jump
21:13
Speaker 2: in difficulty.
21:15
Speaker 3: I think one through four is a slow ramp up
21:19
Speaker 3: because you're still going to see that three and four
21:21
Speaker 3: year old, but five and six five starts to jump
21:25
Speaker 3: up in difficulty, and then six is the peak. To me,
21:28
Speaker 3: six year old is the toughest deer to shoot. Seven
21:31
Speaker 3: is about similar to a five. And I'm really generalizing here.
21:35
Speaker 3: You know, there's no science to you know, substantiate this.
21:39
Speaker 3: I'm just saying it based on my experience and based
21:41
Speaker 3: on you know, trail monitoring history. And then it seems
21:45
Speaker 3: like about eight they start to perhaps become more more
21:51
Speaker 3: dependent on diet and slaves to their stomach again, you know,
21:54
Speaker 3: young deer when they're growing before they physiologically mature at
21:58
Speaker 3: age four and a half, back and forth to that
22:00
Speaker 3: food frequently, and they'll get out there early and they
22:03
Speaker 3: got to eat a lot because they're still growing. But
22:06
Speaker 3: then they mature and that slows down, and I think
22:09
Speaker 3: on the back end of that curve, somewhere around eight
22:12
Speaker 3: years old, they start going back to food, particularly in
22:14
Speaker 3: the winter. It's not as it's not as prevalent in
22:17
Speaker 3: the early season, but during the winter they know what's coming,
22:22
Speaker 3: and they're a little bit again. They've had a lot
22:24
Speaker 3: of health issues leading up to this. You know, it's
22:27
Speaker 3: it's it's a tough living for a white tailed deer
22:29
Speaker 3: out in the wild. And by the time of deer's
22:32
Speaker 3: eight years old or even seven, depending on how many
22:35
Speaker 3: health issues they've had, particularly that season you're in, they're
22:39
Speaker 3: going to be out there on that food source in
22:42
Speaker 3: December January with that rough weather and that much, I
22:45
Speaker 3: can promise you, and the same is true. I think
22:48
Speaker 3: one of the best windows of opportunity for any mature
22:51
Speaker 3: deer is December. And you know, we nicknamed it December
22:55
Speaker 3: years ago. When they go through that rut, it's really
23:00
Speaker 3: tough on them because they're exhorting so much energy and
23:02
Speaker 3: then they've got a refuel for the tough winter coming.
23:05
Speaker 3: And if you get the right weather in December, that
23:08
Speaker 3: is the most likely month that a mature buck's going
23:11
Speaker 3: to daylight. I've got plans this season for some deer
23:17
Speaker 3: that come back during December and are very very visible
23:20
Speaker 3: during December, whereas in October and November you just can't
23:24
Speaker 3: run into him. You might November if you get lucky,
23:25
Speaker 3: but October is tough. I'm hunting a deer in Missouri
23:29
Speaker 3: right now that at age two, three four, he'd daylight
23:33
Speaker 3: on this interior plot every night or well, you know,
23:36
Speaker 3: three times a week. And he hasn't daylighted one time
23:39
Speaker 3: yet this year. Yeah, and he's five and a half,
23:42
Speaker 3: and I think he will. But that's a very very
23:45
Speaker 3: good example. And I was just before we got on
23:48
Speaker 3: this podcast, I was looking at my historical pictures through him,
23:51
Speaker 3: and I'm putting a file together on him because I've
23:53
Speaker 3: been hunting him, and in my mind, I thought we're
23:57
Speaker 3: gonna be able to kill this year because I've seen
23:59
Speaker 3: him so many times on his plot and he's daylighted
24:01
Speaker 3: a lot all of a sudden, the earliest pictures I
24:04
Speaker 3: have of him this year nine twenty nine thirty something
24:07
Speaker 3: like that. I'm like, I better go back and look
24:10
Speaker 3: and see what he's been like historically. And there's a
24:12
Speaker 3: there's a little window here when he was four and
24:14
Speaker 3: a half, from about the twenty second of September through
24:17
Speaker 3: about October the eleventh or twelfth. That was pretty good,
24:21
Speaker 3: which is one of my favorite phases. It's greener pastors
24:24
Speaker 3: because they've gotten out of those bean fields. Suddenly they're
24:26
Speaker 3: focused in on a different food source. And we've got
24:30
Speaker 3: a really good looking greenfield on this interior plot. And
24:32
Speaker 3: I do believe he beds closed. We'll find out whether
24:35
Speaker 3: he's going to daylight this coming year. My suspicion is,
24:39
Speaker 3: I need a really good weather system with a favorable
24:43
Speaker 3: moon phase in order to go in there and have
24:46
Speaker 3: luck on him this year. I think those are the
24:48
Speaker 3: things I talk about that slot machine lining up. All
24:52
Speaker 3: the factors have to be right, you know, including your access,
24:56
Speaker 3: including the weather, including his his bed pass as compared
25:01
Speaker 3: to food, because they just don't move very fast. They
25:03
Speaker 3: don't move very far. If he's betted too far, he's
25:06
Speaker 3: not going to make it there till last light. So
25:08
Speaker 3: everything's got to line up to get that job.
25:11
Speaker 2: What was that date window that you said for him again?
25:15
Speaker 3: Last year? He started daylighting in there around the twenty first,
25:18
Speaker 3: twenty second of September, and he was good up through
25:21
Speaker 3: about the tenth or twelfth. But I've not gone through
25:24
Speaker 3: the rest of October. My suspicion is I'm going to
25:26
Speaker 3: see more daylights of him there the last week of October.
25:28
Speaker 2: Okay, And so in that case, when you've got the
25:31
Speaker 2: right calendar date. You're just you're not going to go
25:34
Speaker 2: after him unless you have the right calendar date plus
25:37
Speaker 2: the right weather, plus the right what was the other
25:40
Speaker 2: one who said the moon maybe? Or pressure?
25:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I've got a great mood coming up here.
25:44
Speaker 3: I love the two weeks in and around the full moon,
25:46
Speaker 3: the week prior and the week after, Like, we just
25:49
Speaker 3: see a lot more daylight activity during that period, So
25:52
Speaker 3: I've got a good access into it. We'll see if,
25:56
Speaker 3: we'll see if he shows up. So, but I don't
25:58
Speaker 3: have the weather. Looking at the weather. We were talking
26:00
Speaker 3: about that before we jumped on. It's not great. No,
26:03
Speaker 3: you know, it's just not great.
26:04
Speaker 2: No, it's not. So I've got a dilemma that sounds
26:08
Speaker 2: similar to you. My number one Buckham Honey in Michigan
26:11
Speaker 2: is a five and a half year old, and so
26:13
Speaker 2: I'm looking at thinking about his annual pattern. And we
26:15
Speaker 2: did a whole podcast last year about patterning deer and
26:18
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff on the annual pattern thing. So
26:21
Speaker 2: I think we talked about this a little bit, but
26:22
Speaker 2: I just want some clarity with you on the specifics here.
26:25
Speaker 2: When you've got an annual pattern that you're trying to
26:28
Speaker 2: figure out. But you also have the changing crop rotation.
26:31
Speaker 2: So in this case, I've got a five year old,
26:33
Speaker 2: and this year it's a corn year in the area
26:35
Speaker 2: that he lives in, So it's a corn here this
26:37
Speaker 2: year as a five year old. As a four year
26:39
Speaker 2: old though, beans, So the last time I had a
26:42
Speaker 2: corn here was him as a three year old, And
26:44
Speaker 2: so as we just talked about, like three year olds
26:45
Speaker 2: are almost a different species than a five year old.
26:48
Speaker 2: And so I'm sitting here debating, like, do I even
26:51
Speaker 2: put any value into these pictures and sightings that I
26:54
Speaker 2: had when he was a crazy three year old, even
26:56
Speaker 2: though that was also the last time I had the
26:58
Speaker 2: same food and and habitat. How do you how do
27:01
Speaker 2: you weigh that?
27:03
Speaker 3: I think you still do because it's still the same deer,
27:06
Speaker 3: And just know it's not going to happen as frequently, right,
27:09
Speaker 3: So if you look at everything he did as an
27:11
Speaker 3: age three and a half, he might only do that
27:14
Speaker 3: twenty percent of the time when he's five and a
27:16
Speaker 3: half just because he's not moving as far as as often.
27:20
Speaker 3: So I think you still have to you got to
27:22
Speaker 3: look at it. And the other thing you can do
27:25
Speaker 3: is look at other mature deer in that area that
27:28
Speaker 3: same year and see how they acted. That's something else
27:32
Speaker 3: I do a lot is not just a particular deer,
27:35
Speaker 3: but mature deer in general. Like when did they daylight?
27:38
Speaker 3: When it was in corn? When was the corn cuts?
27:41
Speaker 3: Also a big, big different differentiator. Sometimes wet weather can
27:46
Speaker 3: delay cornfields coming out, which increases his bedroom, which makes
27:50
Speaker 3: him very very tricky to run into. Hopefully they'll get
27:54
Speaker 3: it out of there. And another thing I've noticed, you know,
27:56
Speaker 3: the farming equipment is so much more effective and there's
28:01
Speaker 3: not a lot of residue left anymore, so that that
28:04
Speaker 3: makes it very challenging when those fields are cleaned up.
28:06
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, your your best farmer in
28:09
Speaker 3: your area is the guy that's got the older cob
28:11
Speaker 3: boys that leaves a lot of a lot of corn fields.
28:14
Speaker 3: So you got you kind of have to know your
28:16
Speaker 3: farmer in their equipment, you know, in terms of what
28:18
Speaker 3: you could expect in terms of residue on a field.
28:21
Speaker 2: True, and then the worst nightmare is the farmer that
28:23
Speaker 2: comes in chisel plows immediately after harvesting.
28:27
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But another farming practice I'm seeing get more and
28:31
Speaker 3: more steam is the presence of cover crops right after
28:38
Speaker 3: they right after they harvest, and all of a sudden,
28:42
Speaker 3: we went from no green fields throughout the Midwest to
28:45
Speaker 3: giant green fields, some of them Nebraska, some of them
28:47
Speaker 3: are Rye. But there's a lot of folks working with
28:51
Speaker 3: sustainable cover crops, and I think it's wonderful for the
28:53
Speaker 3: environment and conservation and everything of the soil. But it
28:56
Speaker 3: does change the game for us deer hunters, you know,
28:59
Speaker 3: so you have to be mindful of that too. Is
29:01
Speaker 3: your guy one of those guys that puts a cover
29:03
Speaker 3: crop on as soon as he as soon as he
29:06
Speaker 3: you know, if he's a no tail guy, he may
29:07
Speaker 3: very well cover crop it. And then that's really tricky
29:10
Speaker 3: when you've got a giant green field. That makes it tough. Yeah,
29:13
Speaker 3: really tough.
29:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that is I've yet to I had one
29:19
Speaker 2: year where a neighboring farmer did that, but it hasn't
29:22
Speaker 2: happened in recent years. So you talked about and a
29:26
Speaker 2: lot of folks talk about one of the key consistencies
29:29
Speaker 2: with those extra mature deer being that their core area shrinks.
29:33
Speaker 2: And that's something I want to dive into with you.
29:35
Speaker 2: But before we dive into the obvious one. Are there
29:38
Speaker 2: any other consistencies with those you know, six seven eight
29:42
Speaker 2: year old bucks or five six seven year old bucks
29:44
Speaker 2: that you've seen. Is there any trend that you've noticed
29:46
Speaker 2: with that age class deer as far as a generality
29:49
Speaker 2: when it comes to behavior shifts or anything outside of
29:53
Speaker 2: the corrier a shrinking.
29:56
Speaker 3: Yes. October and December are the two best months to
29:59
Speaker 3: kill them. Sure? Uh? You and and I say that
30:03
Speaker 3: because that's typically when they're alone, when they get doughed up. Man,
30:07
Speaker 3: are they tough to kill? I specifically love the first
30:10
Speaker 3: twelve days of October and then the last five or
30:13
Speaker 3: six days of October. Uh. The first one is a
30:15
Speaker 3: phase we call greener pastures. The last one is something
30:19
Speaker 3: we call prelock. Prelock to me is the best window
30:24
Speaker 3: on of all thirteen to kill a mature deer. That
30:29
Speaker 3: twenty fifth, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine,
30:32
Speaker 3: thirty at thirty first, with the right weather, the right
30:35
Speaker 3: food source they'll need to be going to. What's that?
30:38
Speaker 2: That was just me a shouting and joy for that
30:40
Speaker 2: time of year.
30:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it comes and goes too quickly, But boy,
30:44
Speaker 3: that is the window to me. Then again in December
30:48
Speaker 3: with rough weather, that's a really good window as well.
30:50
Speaker 3: But for the for the purposes of this, because you
30:54
Speaker 3: don't know what's gonna happen. Is he gonna get killed
30:55
Speaker 3: by another hunter? You can't depend on December, right, is
30:58
Speaker 3: he gonna Is he gonna be there? Is he's still
31:00
Speaker 3: gonna be alive? Or are you gonna have the weather
31:03
Speaker 3: like October is the time to kill those dear Get
31:05
Speaker 3: him before they get with that first dough, because once
31:08
Speaker 3: they lock down, they will almost always lock down before
31:11
Speaker 3: any other buck in the herd because nobody's messing with them.
31:13
Speaker 3: You know, you get a five six seven year old deer,
31:15
Speaker 3: he's pushing everybody around, and if you just watch him,
31:18
Speaker 3: most of them just look at him and walk the
31:20
Speaker 3: other way. They know better than to deal with him,
31:22
Speaker 3: because he is he's a handful, he's big bodied, he's uh,
31:27
Speaker 3: he's ready to rumble, and he's going to get the
31:30
Speaker 3: first girlfriend at the dance. To me, that window is
31:33
Speaker 3: twenty fifth through thirty first of October. We call it
31:35
Speaker 3: pre lock because they're not necessarily locking down with a
31:39
Speaker 3: dough that's in estress. But I think they have a
31:41
Speaker 3: way of identifying the first dough that's going to come
31:44
Speaker 3: in Estres, and they'll follow her out to the food
31:47
Speaker 3: plot and just stand there and stare at her like
31:49
Speaker 3: a high schooler in the hall looking at a pretty girl,
31:52
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, they just's that's a weakness for
31:55
Speaker 3: them that last week of October, particularly the thirtieth and
31:58
Speaker 3: thirty first of October. But anytime in there on a
32:02
Speaker 3: food source where there's apollo dose they could be there,
32:06
Speaker 3: that's a really good window for him.
32:07
Speaker 2: So if you Mark had a regular day job and
32:12
Speaker 2: you didn't get to hunt every day whenever you wanted to,
32:15
Speaker 2: and you were after an old old buck like this,
32:18
Speaker 2: would you take that last week of October as your
32:21
Speaker 2: vacation instead of one of those first two weeks in
32:23
Speaker 2: November during which a lot of other guys do take
32:25
Speaker 2: their time.
32:26
Speaker 3: For me, if it's a deer that I'm on that's
32:28
Speaker 3: five or six and I want to kill him, absolutely
32:31
Speaker 3: I would.
32:31
Speaker 2: Okay, So another thing you mentioned, you mentioned how they're.
32:34
Speaker 3: If I confidence level of what I think he's going
32:37
Speaker 3: to be doing, right, if I have a history with
32:39
Speaker 3: him and go he daylight's in here that week, Yeah,
32:43
Speaker 3: then I'm going to take that week, because that's a
32:45
Speaker 3: really good window to killing.
32:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, these old old bucks getting on that first dough.
32:51
Speaker 2: I've heard a few folks talk about seeing repeats of
32:57
Speaker 2: the same dough family group coming in hereat first year
33:01
Speaker 2: after year, Like there might be a genetic thing where
33:04
Speaker 2: like man like this old nanny Doe always seems to
33:06
Speaker 2: be one of the first ones to come into heat
33:08
Speaker 2: in a given little region. Let's say it's one hundred
33:10
Speaker 2: acre property, and this dough family group always hangs out
33:12
Speaker 2: in the northeast corner. And if you're paying attention noticing
33:15
Speaker 2: that that happens, have you ever seen anything like that?
33:19
Speaker 2: And have you ever taken advantage of that? Given what
33:21
Speaker 2: we just learned there about those old bucks getting on
33:24
Speaker 2: that first one.
33:26
Speaker 3: I have seen it, and I agree with it, but
33:29
Speaker 3: I think that's a very challenging thing to bank on
33:32
Speaker 3: and depend on, you know. But I have seen it,
33:36
Speaker 3: so I think there's there's truth to it. I think
33:38
Speaker 3: there's And they're generally old and large, that's the thing
33:41
Speaker 3: I've noticed. When they get on a dough early and
33:44
Speaker 3: stick with her, they're generally quite mature. They look like
33:46
Speaker 3: they're four five or six, you know, so does he
33:49
Speaker 3: know her? Possibly does he just sense that she might
33:54
Speaker 3: be the first one to come into heat. To me,
33:56
Speaker 3: it's more about that than anything.
33:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. So on the line of the rut, then, are
34:03
Speaker 2: there any other tendencies when it comes to how these
34:05
Speaker 2: old bucks participate in the rut? So you mentioned they're
34:07
Speaker 2: getting started early. Have you seen anything as far as
34:11
Speaker 2: anything unique with that six or seven year old buck
34:13
Speaker 2: when it comes to how long or short time period
34:16
Speaker 2: they stay with the dough or how they jump from
34:18
Speaker 2: dough to dough or One thing I've heard is that
34:20
Speaker 2: the last times they're more active at the end of
34:22
Speaker 2: their rut. Have you ever have you seen anything like
34:24
Speaker 2: that or anything else?
34:26
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I think that in general terms, they're going to
34:31
Speaker 3: pre lock and then kind of not move a whole
34:34
Speaker 3: heck of a lot till about the I like the eighth, ninth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleven,
34:40
Speaker 3: that little window right there, which is the tail end
34:43
Speaker 3: of the seeking phase we call it the tail in
34:46
Speaker 3: the buck parade and the very start of lockdown. That
34:52
Speaker 3: phase is quite good for daylight activity. I love that
34:54
Speaker 3: period right there, seven through eleven. Seven come eleven if
34:58
Speaker 3: you will. That's quite good here in the Midwest, and
35:02
Speaker 3: then it just depends what your population dynamic is. And
35:07
Speaker 3: all of this depends a little bit on population dynamic.
35:10
Speaker 3: If your buck to dough is severely out of whack,
35:14
Speaker 3: you can't expect to see a lot of daylight activity
35:17
Speaker 3: by bucks in general, because they're going to lock down
35:19
Speaker 3: during nighttime. Right most of their movement occurs at night.
35:23
Speaker 3: Just watch your pictures, so to expect to see a
35:26
Speaker 3: lot of daylight activity. If you've got a call it
35:28
Speaker 3: five doors to one buck or seven dos to one buck,
35:31
Speaker 3: it's probably not gonna happen. However, if you're a little
35:34
Speaker 3: closer to their natural ratio, which is one to one,
35:37
Speaker 3: we like to keep everything at you know, realistically we
35:40
Speaker 3: hope to have it at a two or three to one,
35:43
Speaker 3: two or three dos to one buck. If you're in
35:45
Speaker 3: that range, you can expect to see them free up
35:48
Speaker 3: occasionally through their rut. But it's so much more challenging
35:51
Speaker 3: because the activity could have been at noon, it could
35:54
Speaker 3: have been at two o'clock. You know, if October you
35:59
Speaker 3: could pretty mu bank on the fact that it's that
36:01
Speaker 3: first hour, last hour and a half two hours, So
36:04
Speaker 3: it's more of an expectation. And I've talked about this before,
36:08
Speaker 3: when you get into the rut, that the odds of
36:12
Speaker 3: seeing one could happen at any time of the day.
36:15
Speaker 3: So you're kind of hoping, right, You're hoping he frees up,
36:17
Speaker 3: your hoping he comes by. So it's it's hope versus expectation,
36:21
Speaker 3: and that's challenging mentally. It's challenging physically because you've got
36:24
Speaker 3: to sit there much longer. But if you've got one
36:26
Speaker 3: week off and you want the greatest odds of a
36:29
Speaker 3: deer to be on their feet, you know it's probably
36:32
Speaker 3: during the rut because more deer covering more ground. But
36:35
Speaker 3: if you're honed in on a particular buck on a spot,
36:39
Speaker 3: that's why I like that late October. But it's only
36:41
Speaker 3: because I've got a sure enough history with him and
36:44
Speaker 3: a plan and a prediction. But you know, if you
36:47
Speaker 3: don't have that's that's difficult to expect success.
36:51
Speaker 2: Speaking of hopes and expectations, you know a lot of
36:54
Speaker 2: us look at that rut window. Is that chance for
36:58
Speaker 2: the midday movement? Right, there's that hope and the belief that, yeah,
37:01
Speaker 2: there's more midday activity, and you know I've seen that, Yeah,
37:07
Speaker 2: the weather's right. So I've seen that with you know,
37:09
Speaker 2: year and a half, wells, two and a half year olds,
37:11
Speaker 2: three and a half year olds, I've seen all the
37:12
Speaker 2: way to the old ones. But when it comes to
37:14
Speaker 2: those like five six seven year old bucks, is that
37:18
Speaker 2: is that as good of a window for them as
37:20
Speaker 2: it is for you know, just general buck movement? Is
37:23
Speaker 2: there anything unique for that age when it comes to midday?
37:26
Speaker 3: I think it's a I think it's a better window
37:28
Speaker 3: if you ever watch closely and watch it consistently through
37:31
Speaker 3: the years. They're almost the last one to get on
37:33
Speaker 3: their feet of the morning when you get into you know,
37:35
Speaker 3: we're out of October and we're out of this food
37:37
Speaker 3: pattern stuff and we're actually do is dough is what
37:40
Speaker 3: they're keyed in on, like nine thirty, ten o'clock. Everything
37:44
Speaker 3: else is betted. Haven't seen a deer in thirty minutes?
37:47
Speaker 3: Like should I climb down? Because he's about to get up.
37:50
Speaker 3: He's gonna go check every dough trail. He's going to
37:53
Speaker 3: check what just occurred that morning trying to find that deer.
37:56
Speaker 3: He's wise, he's smart, like a blood tracking dog, a
38:00
Speaker 3: dog that's a blood trailer. That's seven eight nine years old. Man,
38:03
Speaker 3: they know how to find those those deer that are
38:05
Speaker 3: wounding because they've been there and they almost can think
38:07
Speaker 3: like the deer. That buck can think like that dough
38:11
Speaker 3: or like the rest of those bucks. He waits till
38:13
Speaker 3: the midday to go do his movement that nine o'clock
38:16
Speaker 3: through eleven o'clock and then again from about one thirty
38:19
Speaker 3: to three thirty or four. Those are the two windows
38:22
Speaker 3: that I really key in on once you get into November.
38:25
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's when you're going to catch you
38:26
Speaker 3: more often than not.
38:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, So can you continue that what you just did there?
38:31
Speaker 2: As far as mapping out like the day of a
38:34
Speaker 2: let's say a six year old buck, what do you
38:36
Speaker 2: imagine that buck's twenty four hour day looking like at
38:40
Speaker 2: that age during that rut time period. Can you walk
38:43
Speaker 2: me through continue what you were doing right there.
38:46
Speaker 3: Well, if he's alone, he's going to do exactly. Not exactly,
38:49
Speaker 3: but there's a high likelihood he could do what I'm
38:52
Speaker 3: talking about. And again, all this depends on whether if
38:55
Speaker 3: it's a warm day, you can crush that back. It's
38:58
Speaker 3: only going to happen the first hour or two, last
39:00
Speaker 3: hour or two However, if it's a beautiful high pressure
39:03
Speaker 3: day and the moon's overhead and a lot of things
39:05
Speaker 3: are lining up, you could see that deer at any
39:08
Speaker 3: time during the day. You could see in the first
39:10
Speaker 3: hour two coming off of bed and he's gonna bed
39:13
Speaker 3: down for a while. And then I see that nine
39:15
Speaker 3: to eleven thirty very consistently each year, and then one
39:19
Speaker 3: thirty through about three point thirty four o'clock. I specifically
39:24
Speaker 3: love three pm Central Time during during the during that period,
39:29
Speaker 3: and I specifically love about nine ten o'clock during that period,
39:34
Speaker 3: they just get on their feet and they go walk.
39:37
Speaker 3: That's provided you got the right weather you're hoping for,
39:39
Speaker 3: you know, highs in the fifties, lows in the thirties,
39:42
Speaker 3: and optimal conditions and pressure over thirty point one. Better
39:46
Speaker 3: sit in your stand, don't don't get down.
39:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that buck, he's I'm just you know, the
39:50
Speaker 2: assumption would be that buck is just moving as efficiently
39:52
Speaker 2: as he can traveling down wind side of every doll
39:55
Speaker 2: betting here. He knows though through that zone.
39:57
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, their their home cours expand he's going
40:03
Speaker 3: to move around more inside the bedroom than he has food.
40:05
Speaker 3: Although you could see him on food, you could see
40:07
Speaker 3: him just about anywhere, but a lot of that occurs
40:10
Speaker 3: in cover. That's the one thing I didn't, you know,
40:11
Speaker 3: preface that statement with you see a lot of that
40:13
Speaker 3: stuff happening in the bedroom. And that's that's when you know,
40:17
Speaker 3: you jump into those magical trees and those magical spots
40:20
Speaker 3: because every buck's doing the same thing, or a lot
40:22
Speaker 3: of them are. So uh, it's it's a fun time
40:25
Speaker 3: of the year, but it's just it's it's more challenging
40:28
Speaker 3: trying to kill a specific buck than October or December
40:32
Speaker 3: in my opinion.
40:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's go back to the first thing that
40:36
Speaker 2: you mentioned at the very top when it comes to
40:38
Speaker 2: these old deer, which is that the core area does
40:40
Speaker 2: usually shrink. Outside of the rut, they shrink down.
40:45
Speaker 3: I think during the rud a shrinks a little bit.
40:47
Speaker 3: I do, And I think I have this theory that
40:52
Speaker 3: when they're younger, they're making bigger loops and checking a
40:55
Speaker 3: lot more stuff out, and I think through life they
40:58
Speaker 3: go I like this, this and this. Yeah, you know,
41:01
Speaker 3: here's where I have the most security. I've run into
41:04
Speaker 3: the least amount of pressure. I've found the most doze.
41:08
Speaker 3: My water's here, my covers here, my escape routes here,
41:11
Speaker 3: Like I think they learn those things through life, and
41:15
Speaker 3: they hone down in this is the house I want, right,
41:19
Speaker 3: you know, It's like checking out a multitude of neighborhoods
41:21
Speaker 3: and going and this is the neighborhood I want to
41:22
Speaker 3: live in. I think that's what happens. I think that's
41:25
Speaker 3: why it shrinks. They're learning it, imprinting it as they're younger,
41:29
Speaker 3: and then when they're older they know where to go.
41:33
Speaker 3: That's just my theory. I don't know if there's any
41:34
Speaker 3: truth to that or not, but I think that's why
41:36
Speaker 3: that home core gets a little bit smaller and there's
41:38
Speaker 3: less less activity within the homecore because I think they're
41:41
Speaker 3: still trying to learn it when they're younger.
41:43
Speaker 2: And that makes sense. I know there is the answer
41:56
Speaker 2: to this question about to ask you is very very
41:58
Speaker 2: situational dependence because depend on region and habitat type and
42:01
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. But just given what you've
42:03
Speaker 2: seen in your area, if you had to like put
42:06
Speaker 2: a number on the average core area side that you
42:10
Speaker 2: see this old old buck shrink into. Are you seeing like, oh,
42:15
Speaker 2: it's usually a square mile or is it usually one
42:17
Speaker 2: hundred acres, or is it? If you had to give
42:19
Speaker 2: me some kind of average, what do you think that
42:20
Speaker 2: would be a few acres? Okay, and that's if and
42:26
Speaker 2: that's drinking.
42:28
Speaker 3: They're gonna loop outside of that. It's not like there's
42:30
Speaker 3: a wall around that thing, because there's not any doe
42:33
Speaker 3: could have him three miles away, you know, at any second.
42:36
Speaker 3: But in general, it's a few hundred acres. You know,
42:40
Speaker 3: it's to me, but that could expand out to two
42:44
Speaker 3: or three square miles, depending on the buck's personality or
42:47
Speaker 3: his age. But it's I think it just gets a
42:50
Speaker 3: little bit smaller.
42:51
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense. What kinds of places, what kinds
42:56
Speaker 2: of habitat do you see freak only becoming those buck
43:02
Speaker 2: oldest buck homes right as they've you mentioned, they're picking
43:04
Speaker 2: out the things they like the most. Can you point
43:07
Speaker 2: to some of the characteristics of the spots that these
43:10
Speaker 2: old bucks end up settling it on that much?
43:14
Speaker 3: I can't because they it has varied so much over
43:18
Speaker 3: the past thirty five years. I've seen them live out
43:20
Speaker 3: in a giant crp field their whole life, get up,
43:23
Speaker 3: go to food, go back. I've seen them in the
43:25
Speaker 3: thickest of timbers. To me, it's it's very variable, and
43:31
Speaker 3: that's a head scratcher to me. Why one buck prefers
43:34
Speaker 3: one terrain and another buck prefers another terrain. I can
43:37
Speaker 3: only assume it's because of other home ranges interfering. And
43:42
Speaker 3: therefore this guy's saying, I'm staying here and I'm staying there,
43:45
Speaker 3: And they kind of stay away from each other and
43:47
Speaker 3: they camp out in their little area as well as
43:48
Speaker 3: there's you know, ample food, cover water. They're pretty adaptable.
43:53
Speaker 3: They can live just about anywhere, but they got to
43:56
Speaker 3: have doze there as well. I've also seen different personality
44:00
Speaker 3: with bucks through the years. I've seen bucks that I
44:02
Speaker 3: swear didn't leave eighty acres or one hundred acres and
44:05
Speaker 3: didn't really participate in the rut very much like I've
44:08
Speaker 3: seen bucks that I felt like only got with one
44:11
Speaker 3: or two does. And I don't think that's uncommon at all,
44:13
Speaker 3: to where when they're younger, they're covering more ground because
44:17
Speaker 3: they're younger, and they'll get with more does because they're
44:20
Speaker 3: odds of finding a hot doe increase when they get
44:23
Speaker 3: old and get back to that old dog in the
44:25
Speaker 3: porch doesn't get up, don't walk around, doesn't eat as
44:27
Speaker 3: much when he's older. I think that's that older buck,
44:30
Speaker 3: and I just don't think he's quite as active during
44:32
Speaker 3: the rut as he was when he's younger. Somewhere in
44:35
Speaker 3: that curve they go from breeding being the primary reason
44:42
Speaker 3: for their existence to just trying to live and stay alive.
44:46
Speaker 3: And I think somewhere in that curve is that six
44:49
Speaker 3: and a half year old buck. That again, he's the
44:52
Speaker 3: ghost here, and by the time they're seven or eight,
44:55
Speaker 3: they're very much worried about just living. They're gonna still
44:58
Speaker 3: participate in the rut, but you know, he may not
45:02
Speaker 3: move during that severe cold weather, whereas that four hie
45:05
Speaker 3: old run around going crazy, and that guy's laying in
45:08
Speaker 3: his bed till it gets a little bit nicer for
45:10
Speaker 3: him to walk around. But personality is different, and you'll
45:13
Speaker 3: learn that as you hunt it. Not every deer is
45:15
Speaker 3: the same, and you can never take you can never
45:18
Speaker 3: say always or never with white tail deer. All of
45:20
Speaker 3: these things I'm talking about are general terms, but it
45:23
Speaker 3: does vary quite a bit based on the deer's personality
45:26
Speaker 3: and the terrain you're hunting him in. But in answer
45:28
Speaker 3: to your original question. There there's no there's no box
45:31
Speaker 3: for that, that description of where they're going to live.
45:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so so you make you make a good point,
45:37
Speaker 2: which is any buck that's gotten to this age starts
45:41
Speaker 2: to show some kind of unique personality traits, right, And
45:45
Speaker 2: it seems like one of the tricks to successfully killing
45:47
Speaker 2: a deer like that is to be able to uncover
45:49
Speaker 2: what is that unique personality? Can you think of a
45:53
Speaker 2: buck or two over your years that stands out to
45:56
Speaker 2: you as having like a unique personality trait or behavioral
46:01
Speaker 2: pattern that you were able to uncover and then use
46:04
Speaker 2: that to your hunting advantage. Is there an example like
46:08
Speaker 2: that story you could tell about how you figure out
46:10
Speaker 2: what this old buck's unique personality thing was, how you
46:14
Speaker 2: discovered it, and then how that led to your hunts,
46:17
Speaker 2: whether you ended up killing the buck or not.
46:20
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think back to a buck that Todd Smith.
46:24
Speaker 3: Did you ever meet Todd? He was the editor of
46:26
Speaker 3: Outdoor Life for it, you know, I don't think I
46:28
Speaker 3: did such a fine gentleman, and he came in and
46:32
Speaker 3: hunted with me, and we got to be really close friends,
46:35
Speaker 3: and he whit till hunted. But I don't think he
46:38
Speaker 3: was like he's going to go, you know, the entire season,
46:42
Speaker 3: like you're gonna do, you know? But he did why
46:44
Speaker 3: till hunting He loved it and he drew a late season.
46:47
Speaker 3: I would tag with me, And there was this one
46:49
Speaker 3: buck on my farm that I swear lived on this
46:53
Speaker 3: eighty acre portion of the farm because I had cameras
46:56
Speaker 3: everywhere like usual, and I never got him anywhere else
47:00
Speaker 3: other than this eighty acre parcel. And this eighty acre
47:05
Speaker 3: parcel was the thickest, nastiest, most secure place on the farm.
47:10
Speaker 3: The access into it was tough for us as hunters.
47:13
Speaker 3: And the only time I'd get him during the daylight
47:16
Speaker 3: pictures was of a morning in the month of December.
47:18
Speaker 3: So very unique deer like he was dark, dark, dark
47:22
Speaker 3: October November. But in December I'd caught this one weakness.
47:27
Speaker 3: I kept catching him going back to bed into this
47:29
Speaker 3: eighty acres off this one particular ridge field of food
47:32
Speaker 3: that I had planted. And Todd came in and I
47:35
Speaker 3: told him about a variety of different places we could
47:38
Speaker 3: hunt and this buck and that buck, and I told
47:40
Speaker 3: him my story about this deer, about how unique he was,
47:43
Speaker 3: and I was planning on, just hunting afternoons like we
47:46
Speaker 3: normally do in December, and he goes, why don't we
47:48
Speaker 3: go after that buck? And probably part of the reason
47:52
Speaker 3: I didn't see much is because I don't hunt a
47:53
Speaker 3: lot of mornings, especially in December. And I said, sure
47:57
Speaker 3: we can, you know, I think here's what we need
47:59
Speaker 3: to do. Swin blah blah blah. And we went in
48:02
Speaker 3: there two or three mornings because we had the right conditions,
48:04
Speaker 3: and sure enough Todd killed this giant eight point. He
48:07
Speaker 3: was probably just shy of one seventy and I think
48:10
Speaker 3: he was a six and a half year old buck,
48:12
Speaker 3: maybe seven and a half year old buck. But he
48:13
Speaker 3: was a He was an absolute toad. And the thing
48:17
Speaker 3: I noticed about him, he was absolutely perfect. There wasn't
48:21
Speaker 3: a scar on that deer's body. His ears were perfect,
48:24
Speaker 3: his eyes were perfect. And I really believe he was
48:27
Speaker 3: just one of those deer that lived his life as
48:29
Speaker 3: a bachelor. I think when he bred doze, they came
48:32
Speaker 3: to him, he wasn't going to them, and he was
48:35
Speaker 3: safe there and he lived a long, happy life until
48:38
Speaker 3: til Todd put an end to it that morning. That
48:40
Speaker 3: was one of the most unique deer we ever hunted
48:43
Speaker 3: and succeeded on and he taught me a lot. You know.
48:46
Speaker 3: He taught me that these deer different, they have different personalities.
48:50
Speaker 3: And when I speak of that, I always think back
48:52
Speaker 3: to that deer because he definitely taught me deer are
48:55
Speaker 3: not created equal. They're all their own own person or
48:58
Speaker 3: their own animal.
49:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what about the fourth buck? I know that
49:04
Speaker 2: was one that seemed to stand out too. And I
49:08
Speaker 2: can't remember if we talked about this one last year
49:10
Speaker 2: or not, but yeah, that just seems like such a
49:12
Speaker 2: crazy example and that it's probably illustrative to us and
49:16
Speaker 2: to folks on how you go about trying to figure
49:18
Speaker 2: out a buck like that. That just kind of bucks
49:20
Speaker 2: the trend, the usual generalities. Can you talk about that
49:23
Speaker 2: a little bit?
49:24
Speaker 3: I literally lost years off my life over that deer
49:28
Speaker 3: that season because I really hadn't hunted him a lot,
49:32
Speaker 3: but I had a tremendous trail picture history of him
49:34
Speaker 3: because he was a homeboy internet. This farm was four
49:37
Speaker 3: hundred and seventeen acres and he was on there a lot,
49:39
Speaker 3: but he was all over it. I always said he
49:42
Speaker 3: was the buck that was everywhere, the buck that was nowhere,
49:44
Speaker 3: Like we couldn't run into that deer to save our behinds.
49:47
Speaker 3: And we finally killed him December the twentieth on a
49:50
Speaker 3: green field with a bow down on a bottom field
49:53
Speaker 3: where I had never gotten this picture. And I mean
49:55
Speaker 3: just literally I had gotten it there a few times,
49:57
Speaker 3: not many, but I literally just got luck he'd kill
50:00
Speaker 3: that deer, and I kind of started hunting him like
50:04
Speaker 3: I always hunted him the way I always hunt which
50:06
Speaker 3: was I think he's gonna be here. I think he's
50:08
Speaker 3: gonna be here. I think he's going to be here.
50:10
Speaker 3: I finally started going where I didn't think he'd be,
50:13
Speaker 3: and that's when I killed the deer. Like I literally
50:16
Speaker 3: had to reverse my thinking and everything I knew. It
50:21
Speaker 3: just like broke all the codes. And that was he
50:25
Speaker 3: was a tough tar to kill. I mean, he was
50:27
Speaker 3: just literally walking. I believe I killed him when he
50:30
Speaker 3: was eight and a half and again on food in December.
50:33
Speaker 3: There's a weakness. But I killed him where I didn't
50:35
Speaker 3: think he'd be that night, and sure enough, he was
50:38
Speaker 3: one of those walkers all night, all day. I'd catch
50:41
Speaker 3: a picture of him at you know, six pm on
50:45
Speaker 3: a green field, and then by ten pm he'd be
50:47
Speaker 3: two miles north on a different camera. It was just bizarre.
50:52
Speaker 3: He was really a tough tear to run into. Every year,
50:54
Speaker 3: we hunted him so many times and never saw him.
50:57
Speaker 3: I think Dustin and Wade sawing one or twice. I
51:01
Speaker 3: think I saw him twice before I killed him. And
51:06
Speaker 3: he was eight and a half years old. If if
51:08
Speaker 3: that explains how difficult he was. But he also taught me,
51:13
Speaker 3: you know, compare that story to Todd's deer, both six
51:18
Speaker 3: and a half or older. One never moved and was
51:21
Speaker 3: literally clean and perfect and beautiful, and the fork buck
51:25
Speaker 3: every single thing, and he was ripped and scarred and ears,
51:28
Speaker 3: and you know, the more they walk, the more they're
51:30
Speaker 3: going to encounter other deer and get into tussles. And
51:33
Speaker 3: we always joked because his body was so large, we said,
51:37
Speaker 3: what if he didn't walk as much as he did.
51:39
Speaker 3: I swear he'd had three hundred just some antler on
51:41
Speaker 3: his you know, because I think he wore himself to
51:44
Speaker 3: a frazzle every year. But he was. He was a
51:48
Speaker 3: cool dear, and I felt blessed to have the opportunity
51:50
Speaker 3: to hunt him and then eventually kill him.
51:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, so was the insight like the personality insight with
51:55
Speaker 2: him that ended up leading to you killing him. I
51:59
Speaker 2: know you said you got but is the insight there?
52:01
Speaker 2: The fact that you couldn't predict where he was going
52:03
Speaker 2: to because he was always moving. So rather than chasing pictures,
52:06
Speaker 2: just like volume hunt a spot and eventually he'll come through.
52:09
Speaker 2: There was that it.
52:10
Speaker 3: I volume hunted the same spot for days throughout, like
52:15
Speaker 3: nineteen or twenty days. I went to the same stand,
52:17
Speaker 3: never saw him, and I was like, I'm so sick
52:20
Speaker 3: of this, you know, I just like I'm burning the
52:23
Speaker 3: spot out. And I finally started. I was like, I'm
52:26
Speaker 3: gonna do what he's doing and just bounce around now.
52:29
Speaker 3: Because I tried the same spot over and over and
52:31
Speaker 3: over and it didn't. You would think, you know, it's counterintuitive.
52:34
Speaker 3: You would think that would work, right if you just
52:36
Speaker 3: stuck to the same place, be the camera, he's eventually
52:38
Speaker 3: going to walk by. He never did, and I started
52:40
Speaker 3: bouncing around and going to places where I didn't think
52:43
Speaker 3: he'd be, and that's where I killed him.
52:45
Speaker 2: Wow.
52:45
Speaker 3: So call it LUCKI or call it you know, call
52:51
Speaker 3: it try call it being open to try something different
52:54
Speaker 3: that I had never done in my life. And I
52:56
Speaker 3: finally killed. Kill that old booger. He was. He was
52:59
Speaker 3: a tough too.
53:00
Speaker 2: Do you feel like with a deer like that that
53:02
Speaker 2: moves so much that I'm sure you must have been
53:06
Speaker 2: thinking about, like, God, I'm probably burning these spots out,
53:09
Speaker 2: I'm putting pressure on this deer. Am I educating this deer?
53:12
Speaker 2: But with a mover like that? Do you worry about
53:14
Speaker 2: that less just because he's it's so unlikely that he's
53:17
Speaker 2: going to come through an area that you know, maybe I.
53:20
Speaker 3: Worry about it. I worry about it more because he's
53:22
Speaker 3: more likely to catch your centrail or catch you know,
53:25
Speaker 3: those deer that don't move very much, sitting in that
53:27
Speaker 3: eighty acre spot, you know, or a hundred acres, they're
53:30
Speaker 3: not nearly as likely to catch your scent, or catch
53:32
Speaker 3: your track, or catch your truck that type of stuff.
53:35
Speaker 3: Not nearly.
53:37
Speaker 2: So another question that I have related to our impact
53:40
Speaker 2: on deer and the pressure we put on them. Jumping
53:43
Speaker 2: back to the general trend with really old deer, and
53:46
Speaker 2: the general trend being that their core area shrinks, They
53:49
Speaker 2: figure out the neighborhood they like, they find the house
53:52
Speaker 2: they like in their neighborhood, they don't they just want
53:54
Speaker 2: to send in their couch because they're safe there, they're
53:55
Speaker 2: happy there, They've got everything they need right. Once they
53:58
Speaker 2: get to that point, they've got to figured out. So
54:01
Speaker 2: I've always wondered, when you've got a deer like that
54:04
Speaker 2: in that set way of life, does he react more
54:07
Speaker 2: to pressure or less to pressure?
54:10
Speaker 3: You know?
54:10
Speaker 2: Is it like he's shocked when the robber shows up
54:12
Speaker 2: in the house and that gets him out, or is
54:14
Speaker 2: he like, no, this is usually safe. I'm gonna stick
54:16
Speaker 2: with it for a while.
54:18
Speaker 3: I think he reacts less to pressure, and he's gonna
54:21
Speaker 3: stick with it, and he's not gonna move leave his
54:24
Speaker 3: bed unless he is eminently forced to leave that bed.
54:28
Speaker 3: That's the one thing I've noticed about big mature deer.
54:30
Speaker 3: They are very unlikely to get up out of their
54:32
Speaker 3: bed unless you walk over their head or something. I mean,
54:37
Speaker 3: it's tough to get him up out of their bed.
54:39
Speaker 3: And that goes to a point, and everybody's gonna be
54:43
Speaker 3: able to relate to this one thing that I no
54:46
Speaker 3: longer pay attention to, or other deer that catch my
54:50
Speaker 3: scent and blow you know, because your intuition is I
54:55
Speaker 3: just ruined my whole hunt. I'm not going to see
54:57
Speaker 3: this deer. I don't think that deer get out of
55:00
Speaker 3: their bed for those blowing doughs, no more than you
55:04
Speaker 3: or I would. You know, if your kid was crying,
55:07
Speaker 3: you know, crying wolf. You know, you figure it out.
55:09
Speaker 3: And those dos with those fawns will blow so easily
55:12
Speaker 3: and so frequently at everything. It's gunk bobcat at three
55:15
Speaker 3: hundred yards of kyote. He gets used to hearing that stuff.
55:19
Speaker 3: And when they're blowing at you, I don't think it
55:21
Speaker 3: means that much. And there was a time where I'd
55:24
Speaker 3: climb down and be like, I got to go get
55:25
Speaker 3: to another spot. Yeah, I don't do that anymore. And
55:28
Speaker 3: in fact, I've seen them get up and investigate what
55:32
Speaker 3: the source of the problem was, especially during the run.
55:35
Speaker 3: A blowing doze sometimes is your ally, so that that's
55:38
Speaker 3: a I don't call it a tip or something that
55:41
Speaker 3: I no longer pay attention to. When I get blown
55:44
Speaker 3: up and I just go back to hunting, and I
55:46
Speaker 3: just assume he's still betted right here. If I think
55:48
Speaker 3: he's betted there and I'm trying to kill him, I
55:50
Speaker 3: just assume he didn't leave his bed. I think they'd
55:52
Speaker 3: run over him and he probably wouldn't follow him out.
55:55
Speaker 3: He's very likely to still be in his bed. So
55:57
Speaker 3: then now it made delay when he gets up, or
56:00
Speaker 3: he may get up out of curiosity to go see.
56:02
Speaker 3: It may affect his movement, but I don't think it's
56:05
Speaker 3: going to get him up and make him run two miles.
56:08
Speaker 3: He's much more secure stand where he's at than he
56:11
Speaker 3: is on his feet running around going what else am
56:13
Speaker 3: I going to run into?
56:13
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, So that raises some interesting questions though, when
56:16
Speaker 2: it comes to like choosing a stand location or choosing
56:20
Speaker 2: how aggressive you want to be. Like I can think
56:22
Speaker 2: of a lot of places that I would love to
56:24
Speaker 2: hunt tight to a buck's betting area like this like
56:27
Speaker 2: we're talking about, but it's a high deer density area,
56:31
Speaker 2: and I just know, like, man, if I get in there,
56:33
Speaker 2: I can I think I can beat the bucks nose,
56:35
Speaker 2: Like I think I know how to set up on
56:36
Speaker 2: what he'll do. But there's gonna be so many dang
56:38
Speaker 2: dos and funds that do crazy things that eventually what
56:41
Speaker 2: i'm is gonna win me. And so because of that,
56:43
Speaker 2: I don't even go in there. Should I, you know,
56:46
Speaker 2: should I consider being more aggressive and just letting the
56:48
Speaker 2: doughs blow at me because I can get away with
56:51
Speaker 2: a little more that I'm assuming.
56:53
Speaker 3: So to me, then I'm going to pick weather condition
56:55
Speaker 3: before I sneak into a spot like that relevant or
56:59
Speaker 3: time year. I'm going to be more likely to try
57:03
Speaker 3: those types of spots during the rut, when they're covering
57:05
Speaker 3: more ground and when there's a lot of different chaos
57:07
Speaker 3: out there in their world, or on a rain event,
57:11
Speaker 3: to where I feel like I can safely get in
57:13
Speaker 3: there if it's raining hard, They're not very likely to
57:17
Speaker 3: react to you. In a rain event or a heavy windstorm,
57:21
Speaker 3: both of those things will help cover you going into
57:24
Speaker 3: a particular spot. And by heavy wind, I'm talking you know,
57:28
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty five mile an hour. You can get
57:30
Speaker 3: by with a lot on a windy day in terms
57:32
Speaker 3: of access. You can get by with a lot on
57:34
Speaker 3: a rainy day, in terms of access. You can get
57:37
Speaker 3: by with a lot on a on a you know,
57:40
Speaker 3: November rut day in terms of access. So it really
57:43
Speaker 3: comes down to that for me. Now, if it's a calm,
57:46
Speaker 3: pretty morning and I know I'm going to be running
57:50
Speaker 3: through deer, I'm probably not going to go, So I
57:52
Speaker 3: wait for the right conditions.
57:54
Speaker 2: So let's say we're set up on a food plot
57:56
Speaker 2: that's tight to betting.
57:59
Speaker 3: To that end, I use those same conditions to go
58:03
Speaker 3: hang a stand, or to put a camera or go
58:06
Speaker 3: change batteries out in a camera or something like that.
58:09
Speaker 3: I use that wind and that rain to my advantage
58:13
Speaker 3: all the time. I wait for those events to go
58:15
Speaker 3: get something done that I need to do when I
58:17
Speaker 3: just will not intrude otherwise. Another thing in terms of intrusion,
58:22
Speaker 3: a tractor at night, going in or going out will
58:25
Speaker 3: almost never bother those deer. We've noticed that through the years,
58:28
Speaker 3: Like if you can get there, you know, if you've
58:30
Speaker 3: got to go check a camera or go move a
58:33
Speaker 3: blind or move a stand, those types of things, night
58:35
Speaker 3: time is a great time to do it. They're just
58:37
Speaker 3: not nearly as likely to react to you.
58:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, so do you think have you seen you know,
58:44
Speaker 2: back to the blowing dough thing, I've always felt like
58:47
Speaker 2: there was the cascading effect, and like if I'm hunting
58:49
Speaker 2: a food source and my wind is kind of blowing
58:52
Speaker 2: out into the food source, and I've always thought, man
58:55
Speaker 2: if if a dough family group or a dough winds
58:57
Speaker 2: me out in the food and she runs back in there,
59:00
Speaker 2: that buck will never make it here because he'll see
59:02
Speaker 2: that as an alarm and he's just not going to
59:05
Speaker 2: come all the way out in daylight if that happens
59:07
Speaker 2: even once. So, just to clarify what you're saying, are
59:09
Speaker 2: you saying that maybe I'm worrying a little too much
59:11
Speaker 2: on that even.
59:13
Speaker 3: I think you could be, because if you watch them,
59:16
Speaker 3: if you've seen a dough react to a coyote or
59:18
Speaker 3: a bobcat and they're not catching you, yeah, right, I
59:20
Speaker 3: mean that's their natural response is to snort and get
59:24
Speaker 3: their phones out of there or get other does out
59:26
Speaker 3: of there. So I don't pay much attention to it anymore.
59:31
Speaker 3: I stick in there, and I've seen, like I said,
59:33
Speaker 3: deer come and investigate it, go what was that? Depending
59:36
Speaker 3: on the time of the year, I've had other nights
59:38
Speaker 3: where I never see another deer enter the field, So
59:40
Speaker 3: it probably did affect it, But more often than not,
59:43
Speaker 3: I don't think it's moving him out of his bed.
59:45
Speaker 3: It may affect when he moves or how he moves,
59:48
Speaker 3: but I don't think he ran out of the area,
59:51
Speaker 3: that's my gut. I think he's stayed right wherever he
59:54
Speaker 3: was when that fuss started.
59:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's continue on this line of kind of you know,
1:00:11
Speaker 2: buck behavior when they're like moving from bed to feed.
1:00:17
Speaker 2: I know we talked a little bit about where they
1:00:19
Speaker 2: want to live. We talked about how they're going to
1:00:22
Speaker 2: participate in the rut and why they're gonna be more
1:00:23
Speaker 2: daylight or not. But what about just any trends you've
1:00:25
Speaker 2: seen with like how they actually move across the landscape
1:00:29
Speaker 2: when you get to that like six seven year old buck,
1:00:31
Speaker 2: is it always going to be taking the area with
1:00:33
Speaker 2: the thickest, safest route to get to where he wants
1:00:35
Speaker 2: to go? Or do at some point do they get
1:00:37
Speaker 2: even lazier than usual? Like I know they're creatures of
1:00:40
Speaker 2: they prefer the path of least resistance, But does a
1:00:42
Speaker 2: six year old get even more that way because he's
1:00:45
Speaker 2: old and doesn't want to have to squeeze through the
1:00:47
Speaker 2: thick cover any anything you've noticed there?
1:00:52
Speaker 3: I think by the time they get at that age,
1:00:55
Speaker 3: bed is bad safety, safety, security, security, and they're going
1:00:59
Speaker 3: to have a tendency to go where they've been most
1:01:02
Speaker 3: secure throughout their life on that wind, on that weather
1:01:06
Speaker 3: during that period of the year, And that can change
1:01:09
Speaker 3: from phase to phase based on leaffall, based on whether
1:01:14
Speaker 3: he's on a hot dough or not. And I think
1:01:17
Speaker 3: it really comes down to, all right, if this is
1:01:20
Speaker 3: his bedroom, on these weather conditions, this wind speed, this
1:01:23
Speaker 3: wind direction, this crop rotation, how far is that from
1:01:28
Speaker 3: where he's feeding. Because he's older and he's almost in
1:01:32
Speaker 3: slow motion as compared to a year and a half
1:01:34
Speaker 3: or two and a half, they just don't walk very far.
1:01:37
Speaker 3: They don't walk very fast. They're very cautious, they're very careful.
1:01:40
Speaker 3: It's the old dog on the porch. They just don't
1:01:42
Speaker 3: they don't do the things that they did when they
1:01:44
Speaker 3: were younger. So it really comes down to that, and
1:01:46
Speaker 3: that gets back to that slot machine lining up, you know,
1:01:50
Speaker 3: where is his secure bed. Last night, I went scouting
1:01:53
Speaker 3: for our catcher dream hunt. I was watching one field
1:01:56
Speaker 3: on this side of this old dirt road and up
1:01:59
Speaker 3: on top of this pasture ridge. I turned around and
1:02:02
Speaker 3: looked and I saw my number one target in Iowa
1:02:05
Speaker 3: walking through this cattle pasture, coming out of these woods
1:02:08
Speaker 3: and crossing over this ridge. He's four hundred yards from
1:02:12
Speaker 3: where our food plot is. And I went back because
1:02:15
Speaker 3: I remember to myself, I get him daylight of the
1:02:18
Speaker 3: morning a lot. I almost never get him daylight of
1:02:20
Speaker 3: an evening, and it hit me right then. I'm like,
1:02:22
Speaker 3: he's bedding in that little patch of woods right there.
1:02:24
Speaker 3: It's the same way I killed danger, Like I lost
1:02:27
Speaker 3: that deer, and then I refound him with my trail cameras,
1:02:30
Speaker 3: and then I just went into that bedroom and I
1:02:32
Speaker 3: killed him right there where he was coming because I
1:02:35
Speaker 3: found out where that security cover was for that time
1:02:38
Speaker 3: of the year, and I think, if you can do that,
1:02:41
Speaker 3: But in both of those cases, it took cameras, or
1:02:44
Speaker 3: in this case, it took me luckily looking over my shoulder. He's,
1:02:47
Speaker 3: you know, five hundred yards away from me, and I
1:02:49
Speaker 3: saw him walking the ridge. I threw my glasses on
1:02:52
Speaker 3: him and I knew who it was. It's a buck
1:02:54
Speaker 3: I called the tumor buck. And I was like, Aha,
1:02:57
Speaker 3: he's betted in what I call the pretty woods. And
1:02:59
Speaker 3: I'm talking the least secure cover you've ever seen. I'm
1:03:03
Speaker 3: talking you can see three hundred yards of these woods,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: so maybe for him it's the most secure. And he
1:03:09
Speaker 3: went across the ridge, he went down into the bottom,
1:03:11
Speaker 3: and sure enough I got a trail picture of him
1:03:13
Speaker 3: at like nine o'clock last night down in that food plot,
1:03:16
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I got to change my strategy on
1:03:18
Speaker 3: this guy. Either, got it. I either have to start
1:03:20
Speaker 3: hunting the plot in the morning or chances are I'm
1:03:23
Speaker 3: going to go into those pretty woods and hang a
1:03:25
Speaker 3: stand set to catch him.
1:03:27
Speaker 2: Coming back, to catch him coming back in the morningning, Yeah,
1:03:31
Speaker 2: so try and try to kill in the morning. Will
1:03:33
Speaker 2: you try to do that early? Yeah, I know you
1:03:36
Speaker 2: usually don't hunt early morning.
1:03:38
Speaker 3: I'll try to do it in October. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
1:03:41
Speaker 3: for sure. I killed Danger of the Morning October twenty first. Yeah,
1:03:44
Speaker 3: so I will when the opportunity suggests I should. Certainly,
1:03:49
Speaker 3: I'll change my tactics quickly. But I've just had more
1:03:52
Speaker 3: luck in the evenings at food. But if it's a
1:03:55
Speaker 3: certain deer and that's your target and he's not killable
1:03:58
Speaker 3: down there at that food source, then you gotta change up.
1:04:00
Speaker 3: And I think Tumor Buck's gonna cause me to change up.
1:04:04
Speaker 3: I've got a great morning set along his path, but
1:04:07
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever gotten a picture of him
1:04:09
Speaker 3: at that morning set. And I'm like, I'm off for
1:04:11
Speaker 3: Ridgerd two on this deer. And when I saw where
1:04:13
Speaker 3: he entered and where I saw where he came out of.
1:04:16
Speaker 3: You can bet I'm got scout him a little bit more.
1:04:17
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put some cameras up there, and if I
1:04:19
Speaker 3: can catch him on that pattern, he'll be in trouble.
1:04:23
Speaker 2: How old is this deer?
1:04:25
Speaker 3: Tumor is seven and a half.
1:04:31
Speaker 2: Wow, And so when you say you're gonna do some scouting,
1:04:34
Speaker 2: you're hanging the set. You're gonna hang some cameras to
1:04:37
Speaker 2: figure him out. This is a seven year old deer.
1:04:39
Speaker 2: He's betting in the open timber. That sounds like very
1:04:42
Speaker 2: scary to me about trying to go in there and
1:04:44
Speaker 2: doing anything in this area where he's like gonna know
1:04:46
Speaker 2: I'm there. So are you going in on the tractor?
1:04:48
Speaker 2: Are you getting the ATV?
1:04:49
Speaker 3: That?
1:04:50
Speaker 2: Could you walk me through how you're gonna do those
1:04:51
Speaker 2: two three things?
1:04:53
Speaker 3: Well, there's a pastor that he's crossing, so that'll be easy, right.
1:04:56
Speaker 3: I can put a bunch of cameras on that pasture
1:04:58
Speaker 3: and catch him. But the the trick is going to
1:05:01
Speaker 3: be there haven't been cattle in there all summer. This
1:05:03
Speaker 3: is a I don't own this particular farm. It's the
1:05:06
Speaker 3: lease when they turn those cattle, and there's going to
1:05:08
Speaker 3: change everything anyway. Then he may change his bed. So
1:05:12
Speaker 3: cattle could actually be my friend in this case, believe
1:05:15
Speaker 3: or not. I sat there last night thinking, you know what,
1:05:17
Speaker 3: when they turned cattle in there, it's going to force
1:05:19
Speaker 3: him into this other block of timber because it's fenced out,
1:05:22
Speaker 3: whereas the one he came out of last night is
1:05:24
Speaker 3: open to the cattle. That's why it's so pretty. But
1:05:27
Speaker 3: he may switch over to the other block, so that
1:05:29
Speaker 3: comes into play. But as long as the cattle aren't
1:05:32
Speaker 3: in there, I can put I can get to that
1:05:34
Speaker 3: pasture easy on the right winds and put cameras up
1:05:37
Speaker 3: there and see if I can figure out where he's
1:05:39
Speaker 3: crossing and where he's coming out of those pretty woods.
1:05:41
Speaker 3: And if I can do that, I'll catch him coming
1:05:43
Speaker 3: back in there. But if I go hang the stand,
1:05:45
Speaker 3: I'll wait till the middle of the night to go
1:05:47
Speaker 3: do it. I do a lot of that in the
1:05:48
Speaker 3: middle of the night. I just think you're safer if
1:05:50
Speaker 3: you're trying to go into their bedroom. Why do it
1:05:52
Speaker 3: when they're in there. Do it when they're not in there.
1:05:54
Speaker 3: It's got to take the right safety precautions. But take
1:05:56
Speaker 3: a rainy night, get in there. You know you're not
1:05:59
Speaker 3: going to affect anything. Yeah, Well, I've got one one
1:06:04
Speaker 3: of our editors, Carson Brandt, is on an absolute mega, giant,
1:06:09
Speaker 3: big as they get deer that he has the sheds
1:06:12
Speaker 3: to the last two seasons and he did not have
1:06:15
Speaker 3: permission to hunt this spot. Now he gained permission this year.
1:06:19
Speaker 3: And this dear looks two ten to two thirty to me.
1:06:23
Speaker 3: I mean, big frame deer. I could be off, but
1:06:26
Speaker 3: the gagger, I mean, he's just unbelievable. And he asked
1:06:30
Speaker 3: me to come look at the spot. So we went
1:06:32
Speaker 3: around the whole and it's eighty acres that he has
1:06:33
Speaker 3: permission on. But the deer's in there quite a bit.
1:06:36
Speaker 3: And he goes, man, I just don't want to go
1:06:37
Speaker 3: in there, and Bubby Mount I said, wait till night.
1:06:39
Speaker 3: You know he wanted a northwest wind. I said. He
1:06:42
Speaker 3: waited probably six oh, no, probably about five weeks for
1:06:49
Speaker 3: a heavy rainstorm, northwest wind, middle of the night, hung
1:06:53
Speaker 3: four sets ten cel cams and now he's set up
1:06:57
Speaker 3: to hunt that deer. So I think you could get
1:06:59
Speaker 3: by with a little bit more at night than you
1:07:01
Speaker 3: can during the day. Use the heavy rain. You gotta
1:07:04
Speaker 3: be safe, gotta be careful, but it washes away your sins.
1:07:07
Speaker 3: That's what I say. Rainstorms wash away your sins. It's
1:07:10
Speaker 3: a little bit tougher for them to catch your scent
1:07:13
Speaker 3: and just just makes a lot more sense. So you
1:07:16
Speaker 3: just got to you got to use what they do
1:07:20
Speaker 3: in your favor. Right, they're probably going to be out
1:07:24
Speaker 3: of their bedroom at night, wind, rain, those types of
1:07:28
Speaker 3: weather events. Use them to your advantage. A lot of
1:07:31
Speaker 3: people go, oh, it's winning, I'm not going or it's raining. Well,
1:07:34
Speaker 3: maybe you don't want to go hunting, but can you
1:07:35
Speaker 3: go get something done, and you know, don't be afraid
1:07:39
Speaker 3: to try and do something at night. Just take the
1:07:41
Speaker 3: safety precautions to before you go do it, take a friend,
1:07:44
Speaker 3: do the right things, make sure you're tied off at
1:07:46
Speaker 3: all times. If you're hanging a stand, be very careful.
1:07:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I want to rewind just a little bit
1:07:54
Speaker 2: to what we were talking about just before this example,
1:07:57
Speaker 2: and that being you know, trying to figure out these
1:07:59
Speaker 2: personalities and one of the things that I've always assumed,
1:08:03
Speaker 2: but I'm curious if your experiences back this up has
1:08:07
Speaker 2: been as those bucks get older, am I right to
1:08:11
Speaker 2: assume that their annual patterns become more consistent, become tighter,
1:08:16
Speaker 2: like they have more validity if I've seen something up
1:08:19
Speaker 2: to a seven year old buck versus like trying to
1:08:21
Speaker 2: figure out like a four year old's behavior based off
1:08:24
Speaker 2: of what he did at two and a three year old,
1:08:25
Speaker 2: Is that have any truth to it?
1:08:29
Speaker 3: I think so. But I think as bucks age, the
1:08:33
Speaker 3: reasons they move are fewer and fewer, which is why
1:08:36
Speaker 3: you have to have the exact right conditions. Are the
1:08:40
Speaker 3: right good luck or the right ability to look at
1:08:44
Speaker 3: the weather, look at the time of the year and
1:08:45
Speaker 3: try to get those slot machines lining up, because you know,
1:08:50
Speaker 3: if you compare him, when you take a start difference
1:08:53
Speaker 3: three and a half to six and a half, he's
1:08:55
Speaker 3: just not going to move during daylight as much at
1:08:58
Speaker 3: six and a half as he did it three and
1:09:00
Speaker 3: a half. He made daylight twenty days throughout the hunting
1:09:03
Speaker 3: season when he's three and a half. That might be
1:09:06
Speaker 3: cut to two or three when he's six and a half.
1:09:07
Speaker 3: That's the thing, that's why I call him a goest.
1:09:10
Speaker 3: Those six year olds just don't move around very much
1:09:12
Speaker 3: during daylight, So I think you have to keep that
1:09:15
Speaker 3: in mind, Like, if you're hunting these old deer, your
1:09:20
Speaker 3: odds of seeing him are much more diminished than when
1:09:23
Speaker 3: he was three or four. It's just not nearly as
1:09:26
Speaker 3: likely unless other things occur. You know, you might have
1:09:31
Speaker 3: a hunter on a neighboring property bump him. He might
1:09:33
Speaker 3: have an injury, and he's going to food every night,
1:09:35
Speaker 3: and that makes him a little more susceptible. I've seen
1:09:37
Speaker 3: that happen. I killed a deer last year that had
1:09:41
Speaker 3: a really bad leg injury, and I had pictures of
1:09:44
Speaker 3: him all summer, and then all of a sudden he
1:09:46
Speaker 3: just vanished. And then I started getting him again in
1:09:49
Speaker 3: late November out of nowhere. And he was a homeboy
1:09:52
Speaker 3: the year before on this farm, and he's got this
1:09:55
Speaker 3: swollen leg and a shoulder that's kind of caved in,
1:09:58
Speaker 3: like something neurologically happen to him, Like the meat wasn't
1:10:01
Speaker 3: even on the bone. Like I don't know what happened
1:10:03
Speaker 3: to that deer, but I swear he sat out October
1:10:06
Speaker 3: and most of November and didn't really participate. And then
1:10:10
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, late NOVEMBERY starts daylighting on this
1:10:12
Speaker 3: food plot. He was hobbling he could run, but when
1:10:15
Speaker 3: he walked he had a really bad limp. And we
1:10:17
Speaker 3: went in there and we killed that deer, and I
1:10:19
Speaker 3: know that injury just sidelined him throughout the rut. So
1:10:23
Speaker 3: you do get those unique occurrences where health can either
1:10:28
Speaker 3: increase your chances or decrease your chances. I've seen deer
1:10:32
Speaker 3: that sustain an injury from another buck that boom. They're
1:10:35
Speaker 3: off the shelf. They're going to sideline, They're going to
1:10:37
Speaker 3: sit in their bed and not move. They're going to
1:10:39
Speaker 3: heal up or say, you make an errant, shot your shoulder,
1:10:43
Speaker 3: shoot one. If it's in the wrong place. He starts
1:10:46
Speaker 3: to feel really bad. He could be out of rotation
1:10:49
Speaker 3: for three or four weeks ago, Oh did I kill
1:10:50
Speaker 3: that deer, and then all of a sudden he pops
1:10:52
Speaker 3: back up in December. So there are unique occurrences that,
1:10:56
Speaker 3: like I said, can increase how much he moves or
1:10:59
Speaker 3: decrease how much he moves. So you keep that in mind.
1:11:02
Speaker 3: But all things being equal, they're not going to move
1:11:05
Speaker 3: a lot when they're five and six years old. You
1:11:07
Speaker 3: have to have the right window of opportunity that late
1:11:10
Speaker 3: October sometime during the road on a hot dough sometimes
1:11:13
Speaker 3: during December during really rough weather, if you can find
1:11:15
Speaker 3: where he's feeding, you know, they're just unique opportunities, and
1:11:18
Speaker 3: they're not very frequent.
1:11:21
Speaker 2: So continuing down the line with like trying to uncover
1:11:24
Speaker 2: not just the pattern but the personality. I always run
1:11:29
Speaker 2: my cameras on photo mode because I've always just worried
1:11:31
Speaker 2: about batteries and I don't want to have to go
1:11:33
Speaker 2: check in batteries, and I don't want to go pulling cameras,
1:11:35
Speaker 2: and and I don't have solar panels on my cells.
1:11:38
Speaker 2: I probably should do that, but so I've always been
1:11:40
Speaker 2: worried about that.
1:11:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, solar panel game changers, game changers.
1:11:44
Speaker 2: So so that answers part of my question. But I've
1:11:47
Speaker 2: wondered as I've started having opportunities to have older deer
1:11:51
Speaker 2: around more and more often, I've wondered more and more, like,
1:11:54
Speaker 2: am I missing out on some really important little pieces
1:11:56
Speaker 2: of intel I could have if I were to run
1:11:58
Speaker 2: these on video? Or often when your targety's older deer?
1:12:02
Speaker 2: Is that important to get the videos or not so much?
1:12:06
Speaker 3: I don't think it is, but I'm old school. Perhaps
1:12:08
Speaker 3: it is, you know, But I'm running a lot of cameras,
1:12:10
Speaker 3: so I don't want to take the time. I really
1:12:12
Speaker 3: don't have the time to do it right. So I'm
1:12:16
Speaker 3: old school. I'm one picture every fifteen seconds in most situations,
1:12:19
Speaker 3: you know, on a scrape, I'm a picture every fifteen seconds.
1:12:22
Speaker 3: I love that setting. Seems like a good pace, don't
1:12:24
Speaker 3: miss a lot. If it's I really want to get intel,
1:12:28
Speaker 3: I'm picture no delay, you know, which is pretty close
1:12:31
Speaker 3: to video anyway. So that's another opportunity. It's a little
1:12:34
Speaker 3: easier to go through those as opposed to the video
1:12:37
Speaker 3: clip if it's fifteen seconds long and all your catches
1:12:41
Speaker 3: is but you know, and then you're watching fifteen seconds.
1:12:44
Speaker 3: You know. I don't like video myself, just because it's
1:12:48
Speaker 3: such a time suck. I means, it takes a lot
1:12:50
Speaker 3: of time to review all those videos. I mean that's painstaking.
1:12:53
Speaker 3: So I like to fly through that car and watch
1:12:56
Speaker 3: it and go. But picture picture no delay is going
1:12:59
Speaker 3: to get you really close to that video effect anyway.
1:13:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. What about how these old
1:13:05
Speaker 2: bucks react to cameras. Do you find that six seven
1:13:08
Speaker 2: year old buck more camera shy, more apt to be
1:13:12
Speaker 2: bothered by a camera, anything like that or No.
1:13:15
Speaker 3: I think that's personality driven too. Like I've had certain
1:13:18
Speaker 3: bucks that they see a camera, they'll go walk up
1:13:20
Speaker 3: to it every single time, and they're very you know,
1:13:23
Speaker 3: it's like they're a camera hog, you know, and another
1:13:26
Speaker 3: bucks you see them kind of shine away from it.
1:13:28
Speaker 3: So is it the IR I use IR you kind
1:13:31
Speaker 3: of you know, less glow. And I think that's dependent
1:13:36
Speaker 3: upon the buck, and each personality is different. I'm sure
1:13:40
Speaker 3: the more pressure, the more cameras could probably dissuade them
1:13:44
Speaker 3: from walking in front of one. I will say that
1:13:48
Speaker 3: if it's already a place that they're uncomfortable walking through,
1:13:51
Speaker 3: like a gate gap. I have a tendency not to
1:13:54
Speaker 3: monitor gate gaps with my cameras are certainly not on
1:13:57
Speaker 3: the gap itself, because I think that could way about
1:14:00
Speaker 3: because they don't like to be pinched right. They don't
1:14:03
Speaker 3: like really close quarters or pinch points, whether it be
1:14:07
Speaker 3: a lake that's got them up against a fence or
1:14:09
Speaker 3: a gate gap or a bunch of bales and there's
1:14:12
Speaker 3: only one way out. They don't like those scenarios in
1:14:15
Speaker 3: my experience, so I don't give them another reason to
1:14:18
Speaker 3: dislike that spot, especially if I'm trying to kill a
1:14:20
Speaker 3: deer walking through that gate gap or walking through that pitch.
1:14:22
Speaker 3: So I have a tendency to put my cameras a
1:14:25
Speaker 3: little bit more in an inventory type of situation on
1:14:29
Speaker 3: the outskirts as opposed to internal, if that makes sense,
1:14:33
Speaker 3: or on a pinch point.
1:14:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting. I've also thought, like with a couple places
1:14:38
Speaker 2: that I've hunted for a long time, Like I've got
1:14:41
Speaker 2: a couple places now that I've been able to hunt
1:14:43
Speaker 2: for twelve years maybe more now, and I've had cameras,
1:14:47
Speaker 2: you know, out across this property for all those years.
1:14:50
Speaker 2: I've started to wonder, like, man, my five year old
1:14:52
Speaker 2: bucks have had these cameras in their face for years
1:14:55
Speaker 2: and years and years, like kind of get away? Do
1:14:57
Speaker 2: I need to be less worried about it now because
1:14:58
Speaker 2: they've seen it so much?
1:14:59
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's probably still personality driven, but
1:15:02
Speaker 3: I do think there is something to that. If they
1:15:04
Speaker 3: grew up with that I are flash going off and
1:15:07
Speaker 3: it's never harmed them, why would they be scared of it?
1:15:10
Speaker 3: Whereas if you move in and it's a new property
1:15:13
Speaker 3: and they've never seen cameras, chances are they're gonna they're
1:15:15
Speaker 3: gonna have an adverse effect to it, it would be
1:15:18
Speaker 3: my gut, you know. Yeah, So it's kind of like, uh,
1:15:21
Speaker 3: box blinds. For us, we hunt a lot out of blinds,
1:15:24
Speaker 3: and if we have a five and a half or
1:15:27
Speaker 3: six and a half year old deer, well, he's walked
1:15:28
Speaker 3: by those box blinds his whole life, like it's a tree.
1:15:32
Speaker 3: So if we move one a little bit, we're not
1:15:34
Speaker 3: too We're not too afraid to move in on a
1:15:36
Speaker 3: buck if we have to. And because it's COUNTERINTOOI because
1:15:39
Speaker 3: you think, oh, this is going to booger them, but
1:15:40
Speaker 3: in reality, we haven't. We haven't seen that happen.
1:15:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. When it comes to these deer moving
1:15:47
Speaker 2: in daylight, we've we've established pretty clearly that they move
1:15:51
Speaker 2: less and less and less the older they get in daylight. Usually.
1:15:55
Speaker 2: We've had some really great conversations here on the show
1:15:58
Speaker 2: over the last ten years about all the different theories
1:16:01
Speaker 2: you have around different factors of increased movement, which is
1:16:04
Speaker 2: of course led to the deer cast, which is a
1:16:06
Speaker 2: heck of a tool. So there's all these different variables
1:16:09
Speaker 2: that increase deer movement, stuff like weather factor's temperature, moon wind,
1:16:14
Speaker 2: pre sip, barometric pressure, et cetera. Do any of those
1:16:19
Speaker 2: stand out as the most important for an old deer,
1:16:23
Speaker 2: Like I realized, like all these factors might impact the
1:16:25
Speaker 2: whole deer herd, right, But is there anything that might
1:16:27
Speaker 2: be something like, of all of those, this one's the
1:16:30
Speaker 2: most important when it comes to like the old old
1:16:32
Speaker 2: buck or the opposite. Is there anything that tends to
1:16:35
Speaker 2: get does move in a lot, But like when it
1:16:37
Speaker 2: comes to that big old guy, Eh, not as much.
1:16:40
Speaker 3: It's temperature. They're big, they got that big coat on.
1:16:44
Speaker 3: And if I had to point my finger at one thing,
1:16:47
Speaker 3: they are very temperature sensitive. If that temperature is much
1:16:51
Speaker 3: above normal, particularly when you look at the falls we've
1:16:55
Speaker 3: had the last few years. Man, it seems like we've
1:16:56
Speaker 3: been ten degrees above normal for three years and it
1:17:00
Speaker 3: just subdues daylight activity by those deer. It just it
1:17:04
Speaker 3: just either not moving very far anyway. So if you
1:17:09
Speaker 3: heat it up and they're not moving very far, the
1:17:11
Speaker 3: chances of him getting there during daylight isn't good, you know,
1:17:15
Speaker 3: at all? So I think temp they're very temperature sensitive.
1:17:18
Speaker 3: If I had to pick one thing more so than
1:17:21
Speaker 3: any other factor, it's it's that warm weather. It pushes them.
1:17:25
Speaker 3: It just subdues that daylight activity. It drives me insane.
1:17:28
Speaker 3: I look at the forecast, you know, and it seems
1:17:31
Speaker 3: like I've been looking at the same poorcast for three
1:17:33
Speaker 3: years above normal, and I think it just hurts overall
1:17:38
Speaker 3: daylight activity. Now, when you get a front look out,
1:17:41
Speaker 3: because they're fixing to go, you know, when they're when
1:17:44
Speaker 3: they're used to that warm weather and you finally put
1:17:46
Speaker 3: a cold front across them, they're all getting ready to
1:17:48
Speaker 3: get up and go. So it does make the coal
1:17:51
Speaker 3: fronts even better. But man, I just I just love
1:17:55
Speaker 3: norm or ten fifteen degrees below norms. That's that sweet spot.
1:18:00
Speaker 3: Give me ten twelve fifteen degrees below normal temperature for
1:18:04
Speaker 3: the day. You're gonna have a you're gonna have a good,
1:18:06
Speaker 3: good sit, You're gonna have a good hunt.
1:18:08
Speaker 2: So we're hunting a deer like this, we're hunting a
1:18:10
Speaker 2: six year old. We know we've got these short special
1:18:13
Speaker 2: windows we're looking for. We find one of those short
1:18:15
Speaker 2: special windows. We know he's not gonna likely move real
1:18:18
Speaker 2: far from his bedroom because he's got a tighter core area.
1:18:21
Speaker 2: So we're pushing in there smartly. But you know, we're
1:18:24
Speaker 2: not expecting to travel a mile. We've tried to pattern him,
1:18:28
Speaker 2: we have an annual history, we've looked for personality traits.
1:18:31
Speaker 2: We've done all of those things, and we see the buck.
1:18:36
Speaker 2: We see a six year old buck out there. Is
1:18:39
Speaker 2: there anything different I should be thinking about with a
1:18:42
Speaker 2: six year old out one hundred yards away from me
1:18:44
Speaker 2: versus a three year old out there when it comes
1:18:47
Speaker 2: to calling at him, rattling at him, using a decoy,
1:18:52
Speaker 2: any of those aggressive things. Do these really old bucks
1:18:55
Speaker 2: have a tendency to react differently than those, you know, adolescents.
1:19:00
Speaker 3: I think they could. I think that if you watch
1:19:04
Speaker 3: a young deer, they get in the mood more often
1:19:06
Speaker 3: right their testosteron's up, and you could call him in
1:19:09
Speaker 3: three days in a row. That older buck better be
1:19:13
Speaker 3: in the right mood before you try, and he better
1:19:15
Speaker 3: be in the right win position with the right route
1:19:17
Speaker 3: coming to you before you try. So I've said this
1:19:20
Speaker 3: before in your podcast. The older I get, the less
1:19:22
Speaker 3: I call, but the more success I have when I call,
1:19:28
Speaker 3: because I choose my times to throw that dart. And
1:19:31
Speaker 3: if things aren't perfect in his demeanor, in his body posture,
1:19:36
Speaker 3: whether his bellies full or not, that's another thing. With
1:19:39
Speaker 3: a deer, depending on the time of the year. If
1:19:42
Speaker 3: he's eating, I generally let him finish eating. If I
1:19:45
Speaker 3: feel like I've got enough time before I start calling
1:19:47
Speaker 3: to him, make sure he's already got his full and
1:19:49
Speaker 3: he starts to look around the rest of the field.
1:19:51
Speaker 3: Make sure his interest level is up. I think a
1:19:53
Speaker 3: mistake hunters can make is trying to pull him in
1:19:56
Speaker 3: with a call the moment he steps onto the field
1:19:58
Speaker 3: if he's eating that particular day. Decoys can be very good,
1:20:05
Speaker 3: depends how many does you're going to affect trying to
1:20:08
Speaker 3: get to that guy. That's the thing with decoys I
1:20:11
Speaker 3: always have when I have bad luck, it's because does
1:20:13
Speaker 3: screw it up right? You know, the bucks on the field,
1:20:16
Speaker 3: does come investigate it? First they blow up, and then
1:20:18
Speaker 3: they stand there. They come back in, sniff, run away, snort,
1:20:23
Speaker 3: do all this different stuff, and he's just standing there
1:20:25
Speaker 3: and there watching it. So when I decoy, I like mornings,
1:20:30
Speaker 3: when deer going point A to point B. I don't
1:20:33
Speaker 3: like evenings where everything's conglomerated at the same place and
1:20:36
Speaker 3: you got to pass many inspections before you get, you know,
1:20:40
Speaker 3: to the to the eyes you're after because he's going
1:20:42
Speaker 3: to be chances are one or the later deer on
1:20:44
Speaker 3: the fields. So uh, you just gotta gotta choose. You
1:20:48
Speaker 3: got to think it through and go what is the
1:20:51
Speaker 3: most likelihood that I'm going to get him over here?
1:20:54
Speaker 3: And I don't call him ature bucks very often unless
1:20:57
Speaker 3: he's in the exact right mood. He looks at you know,
1:21:00
Speaker 3: he's got a little more movement to him, he's a
1:21:02
Speaker 3: little more energetic. Like I said, He's not going to
1:21:04
Speaker 3: reach that type of mood very often, and if you
1:21:07
Speaker 3: catch him in the right mood, he will come though.
1:21:10
Speaker 3: That is the one thing I have noticed. I have
1:21:15
Speaker 3: seen bucks of that age when they're with a mature dough,
1:21:20
Speaker 3: they're a little more likely to be reactive to a
1:21:23
Speaker 3: call than any other time because they will not tolerate
1:21:27
Speaker 3: another buck getting close to him if they are the
1:21:29
Speaker 3: dominant deer in that herd. But that depends how close
1:21:31
Speaker 3: you are to it or how many other bucks around.
1:21:35
Speaker 3: I've seen situations where there's a mature buck tending a
1:21:39
Speaker 3: doe and a bunch of other bucks in the magic circle,
1:21:43
Speaker 3: and you can rattle and have some fun in situations
1:21:45
Speaker 3: like that, But if it's just a buck and a
1:21:47
Speaker 3: dough snort wheeze is a really good call to try.
1:21:50
Speaker 3: But if they're three four hundred yards away, he's not
1:21:52
Speaker 3: going to leave. Your chances are you need to be
1:21:55
Speaker 3: relatively close for that to happen. So if I'm in
1:21:58
Speaker 3: that situation, I'm probably not gonna call to him. I'll
1:22:00
Speaker 3: wait till a better time, a better chance. The other
1:22:03
Speaker 3: thing that I've noticed about a mature buck, once he's
1:22:07
Speaker 3: doed up, they generally don't move very far from that spot.
1:22:11
Speaker 3: Like you could literally dance around that spot on different
1:22:14
Speaker 3: wind directions for several days and you'll still see that
1:22:17
Speaker 3: that pair, they don't go very far. If you find
1:22:20
Speaker 3: that magic circle more often than not, you know, you
1:22:23
Speaker 3: know that that home core might went from two or
1:22:26
Speaker 3: three hundred yards all of a sudden, I'm doughed up,
1:22:28
Speaker 3: and he stays in the same hall for three days.
1:22:30
Speaker 3: You know, it's unique to find that situation, but when
1:22:34
Speaker 3: you do, you can stick with it and eventually get
1:22:36
Speaker 3: him killed just by their meandering within that small spot.
1:22:39
Speaker 2: And so would you get pretty down aggressive in that
1:22:42
Speaker 2: scenario when you know he's hold up in there, he's
1:22:44
Speaker 2: doing whatever the dough does. You've got this kind of
1:22:48
Speaker 2: special tight tight tight range. Are you pulling? You know,
1:22:53
Speaker 2: pulling all the stops?
1:22:56
Speaker 3: Depends on his mood. If I if I see something
1:22:59
Speaker 3: I like with the right wind in the right position
1:23:01
Speaker 3: for him to come to me, I might try and
1:23:03
Speaker 3: you bet, yeah, you bet?
1:23:06
Speaker 2: All right. We talked about the fourth buck. We talked
1:23:09
Speaker 2: about that buck with Todd Smith. But I'm wondering to
1:23:13
Speaker 2: kind of I want to touch on two quick more
1:23:16
Speaker 2: things to kind of wrap a bow on this whole
1:23:17
Speaker 2: conversation when it comes to understanding these really old deer?
1:23:21
Speaker 2: Is there any other deer other than those two that
1:23:23
Speaker 2: we kind of spend some time on that you can
1:23:25
Speaker 2: point to having taught you the most as far as
1:23:30
Speaker 2: an old buck that taught you something about old bucks?
1:23:33
Speaker 2: Is there one of those deer that stands out is
1:23:35
Speaker 2: having taught you the most important lesson that has now
1:23:38
Speaker 2: led you to be more successful trying to kill that
1:23:41
Speaker 2: oldest of buck. Is there a story that you can
1:23:44
Speaker 2: think of you could tell us and share with us
1:23:46
Speaker 2: what you learn from him.
1:23:49
Speaker 3: I think it answered that question. And I've talked about
1:23:52
Speaker 3: this a lot on your show. Pre scouting a deer
1:23:57
Speaker 3: years in advance so that you're ready for him. The
1:24:00
Speaker 3: year you're trying to target him. O October was that
1:24:03
Speaker 3: dear for me. I had just a few pictures of
1:24:06
Speaker 3: him on the outskirts of one particular draw when he
1:24:10
Speaker 3: was three and a half. When he was four and
1:24:11
Speaker 3: a half, I went up and down that draw and
1:24:13
Speaker 3: I put cameras all over it. I did it. And
1:24:16
Speaker 3: this was a big CRP field with these long finger draws,
1:24:20
Speaker 3: and I put cameras and three finger draws in a row,
1:24:24
Speaker 3: and I only got him during daylight in one of them,
1:24:28
Speaker 3: and I was like, I got you as soon as
1:24:30
Speaker 3: I looked at and I let him run the whole year.
1:24:31
Speaker 3: I make sure they were batteried up. I put him
1:24:34
Speaker 3: on a slow enough speed. I wanted to make sure
1:24:36
Speaker 3: the batteries lasted the full year. I put him out
1:24:38
Speaker 3: in September. I collected him in February and I got
1:24:41
Speaker 3: a full picture of the year. And as soon as
1:24:43
Speaker 3: I saw it, I was like, you're dead. I mean
1:24:45
Speaker 3: I just knew it because it was a south wind spot,
1:24:49
Speaker 3: it was right below me. I knew where to hunt him,
1:24:51
Speaker 3: and I killed him that following year. So that pre
1:24:55
Speaker 3: scouting with cameras to learn a buck and find his
1:24:58
Speaker 3: home core area. When you can do it, I think
1:25:01
Speaker 3: that's the best thing you can give yourself. But keep
1:25:03
Speaker 3: all the information, keep all the pictures, interpret that information,
1:25:07
Speaker 3: lay your game planing out in the off season so
1:25:10
Speaker 3: that you're ready come the following season or two seasons
1:25:13
Speaker 3: from now, or whatever it is. That taught me a
1:25:16
Speaker 3: lot about a particular deer and their personality. And when
1:25:19
Speaker 3: you find that bucks bedroom and truly find it where
1:25:22
Speaker 3: he's in there a lot during daylight, you're going to
1:25:25
Speaker 3: kill that deer if you're smart about how you approach it.
1:25:27
Speaker 3: That was probably the number one thing that I learned
1:25:30
Speaker 3: from that particular deer. That was two thousand and I
1:25:32
Speaker 3: had those cameras out in two thousand and that'd been fourteen,
1:25:37
Speaker 3: and then I killed him in fifteen.
1:25:40
Speaker 2: Wow, it was that long ago. That feels like it
1:25:42
Speaker 2: was yesterday. Interesting. I'll just I'll mention for folks listening
1:25:48
Speaker 2: if they haven't heard the podcast that we did last
1:25:51
Speaker 2: year on patterning deer, they should definitely jump back and
1:25:55
Speaker 2: listen to that one because that covers a lot of
1:25:56
Speaker 2: what you're talking about here in even more detail. So
1:25:59
Speaker 2: just in there, great great point. Last question for you, Mark,
1:26:05
Speaker 2: if you were to be given a stone tablet and
1:26:11
Speaker 2: a chisel, and you were going to chisel in your
1:26:14
Speaker 2: three rules for hunting this supermature buck, Mark Jury's three
1:26:21
Speaker 2: commandments of hunting old old bucks. What would those three
1:26:25
Speaker 2: commandments be that you would want to chisel into those
1:26:28
Speaker 2: tablets and give to anyone who says, hey, man, I'm
1:26:30
Speaker 2: done with three year olds, I'm done with four year olds.
1:26:33
Speaker 2: I want to try to kill that old grandpa buck.
1:26:36
Speaker 2: What are those three things you put down there?
1:26:37
Speaker 3: Mark Scott more than you hunt, only go for the
1:26:47
Speaker 3: throat on the exact right conditions, and if you can
1:26:52
Speaker 3: use cameras to scout him a year in advance. Yeah,
1:26:55
Speaker 3: you take those those three things which scot more than
1:26:58
Speaker 3: hunt in moment I'm talking about. So watch rather than hunt,
1:27:03
Speaker 3: Watch rather than hunt, commit to that deer and that
1:27:05
Speaker 3: deer only don't get distracted and try to try to
1:27:10
Speaker 3: put a pattern together with those pictures from previous years.
1:27:13
Speaker 3: Those three things, and you're going to be in a
1:27:15
Speaker 3: better better position to kill that deer.
1:27:17
Speaker 2: Awesome, all right?
1:27:19
Speaker 3: Four Number four, enjoy the process, have fun. Always make
1:27:22
Speaker 3: sure you have to smile on your faith if you're
1:27:24
Speaker 3: if something's going on and you're hunting and you're not smiling,
1:27:27
Speaker 3: then you're the problem. Yeah, I just promise you man,
1:27:30
Speaker 3: just make sure every single moment is a blast.
1:27:33
Speaker 2: Yes, we just love it. That's great. I've I've definitely
1:27:37
Speaker 2: been guilty in the past of letting my worries about
1:27:40
Speaker 2: trying to kill that deer stress me out and take
1:27:42
Speaker 2: away that fun a little bit. So I'm trying to
1:27:43
Speaker 2: get better at that mark. So great reminder.
1:27:45
Speaker 3: Got to if you're not smiling every single setting, it's
1:27:49
Speaker 3: on you, not the animal.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: So true, So real quick for it, let you go.
1:27:52
Speaker 2: Is there anything we should be watching for new coming
1:27:55
Speaker 2: from from d D? Is there anything new on deer Cast,
1:27:58
Speaker 2: any new content, anything you want to make sure we
1:28:00
Speaker 2: know about.
1:28:02
Speaker 3: Certainly. I mean, we do our semi live series. We've
1:28:04
Speaker 3: been doing it now in the last few years. We're
1:28:06
Speaker 3: on episode sixteen already of Deer Season twenty three, which
1:28:09
Speaker 3: you can catch every single episode within deer Cast or
1:28:12
Speaker 3: you can catch it on YouTube. We've got some really
1:28:15
Speaker 3: cool stuff coming down the pipe with deer Casts that
1:28:17
Speaker 3: we're very excited about. I think the algorithm is probably
1:28:21
Speaker 3: more accurate right now than it's ever been. Anybody that's
1:28:24
Speaker 3: not ever downloaded to give it a try. But all
1:28:28
Speaker 3: things Drury are found within Deer Cast, no doubt. So
1:28:31
Speaker 3: that's that's the best way to keep up with us.
1:28:33
Speaker 3: Awesome and of course Facebook, Instagram all the good stuff.
1:28:35
Speaker 3: So yeah, well.
1:28:36
Speaker 2: It's great stuff. I'm an annual user. I actually upgraded
1:28:41
Speaker 2: this year so I can get your rain checker because
1:28:44
Speaker 2: I wanted a convenient way to see what kind of
1:28:46
Speaker 2: water my food plots were getting. And that was very
1:28:48
Speaker 2: handy this year, although it stressed me out some with
1:28:51
Speaker 2: a drought, but still I wanted to know.
1:28:54
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I know the answer, not enough.
1:28:57
Speaker 2: But yeah, I can't recommend it all in so it's
1:29:00
Speaker 2: great and as always, Mark really enjoyed this. Thank you.
1:29:05
Speaker 3: Thank you Mark, I appreciate It's always a pleasure getting
1:29:07
Speaker 3: on here and busying with you.
1:29:08
Speaker 2: It's a good, good time. Hopefully we'll be able to
1:29:10
Speaker 2: do it soon again. Have a story of that big
1:29:12
Speaker 2: old uh pretty woods buck hitting the ground.
1:29:15
Speaker 3: All right, he's in trouble. I think, I think I
1:29:18
Speaker 3: believe that was in trouble. I have a decent confidence
1:29:22
Speaker 3: level about both those deer, so we'll see. Probably won't
1:29:24
Speaker 3: kill you.
1:29:24
Speaker 2: The one now, well, I wouldn't want to put the
1:29:27
Speaker 2: odds against you. It's gonna happen, all right. I hope
1:29:31
Speaker 2: you've enjoyed that one. Thank you for joining in. It's
1:29:34
Speaker 2: hunting season, baby, have some fun, good luck out there,
1:29:38
Speaker 2: and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.