Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 330: Top Deer Hunting Trends and Takeaways From Last Season

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Ep. 330: Top Deer Hunting Trends and Takeaways From Last Season · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:12
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three
0:20
Speaker 1: and thirty. Today in the show, Spencer new Art and
0:23
Speaker 1: I are breaking down the top trends, environmental factors, and
0:26
Speaker 1: observations from the past hunting season that might help us
0:29
Speaker 1: as we move into the new year. All right, welcome
0:34
Speaker 1: to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X.
0:39
Speaker 1: I am sitting here today with my pale and Wired
0:43
Speaker 1: to Hunt producer helper Outer, big bearded, low voiced friend
0:50
Speaker 1: of mine, Spencer new Hearth. We're in Montana and we're
0:54
Speaker 1: getting to do one of these rare in person podcasts
0:56
Speaker 1: which I like to do. So thank you Spencer for
0:58
Speaker 1: making time to do it. I was expecting you to
1:02
Speaker 1: say something like you're welcome. You know that you're welcome
1:07
Speaker 1: to have UM. So here's what I want to do today.
1:11
Speaker 1: It is now, we're in the new year, and we
1:15
Speaker 1: just recently wrapped up our two thousand nineteen rut Fresh
1:19
Speaker 1: radio series. As you know, what we do every fall
1:23
Speaker 1: is we check in with hunters every week during the
1:26
Speaker 1: hunting season to hear about the latest trends, the latest conditions,
1:30
Speaker 1: what's happened in the woods that week. So we do
1:32
Speaker 1: this week after week after week. And now what I
1:36
Speaker 1: want us to do is review that review. What trends
1:40
Speaker 1: did we notice? UM? What takeaways? What can we learn
1:44
Speaker 1: from this past season? UM? Are there any things that
1:47
Speaker 1: happened that might impact us in Is there anything that
1:52
Speaker 1: was surprising that is going to influence how we personally
1:56
Speaker 1: hunt next year or how other people might think about things.
1:59
Speaker 1: I want to kind of talk all that, UM. So
2:02
Speaker 1: I know you've kind of thought through some of the
2:03
Speaker 1: main takeaway from twenty nineteen. I've thought through a couple
2:06
Speaker 1: of things, UM. But first I want to talk about
2:10
Speaker 1: why I think this is important because every year, when
2:16
Speaker 1: the new year comes around, I'd like to try to
2:20
Speaker 1: take some time to review what's happened. Because there's this
2:24
Speaker 1: idea floating around, UM, in academic research and kind of
2:28
Speaker 1: around the idea of performance and how to get better
2:31
Speaker 1: or something. There's this ten thousand hours theory. Have you
2:33
Speaker 1: heard of this? Next? Yes, So, there's this this theory
2:37
Speaker 1: that if you spend ten thousand hours on something that
2:40
Speaker 1: will lead you to become an expert at it. But um,
2:42
Speaker 1: that was the popularized kind of sound bite version of it.
2:45
Speaker 1: The actual research and the actual studies that came um
2:48
Speaker 1: that led to that number in that popular line. Um,
2:52
Speaker 1: it was actually focused more so on deliberate practice. And
2:55
Speaker 1: so it's not just ten thousand hours of doing something
2:57
Speaker 1: will make you an expert's ten tho hours of deliberate
3:00
Speaker 1: practice will lead to you being an expert in something.
3:03
Speaker 1: So you and I and a lot of the guys
3:05
Speaker 1: and girls, we want to become an expert at deer hunting,
3:08
Speaker 1: or at least we want to become a successful deer hunter.
3:11
Speaker 1: So we'll call that being an expert. UM. To have
3:15
Speaker 1: deliberate practice, to do something deliberately, and to achieve that
3:20
Speaker 1: expertise requires that you have a thoughtful approach to doing
3:23
Speaker 1: things and a thoughtful approach to learning from them, which
3:26
Speaker 1: then allows you to take the next step and get
3:28
Speaker 1: better and better. So every time we hunt, we're essentially
3:31
Speaker 1: practicing hunting if we just keep on hunting over and
3:34
Speaker 1: over and just do our thing and go out there
3:37
Speaker 1: and never take time to sit and think about what
3:39
Speaker 1: happened and what do we learn from it, then we're
3:41
Speaker 1: never actually get better. So this is I try to
3:45
Speaker 1: do all year round, and we do this. We talk
3:47
Speaker 1: about this kind of thing frequently on the podcast, but
3:49
Speaker 1: I think taking an annual approach to it is particularly helpful,
3:53
Speaker 1: um because it's so easy during a hunting season, at
3:56
Speaker 1: least for me to just get wrapped up in, uh,
4:00
Speaker 1: what do I have to do today? What I have
4:01
Speaker 1: to do tomorrow? And then it's go, go, go, go go,
4:03
Speaker 1: and and like it's busy, and you make it through
4:05
Speaker 1: your hunt and then whatever happened that day, you come
4:08
Speaker 1: home and you've got work to do or family stuff
4:10
Speaker 1: to deal with, their chores around the house, and then
4:12
Speaker 1: it's the next hunt and on and on. If you
4:15
Speaker 1: don't take the time to sit and reflect back on it,
4:18
Speaker 1: I think you miss out on a huge opportunity. And
4:21
Speaker 1: I think that's a like cool, unique part of rud
4:25
Speaker 1: Fresh Radio. UM. Prior to doing that, my white tail
4:30
Speaker 1: thinking and planning and reflecting was often like very insulated
4:35
Speaker 1: that it was me and my buddies, um, you know,
4:38
Speaker 1: largely just around South Dakota. But with rud Fresh, we're
4:42
Speaker 1: doing an episode a week, like fifteen or sixteen episodes
4:44
Speaker 1: a year, we're talking to, um, you know, four guys
4:48
Speaker 1: a week. We're covering like thirty to thirty five states,
4:51
Speaker 1: And so I think that exposes me and hopefully the
4:54
Speaker 1: people that are listening to a lot of other ideas.
4:57
Speaker 1: And it might um like kind of force that reflecting
5:01
Speaker 1: on you that you have a weekend coming up here
5:03
Speaker 1: where you're going to hunt, and you think you're going
5:05
Speaker 1: to do this, but then maybe you hear something on
5:08
Speaker 1: the podcast that gets you to approach that differently, or
5:11
Speaker 1: at least consider approaching that differently. And I think also
5:15
Speaker 1: it you'll sometimes see your situation illustrating somebody else's. And
5:21
Speaker 1: I found this to be where I'll be listening to
5:23
Speaker 1: some random person in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or something somewhere
5:27
Speaker 1: and they describe a situation and I say, oh, that
5:30
Speaker 1: happened to me, and then you hear how they dealt
5:33
Speaker 1: with it or what they learned from it, and that's
5:35
Speaker 1: very helpful to them apply to your own thing too.
5:38
Speaker 1: Um So, so yeah, that's I want to kind of
5:40
Speaker 1: try to do this now on a macro level. I
5:41
Speaker 1: want to try to synthesize everything we heard over the
5:44
Speaker 1: past four or five months and everything you and I
5:47
Speaker 1: personally learned from it too, and see if we can
5:49
Speaker 1: come away with some annual takeaways and some things that
5:52
Speaker 1: all of us can be thinking about and keep in
5:55
Speaker 1: mind as we head into preparations for the season. But
5:59
Speaker 1: before we do at, I want to first go micro
6:03
Speaker 1: and talk just about your season and my season personally. UM.
6:08
Speaker 1: First off, Spencer, and I'm gonna steal your methodology here
6:12
Speaker 1: from Frustrated. On a scale of one to ten, how
6:15
Speaker 1: would you rate your AH, how would you rate your
6:21
Speaker 1: satisfaction with your twenty nineteen deer hunting season? M hm Um,
6:26
Speaker 1: I would say like a six. Explain, So I didn't
6:35
Speaker 1: quite haunt as much as I wanted to UM for
6:38
Speaker 1: a few different reasons. One of the big ones was planning.
6:40
Speaker 1: I just didn't UM plan things out well enough in
6:43
Speaker 1: advance to like make all those states that I want
6:47
Speaker 1: to hit happen, or make these trips that I want
6:50
Speaker 1: to go on longer. So on the front end, it
6:53
Speaker 1: didn't plan well enough UM. And then as far as
6:57
Speaker 1: success went though on these shorter trips, the less hunting,
7:01
Speaker 1: probably the least that I've hunted in four or five years. UM.
7:05
Speaker 1: I was able to kill a few deer no giants. UM.
7:08
Speaker 1: I think I killed a three and a half year
7:11
Speaker 1: old white tail in South Dakota with my bow, a
7:14
Speaker 1: four and a half year old mule deer in Montana
7:17
Speaker 1: with my rifle. But then I failed on multiple muzzle
7:20
Speaker 1: loader haunts, one in South Dakota, one in Nebraska. Um
7:25
Speaker 1: And the outside of that, I also did not kill
7:27
Speaker 1: an elk. So that kind of factors into it, Like
7:29
Speaker 1: I could be a lot more satisfied with my deer
7:32
Speaker 1: hunting season when I'm sacrificing some of this time that
7:35
Speaker 1: it could be deer hunting the elk hunting if I
7:37
Speaker 1: did then kill an elk, so that that also plays
7:40
Speaker 1: a role in it. UM. So my satisfaction, I would say,
7:44
Speaker 1: is like slightly above average or slightly above mediocre. And
7:52
Speaker 1: that's largely on on me and my planning and this
7:56
Speaker 1: kind of how I prioritize my time this fall. Is
7:59
Speaker 1: there one thing that you can point to right now
8:02
Speaker 1: that you plan doing differently next year? Plan better for sure? UM.
8:08
Speaker 1: I was kind of sitting and waiting on a lot
8:11
Speaker 1: of limited draw tags this year for for different Western states,
8:16
Speaker 1: the Midwestern states, UM. And when a lot of those
8:19
Speaker 1: didn't come through. Then it you're like stood there left
8:23
Speaker 1: holding nothing and you're like, okay, what what can I
8:25
Speaker 1: do now to fill in on some of reasons? So
8:27
Speaker 1: that that made it harder. UM. So I think having
8:31
Speaker 1: a a pretty solid plan A and then a lot
8:35
Speaker 1: more solid plan B, C, D and stuff like that. UM,
8:41
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and do the same exercise myself. UM,
8:46
Speaker 1: I would rape my satisfaction probably A I would guess
8:54
Speaker 1: if I was guessing for you, please, I would say,
8:57
Speaker 1: like A seven. What you're gonna say? That's exactly what
9:00
Speaker 1: I was gonna say. Now. Why I was I going
9:01
Speaker 1: to say a seven? Um? Because it was more fun
9:04
Speaker 1: for you killed on the back forty, which which had
9:07
Speaker 1: to be like incredibly satisfied was um, But then you
9:11
Speaker 1: didn't kill Tran. You uh didn't get to come to Montana,
9:17
Speaker 1: and this year you don't kill on your boundary waters
9:20
Speaker 1: Hunt or North Dakota. Um. But I think the back
9:23
Speaker 1: forty thing really makes up for that. And then on
9:29
Speaker 1: your Tran property you also elected to pass on other bucks.
9:33
Speaker 1: So it's not that you couldn't have killed, it's that
9:36
Speaker 1: you you chose not to. So I think all that
9:39
Speaker 1: balanced that would Landy, it like a seven. That's amazing.
9:42
Speaker 1: You go, that's that's exactly what I was gonna say,
9:44
Speaker 1: every every word to a tea got me nailed. Um, no,
9:48
Speaker 1: you're right, I think, Um I am. I'm really happy
9:53
Speaker 1: with being able to kill that buck on the on
9:55
Speaker 1: the back forty. Killing mature buck in Michigan is always
9:58
Speaker 1: a huge accomplishment. To have done it on that property
10:00
Speaker 1: that we were just kind of figuring out, and that
10:02
Speaker 1: so many crazy things were happening with so many different
10:04
Speaker 1: people out there, so many just it's just like a
10:07
Speaker 1: crazy situation out there, And to have been able to
10:10
Speaker 1: do that, I feel very fortunate, thankful. That was huge.
10:13
Speaker 1: But but then yes, like I really wanted to kill
10:16
Speaker 1: Tran on the back on not in the back for it,
10:17
Speaker 1: but on the other property. UM. Put a lot of
10:20
Speaker 1: time into that, had a lot of close calls, just
10:22
Speaker 1: didn't come together. Um that's disappointing. But to your point,
10:26
Speaker 1: I could have killed two other what would have been
10:30
Speaker 1: like two of my very best bucks in Michigan ever,
10:32
Speaker 1: but I chose to pass on them because I really
10:34
Speaker 1: wanted to get a shot train and and that I
10:37
Speaker 1: had basically one tag in Michigan that was allocating for
10:40
Speaker 1: the back forty, and then I was gonna have one
10:42
Speaker 1: more tag to play with than otherwise. So if I
10:44
Speaker 1: shot one of these other bucks, I was done. And
10:47
Speaker 1: I just couldn't bring myself to do that when I
10:49
Speaker 1: wasn't sure they were mature, and knowing Tram was still
10:51
Speaker 1: running around, and knowing that there's a chance these deer
10:54
Speaker 1: could make it, UM decided to roll the dice. And
11:00
Speaker 1: so it's funny though that is like the biggest the
11:03
Speaker 1: biggest thing for me coming out of this year was
11:06
Speaker 1: was and I don't have an answer to it, um,
11:09
Speaker 1: but my big internal struggle the whole season was around
11:12
Speaker 1: those decisions. Should I be so picky, should I be
11:16
Speaker 1: passing on these deer um, or should I just you know,
11:20
Speaker 1: they would have been great bucks. Um, it would have
11:22
Speaker 1: been really cool, but I kept on falling back on that.
11:25
Speaker 1: I would have felt a little disappointed. It would have
11:27
Speaker 1: been like a bitter sweet thing. If I would have
11:28
Speaker 1: shot anyone of those, dear, there would have been a
11:31
Speaker 1: part of me that's like and I don't think I
11:33
Speaker 1: ever want to shoot an animal and ever feel that way.
11:36
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a decision that one like yes,
11:40
Speaker 1: and so I keep on leaning back on if I'm
11:41
Speaker 1: not one yes on it, I shouldn't do it, so
11:45
Speaker 1: that even looking back, you you don't have regrets about that.
11:49
Speaker 1: I'm like nine no, Like I stand by my decision,
11:53
Speaker 1: not saying there's like some percentage of me, though it
11:56
Speaker 1: would have been, like there's a small part of me. Like, man,
11:58
Speaker 1: it would have been satisfying to be able to have
12:00
Speaker 1: killed a really nice another really nice buck in Michigan.
12:02
Speaker 1: I've never killed two really good bucks in Michigan in
12:04
Speaker 1: one year, like that would have been cool. Um. And
12:07
Speaker 1: I look back at the videos of that one buck
12:09
Speaker 1: like RB, who he's a he's a really nice buck. Um.
12:13
Speaker 1: You know, I've never passed on bucks like that in
12:15
Speaker 1: Michigan before. So part of the che that would have
12:17
Speaker 1: been that, you know, there's nothing to be shamed with
12:20
Speaker 1: shooting that deer. But then another side, he says, it's
12:23
Speaker 1: also kind of cool that you didn't, though, and that
12:25
Speaker 1: you have to watch that buck so many times close
12:28
Speaker 1: and you didn't. Like that's cool too, Like that's a
12:30
Speaker 1: new thing for me. Um. So I went back and
12:32
Speaker 1: forth like a million times though, and and we talked
12:35
Speaker 1: about on one of the episodes. I can't remember when,
12:37
Speaker 1: but on that buck RB that ten pointer that man,
12:40
Speaker 1: I'm still torn whether he's three or four. But because
12:43
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure, he came in and I drew back
12:47
Speaker 1: on him at twenty yards and I was on him
12:50
Speaker 1: and I was like I was ready, and I was
12:52
Speaker 1: in my hand like yes, no, yes, no, and then
12:55
Speaker 1: I ultimately came to the decision that just told you
12:57
Speaker 1: that if I'm not yes, I shouldn't do it. So
13:00
Speaker 1: I didn't. But then literally an hour and a half
13:03
Speaker 1: later he came back and this time like, damn it,
13:07
Speaker 1: I should shoot him. And then it's I got my
13:09
Speaker 1: bow and try thought about trying to get a shot him,
13:12
Speaker 1: and then he kind of like didn't give me a shot.
13:13
Speaker 1: So and then as he went up, like I'm glad
13:16
Speaker 1: he didn't, I shouldn't shoot him. So like that's been
13:18
Speaker 1: this whole back and forth thing for me. I'll season
13:20
Speaker 1: and just kind of left me with with the the closest.
13:24
Speaker 1: The closest than get to is what I just said.
13:26
Speaker 1: If I'm not a hundred percent, I'm not going to
13:27
Speaker 1: do it. But um, but it was kind of the
13:30
Speaker 1: defining debate of my year. And then where I do
13:34
Speaker 1: have maybe a regret. Is in North Dakota. So that
13:38
Speaker 1: was a public land hunt in a tough like It's
13:41
Speaker 1: been a tough place for me to hunt. Um hun
13:43
Speaker 1: another one year before I couldn't get on amature bucks
13:45
Speaker 1: and then this year we talked about it. But I'll
13:47
Speaker 1: just bring it up again. Um you know, I want
13:51
Speaker 1: I really wanted to kill a mature buck on the
13:53
Speaker 1: on this in this area. It's a really cool area.
13:55
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of solve the puzzle. And on
13:59
Speaker 1: my second day of outing, I spotted a really really
14:01
Speaker 1: good buck, like a definite mature four or five year
14:05
Speaker 1: old type buck, hundred and fifty type class big ten
14:08
Speaker 1: pointer I'll invlvet just like a wow buck. And so
14:12
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to kill that dear, And
14:16
Speaker 1: so I went and made a move on him. Went
14:18
Speaker 1: in that first evening set up to get a shot
14:20
Speaker 1: at him. And early in the evening, I don't know,
14:23
Speaker 1: with an hour or two hours a daylight left, here
14:25
Speaker 1: comes this like nice a point comes trotten by at
14:29
Speaker 1: thirty yards and I had like a split second, do
14:32
Speaker 1: what I tell a crack or not? And I was
14:34
Speaker 1: like that big tent could be right behind him, I'm
14:37
Speaker 1: not gonna shoot I got the whole week still all
14:39
Speaker 1: this time, and so I passed on him and then
14:41
Speaker 1: filmed him with my phone off in the distance when
14:43
Speaker 1: he was in the grass and coming out of that
14:46
Speaker 1: in the moment that one I'm still torn on it
14:50
Speaker 1: was cool to have passed on. I don't know I
14:53
Speaker 1: would have shot him, I think looking back on him,
14:55
Speaker 1: if especially if you showed up on day three or
14:57
Speaker 1: four or five, no doubt about it was shot him.
15:00
Speaker 1: So the only thing there was that if I had
15:01
Speaker 1: shot him on the on the first night of hunting,
15:03
Speaker 1: second day of the trip, there probably would have been
15:06
Speaker 1: a little disappointment and that the trip was cut short.
15:09
Speaker 1: But standing here today looking back on it, I would
15:14
Speaker 1: have it would have been cool to have killed a
15:16
Speaker 1: public land about in North Dakota, in this really cool
15:18
Speaker 1: place that I've been trying to figure out. Um So,
15:22
Speaker 1: in in that lesson learned there was and I've I've
15:26
Speaker 1: always known this, and you always hear this, don't pass
15:28
Speaker 1: on day one, what you shoot on day seven. I've
15:31
Speaker 1: gone back and forth on whether I think that's a
15:33
Speaker 1: good approach or not. I still don't know where I stand,
15:36
Speaker 1: but I guess in this situation, it's easy to get
15:42
Speaker 1: too I don't know. I don't know what I think, Spencer,
15:46
Speaker 1: but I think like at a hell of a season
15:48
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen, and so I came into twenty
15:50
Speaker 1: nineteen feeling no pressure to like I don't have to,
15:53
Speaker 1: I don't need to. I don't know. I was riding high,
15:56
Speaker 1: killed four bucks the previous season, um, including my Mexican buck,
16:01
Speaker 1: and so I came in here feeling like I can
16:03
Speaker 1: be patient, I don't need to rush things. But now,
16:06
Speaker 1: sitting here months later, I kind of wish that I
16:08
Speaker 1: had taken that opportunity when it when it arose. So,
16:12
Speaker 1: I don't know, continue learning experience, I'll keep on figuring
16:15
Speaker 1: out what I want from a season. But I will
16:17
Speaker 1: tell you this coming season, I'm going to try to
16:24
Speaker 1: rethink my goals just a little bit, um, especially on
16:29
Speaker 1: public land stuff. I'm not gonna get too picky. I
16:31
Speaker 1: went through phase I was like, I want to kill
16:32
Speaker 1: any decent buck on public land, and I was like,
16:34
Speaker 1: you know what, now I want to see if I
16:35
Speaker 1: can kill like a really good, mature old buck on
16:38
Speaker 1: public land, and um, now I might say, you know what,
16:41
Speaker 1: it's okay to just kill a pretty dark, nice buck
16:43
Speaker 1: on public land. Maybe that's where I'm out in public stuff.
16:46
Speaker 1: And back to the saying that you referenced there, like
16:48
Speaker 1: they don't shoot something on the first day you've been
16:50
Speaker 1: shooting the last We've heard it said the other direction
16:53
Speaker 1: as well, but don't shoot something on the last day
16:55
Speaker 1: you would shoot on the first. Um. I absolutely hate
16:59
Speaker 1: both of those, Like I really dislike having some um
17:05
Speaker 1: witty saying like that dictate your hunt. And it's like
17:08
Speaker 1: almost allowing other people to tell you what to do,
17:11
Speaker 1: because it feels like a very outdoor channel snappy thing
17:15
Speaker 1: that people saying in moments where they didn't shoot a
17:18
Speaker 1: deer um. And I just really dislike that. I'm all
17:21
Speaker 1: about like moving the goal posts on your hunt. UM.
17:25
Speaker 1: I do it all the time. I go into a
17:26
Speaker 1: hunt and it's the first day and I'm like, Okay,
17:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hold out and kill amature buck. And then
17:31
Speaker 1: after a few days You're like, this is way tougher
17:34
Speaker 1: than I thought. I'm now willing to take any buck,
17:37
Speaker 1: or at some point it might evencome like I'll shoot
17:39
Speaker 1: a del because I just want to like have some
17:44
Speaker 1: kind of success and get the meat. UM. So I'm
17:47
Speaker 1: fine with that direction. I've also liked went into hunts
17:51
Speaker 1: where I said I'm going to shoot immature buck and
17:54
Speaker 1: then it's like the second day that This was the
17:57
Speaker 1: example of my archery hunts in South Dakota this year.
17:59
Speaker 1: It was second or third day. I was there for
18:01
Speaker 1: five or six days. It was a plan in three
18:03
Speaker 1: and a half year old came by and if you'd
18:05
Speaker 1: asked me if I had a shot at three and
18:06
Speaker 1: a half year old on the second day prior to that,
18:09
Speaker 1: I said no, UM, but I get super excited when
18:12
Speaker 1: this buck showed up, UM, and I shot him and
18:15
Speaker 1: I was stoked about it, and I don't regret it,
18:17
Speaker 1: and I don't. That's why I then don't like these
18:20
Speaker 1: um like witty sayings that almost like let somebody else
18:24
Speaker 1: dictate your hunt because somebody said that that elected to
18:29
Speaker 1: pass on a deer um. And it seems like those
18:32
Speaker 1: often don't come from somebody that's always hunting in like
18:36
Speaker 1: a real world scenario. It's like a super well manicured
18:40
Speaker 1: property in Iowa, or someone who is traveling to an outfitter,
18:44
Speaker 1: and once they leave that outfitter, they're going to another outfitter.
18:47
Speaker 1: It's easy to say those things in that situation. Um,
18:50
Speaker 1: So that's why I don't let those kinds of sayings
18:53
Speaker 1: like applied it to my style of hunting. Yeah, yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: I think I keep coming back to. You know, here's
18:59
Speaker 1: my little wit witty saying I started. Now it's not
19:02
Speaker 1: terrible revolution was hunt your own hunt. I keep going
19:04
Speaker 1: back to, like, whatever's gonna make you happy in that moment,
19:07
Speaker 1: you should do. And so that's kind of where I
19:09
Speaker 1: settled on things like I passed on a buck the
19:11
Speaker 1: opening day buck in Michigan and passed on the buck,
19:13
Speaker 1: and people like, your nuts, you're crazy, you give me
19:15
Speaker 1: a lot of shit about it. I was like, you know,
19:17
Speaker 1: it made me happy, was what I want to do?
19:19
Speaker 1: The same? You know, flip side, you shoot a buck
19:21
Speaker 1: in some people like it's too small or too young,
19:23
Speaker 1: whatever ask you are you hunt your own hunt. That's
19:25
Speaker 1: kind of where I've settled. Everyone's gonna have your own
19:27
Speaker 1: personal approach and and that's okay. What I do think
19:30
Speaker 1: is helpful is to think about what your approach is
19:33
Speaker 1: going to be. That just is helpful because in the
19:36
Speaker 1: moment it will help you make the decisions. Because one
19:39
Speaker 1: thing that can be challenging is if you don't know
19:41
Speaker 1: what you want and you find yourself in the situations
19:44
Speaker 1: like I don't know, should I shouldn't I UM. Just
19:48
Speaker 1: having put some thought into what you want out of
19:50
Speaker 1: a hunt or what your goals are gonna be, I
19:52
Speaker 1: think we'll just make your experience a little bit more
19:54
Speaker 1: um achievable or something. But that's neither here nor there.
19:58
Speaker 1: That's that's one of my big hakeaways though from just
20:01
Speaker 1: what this season meant for me personally. But let's let's
20:03
Speaker 1: do back out now talk Macro. So that was our
20:06
Speaker 1: seasons are couple of the things that happened for us.
20:09
Speaker 1: Now when we look at the two thousand nineteen season
20:11
Speaker 1: from a big picture point of view, we've talked to
20:13
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people this. I don't know if
20:16
Speaker 1: you can do this or not answer this question or not,
20:18
Speaker 1: but if you were to just put your finger on
20:21
Speaker 1: the pulse of the nineteen season, we we see a
20:24
Speaker 1: lot on social media. We talked to a whole lot
20:26
Speaker 1: of people. If you had to rate the twenty nineteen
20:28
Speaker 1: season in general on a one ten, one to ten scale,
20:32
Speaker 1: like how good of a year was it for White Tail? Hunters,
20:36
Speaker 1: What kind of number would you put on that. I
20:39
Speaker 1: would probably give a similar answer to what our own
20:43
Speaker 1: we're UM like a six or seven. And I think
20:48
Speaker 1: um the positives of the season were that there was
20:53
Speaker 1: like a lot of moisture, so in antler growth should
20:57
Speaker 1: be up. But with all that moisture is a delayed
20:59
Speaker 1: hard risks, which shouldn't make haunting really challenging for a
21:02
Speaker 1: lot of places that were standing crops during the rut,
21:05
Speaker 1: so that there's a pro and con there. Um we
21:08
Speaker 1: had like some well timed cold front, but if you
21:12
Speaker 1: want to compare that two years past, UM, I think
21:15
Speaker 1: it was two years ago where if you pulled out
21:18
Speaker 1: of calendar and you just circled the cold fronts that
21:21
Speaker 1: you wanted, like you gotta pick out three or four
21:23
Speaker 1: weekends where you wanted cold front, that's where they hit. Um,
21:26
Speaker 1: we didn't necessarily have that this year. We had something
21:29
Speaker 1: at a smaller scale, but we didn't have that UM.
21:33
Speaker 1: And there was also a lot less e h D
21:37
Speaker 1: than in years past, and there were some isolated places.
21:40
Speaker 1: I think Kentucky and Tennessee got hit with it, and
21:43
Speaker 1: then there's there's little pockets elsewhere. I think, UM, southern Iowa,
21:47
Speaker 1: northern Missouri, but for the most part, a lot of
21:49
Speaker 1: the country escaped e HD. So I think that's positive
21:51
Speaker 1: as well. Um, with all that, I would say like
21:54
Speaker 1: seven yea, I was gonna give us six six or seven, yeah,
21:58
Speaker 1: I feel that that's that's THEE in the right ballpark.
21:59
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things for me that
22:01
Speaker 1: stood out that was pretty true across a lot of
22:04
Speaker 1: the country at least, was during that peak of typical
22:08
Speaker 1: writing activity. Right let's say, last to go October through
22:11
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks or the middle of November,
22:13
Speaker 1: it was generally cool temperatures across most of the country.
22:16
Speaker 1: We didn't have a warm spell in the middle of
22:18
Speaker 1: the route like some years you do, and I think
22:20
Speaker 1: that made a lot of people happy. There's nothing I
22:23
Speaker 1: liked less than a four day window from November four
22:27
Speaker 1: the ninth. That's like in the seventies. That's I'm sure
22:31
Speaker 1: some parts of the country are warmer than others, but
22:33
Speaker 1: in a lot of the country I knew were generally
22:35
Speaker 1: good conditions during that period. Now, let's unpackage it a
22:40
Speaker 1: bunch of those little things you mentioned. You talked about
22:42
Speaker 1: a lot of things there that I think are worth
22:44
Speaker 1: talking about. UM, moisture rain. That was a big thing
22:50
Speaker 1: for a lot of people earlier in the season, early
22:52
Speaker 1: in the year, sorry, because we got very wet spring, right,
22:55
Speaker 1: and then what we talked about or what kind of
22:57
Speaker 1: happened from there was a lot of farmers across the Midwest,
23:00
Speaker 1: across the nation weren't able to get crops in some places.
23:02
Speaker 1: I bet you, I don't know. Thirt of the farm
23:07
Speaker 1: fields and my neck of the woods maybe weren't planted
23:09
Speaker 1: as they typically would have been. UM. And a lot,
23:12
Speaker 1: maybe fifty percent weren't planted as soon as they usually are.
23:15
Speaker 1: Probably fifty percent went in late, or they put something
23:17
Speaker 1: in different than they never would have usually. UM. Like
23:20
Speaker 1: there was a lot of fields that didn't plant their
23:22
Speaker 1: typical grain um of corner beans instead put in like
23:27
Speaker 1: a winter week late in the summer, that kind of thing,
23:29
Speaker 1: which is different. UM. A lot of folks, not a lot,
23:32
Speaker 1: but some folks around us plant hemp um something totally
23:35
Speaker 1: different than whatever gets planted. UM. That was something you
23:40
Speaker 1: heard about, talked about a lot throughout the year, right.
23:42
Speaker 1: The impact of that many times, I think moisture would
23:46
Speaker 1: be like the number one theme from and that also
23:51
Speaker 1: might mean that that was like the number one factor
23:53
Speaker 1: for whether or not you killed this year. Um. It
23:56
Speaker 1: came up on almost every interview, and I think it
24:00
Speaker 1: affected most hunters across the Midwest and the West, and
24:04
Speaker 1: for those reasons that I kind of said, um, all
24:07
Speaker 1: of that moisture, it has that effect that when you
24:11
Speaker 1: have a super wet spring or summer, that carries over
24:14
Speaker 1: all the way into fall. For how deer hunters feel it,
24:17
Speaker 1: Like you said, things are gonna get planted and then
24:19
Speaker 1: things are coming out super super late. Um. Like I
24:23
Speaker 1: said before, a lot of those what you consider the
24:26
Speaker 1: best days of the rout um, those first two weeks
24:29
Speaker 1: of November, guys were hunting when there's still a lot
24:31
Speaker 1: of standing corn up um. And that certainly makes it
24:35
Speaker 1: challenging because that running activity can still be taking place,
24:39
Speaker 1: just not um in the open where a bow hunter
24:44
Speaker 1: could kill a deer. So I think that is like
24:47
Speaker 1: the biggest theme of Let's dive a little further into
24:51
Speaker 1: what comes out of that. So first let's talk the
24:54
Speaker 1: impacts in the spring. So you have a very very
24:57
Speaker 1: wet spring like we had this year, like uniquely what
25:00
Speaker 1: compared to some of your so much so that a
25:03
Speaker 1: lot of farmers conka crops him. So when that happens,
25:06
Speaker 1: you have then a very different situation the fall as
25:10
Speaker 1: far as available food source and stuff, and then you
25:12
Speaker 1: also have possibility of natural forage being better. Maybe right,
25:16
Speaker 1: So do we have this is something I really don't
25:20
Speaker 1: have an answer to. Um. I feel like I've read
25:23
Speaker 1: stuff about this, but I can't point my finger on
25:26
Speaker 1: a specific study. Um, but has it been proven or
25:30
Speaker 1: is the research that points to UM rain in this? Certainly?
25:36
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I'm blinking how to say this? Right? There's
25:39
Speaker 1: is there a direct connection between antler growth and availability
25:42
Speaker 1: of rain or amount of rain in a spring or
25:44
Speaker 1: summertime period? That is one of those things that I
25:49
Speaker 1: hate when this sort of thing is repeated without somebody
25:53
Speaker 1: actually looking into it or knowing. And I'm doing that
25:55
Speaker 1: right now, And so I feel kind of guilty for
25:57
Speaker 1: like stating that earlier that we had this this moisture
26:00
Speaker 1: and so it equated to better antler growth. Um. But
26:04
Speaker 1: I don't know that's a fact. That might be something
26:06
Speaker 1: that that deer hunters have in their head. Um. It
26:10
Speaker 1: seems it sounds reasonable, it sounds possible, But we see
26:15
Speaker 1: nutrition play a factor in other ways with handler growth.
26:18
Speaker 1: If there's a super hard winter, um, then then bucks
26:22
Speaker 1: are dropping early. So I could see where um, a
26:26
Speaker 1: lot of rain and a lot of food available great
26:29
Speaker 1: nutrition could lead to that and antler growth and antlers
26:33
Speaker 1: are a U. This is a I should be reading
26:36
Speaker 1: my research text better more often. Um. But they're like
26:41
Speaker 1: a secondary trait or there are secondary importance to deer.
26:43
Speaker 1: So basically, resources won't go to antler growth unless the
26:48
Speaker 1: basic needs are already met. So if a deer isn't
26:50
Speaker 1: getting enough protein, enough of all the things that needs
26:53
Speaker 1: for its it's for its regular health and functioning, they
26:56
Speaker 1: won't be able to vote as much of that nutritional
27:01
Speaker 1: and energy needs to antler growth. So deer that has
27:03
Speaker 1: all of its needs met with lots of great food,
27:05
Speaker 1: that's a deer that's able to put more towards antler growth,
27:08
Speaker 1: which which makes sense right. That's why deer and you
27:11
Speaker 1: know along the Mississippi River corridor in Iowa and Illinois,
27:14
Speaker 1: et cetera, where there's just tremendous soil and food sources
27:17
Speaker 1: and all that, that's why these deer grow huge antlers.
27:19
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is like the most important thing,
27:20
Speaker 1: but some people notice. UM, So it would seem reasonable
27:24
Speaker 1: to believe that if there's ton lots of rain, that
27:27
Speaker 1: could lead to more high quality natural forage, which could
27:30
Speaker 1: lead to you know, great nutritional content for with the
27:33
Speaker 1: deer eating blah blah blah, at least a better antler growth.
27:35
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, in this case, there were
27:38
Speaker 1: a whole lot of soybean fields that didn't get planted.
27:41
Speaker 1: Soybeans are one of the absolute, very best food sources
27:44
Speaker 1: for deer. So I'd be curious to I wonder if
27:47
Speaker 1: you could look and see, all right, we had ten
27:51
Speaker 1: fewer acres and soybeans this year, what impact that might
27:55
Speaker 1: have had unavailable food sources. I don't know. I'm just
27:58
Speaker 1: spitball in here and thinking, but it's something that would
28:02
Speaker 1: be worth looking two further So besides antler growth, assuming
28:06
Speaker 1: that's true, that was certainly a pro of all that moisture.
28:09
Speaker 1: A con or this could be pro depending on what
28:12
Speaker 1: sort of property you haunted, what kind of property you have,
28:14
Speaker 1: is how it altered deer patterns. Now, we've seen studies before,
28:20
Speaker 1: UM that show how deer respond to floods. If if
28:24
Speaker 1: something is flooding, what are those do you gonna do?
28:26
Speaker 1: They're gonna leave at some point and then are they
28:28
Speaker 1: going to return or not? Um. There was there was
28:30
Speaker 1: a great study dawn on I believe it was an
28:33
Speaker 1: island on the Mississippi River, and it showed that deer
28:37
Speaker 1: are incredibly loyal to their home range, almost to a
28:41
Speaker 1: point where it's fatal. They GPS tracked these bucks ranging
28:45
Speaker 1: from immature like one and a half year olds up
28:47
Speaker 1: to mature five and a half year old and they
28:50
Speaker 1: were all super dedicated to that island home range. As
28:54
Speaker 1: these waters were rising in the summer to the point
28:57
Speaker 1: where it killed a few of these deer that they
28:58
Speaker 1: didn't leave in time. Most of them left I think
29:01
Speaker 1: was like fifteen out of seventeen or something had left
29:03
Speaker 1: while the water was rising, and they already turned by
29:06
Speaker 1: the fall when that water receded. UM. But with some
29:10
Speaker 1: porsche with some parts of the country, that water never
29:13
Speaker 1: did recede. UM. I haunted a property in South Dakota
29:18
Speaker 1: that wind underwater in like May or June, and then
29:21
Speaker 1: the water is still there right now and it froze
29:24
Speaker 1: out with like a few feet of water on top
29:27
Speaker 1: of it. So in extreme cases that changed the deer
29:31
Speaker 1: movement bad for me, But the neighbors who have high
29:33
Speaker 1: ground just pushed those deer over there and they had
29:36
Speaker 1: then a better fall, right. So that's that's a big thing.
29:40
Speaker 1: With that extreme moisture that we had this spring and summer,
29:43
Speaker 1: how it could have changed your season. I definitely experienced
29:46
Speaker 1: that in some places too, Like one of my main
29:48
Speaker 1: Michigan spots, A lot of areas, like there's just a
29:51
Speaker 1: section where my two track usually goes back to the
29:54
Speaker 1: back of the farm and you can't take it right
29:56
Speaker 1: now because it's still flooded through the whole hunting season.
29:58
Speaker 1: Or I know in early October, there a lot of
30:00
Speaker 1: spots in Michigan they are super flooded. You know. The
30:03
Speaker 1: guys from the hunting public came out to Michigan and
30:05
Speaker 1: a lot of the spots they were trying to hunt
30:07
Speaker 1: north of me, Uh, we're super duper flooded. That totally
30:10
Speaker 1: changed what they had to do. Um shooting. When we
30:13
Speaker 1: did a week later, we were doing some public plan
30:15
Speaker 1: hunting for Field of Work program, we experienced that in
30:18
Speaker 1: some places. So yeah, it impacts people. Um. Now let's
30:22
Speaker 1: look at another pattern change with that, which would be
30:26
Speaker 1: back to when when crops came in or out. Um,
30:30
Speaker 1: you had another feast or family situation where you might
30:34
Speaker 1: typically have a crop field on a property you can hunt.
30:37
Speaker 1: What happens when they don't plan anything this year? What
30:40
Speaker 1: happens when the great big food source on your lease
30:42
Speaker 1: or the farm you have permission to hunt or whatever,
30:45
Speaker 1: or maybe even the property you own, and you try
30:47
Speaker 1: to plant it was a failure or you couldn't get
30:49
Speaker 1: it in or whatever. What happens when you don't have
30:51
Speaker 1: that food source. That changed a lot of people's seasons,
30:53
Speaker 1: I think. And if you had the food, you might
30:58
Speaker 1: have had a disproportionately better season. Because we're deer might
31:01
Speaker 1: have been more spread out to more places. This year,
31:04
Speaker 1: they're hyper focused in the areas where there was so
31:08
Speaker 1: I think I experienced us a little bit for different reasons. UM.
31:12
Speaker 1: But like on the back forty, for example, we had
31:16
Speaker 1: a farm that used to have food on it that
31:18
Speaker 1: we didn't have food on it this year, not because
31:20
Speaker 1: of the rain, simply because we couldn't get anything planted
31:22
Speaker 1: really with the time we had. But there was lots
31:24
Speaker 1: of great food all around us. UM, we saw much
31:27
Speaker 1: less deer activity than I would have expected if we
31:30
Speaker 1: would have had, you know, some crops in there, some
31:32
Speaker 1: food to hold them. I imagine that'd be a pretty
31:35
Speaker 1: frustrating frustrating thing for someone if you're used to having
31:37
Speaker 1: that farm field there. Um. The one thing that it
31:40
Speaker 1: kind of makes me think about as a takeaway from that,
31:45
Speaker 1: you hear this occasional critique of people that plant food
31:51
Speaker 1: plots in the Midwest or an egg land. It's like,
31:54
Speaker 1: why food plot when you're surrounded by farm fields all
31:57
Speaker 1: over the place. Why are you wasting your time and
32:00
Speaker 1: planning something when there's all these corn fields and being
32:02
Speaker 1: fields and all that kind of stuff. You're wasting your time.
32:05
Speaker 1: I've always thought that to be not true, because I
32:08
Speaker 1: think you've got an added level of um strategic benefits
32:13
Speaker 1: to planting something where you want it, the specific thing
32:16
Speaker 1: you want. You can plan something different than usual, you
32:18
Speaker 1: can plan something in a way that's unique, you can
32:20
Speaker 1: plant a spot that's unique, etcetera, etcetera. But I think
32:23
Speaker 1: in this case, here's a whole another thing. You can't
32:25
Speaker 1: always count on the egg You can't always count on
32:29
Speaker 1: you know, they're being these being fields and corn fields
32:31
Speaker 1: and whatever, because there's gonna be years like this, So
32:33
Speaker 1: for the folks that had the ability on the at
32:37
Speaker 1: least land or own land, when they had the ability
32:39
Speaker 1: to put their own thing in later they probably saved
32:42
Speaker 1: their season, while the person next door who couldn't in
32:45
Speaker 1: their farm or didn't get anything and they might have
32:47
Speaker 1: a really slow season. So that's I realized it's not
32:50
Speaker 1: an option for everyone, but it's it's just one more
32:52
Speaker 1: thing to think about when considering whether or not food
32:55
Speaker 1: plots are worthwhile if you have the ability to do so.
32:57
Speaker 1: This year, I think helps some people out. Um. And
33:00
Speaker 1: I benefited from that on one of my other Michigan
33:03
Speaker 1: properties where I did have food plots in and a
33:06
Speaker 1: neighbor didn't give their crops in that usually would have,
33:10
Speaker 1: And so I think I saw a little bit more
33:11
Speaker 1: activity because of it. Yeah. And I think though for
33:14
Speaker 1: most hunters, all those standing crops tend to be a
33:17
Speaker 1: negative um standing corn, Yeah, standing corn um, because there
33:21
Speaker 1: there can be all that running activity taking place just
33:24
Speaker 1: not anywhere in front of you. Those deer can bet
33:26
Speaker 1: out in those low spots. Um, they'll hang out on
33:29
Speaker 1: those fence rows and just areas that are really tough
33:30
Speaker 1: to bow hunt. But I know you have expressed in
33:34
Speaker 1: the past. How if the state has a lot of
33:37
Speaker 1: standing corn Michigan, for example, that a lot of deer
33:41
Speaker 1: survived the gun season, which is a pro for you.
33:44
Speaker 1: So it can be both sides there, But I think
33:47
Speaker 1: largely standing corn tend to be a negative for for guys. Yeah,
33:51
Speaker 1: I felt it was a negative on the back forty
33:54
Speaker 1: because we had a bunch of standing corn all around us,
33:56
Speaker 1: so that I definitely felt that there. But on the
33:58
Speaker 1: other Michigan property, I liked it because of what you
34:01
Speaker 1: just said, because we had standing corn the first week
34:04
Speaker 1: of the gun season through the opening weekend, you know,
34:06
Speaker 1: when a ton of people go out there, and and
34:08
Speaker 1: just like you said, I've always felt like I would
34:11
Speaker 1: rather sacrifice my success, uh for a little bit during
34:15
Speaker 1: gun season if it means that we'll have a better
34:19
Speaker 1: opportunity the next year. And this has happened a couple
34:21
Speaker 1: of years now in this area. We've had a couple
34:23
Speaker 1: of years with standing corn. Into this year we did,
34:27
Speaker 1: and I think the year before we did too. Um,
34:33
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm not sure what I can attribute
34:35
Speaker 1: this to. This could be a little bit of the
34:36
Speaker 1: standing corner has helped. This could be a little bit
34:39
Speaker 1: to the wet spring maybe and this could be a
34:42
Speaker 1: little bit too, just um, changing culture in my little
34:45
Speaker 1: neck of the woods, in this neighborhood, we're kind of
34:47
Speaker 1: getting more people that are interested in passing on younger bucks.
34:51
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, Um, and maybe you know, maybe
34:53
Speaker 1: a little bit of some of the stuff I've been
34:55
Speaker 1: doing this help too. Um, I'm seeing way more nice
34:59
Speaker 1: but bucks in this little area than ever used to,
35:01
Speaker 1: a lot more bucks making like a lot of nice
35:03
Speaker 1: two year olds. Used to be like the two year
35:05
Speaker 1: old were the best I ever saw around there, and
35:07
Speaker 1: then now we're now I'm passing on really nice three
35:09
Speaker 1: year olds. It was never a thing. And now this year,
35:13
Speaker 1: I think there are three bucks four or older or
35:17
Speaker 1: that will be at least four older next year if
35:19
Speaker 1: they make it through the winter and everything. But that
35:21
Speaker 1: made it through the end of the hunting season, which
35:23
Speaker 1: is like unheard of for this little area. Um, and
35:26
Speaker 1: you think you could credit standing corn during gun seasons
35:30
Speaker 1: is as a little bit as helping as helping, yeah,
35:33
Speaker 1: because I think, I mean, there's there's a lot of
35:34
Speaker 1: guys a hunting this area, and um, there was a
35:38
Speaker 1: lot of standing corn, So I think that helped a
35:40
Speaker 1: few and then like one more thing. Um. This doesn't
35:43
Speaker 1: warrant a lot of discussion for standing corn, but a
35:46
Speaker 1: property that is historically one of my toughest to enter
35:51
Speaker 1: an exit because I'm going through an open field that
35:54
Speaker 1: the deer want to be in at first light and
35:57
Speaker 1: last light, all of a sudden becomes the easiest property
36:00
Speaker 1: that I have for entrances and exits. Because I have
36:03
Speaker 1: that standing corn, you can be fifty yards from a
36:06
Speaker 1: deer and they have no idea. Um. There's so much
36:09
Speaker 1: movement and it's so dense, um that it makes getting
36:13
Speaker 1: to stand way way easier. So while most years in
36:17
Speaker 1: this year I curse that standing corn when I'm out
36:19
Speaker 1: there hunting, it certainly makes that way way better. It's
36:23
Speaker 1: a good point. That's a very good point. So what
36:26
Speaker 1: are a few things. Let's let's talk a little bit
36:28
Speaker 1: about how to deal with that. So we've got standing corn.
36:32
Speaker 1: Let's say it's the rut or whatever it's time period.
36:35
Speaker 1: We would usually I think it's down, but it's not.
36:39
Speaker 1: I have always approached it. Um, I would do I
36:42
Speaker 1: would take advantage of what you just said. I would
36:44
Speaker 1: be a little bit more aggressive with my entry and
36:46
Speaker 1: exit because I can use that corn field to my
36:48
Speaker 1: advantage as far as getting into out of places, whether
36:51
Speaker 1: it be walking straight through the corn field, something to
36:54
Speaker 1: do if you have if you own the land, um
36:56
Speaker 1: or if you know the farm or something. I know
36:58
Speaker 1: some guys will actually purposeful a um if they own it,
37:03
Speaker 1: plant with a small path through the middle of corn field.
37:05
Speaker 1: So plan on using the corn field as an access
37:07
Speaker 1: route going right to the middle of it, or just
37:09
Speaker 1: simply go in there in September or some period before
37:13
Speaker 1: you're gonna start hunting and just clear a path through
37:15
Speaker 1: one of the fine one of those UM I'm having
37:19
Speaker 1: to brain fighting roast. Find a corn row that you
37:21
Speaker 1: can kind of clear out of leaves and junk on
37:23
Speaker 1: the ground and just have a quiet path through it. Um. Yes,
37:28
Speaker 1: use the standing corn I've also found that edges of
37:31
Speaker 1: standing corn fields, especially when there's a little bit of space,
37:35
Speaker 1: has become it's gonna be a hot spot for scrapes.
37:37
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a spot that deer feel comfortable moving
37:39
Speaker 1: in daylight, So you can hunt those corn field edge
37:41
Speaker 1: as well. Still inside corners where corn field pushes into
37:46
Speaker 1: a big piece of cover is going to be a
37:47
Speaker 1: hot spot. UM. I've also always found whenever there's points
37:51
Speaker 1: or swells and extend into corn fields, that's always a
37:55
Speaker 1: really good place to hunt. Um. I was talking to
37:58
Speaker 1: another buddy this year who had started even just little
38:02
Speaker 1: grassy strips little um what do you calm ah uh,
38:10
Speaker 1: you know, a cup of coffee. There's there's some name
38:14
Speaker 1: for these little grass strips. They'll go out into the
38:17
Speaker 1: middle of like shelter shelter belts or I don't know,
38:20
Speaker 1: whatever it is, these little patches of cover that sometimes
38:23
Speaker 1: extend into standing corn fields. He's been actually pushing them
38:28
Speaker 1: and finding ways to just slip word just stock along
38:31
Speaker 1: these things, and you'll find these bucks better than these
38:33
Speaker 1: little grassy strips in the standing corn because they feel
38:35
Speaker 1: like they're surrounded by a jungle of cover, and you
38:38
Speaker 1: can take advantage of that sometimes. So it doesn't hurt
38:40
Speaker 1: to become a little bit aggressive when you have that
38:43
Speaker 1: situation when they're they're not gonna be in the typical
38:46
Speaker 1: places maybe you think you'd find them. Take advantage of
38:49
Speaker 1: the fact that, Okay, they're not maybe going to be
38:51
Speaker 1: in the places I thought otherwise as often, but maybe
38:55
Speaker 1: I'll focus it on these little points to extend into it.
38:57
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll try, uh you know, and some guys that
39:00
Speaker 1: actually walk cornfield rows with their bows and try to
39:03
Speaker 1: sneak up and shoot bucks in the standing corn. I
39:06
Speaker 1: would be an interesting thing to trap. So doesn't have
39:08
Speaker 1: to be a negative. Yeah, And I think it can
39:12
Speaker 1: help with some on the ground scouting. If you are
39:17
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where deer entering and exiting a
39:19
Speaker 1: field and the field has been picked, it's really challenging
39:23
Speaker 1: to figure out where these deer at. But if all
39:26
Speaker 1: the corn is standing, you'll find these places. And I
39:28
Speaker 1: think to a property that I haunt, there's like three
39:31
Speaker 1: saddles that hit this corn field, and in my mind,
39:34
Speaker 1: those deer could be using any of those saddles. They're
39:36
Speaker 1: all equal. But this year, when you have that standing corn,
39:40
Speaker 1: you'll see that one saddle specifically had um like corn
39:45
Speaker 1: that didn't get above your knees because the deer had
39:47
Speaker 1: just been destroying the corn in that area, but not
39:50
Speaker 1: so much by those other saddles. So on the ground scouting,
39:53
Speaker 1: I think it can make that easier when you have
39:56
Speaker 1: that standing corn to figure out where these deer are eating.
39:59
Speaker 1: I'll so I think it insulates some properties better. Um
40:03
Speaker 1: some places that I ordinarily wouldn't hunt when the corn
40:06
Speaker 1: is picked because it's too close to a road, or
40:10
Speaker 1: it is too close to um other like a lot
40:16
Speaker 1: of open space. But when you have all that corn there,
40:19
Speaker 1: I think those do you feel a lot more comfortable
40:21
Speaker 1: because they don't have people stopping on the road to
40:23
Speaker 1: look at them, or that they're not aware of all
40:26
Speaker 1: the vehicles that are traveling nearby. Um. So I think
40:29
Speaker 1: that that corn can just make them feel more comfortable
40:32
Speaker 1: and can lead this in better hunts. Then yeah, I
40:35
Speaker 1: think that's I think that's very true. And it just
40:37
Speaker 1: comes down to, all right, this is the situation we
40:39
Speaker 1: have before us. How do you make the best of it?
40:42
Speaker 1: And I think all those things are one way to
40:44
Speaker 1: approach standing corn. One other food source question. Um, and
40:50
Speaker 1: this didn't impact me personally a ton this year, but um,
40:54
Speaker 1: what about our production of acorns? What was your feeling
40:57
Speaker 1: on how acorns impact of the twenty nineteen season? What
41:00
Speaker 1: does that change at all how you think about moving forward?
41:03
Speaker 1: So I don't hunt around acorns a lot personally. Still
41:06
Speaker 1: a lot of my acorn intel comes from the people
41:09
Speaker 1: that we talked to on Red Fresh radio and in
41:13
Speaker 1: the past two years, it would come up every time
41:16
Speaker 1: I talked to somebody, they would reference the abundance of
41:19
Speaker 1: acorns that they had in an area, whether it was
41:22
Speaker 1: Arkansas or Kentucky, or Pennsylvania or Illinois. It seemed like
41:26
Speaker 1: much of the country these last two seasons seen had
41:31
Speaker 1: a lot of acorns and that changed their October hunts.
41:34
Speaker 1: This year that was not coming up near as much. UM.
41:38
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it was an average acorn
41:41
Speaker 1: season or below average acorn season, but I think that's
41:44
Speaker 1: notable because coming off of the last two years, there
41:47
Speaker 1: were so many acorns on the ground that it might
41:50
Speaker 1: have changed how you were hunting this year and you
41:53
Speaker 1: didn't realize that. Um if if you weren't paying attention,
41:57
Speaker 1: you could have been like, well, the deer, we're doing
41:59
Speaker 1: this in eighteen and seen they were hanging back and
42:03
Speaker 1: they cover a lot more. They were not visible at
42:05
Speaker 1: all the entire month of October, whatever that might be,
42:08
Speaker 1: And then you could have applied that to this year
42:11
Speaker 1: and screwed up on something because there was now like
42:16
Speaker 1: a lot less acorns. So while I don't think that
42:19
Speaker 1: that um effects everybody, it could affect the way you
42:24
Speaker 1: were hunting based off these last few years, and then
42:27
Speaker 1: it wasn't a great tactic to apply this year because
42:31
Speaker 1: all those acorns weren't there. That's a really good point
42:34
Speaker 1: when you you have to be careful with the assumptions
42:38
Speaker 1: you draw off previous year's observations, because he really need
42:42
Speaker 1: to think about the y to everything, and so let's
42:45
Speaker 1: just look at the specific why of a food source.
42:49
Speaker 1: The same thing could be applied to corn fields versus
42:53
Speaker 1: soybean fields on the rotation, or could be applied to
42:55
Speaker 1: this year we didn't have the crops, but last year
42:57
Speaker 1: we did. Um. So just thinking about what you saw
43:02
Speaker 1: in a given year and then think about what factors
43:04
Speaker 1: weren't played that year, and so carrying that forward into
43:10
Speaker 1: something I think that I'm always trying to do a
43:11
Speaker 1: better job of is is Let's okay, yeah, I know
43:14
Speaker 1: that this is what deer did in I know this
43:15
Speaker 1: is what happened. I know this is what happened twenty seventeen.
43:18
Speaker 1: What else is going on during those years? Okay? So
43:21
Speaker 1: nights standing corn twenty nineteen nights standing corn? Um? What
43:24
Speaker 1: about acorns? What were the acorn production these years? Okay?
43:27
Speaker 1: And see if you can start making any connections, and
43:29
Speaker 1: then this year getting the recent intel the importance of
43:33
Speaker 1: trying to get in the idea of what are the
43:35
Speaker 1: food sources now? So I know people like Johnny Aberhart
43:39
Speaker 1: really advocate for doing a speed scout. He'll go out
43:42
Speaker 1: like one day in September and walk all of his
43:45
Speaker 1: properties and check and see what apple trees are producing,
43:48
Speaker 1: what oak trees are producing. Is there any other food
43:51
Speaker 1: source that seems to be it's going to be good
43:52
Speaker 1: this year? Are you know ourbinians looking good? Whatever, So
43:56
Speaker 1: that he knows, Okay, this is the situation this year.
43:58
Speaker 1: You can't just depend on what every other year has
44:00
Speaker 1: told you. I think that's a big takeaway from me, um,
44:04
Speaker 1: because this year could have screwed a lot of people
44:05
Speaker 1: up with acorns with the whole crop than we've talked about.
44:09
Speaker 1: If you weren't paying attention to how things are different
44:11
Speaker 1: this year, like you said, you might have had a
44:13
Speaker 1: weird year. Yeah, it's got to be very in the
44:15
Speaker 1: moment um. Like historical deer patterns have helped me kill
44:19
Speaker 1: deer in the past, but I know they've also cost
44:21
Speaker 1: me dear because I've fallen in love with a certain
44:24
Speaker 1: tactic or a certain stand that if I would have
44:28
Speaker 1: been paying better attention and scouting in the moment like that,
44:32
Speaker 1: I would have known better than to do this thing
44:34
Speaker 1: or haunt this area based on what the conditions were
44:36
Speaker 1: that season. All right, another thing that was a little
44:40
Speaker 1: bit different this year. You alluded to this earlier. We
44:44
Speaker 1: had great coal friends every weekend, bing bang boom. You
44:46
Speaker 1: couldn't have picked it out any better. This year was different. Um,
44:50
Speaker 1: let's talk about the timing of Cold Friends and twenty
44:52
Speaker 1: nineteen and how that might have impacted things. And then
44:56
Speaker 1: did you learn anything from there? Is there anything based
44:58
Speaker 1: on You're You're kind of funny with Cold Friends. You've
44:59
Speaker 1: been a little bit contrarian when it comes to cold fronts.
45:01
Speaker 1: Your theory in the past has been that cold fronts
45:05
Speaker 1: really don't impact dear movement. Really, it's just hunters have
45:09
Speaker 1: more confidence because there's been so much hype about cold fronts,
45:12
Speaker 1: and that leads to folks having more success. Do you
45:15
Speaker 1: still feel that way? UM? I continue to like to
45:19
Speaker 1: lean on the science for these sort of theories. And
45:23
Speaker 1: that's what the science says, is that science is kind
45:25
Speaker 1: of sure because of the studies. I guess we can
45:29
Speaker 1: say the studies. Yeah, the studies don't necessarily they're not
45:32
Speaker 1: necessarily answering the questions that I'm wanting to answer them
45:35
Speaker 1: is how I will position why I still believe in
45:38
Speaker 1: the impact coal fronts, but nonetheless, So I like to
45:41
Speaker 1: lean on the studies that Penn State UM, Georgia q
45:46
Speaker 1: d m A, that that they regurgitate of these studies
45:49
Speaker 1: things like that. I like to lean on those studies.
45:51
Speaker 1: And they say that warm cold um neutral, the deer
45:55
Speaker 1: going to move, and that's only the deer movement is
45:58
Speaker 1: just going to increase as get closer to the RUD,
46:01
Speaker 1: and it's going to decrease that to get further from
46:03
Speaker 1: the RUD. And my argument be that they are just
46:05
Speaker 1: measuring total movement. They're not measuring is there more daylight
46:10
Speaker 1: movement They're not measuring, is there a greater amount of
46:14
Speaker 1: movement from the betting area into the open or different
46:16
Speaker 1: things that that that might impact hunting. Sure, So I'd
46:19
Speaker 1: like to lean on those studies and then say that
46:22
Speaker 1: I don't think cold fronts are the and all be all,
46:27
Speaker 1: because I like to use science or studies and in
46:31
Speaker 1: so many other parts of my life that I feel
46:33
Speaker 1: like I can't reject it here when it comes to
46:36
Speaker 1: cold front With that said, though, I'm hypocrite and that
46:38
Speaker 1: if I see a cold front coming, I get excited.
46:41
Speaker 1: I will, um, maybe haunt harder, like haunt a better stand,
46:45
Speaker 1: or if if I wasn't planning on going, I'll no,
46:47
Speaker 1: I'll now go. Um. There's so much buzz around cold
46:51
Speaker 1: fronts in the white tailed world that it can't be
46:55
Speaker 1: one wrong. It can be so I am hypocritical in
46:59
Speaker 1: that way that I still like cold fronts and pay
47:02
Speaker 1: attention to cold fronts. But I think a larger aspect
47:05
Speaker 1: of all of this is that cold fronts will give
47:08
Speaker 1: hunters confidence. Like I said, and like you said, that
47:11
Speaker 1: it might make you go sit in a better stand, um,
47:14
Speaker 1: because you think this is the kill hunt. Um. It
47:17
Speaker 1: will make you more alert, You're less likely to be
47:20
Speaker 1: on your phone. You'll get there earlier, you'll stay later, um,
47:24
Speaker 1: because you have that confidence. I think that is as
47:27
Speaker 1: large a factor as it is that it actually makes
47:30
Speaker 1: the dear move in front of you more. It could
47:33
Speaker 1: be a factor. I won't say it's more so, and
47:35
Speaker 1: I'll say it could be a portion of it. Um.
47:38
Speaker 1: So that's set, whether phantom or reality. Cold fronts where
47:42
Speaker 1: something that a a lot of people talked about this year. UM,
47:45
Speaker 1: lay it out for me, the most impactful cold fronts
47:47
Speaker 1: where when when did you narrow us down to this year?
47:50
Speaker 1: I would say the second weekend of October. It seemed
47:52
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Seemed like a lot of the
47:53
Speaker 1: country had a cold front that hit on like that Friday,
47:57
Speaker 1: stuck around through Sunday or Monday. And then the second
48:01
Speaker 1: big one was that very first weekend of November. I
48:04
Speaker 1: think it was like November one maybe that kind of
48:08
Speaker 1: hung around for a few days and then sort of
48:10
Speaker 1: plateaued into just like some consistent weather for the entire run. YEA,
48:14
Speaker 1: for like that long period of the first two weeks
48:15
Speaker 1: in November, at least in Michigan, it was just cold
48:19
Speaker 1: or really cold. But we never had like we talked
48:22
Speaker 1: about earlier. We never had the weird warm temperature. And
48:25
Speaker 1: I remember during that time here you and I were
48:27
Speaker 1: talking about is it is it it all going to
48:30
Speaker 1: be downside? There's no change, Because lots of times people
48:32
Speaker 1: talk about changing changes in weather sometimes spur a bumping movement.
48:36
Speaker 1: We just had a kind of consistent cold. Um. I
48:39
Speaker 1: wouldn't I wouldn't complain about that. I thought it was fine, um,
48:42
Speaker 1: but it was interesting. Yeah, And I certainly like when
48:46
Speaker 1: you get that consistent cold at that time of beard,
48:49
Speaker 1: that's great, But with that can often bring some stagnant winds. Um,
48:54
Speaker 1: something you really have to plan for. If if and
48:56
Speaker 1: I think this year's a lot of north winds for
48:59
Speaker 1: a lot of the country during that cold front, you've
49:01
Speaker 1: got to be aware that if you ever rutcation that
49:04
Speaker 1: nine days long, um, six of those days you might
49:07
Speaker 1: have to plan on hunting north wind and so then
49:11
Speaker 1: you really have to capitalize on the south winds haunts.
49:13
Speaker 1: You have to be more mobile to be able to
49:15
Speaker 1: set up and tear down to get you yourself some
49:17
Speaker 1: new options. If if this north windstand isn't paying off,
49:20
Speaker 1: or if you bump a deer and that one is
49:22
Speaker 1: no longer going to be relevant for a few days. Um,
49:24
Speaker 1: So that's stagnant whether I think has a downside in
49:27
Speaker 1: that way that you were then limited on some of
49:31
Speaker 1: your options. Um. Other things around coal fronts that I
49:37
Speaker 1: think are worth noting is that first big coal front
49:41
Speaker 1: came kind of mid October ish, which some might say
49:44
Speaker 1: is is a a slower time of movement. Um, I
49:48
Speaker 1: think we've pretty consistently talked about here that it's not
49:51
Speaker 1: any kind of biological lull. But there are changing factors
49:54
Speaker 1: in the woods that might influence deer to move less
49:56
Speaker 1: than daylight, possibly in some places, more hunting pressure, changing
49:59
Speaker 1: for food sources, um, Less cover out there as leaves
50:03
Speaker 1: come down. UM. So all that can change to your movement. Um.
50:06
Speaker 1: But then we had that cold front dropped into this
50:09
Speaker 1: same period, so there's a lot of different factors happened
50:11
Speaker 1: in mid October. Did you see any kind of big
50:16
Speaker 1: bump in success around that. My feeling was that I
50:21
Speaker 1: didn't see this monstrous um up swell of of success
50:25
Speaker 1: from people that you might have seen, like what happened
50:30
Speaker 1: when we had a really nicely timed coal front in
50:32
Speaker 1: late October and everyone was like, holy smokes, late October
50:35
Speaker 1: like that I remember from thirty one was banging like
50:43
Speaker 1: lots and lots of deer were hit in the ground
50:44
Speaker 1: during that time period. Um. This year, I didn't feel
50:48
Speaker 1: that happened during that time period nearly as much. And
50:50
Speaker 1: then when we did have that big coal front in
50:52
Speaker 1: like you said, like midish October, it wasn't. Man, Is
50:56
Speaker 1: that the sense that you got to Yeah, that's it's
50:58
Speaker 1: still hard to quantify because it seems like so much
51:01
Speaker 1: of it is is anecdotal. But you're right, it felt
51:06
Speaker 1: like we had that one it was like the fifth
51:08
Speaker 1: or the seventh in October, and then we had that
51:10
Speaker 1: one later in the season. It seemed like a lot
51:12
Speaker 1: of deer we're getting killed, especially that first one that
51:16
Speaker 1: was early in October. I can't remember the exact day.
51:19
Speaker 1: Somewhere between like the fifth and the tenth, I think
51:21
Speaker 1: we both saw we had guys on Red Fresh Radio
51:24
Speaker 1: that we're calling their shots, saying that I think it's
51:26
Speaker 1: going to be great. And then I think three out
51:27
Speaker 1: of four of the guys we had on on the
51:29
Speaker 1: one wins they went out and killed like that Saturday.
51:32
Speaker 1: And then just social media lighting up that same time
51:35
Speaker 1: period where it was early October, but it felt like
51:38
Speaker 1: it was early November from all the deer that were
51:41
Speaker 1: hitting the ground. Um and so, like I said, a
51:44
Speaker 1: lot of that tends to be an acdotal, but it
51:45
Speaker 1: certainly seemed like that happened for sure less less so
51:51
Speaker 1: it might take away from that as I continue to
51:55
Speaker 1: see this happened year after year, all the different variations
51:57
Speaker 1: and stuff if I had to. And again, this is
52:00
Speaker 1: is anecdotal. This is just like trying to put my
52:03
Speaker 1: finger on the pulse kind of thing. These are little,
52:05
Speaker 1: tiny observations I'm making, But I would just as as
52:09
Speaker 1: you try to one thing, A lot of hunters deal with, UM,
52:13
Speaker 1: you and I a little bit less. So we're fortunate
52:14
Speaker 1: with our jobs. Now we've got some wiggle room, but
52:17
Speaker 1: um still to a degree, with family life and everything
52:19
Speaker 1: else going on, we have to pick our times to hunt.
52:21
Speaker 1: And it's better to hunt than not hunt if you've
52:24
Speaker 1: got a limited schedule and you just gotta go and
52:25
Speaker 1: you gotta go do it. But if you have the
52:27
Speaker 1: ability to pick your shots, pick your times, and you're
52:30
Speaker 1: being selective about when you can do it, UM, I
52:33
Speaker 1: would say that there's varying levels of impact a cold
52:37
Speaker 1: front can have. I think I believe that most call
52:40
Speaker 1: friends can help a little bit. But I think that
52:42
Speaker 1: a cold front timed at specific parts of the season
52:45
Speaker 1: can have a disproportionate impact. So what I'm thinking here
52:49
Speaker 1: is that a a really early season cold front is
52:52
Speaker 1: a disproportionately special cold front. So if there's a cold
52:55
Speaker 1: front hits October one, I'm pumped about that one. I'm
52:58
Speaker 1: more pumped about the October one one then I am
53:00
Speaker 1: about the October twelfth, fourteenth one. I will second. I'll
53:05
Speaker 1: secondly say that a late October cold from I'm disproportionately
53:08
Speaker 1: excited about because that seems to be like that will
53:10
Speaker 1: kind of really kick things into gear a little bit
53:12
Speaker 1: more than they might otherwise. I'm slightly less excited though
53:16
Speaker 1: about a cold front that's like November ten, because it's
53:19
Speaker 1: gonna be pretty good no matter why. I like it, Like,
53:21
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be happy about it. But if if if
53:24
Speaker 1: you gave me like the ability to you gave me
53:27
Speaker 1: two cold friends, and I had to pick when I
53:29
Speaker 1: want them, I would either pick very beginning of the season,
53:34
Speaker 1: their end of October, or like a late season cold front.
53:39
Speaker 1: I think those are when it makes us has a
53:41
Speaker 1: special power maybe, And I'm just kind of this is
53:44
Speaker 1: like a high level thing. I'm thinking, I don't have
53:47
Speaker 1: any science, I have no studies I can point to
53:49
Speaker 1: purely ancdotal, but it's kind of that's the feeling I
53:52
Speaker 1: get after talking to so many people, hearing from so
53:54
Speaker 1: many people, um, it seems to be a slightly more
54:00
Speaker 1: impactful those times. And so with that um favored cold
54:04
Speaker 1: friend that you talked about at the very beginning of October,
54:07
Speaker 1: how does that change your tactics, like specifically your haunts.
54:10
Speaker 1: Are you getting closer to betting? Are you hunting more
54:13
Speaker 1: questionable winds? Are you going into areas that you you
54:17
Speaker 1: otherwise wouldn't like? Are you hunting a morning that time
54:19
Speaker 1: of year when you otherwise would not be hunting a morning?
54:22
Speaker 1: So in the super duper early season, I still wouldn't
54:24
Speaker 1: hunt a morning unless I had like an observation of
54:28
Speaker 1: trialcare and picture that told me, hey, he's moving in dayly,
54:31
Speaker 1: you gotta do it. Um. So that swing I would
54:34
Speaker 1: not take because I still just at least in a
54:36
Speaker 1: lot of spots of hunt, it's just really hard to
54:38
Speaker 1: get in these places early season in the mornings. Um.
54:41
Speaker 1: But I would get more aggressive in other ways, so
54:43
Speaker 1: I would I would push it. I would hunt my
54:45
Speaker 1: best early season locations, and I would find to try
54:49
Speaker 1: to find ways to do it, even if the winds
54:50
Speaker 1: were slightly more questionable, or if it would require me
54:53
Speaker 1: pushing a little deeper to a property I typically would. Um.
54:56
Speaker 1: Getting the cold from that time year, I've just seen
54:59
Speaker 1: so many times and again it's it's personal, it's ancidotal.
55:02
Speaker 1: But I've just seen so many times that when you
55:03
Speaker 1: got that cold weather the first few days of the season,
55:06
Speaker 1: one of the very very best chances you'll have all year.
55:09
Speaker 1: So this year, now, this this could be you know,
55:13
Speaker 1: this could be an example of not listening to what
55:16
Speaker 1: I just said. This season, Um, we had a cold
55:19
Speaker 1: front hitting, but it was hitting the second day of
55:20
Speaker 1: the season. So I opted for the first time in
55:22
Speaker 1: like ten years, not to hunt the first night of
55:25
Speaker 1: the season in Michigan. I just I was out there.
55:28
Speaker 1: I was scouting, though, So I sat an observation location
55:31
Speaker 1: far away from where I would to get a shot
55:33
Speaker 1: of deer, and I was just glassing the spot I
55:35
Speaker 1: wanted to hunt. So I wanted to see this long
55:38
Speaker 1: area and you know the story, I told you this,
55:39
Speaker 1: you know, five months ago, whatever it was. So I
55:42
Speaker 1: scouted the first night of the season because it was
55:43
Speaker 1: poor conditions, because I wanted to be more informed to
55:47
Speaker 1: hunt the second day when we had better and lo
55:49
Speaker 1: and behold, the first nio the season, my target about
55:51
Speaker 1: tran shows up right where I was going to hunt.
55:54
Speaker 1: If I would have hunted, even though the conditions weren't great.
55:57
Speaker 1: But the next day conditions were pretty good. I went
56:01
Speaker 1: and hunted there and I had a shot at, you know,
56:04
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty class really nice three year old buck.
56:06
Speaker 1: I did have a shot at what it would have
56:08
Speaker 1: been my second biggest, you know, Michigan buck on this property. UM.
56:12
Speaker 1: So it paid to a degree to push in there
56:14
Speaker 1: that day. UM, I just chose to be more picky.
56:19
Speaker 1: I don't know what to take from that. That could
56:20
Speaker 1: you could You could look at it either way, I guess.
56:22
Speaker 1: But long story short, when you get those cold fronts
56:26
Speaker 1: at the right time of year, I get more aggressive.
56:28
Speaker 1: I'll you know, I will take more chances when I
56:33
Speaker 1: think conditions tell me that a buck is going to
56:35
Speaker 1: be honest, moving in daily a little bit more likely. Sure. Uh.
56:39
Speaker 1: And with that first weekend of November cold front that
56:42
Speaker 1: hit you also had the running moon right about that time.
56:47
Speaker 1: Something else that, UM, I don't pay much attention to you.
56:50
Speaker 1: I like to look every year we need to go
56:52
Speaker 1: in to be um and and with moon activity or
56:57
Speaker 1: with with moon dictating, do you act it for me?
57:01
Speaker 1: I've said this before. It's like bigfoot or aliens. UM,
57:06
Speaker 1: I don't believe in it. But if you have, like
57:10
Speaker 1: a good Bigfoot story or good alien story, I'm all in.
57:14
Speaker 1: I want to hear about it. Tell me about it.
57:16
Speaker 1: I will stop on a show that deals with those things.
57:19
Speaker 1: Every time I'm flipping through the channels, I'm fascinated by
57:22
Speaker 1: the subject. But ultimately, if you had to be like,
57:25
Speaker 1: do you believe in Bigfoot? Do you believe in aliens?
57:26
Speaker 1: I be like, now that's how I feel about with
57:30
Speaker 1: moon phases altering dear movement. But do you leave it
57:34
Speaker 1: open as a possibility? Sure, yeah, I could be convinced someday.
57:39
Speaker 1: I I lean on the studies, like I said about
57:41
Speaker 1: with Cold fronts. Um those studies show that moon doesn't
57:44
Speaker 1: change anything, But there could be a study that comes
57:46
Speaker 1: up that that changes that because um, as we've seen,
57:50
Speaker 1: like dear studies today are different than dear studies twenty
57:54
Speaker 1: years ago or forty years ago, And some new technology
57:57
Speaker 1: might come out that show us that like, oh no,
57:59
Speaker 1: we we were we were wrong about this, So my
58:02
Speaker 1: mind could certainly be changed. What I'm getting at is
58:04
Speaker 1: we had that rutting moon that fell in early November.
58:08
Speaker 1: Did you notice anything about that? What should hunters expect
58:11
Speaker 1: to see that time of year, and how is like
58:13
Speaker 1: this rutting moon different than other ones we might have. Yeah,
58:16
Speaker 1: so the rutting moon quote unquote is supposedly the second
58:21
Speaker 1: full moon after the autumn equinox, and the theory behind
58:26
Speaker 1: this is that when that occurs, that is kind of
58:29
Speaker 1: a trigger for running activity. This is a theory popularized
58:33
Speaker 1: by the late Charles Alsheimer and Wayne Laroche. I believe
58:38
Speaker 1: based off of a bunch of observations and studies they did.
58:41
Speaker 1: But to your point, almost everyone else, almost all other
58:44
Speaker 1: studies have pointed that not being true. Almost everything else
58:47
Speaker 1: points to the fact that the rut is triggered by
58:49
Speaker 1: photo period, which is the changing levels of daylight which
58:52
Speaker 1: are consistent year after year, which means that you have
58:55
Speaker 1: a consistent, relatively consistent peak of breeding activity year after
58:59
Speaker 1: year most places in the country. I used to pay
59:02
Speaker 1: more attention to the rutting moon. Um. I used to
59:05
Speaker 1: always see what it was and pay attention to seed
59:08
Speaker 1: I see something different, Is there something to it? Um. Honestly,
59:13
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, I haven't even really pay
59:15
Speaker 1: attention because anecdotally, I just haven't seen anything consistent enough
59:20
Speaker 1: to make me disregard the studies, so I personally don't
59:23
Speaker 1: take into account. The believers would tell you that you
59:26
Speaker 1: should pay attention to that, and that there are certain
59:28
Speaker 1: kind of like how I do believe that cold fronts
59:30
Speaker 1: at certain times that you can have an impact. They
59:32
Speaker 1: might say that when the rutting moon is placed in
59:35
Speaker 1: certain parts of the calendar, it will have an impact.
59:37
Speaker 1: So one theory is that if you have a very
59:40
Speaker 1: earlier late reading moon that falls outside of the typical
59:43
Speaker 1: window of writing behavior, we'll call it the first two
59:45
Speaker 1: weeks of November, if you've got a running moon that
59:48
Speaker 1: falls outside of that window, you might have what will
59:50
Speaker 1: be called a trickle rut where you don't see a
59:53
Speaker 1: real great burst and intensitive rutting activity. It is kind
59:56
Speaker 1: of a little bit here, a little bit. They're starting
59:59
Speaker 1: maybe mid out Ober and then continuing through mid November later.
1:00:03
Speaker 1: That's the that's the belief I don't subscribe to. I
1:00:08
Speaker 1: believe that, based off these studies again, that you're going
1:00:11
Speaker 1: to see the most breeding in Michigan starts around like
1:00:14
Speaker 1: the top of that. It's a bell curve, right, there's
1:00:16
Speaker 1: something earlier, there's some there later, but the highest number
1:00:19
Speaker 1: will be in that mid November time period. So I
1:00:21
Speaker 1: always look at the last week of October, in the
1:00:24
Speaker 1: first two weeks of November when I'm expecting to see
1:00:27
Speaker 1: the very most activity, not breeding, but writing activity leading
1:00:32
Speaker 1: up to breeding, and then you're gonna see some of
1:00:33
Speaker 1: the different behavior scattered throughout. I don't want the rutting Moon.
1:00:36
Speaker 1: I don't want the moon at all really impact my
1:00:38
Speaker 1: strategy too much anymore. The other rut related theory or
1:00:41
Speaker 1: the other activity relay theory around the moon is the
1:00:44
Speaker 1: red Moon. Um, there's a lot of folks to believe
1:00:47
Speaker 1: in that. I've got good friends that really believe in it.
1:00:49
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of very successful hunters that
1:00:51
Speaker 1: really believe in it. I won't throw out I won't
1:00:55
Speaker 1: throw it out completely. The belief that the position of
1:00:59
Speaker 1: the moon at certain times of day might get you
1:01:02
Speaker 1: a little bit more daylight activity. Maybe there's a little
1:01:05
Speaker 1: bit of truth to that in some kind of way.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: I just I can't point to any definitive truth or
1:01:12
Speaker 1: change in my strategy around it, but it's it's there
1:01:15
Speaker 1: might be something too. But basically the red moon thing is,
1:01:18
Speaker 1: is there certain days or certain times when the moon
1:01:21
Speaker 1: is directly above or directly below, overhead or underfoot, which
1:01:24
Speaker 1: supposed we can impact a little bit of early movement. UM.
1:01:28
Speaker 1: One thing maybe worth noting is that in there was
1:01:32
Speaker 1: an evening red moon during that late October time period
1:01:36
Speaker 1: that also coincided with the cold front, which also coincided
1:01:40
Speaker 1: with what we both observed being a particularly high number
1:01:43
Speaker 1: of people killing mature bucks. This year, we didn't have that.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: We didn't have the red moon either. You can't connect
1:01:51
Speaker 1: the dots to the one thing or another, but it's
1:01:53
Speaker 1: it's an observation. UM. In when was that rotting moon?
1:01:58
Speaker 1: What should have people expected to see? So the running
1:02:01
Speaker 1: moon was October thirty one, which would have basically been
1:02:04
Speaker 1: right in line with one. I would expect writting behavior
1:02:07
Speaker 1: to be picking up regardless of the moon. So that's
1:02:10
Speaker 1: how I approach it. I just I'm gonna look at
1:02:13
Speaker 1: what's the calendar date, and I'll look at weather conditions
1:02:16
Speaker 1: a little bit to help me understand if I think
1:02:18
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a little bit more daily activity or not. Um.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: But I'm always blocking off those those dates. They should
1:02:24
Speaker 1: be pretty good, yum, the moon or otherwise. And I
1:02:28
Speaker 1: kind of just craped all over the moon stuff UM.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that I never, like really
1:02:36
Speaker 1: loved having a moon dictate your hunt is that I
1:02:39
Speaker 1: felt like it was something that deer hunters had invented
1:02:43
Speaker 1: to um like talk about why movement might be better
1:02:48
Speaker 1: or worse. And I thought this was like largely a
1:02:51
Speaker 1: white tail thing. And then I moved to Montana and
1:02:53
Speaker 1: I started L hunting. And the honest tell Us is
1:02:57
Speaker 1: former elkhunning guide. He's a great l con to right now.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: I was bouncing all kinds of questions often because I'm
1:03:03
Speaker 1: so green to it, and I would just um anytime
1:03:05
Speaker 1: something to come up by shooting a text or I
1:03:07
Speaker 1: would go bug him in the office and he would
1:03:10
Speaker 1: talk about how the moon affects l cunning and how
1:03:13
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that he worked with felt the
1:03:15
Speaker 1: same way that the moon affected elk hunting, and Yanni
1:03:18
Speaker 1: as someone who's l counting knowledge, I greatly respect. And
1:03:23
Speaker 1: so that kind of opened my eyes to something else
1:03:27
Speaker 1: as well, that well, it's not just um white tail
1:03:30
Speaker 1: hunters on manicured properties that think this is a thing.
1:03:34
Speaker 1: It falls outside of that with L hunters, UM fishermen
1:03:38
Speaker 1: talk about how the how the moon can affect things
1:03:40
Speaker 1: So that's also why I leave it open that I
1:03:44
Speaker 1: could be I could be talked into the moon affecting
1:03:47
Speaker 1: deer movement, uh someday, But until like that study comes out,
1:03:52
Speaker 1: you know, it's something that I'm not real concerned with. Yeah,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: I feel like if if anything else, because I said
1:03:57
Speaker 1: this mighty test before, I look at it as like
1:03:58
Speaker 1: a sweetener, it might give you just like a two
1:04:01
Speaker 1: percent better chance that I'm mature buck maybe is going
1:04:03
Speaker 1: to move in daylight a little bit Further, I won't
1:04:06
Speaker 1: complain if the moon is supposedly good for the day.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: I'm being a hunt, but I don't let it dictate
1:04:11
Speaker 1: too much of what I do. Yeah, if you were
1:04:12
Speaker 1: listening out like ten factors as to why this might
1:04:15
Speaker 1: be a good or bad hunt, that's not going to
1:04:17
Speaker 1: be in like your top three or four. No, it's
1:04:19
Speaker 1: gonna be lower on my list. It might be something
1:04:21
Speaker 1: I say, hey, I hope this helps. Yeah, but it's
1:04:23
Speaker 1: not going to be what I'm framing the whole plan around. Say, um,
1:04:27
Speaker 1: so we've talked about the time of cold from we
1:04:29
Speaker 1: talked about the time of the moon. We talked about
1:04:30
Speaker 1: how the wet spring and wet fall change things around.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: Is there any other major factor from twenty nineteen that
1:04:39
Speaker 1: is worth noting or that might impact us in twenty
1:04:42
Speaker 1: at all. I was less aware of this because I
1:04:45
Speaker 1: didn't deer hunt much in December. I think a hundred
1:04:48
Speaker 1: five days in December. But it seemed like most of
1:04:51
Speaker 1: the country had a pretty mild December. And so you
1:04:57
Speaker 1: know you you almost haunt you on December every year
1:05:01
Speaker 1: with success often as well. So maybe you can speak
1:05:04
Speaker 1: to this better on what a mild December means or
1:05:07
Speaker 1: what a December with a lot of snow means, and
1:05:08
Speaker 1: were December with a lot of cold means, But it
1:05:10
Speaker 1: felt like this year in uh there wasn't a ton
1:05:14
Speaker 1: of big snow uh experiences across the country. The temps
1:05:19
Speaker 1: never got super cold. We just kind of had a
1:05:21
Speaker 1: mild last month of the Yeah, And I think this
1:05:25
Speaker 1: goes back to some of the factors we've talked about.
1:05:27
Speaker 1: I mean all year, every year, we talked about these
1:05:28
Speaker 1: same things. Um. But again a review typical late season
1:05:33
Speaker 1: conditions that I'm looking for is I want a big
1:05:36
Speaker 1: coal front again, or a a significant weather event. Significant
1:05:40
Speaker 1: change in weather typically will spur some increased activity daylight activity,
1:05:45
Speaker 1: So a big major coal front like super fridgid temperatures.
1:05:49
Speaker 1: That's one of those things. They can get deer that
1:05:51
Speaker 1: might be less likely to move in daylight to be
1:05:53
Speaker 1: a willing to get on their feet. The second thing
1:05:56
Speaker 1: could be a big snow event. And for much of
1:05:59
Speaker 1: the Midwest we did get either one of those things
1:06:01
Speaker 1: for most of December. So I personally, I didn't see
1:06:05
Speaker 1: the late season activity I've seen in a year's past.
1:06:07
Speaker 1: And I saw plenty of deer, but I wasn't seeing
1:06:10
Speaker 1: the mature bucks like I thought I might be able
1:06:12
Speaker 1: to see. Um. I was waiting and hoping to take
1:06:15
Speaker 1: advantage of one of those fronts to go and try
1:06:18
Speaker 1: to take a late season crack at tran That buck
1:06:20
Speaker 1: I'm after never got it. Um. So I hunted regardless,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: but I just didn't get the movement that I thought
1:06:26
Speaker 1: would really happen. So I saw very few bucks on
1:06:29
Speaker 1: their feet and daylight coming out into the open. When
1:06:31
Speaker 1: I was seeing them, they were way back and cover
1:06:33
Speaker 1: in places I couldn't hunt, but I could just kind
1:06:35
Speaker 1: of see the distance. Um. The one time that my
1:06:38
Speaker 1: buck did come out to a food source in the
1:06:41
Speaker 1: late season, it was a cold day, just a few days,
1:06:45
Speaker 1: like a second day after snow, about as cool as
1:06:48
Speaker 1: we got all late season, and very high pressure. It
1:06:51
Speaker 1: was like a bluebird sky high pressure day, and it
1:06:54
Speaker 1: was one of those days that and you can just
1:06:56
Speaker 1: feel it. There's certain I don't know if you've ever
1:06:58
Speaker 1: noticed this, but I can predict an hour or two
1:07:03
Speaker 1: before the end of daylight the nights when I want
1:07:05
Speaker 1: to see a mature buckler when there's a really good chance,
1:07:07
Speaker 1: Like you can feel this is gonna be one of
1:07:09
Speaker 1: those nights. So there's a good chance as long as
1:07:10
Speaker 1: sometimes that doesn't get messed up, as long as some
1:07:13
Speaker 1: other hunter doesn't spook him, or coyote runs through, or
1:07:15
Speaker 1: I don't spook a deal, this is gonna be one
1:07:17
Speaker 1: of those nights. You can feel it, like you'll see
1:07:19
Speaker 1: more young bucks on their feet early, You'll see the
1:07:21
Speaker 1: does coming out earlier. Um you'll see especially here oftentimes
1:07:28
Speaker 1: in the late season, the places that I hunt, it'll
1:07:31
Speaker 1: either be like all dose or it'll be the night
1:07:35
Speaker 1: when you can see a bunch of bucks. But for
1:07:37
Speaker 1: some reason they right this time of year, the bucks
1:07:40
Speaker 1: kind of start regrouping back and store of pseudo bachelor
1:07:43
Speaker 1: groups to a degree, and if if I start seeing
1:07:46
Speaker 1: two year old bucks on their feet, I'm like, oh boy,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: this night could be a good night. And they happened
1:07:51
Speaker 1: one time the entire season, and that one time last
1:07:55
Speaker 1: year that came out. It was a big man and
1:07:57
Speaker 1: I couldn't get a shot at him. But um, but yeah,
1:08:00
Speaker 1: we didn't get the optimal conditions this year. I imagine
1:08:02
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people that had slightly less
1:08:05
Speaker 1: success than they would have hoped in late season because
1:08:06
Speaker 1: of it. Um. I guess what that means on the
1:08:10
Speaker 1: bright side, is that again, when I might have had
1:08:14
Speaker 1: a few more deer that made it through to the
1:08:15
Speaker 1: new year, so we might have, like in my case,
1:08:17
Speaker 1: I've got several mature bucks that I know made it
1:08:19
Speaker 1: through the guns, made it for the hunting season, um,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: when in past years he didn't. So glasses half empty
1:08:27
Speaker 1: would be that it didn't phil attack glass half full?
1:08:29
Speaker 1: Was that looks pretty exciting? Yeah? And in something um
1:08:33
Speaker 1: that we talked about with the average j corn crop,
1:08:36
Speaker 1: that's not always notable, but when the season before is
1:08:39
Speaker 1: so different than it becomes a notable thing. With the
1:08:42
Speaker 1: mild December, Um, that's that's not really like always notable
1:08:47
Speaker 1: thing when it comes to white tails shedding the ntlers.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: But last year there was a ton of evidence of
1:08:53
Speaker 1: deer shedding early in December and by early January. UM
1:08:58
Speaker 1: that it became something that wasn't really in Adota anymore.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: And I talked to Kip Adams about this in an
1:09:02
Speaker 1: article about this as to why it seemed like you
1:09:05
Speaker 1: were shedding early across the country last year. UM, and
1:09:08
Speaker 1: he had kind of pointed to like environmental stressors as
1:09:11
Speaker 1: to why those three things to be like crop failure,
1:09:13
Speaker 1: prolonged flooding, and prolonged cold. So when we didn't have
1:09:18
Speaker 1: like the prolonged cold this year, I think then you're
1:09:21
Speaker 1: not going to expect to see the same thing as
1:09:25
Speaker 1: where bucks were shedding a lot by Christmas day. UM,
1:09:29
Speaker 1: something you're probably not gonna notice this year. Interesting. So
1:09:35
Speaker 1: there's twenty nineteen in ah h was a nutshell. I
1:09:40
Speaker 1: think that's what they say, having one of those days,
1:09:42
Speaker 1: but every one of those days of the words just
1:09:46
Speaker 1: aren't coming to me. I couldn't sleep last night. I
1:09:48
Speaker 1: was up to like one thirty UM stewing on new
1:09:51
Speaker 1: ideas for the wire tunt podcast and us there that's
1:09:56
Speaker 1: what it is that might be it. UM. So that's
1:09:58
Speaker 1: our rear and review. We talked a little bit about
1:10:01
Speaker 1: some of the things we'll be thinking about differently. UM.
1:10:04
Speaker 1: But do you have to close this out? Do you
1:10:07
Speaker 1: have one New Year's resolution related to hunting or dear?
1:10:13
Speaker 1: Is there any one thing you're hoping to do differently,
1:10:15
Speaker 1: better change, um that you will be focusing on as
1:10:21
Speaker 1: you deliberately practice and prepare for season. Just do better
1:10:26
Speaker 1: than this year. That's that's largely it. Um. That's so generic,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: I know, but but I want to hunt more, I
1:10:32
Speaker 1: want to kill more. UM So I think that's that's
1:10:36
Speaker 1: really simply it is haunt more, kill more, and and
1:10:40
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that go into that. Like
1:10:41
Speaker 1: I said, planning better, UM, maybe changing some tactics, not
1:10:46
Speaker 1: falling in love with historical things that have maybe worked. UM.
1:10:51
Speaker 1: So I think those are it. If if I had
1:10:54
Speaker 1: to get more specific, UM, this year, I killed my
1:10:57
Speaker 1: buck during the rout with my UM. You know part
1:11:01
Speaker 1: of this property that I had never really hunted in
1:11:04
Speaker 1: a stand, that I would never um in a tree,
1:11:07
Speaker 1: that I had never hung a standing before. UM. And
1:11:10
Speaker 1: it was because I forced myself to do something different
1:11:13
Speaker 1: during the ruts rather than relying on uh, these stands
1:11:17
Speaker 1: or these trees that I know I've worked in the past,
1:11:19
Speaker 1: and so I want to do more of that going forward.
1:11:22
Speaker 1: Stay more mobile, uh, stay more in the moment, like, Okay,
1:11:25
Speaker 1: this isn't working, so I have to do something differently. Um.
1:11:29
Speaker 1: That was why I was successful on that hunt. So
1:11:32
Speaker 1: I think I need to apply that to more of
1:11:33
Speaker 1: my hunt forward. Good that good stuff. I think for me,
1:11:39
Speaker 1: we haven't really talked about this at all today. UM,
1:11:42
Speaker 1: but one thing that I want to do or a
1:11:46
Speaker 1: shift is maybe be more maybe a little bit more
1:11:50
Speaker 1: conservative on when I hunt. I kind of went a
1:11:54
Speaker 1: little bit. I've been ebbing and flowing with this and
1:11:57
Speaker 1: this year I hunted a bunch in the same places
1:12:00
Speaker 1: because I figured out some ways to hunt these places
1:12:02
Speaker 1: with relatively impact. UM. And I've also gotten to the
1:12:05
Speaker 1: point where I know you can have some success in
1:12:07
Speaker 1: mid October, late October, etcetera. UM, So I got a
1:12:11
Speaker 1: little bit aggress more aggressive with when I hunted that
1:12:14
Speaker 1: I usually do. This coming year, I want to pull
1:12:19
Speaker 1: back there. I want to become a little bit more
1:12:20
Speaker 1: conservative with how often I go, but I want to
1:12:23
Speaker 1: get more aggressive with where I go. So I'm gonna
1:12:27
Speaker 1: hunt a little bit fewer days, but I'm gonna push
1:12:29
Speaker 1: in deeper to the cover. This past year, I did
1:12:31
Speaker 1: that to a degree, and I started hunting in a
1:12:33
Speaker 1: few of these spots a little bit more into the
1:12:35
Speaker 1: cover than I used to, and with some mobile stuff,
1:12:38
Speaker 1: I was shifting stands, I was moving thirty yards to
1:12:40
Speaker 1: a new spot, and I uncovered a couple of spots
1:12:43
Speaker 1: that I can hunt um where I was getting more
1:12:46
Speaker 1: opportunities than I ever have on one of these Michigan properties.
1:12:48
Speaker 1: And I think that can be applied to some of
1:12:50
Speaker 1: my public line stuff too. I want to just keep
1:12:52
Speaker 1: on pushing further and further. I've I've started out as
1:12:55
Speaker 1: a deer hunter, being very afraid to spook deer. I
1:12:59
Speaker 1: would I was, I was always airing towards I'd rather
1:13:02
Speaker 1: not bump them on it here. I'd rather wait and
1:13:03
Speaker 1: observe and hope to catch them making mistakes. I think
1:13:07
Speaker 1: that's still important to a degree, but I'm getting confident
1:13:10
Speaker 1: enough with knowing where that line is to now push
1:13:14
Speaker 1: it one step further in. So a little more conservad
1:13:18
Speaker 1: about when a little more aggressive about where is UH
1:13:21
Speaker 1: is something we'll be thinking about and I think all
1:13:23
Speaker 1: the things we talked about, the food sources, the cold fronts,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: the timing of whatever types of weather impacts might be
1:13:33
Speaker 1: out the rough Fresh Radio that until we're getting all
1:13:35
Speaker 1: of that definitely impacts my wends, which will allow me
1:13:39
Speaker 1: to determine the weares. So that's how I'm using ret
1:13:41
Speaker 1: Fresh Radio. I appreciate you helping do all that every
1:13:44
Speaker 1: year for us helping kind of break this down this year. Um,
1:13:48
Speaker 1: I personally find this show to be super helpful, like
1:13:51
Speaker 1: it's a selfish project. Every week. I listen as a
1:13:54
Speaker 1: consumer more than anything, and um man, I hope everybody
1:13:59
Speaker 1: else feel the same way. I enjoy doing it. Um
1:14:02
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite parts of the week every
1:14:04
Speaker 1: year when I record those episodes. So I hope listeners
1:14:09
Speaker 1: liked season four and I'm already excited for season five
1:14:12
Speaker 1: because of these things we just talked about. Here we
1:14:15
Speaker 1: go off to the races, and that is a rap.
1:14:20
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: As we broke down the trends and and observations from
1:14:25
Speaker 1: this past hunting season, I hope you'll all take some
1:14:29
Speaker 1: time to think through these questions for yourself, what you observed,
1:14:33
Speaker 1: what you learned um whether it be high level things
1:14:36
Speaker 1: like we talked about with whether and in different kind
1:14:38
Speaker 1: of environmental factors, or more personal like the mistakes you
1:14:41
Speaker 1: might have made or things you try that did or
1:14:43
Speaker 1: did not work out well. Take some time to reflect
1:14:46
Speaker 1: on that, take some time to think about how to
1:14:48
Speaker 1: do things differently the next year. That that deliberate, thoughtful
1:14:51
Speaker 1: approach to analyzing a past hunting season and preparing for
1:14:56
Speaker 1: the next hunting season in a new way. I really
1:14:59
Speaker 1: think that's the over bullet. That is the secret to
1:15:02
Speaker 1: taking your hunting to the next level. It's simple, but
1:15:05
Speaker 1: it simply works. So thank you again, appreciate your time,
1:15:10
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay wired to hunt.