Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 409: Mountain Buck Hunting Masterclass with Johnny Stewart, Beau Martonik, and Andy May

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Ep. 409: Mountain Buck Hunting Masterclass with Johnny Stewart, Beau Martonik, and Andy May · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: O nine and today the show we are continuing our
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: habitat specific series and our focus is mountain country stuff
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: like the steep hills and mountains of Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: up in the northeast. All that stuff is covered today
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and we're joined by expert bow hunters Johnny Stewart, Bow
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Martinic and Andy May. Alright, welcome to the Wired to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today we're
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: talking mountain country, talking stuff like the Appalitian Hills, foothills, mountains.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: We're talking about stuff up in the northeast, like Pennsylvania,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: stuff like what you find in Vermont or New Hampshire, Maine.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Stuff you might find down and shoot, maybe the Ozarks. UH,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: probably very applicable to the mountains. You could be hunting
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: in Idaho or some of the other Western states too.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: We're diving in how to think about these areas where
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: there's typically lots and lots of country, big timber and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: significant topography, big hills, ridges, points, creek bottoms, valleys, draws
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  Speaker 1: a lot of different things that are going to impact
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: deer movement, how wind fluctuates, and how you as a
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: hunter can can try to find deer out there and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: try to get away with getting close. So we're joined
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: by three folks, as has been the case for the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: previous uh renditions of this series, and he May joins
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  Speaker 1: me is co host. He's got some questions and some
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: curiosities that he's gonna be diving into here. But our
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: special guests are Johnny Stewart and Beaumark Tonic. Both of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: these guys are Pencil Vania hunters. They're both die hards.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: They've both traveled across the country to hunt in different places,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: so they're not just doing hill country in mountain country
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: hunting there in PA. They're hitting a bunch of other
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: states too. They've got some great insight, different perspectives, different
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: ways of going about things. And we've heard on the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: hill Country episode back I don't know a month or
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a month and a half ago. So we're gonna cover
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: some different things, but there is some overlap here. Um.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: So you can listen to that one and this one
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and take some things and add some things and kind
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of there's a there's a ven diagram. There's some oversection
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: there that that I think is interesting actually, so keep
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that in mind. Um, as far as backgrounds here, you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Johnny is just a die hard eat, sleeps and breathes
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: this stuff. And Bow the one of the things he
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: does additionally is he's got the East Meets West podcast
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: YouTube series, website. Uh, He's doing some cool stuff in
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the media space. So if you enjoy what you hear
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: today from Bow, you can definitely get more from him,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: So keep that in mind. The only other thing I
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: will mention is that if you have not already signed
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: up for our Whitetail weekly newsletter, I highly recommend you
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: do that. Just go over to the meat Eat dot com.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Make sure you're subscribed. That's where all of our new
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: stuff is shared first. That's where you're gonna get updates
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: on new content. That's what we're going to find out
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: about some it's actually some pretty exciting things coming down
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the line with Wired Hunt. That's where we're gonna share it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We'll be talking about it there. So I just want
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to make sure you're tapped in on what's going on
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: here in the wire Dunk community. There's going to be
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a lot, so stay tuned. And with that, I think
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: we should just kick it over to my conversation with Bow,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Johnny and Andy. Alright, guys, we have got one hell
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of a trio on the line here for our Mountain
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  Speaker 1: buck master class. I've got on the line with me here,
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  Speaker 1: Bou Martinic, Johnny Stewart, and Andy may Uh. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: all for making the time to be here for this.
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  Speaker 1: We've done a couple of these kind of roundtable master
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: classes already here. People are really really liking it and
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  Speaker 1: and big hills and mountains have been one of those
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  Speaker 1: terrain types that people keep asking for, So I'm glad
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  Speaker 1: we can do it. Bo and Johnny especially, thank you
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  Speaker 1: guys for making the time to do this. Yeah, appreciate
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  Speaker 1: having us on. I'm I'm looking forward to this conversation. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: me too. So so Andy, let's let's start with you,
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  Speaker 1: because as we've done with all these um you've been
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: kind of the inspiration for who we talked to each
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: week in this series, and pretty early on Bow and
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  Speaker 1: Johnny bubble to the top as people that we should
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  Speaker 1: get on if we were to talk about mountains or
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  Speaker 1: the Apple Achians or anything like that. So, can you
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  Speaker 1: give me a year scoop on why on why bow
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and Johnny? Yeah? Sure. Um. Actually, you know, probably out
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  Speaker 1: of out of all the types of habitat um, mountain
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and hunting is probably what I know the least of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: as far as white tails. UM. So I reached out
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to h quite a few guys that I, you know, respect,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: that are good hunters that kind of hunt you know,
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  Speaker 1: big hills or mountain country, and I wanted to get
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: their opinion on who they thought would be uh good
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: guests for this podcast, because it's it's it's not really
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: my world, you know what I mean? I wanted to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: be I want that experience, and obviously you know you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and I both want to learn more about this, um.
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  Speaker 1: But I have not haunted mountain bucks. Um. I've punted
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: pretty much every other type of terrain, but not what
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I would consider mountain bucks. And so I reached out
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  Speaker 1: to several guys and UM, well, I guess I'll start
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: with uh with Johnny. UM. I think I asked like
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: four or five guys, you know, if you could, if
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you could pick out two guys who would you know,
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  Speaker 1: really be someone you know, two guys that are really experienced,
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  Speaker 1: that are real assistant in this type of country that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you you think are a cut above the rest as
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: far as skill and knowledge. Um, and I think pretty
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: much everybody. One of their guys was Johnny Stewart. Um.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And I've I don't know Johnny personally, but I've listened
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to a few of his podcasts and you know, I've
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed them, and he just he just you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's his experience, you know when he talks, So you
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  Speaker 1: could just tell this guy has a lot of experience.
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  Speaker 1: He stresses scouting, and he's he's a hard worker, and
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  Speaker 1: any anyone like that that has uh those qualities you know,
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  Speaker 1: I know I can learn from and uh I want
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to listen to. And then Bow Bow is like, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I think he's perfect for this because um, when I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: asked bo, uh it was interesting, he said Johnny Stewart
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and then he said his dad, and his dad declined. Um.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: But what I thought was so cool about that is
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: is Bow obviously has had an awesome teacher in his
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  Speaker 1: in his father. Um, so he's gonna have a lot
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  Speaker 1: of knowledge from his dad. That has has some great experience.
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  Speaker 1: But one thing I noticed about bo Is, He's a
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  Speaker 1: great teacher himself. He's got some incredible um YouTube resources
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  Speaker 1: on on mountain hunting and big hills um uh, some
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  Speaker 1: videos on there that I've watched that I think are
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  Speaker 1: just awesome, and he just conveys it, you know, really
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: unique in a special way. Um Like, I always feel
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  Speaker 1: like I'm not a very good teacher. Like I I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: have experience and i have some knowledge, but I'm not
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  Speaker 1: always the best that explaining it. Bo Is is exceptional
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  Speaker 1: at that, So he just I think he's gonna just
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  Speaker 1: be perfect for this podcast. Both these guys are killers
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  Speaker 1: and have a lot of experience, So I'm just really
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm right there with Andy
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  Speaker 1: and and I agree. I think that from everything that
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I've you know, we're gonna we're gonna teacher horns for
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit here bo and Johnny and then where
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: it come down. So don't get too comfortable. But what
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: else gonna say is that I agree, when it comes
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: to bow, you know you're getting it done, but then
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  Speaker 1: you also are are sharing it with people in a
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  Speaker 1: way that's that's clear and digestible. And that is not
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  Speaker 1: a easy to do thing. And then as far as Johnny,
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  Speaker 1: I was here. I was listening to something from Johnny
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  Speaker 1: the other day, and I'm gonna get the details wrong,
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  Speaker 1: but he was telling the story about how his brother
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  Speaker 1: or brother in law or somebody was gonna stay in
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: his house or something, and the only thing he was
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  Speaker 1: worried about, he said, don't you dare put any smelly
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: flower sent a detergent in my laundry machine. Will be
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  Speaker 1: done if you do that. The level of dedication. I
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  Speaker 1: loved that. So Johnny, you're you're an a plus in
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  Speaker 1: my book right there. What what my or mind had that?
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  Speaker 1: And what I'm thinking about, you know, not all about
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  Speaker 1: money openly, Like what drives me is like my time
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  Speaker 1: to hunt and what I'm passionate about. You know, you
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: know you have so much time hunt, going to hunt
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  Speaker 1: in season. You gotta kill that mountain deer, any mature
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  Speaker 1: deer in general. You gotta do everything right. Then I
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: got my one dryer and washer that have not been
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  Speaker 1: What might tell my girlfriend stop? I said, I left
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  Speaker 1: my long underwear and you washed another compromise. She's like,
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  Speaker 1: I love it, I love it, and so and so
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  Speaker 1: with that, I guess let's get into it. We Andy
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  Speaker 1: and I both have a lot of things were curious
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  Speaker 1: to pick your brains about. Um. I think the first thing,
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  Speaker 1: if if I were to get kicked off first, the
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  Speaker 1: first thing that's on my mind is simply why it's
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  Speaker 1: it's why does hunting white tails in the mountains in
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  Speaker 1: this kind of really hilly, steep country. Why does that
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  Speaker 1: just get the hairs in the back of your neck
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  Speaker 1: sticking up? Why does that get you to be so
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  Speaker 1: obsessed that you would chastise your family members about the
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  Speaker 1: kind of stuff they put in your laundry machine? What
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  Speaker 1: is it about this that makes it so special? Uh? Johnny,
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  Speaker 1: well how would you? How would you describe that for
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: us to get things started? Well, I want to first
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: say thanks and Andy for the kind words. Um stick
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in my chest out here like a rooster. Ain't nobody
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: around you know what I'm saying. But um, yeah, I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: think the biggest thing is the challenge and the deer
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  Speaker 1: that I hunt. Our public land, um, which not all
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: mountains are, but a lot of mountainous area is vast
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  Speaker 1: pieces of land which is public. But um, anything I'd
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: like to do in life, I'd like it to be challenging.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I look for a challenge and then when um, you
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: succeed and makes it that much better. It might be
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a year, might be two years. You might hunt a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: deer for three years. You might never get the deer,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but look at all the knowledge you're gonna learn and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: hunt that animal. But the deer there or more nomadic.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I mean there's places they'll concentrate on food and the wind, thermals,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: wind whatever you want to calm or just sporadic. You
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: can't really um rarely maybe if you're up on top
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: or something, can't really depend on the wind. So the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: deer have the odds. It's in their favor. Um, they
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: take advantage of all their senses. And that's what I like.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I like giving them that advantage, the odds. So I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: try to get at them to forget the odds in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: my favor as much as I can. And you need
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to because it's so much in their favor. So find
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that ed, you know, find an angle on them. But
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I think it's the most challenging. I've hunted probably six
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: eight different states over the years. Some of them you know,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: more well known white tails states. Probably since I'm forty two,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: going to be forty two or I am forty two.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: You get to that age, you kind of the years
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: ago so fast. But Um, I started hunting young teenager
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But I got into hunting public land, trying
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: different states when I was younger. UM, and I just
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: gravitated to the more challenging hunt as far as white tails. Um,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I've hunted some foreign country. I found it pretty much
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: everything swamps, river bottoms, mountains, uh, you name it. Um.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I went to visit my buddy. We were walking down
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the beach, him and his wife and me and my
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: fiancee Stanners. It was over South Carolina. Just go jump
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: into weeds and I know there's some deer were he
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: had the shed hunting. It was like April, you know.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So I founded with him down there South Carolina. But
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I've hunted a lot of different types of terrains and habitat. UM.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's the most challenging in the in the mountain.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It's not just in the ruggedness, um accessibility and accessibility,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: so the odds are in their favor and it's uh,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it's that challenge, not just in deer hunting, just anything
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: in life. Uh. I'd like to be challenged, I'd like
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to try to figure them out. It's the toughest white
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: chiel hunting in my experience. So yeah, that's kind of
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: why I like one app makes sense to me. What
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: about you, bo, what would you add? What I would
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: add to that is it's from getting to hunt out
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: west and on elk and some different animals in different places.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: It's the closest thing I've found to backcountry type adventure
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: in the eastern US. And you know what Johnny said,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the challenges the deer act like deer. You can everything
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: is remote and vast and just it's just different. It's
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: different of hunted farm country and and swamps in different places.
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  Speaker 1: And it's just something that although that the deer numbers
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: are low and you can go literally days without seeing deer,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but for some reason, it just keeps bringing me back.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And and like like Johnny said, he explained it really well.
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  Speaker 1: The challenge of it is something that that I truly enjoy,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and that the fact that you have the opportunity an
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: extremely old age class of deer, Uh, it just drives me. No,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: it doesn't always work out that way, but the fact
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the fact that you have that opportunity and to be
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: able to do it. It's just it's just a beautiful
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: landscape to be and especially in October November, I can
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I can certainly see the appeal. Um. I haven't got
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to spend a ton of times specifically where you guys are,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but I did hunt Southwest PA one time along a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: long while back, and then I spent a lot of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: time in you know, some of the I guess it's
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a bit further east than you guys, but some of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the mountains and stuff in New York, and it's just
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: beautiful country out there. And uh, combining that kind of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: scenery and that kind of wild space with white tails, Uh,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: there's just nothing not to like about that. Um, Andy,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: where where's your head at to start? Here? Because I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: always like to try to scratch her it's first, and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that gets us always going somewhere good. So as as
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: as being, you know, a dang good deer hunter yourself,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: but one who is not as experienced in this this
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: most steep hilly country out there like this? What what
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: are you trying to figure out first so that you
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: can show up someday in Pennsylvania or New York or
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire or something like that. And be effective. Where
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: do you want to go with this? Yeah, so my
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: my experience with the biggest hill country that I've haunted, UM,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I've a fair amount of experience there, but it's it's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: like you know, three to four hundred foot bluffs, you know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: so it's it's pretty rugged, you know, southern Ohio, you
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: know that that that type of area. So I'm guessing
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I guess I want to ask, like, what's the differences,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: if anny, between just like your typical hill country, like
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: something like that, UM as opposed to what you would
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: consider mountain hunting or UM? Is there a is there
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a certain size or elevation type that you kind of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: decipher between the two. But I guess the main thing
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: is is there any differences between those? I know, I
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: know that's kind of a loaded question, but I just
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: kinda want to see where you guys go with this one?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: How about you both? So? Yeah, it's actually something I
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: struggle with defining the difference and when it turns from
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you know, big woods to mountain country and like what
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: you're talking about in southern in Ohio, which I spent
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: five or six years hunting in that type of train.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it is very similar from
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the stands the standpoint of how the wind reacts and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: how the deer use that train to their advantage. But
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I think once you get into the more of the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: mountainous region where you're getting you know, anywhere from eight
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: hundred feet to even six hundred feet of elevation gain
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and and drop, you know, from the top to bottom,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and sometimes even bigger than that. I know in some
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: areas of Virginia and North Carolina you get even even
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: bigger than where we're at. But you have some different
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: challenges with you know, depending on how the food the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: food is where they can be hanging out at one year,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: they might be hanging up towards the tops when it
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: has a good oak crop and if there's you know,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: not not any acorns um. They might be down lower
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: in the in the cherry trees and and some of
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the beach and stuff there. So there's the in the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: true I guess, mountain kind tree. I would say that
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: that when you have they can vary as far as
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: elevation goes and how they do that, but as far
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: as how they move, it's very similar in in I
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: guess how you would quote kill country, that would be
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I guess my best way in describing that that you there. Okay,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you've got anything to add there, Johnny, that's a good question, Andy.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I think, Um, when you say mountain, um, different people
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that live and live in different parts of the country
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: are going to view in their head what they've you know,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: as a mountain. Where to me it is a kind
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: of a UM, it's not. It's like a diverse there's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: a diverse habitat in the mountains and elevation change and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: flat so maybe Ohio, Um, it's kind of rugged two
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to three foreigner feet UM. And actually an area where
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I hunt um, near where bow is. It's a lot
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: they call it the It's part of the plateaus of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the you know, the Appalachian Allegheny Mountains. So there is
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of flat europe on a lot of flat area. UM.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: But it's also considered mountains. UM. But I think the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: biggest thing that I look for, um, is it a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure, because it's there everywhere. But yeah, I mean, um,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it's just um, it's a it's a lot. It's a
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: lot of different habitat in the mountains. It's not just
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: up and down um. But yeah, it's just um. It's
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: really Uh, it's different. There's there's some different food sources,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: different elevation benches, and some like the crow foot type
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of moody dudes I call them. And it's just there
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: is a lot of different different habitat in the definition
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to term mountains per se um. So it is kind
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of he's gonna learn that area, um and how the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: deer inhibit that area and and stuff like that. But
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: so yeah, I can I can imagine like just because
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of I mean, oh, you're talking eight hundred six feet
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you know it kind of and maybe some of the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: areas you guys hunt. I mean that's that's at least
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to four times the size of the biggest stuff I've hunted. Um,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So I imagine, Yeah, there's a lot there could be
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a lot more diversity and different types of habitat and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and uh going on there. So you you mentioned a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: little bit about food. Um, you know with the oaks,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: you know typically you know maybe towards the upper portions
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and then the cherry and beach you know maybe down lower.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: What other food sources are you guys seeing that are
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: really key for for deer like in this type of habitat,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe take me throughout the season, like, um,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you know early, you know, maybe mid season then even
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the late What do you guys see the deer kind
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of transitioning through throughout the season. Uh, let's start with
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you Johnny Well, Um, like you were. Like Andy said
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: about um, Ohio, I wonder sometimes because Ohio is some
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: rugged land, mountainous country that I wonder sometimes through the summer.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I don't get much time down there. Um, but the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: population is low, but it's mainly um large strands of
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: oaks and there's not much undergrowth, you know, browses definitely
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: that kind of up in the u Alleghany's kind of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: upward me and bow Hunt and somewhat up into New
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: York there. Um, it seems like there's a lot of brows,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of undergrowth. Um here too, the the Ohio's,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the some of the West Virginia's, but also the clear
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: cuts through the summer. Um, it's you can walk through
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the woods and see what they they are nibbling on.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: But I think like some of the deer in Ohio
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and look at the mountainous deer. The bodies ain't huge,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: but the racks are huge. And some say it's because
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of the minerals out there, um, and they can adapt
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: just like a deer down south or smaller, they know
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: how to adapt in their body. H might be smaller
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: because the food isn't as plentiful, but the racks like
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: maybe in Ohio it might be bigger because the minerals.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: But and like in the p A, I feel like
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: there's through the summer that the deer are definitely pretty big.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of brows through the summer. It's just um,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: fresh growth, the fresh tips of grass, um, BlackBerry briars, fruits,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I mean anything. It's pretty much general that they browsed
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: through the summer. And the more diverse brows you can find,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you're gonna find the deer and they'll roam bigger areas
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and just nip. But you know, you get into fall um.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Like both said, the cherries, there's a lot of black cherries,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: big cherries in this part of p A that the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: deer people sometimes don't key on them. And if it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a good chairry, you're um. You get into October, they're
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: going to be really fatten up in them are big
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: open woods um. In some areas where we're hunting that
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: part of p A has um that does have a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: mass of acorns, but not every year, so there's there's
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: a food source and then um beach, but the beach
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: are kind of dying off. But they also getting into November,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: UM into December, around probably in the middle of November,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I start seeing a lot of palling and scratching at
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the ground. Uh they eat roots um. And I know
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: in the winter, like this year in January, UM, the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: deer dug through the snow and eat berns. Like I
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: watched it a deer for ten minutes. A button buck
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: had his head in the whole pulling up tarns and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: just scratch for like ten minutes. And these other deer
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: came in. Any of them know about it. But pretty
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: much anything green um. And there's a lot of um,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: like it's uh tea berry and there's carpet pine. There's
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: different types of green ground coverage up in some of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: these areas that we hunt, and you'll find the deer
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in the winter they're gonna go for that green. And
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: these deer their browsers by nature, and this is what
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: they're made to live off. And you know, we've got
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of snow this year, but they're gonna come
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: out healthy. And because they went in another winter pretty
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: healthy and the deer numbers are still they got them
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: where they need to be to where the deer are.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: They have enough acreage per deer to to forage on
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and be healthy going into the into the winter. And
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: last year Greg shot his deer up there and it
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: was no and he took the butcher and he said,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the butcher said, where'd you get this out? You know
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: in the Midwestern or no, I shot it in the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: fat on the back behind quarters, was I haven't. They're
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: they're really healthy animals. It's just it was crazy to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: see that the deer, the brows and live in this
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: forested area are covered with fat and that healthy. Um.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: As far as like getting in the you know you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: got your clear cuts in Ohio and mass is a
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: big thing um down in that area. Um, if it's
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: a good mass year, or they'll they'll travel to find
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: or some places in Ohio I've hunted. I see. You know,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: you're a lot of bait in Ohio. So um, they
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: might travel to find we're getting fed to it later
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in the year. That's the thing that will vacuum the
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: deer out of the woods. Um not. Some of the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: big bucks are just loaners. They'll stay up in the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: up on the mountains if there is a corn crop.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: But some of the deer maybe if it's a bad acorn,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and then like there might be someone feeding them, or
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it might be some type of ad nearby that will
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: kind of pull them dear that way later in a year.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: But uh so, yeah, that's what I got through you there,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: all right? How about do you bow anything anything else there? Yeah?
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I mean I think Johnny covered a lot of it.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: But what I'll say in addition to that, I definitely
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: think like as you're in the you know, summertime and everything,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: they're looking for more of those minerals and even some
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of the newer clear cuts that have a lot of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: green on them, uh, that are growing up there browsing
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a lot, and as you get into the beginning of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: hunting season, so when you're kind of focusing on it
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: in October, if you can find a black cherry crop,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that is incredible, But they don't seem to last very
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: long on the ground, so it's a short window of
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: time where those can be good apple trees that you
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: can find in some of the bottoms that's that can
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: be a really great thing to find, especially if you find,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: you know, alone tree or an old orchard. You know,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of places through Pennsylvania there was little towns
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: in a lot of these places that are um that
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: are actually public land now and they have planted a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: bunch of apple orchards. So you can find a bunch
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: of apple trees there, and then you know, as you
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and acorns obviously, but not not all areas that are
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: in the mountains have oak trees in general. And actually
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I've found that areas that don't have oaks, they can
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: be tougher to figure out exactly what they're feeding on
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: because they're browsing more. But at the same time, they're
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: more consistent year after years their spots that don't have those,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I find more consistent trail cam data. I could hunt
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: some of the similar spots year after year, and there
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: are a lot more consistent than an area or deer
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: relying more on acorns that they might you know, if
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: this one ridge, you know, it was covering acorns this year,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: but a mile over was the next year, then they
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: might you know, move quite a bit. So that all
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: depends and and even so like the biggest thing I'm
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: looking for is the diversity of it and having a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: lot of brows. Like Johnny said to me, you know,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: they'll dig up firms, ferns, eat the bulbs off, like
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the dig a whole bunch of stuff, BlackBerry briars, um
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and and logging cuts. I mean, logging cuts are huge
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: food source depending on the age, but really at any age,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: logging cuts have some sort of a food source. That
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: just depends on which ones and and for me, I
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: like to focus on the ones that are a three
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: to eight year old range because they got brows that
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: are you know, growing up, you know enough where they
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: can feed a decent amount. And and then also um,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: so that's kind of as you get through the hunting season,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and then as you get into like a later season,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the fresh logging cuts either brand new up to three
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: years old seems to really bring them in one because
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: it's getting a lot of sunlight and you got some
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: say tops that are laying down that they'll browse on. Um.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It almost acts as a as a food plot for them.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And that in those later seasons, and you know, and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: if it's a really cold year as you get in
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the hunting season in January. Any areas around spring seats
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: while everything else is kind of frozen tougher than the
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: dig they can dig it up because it's softer, they
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: can get to it um more greens, as Johnny said.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: There So that's that's important. And another important thing to
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: note about food is not all areas and the mountains
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: are created equal as far as food goes. You know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you get in some of the places like I've hunted
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in southern Ohio or even in north central Pennsylvania, we
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: have you get these giant it just seems like most
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of it's just oak trees, and if you don't have
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: good acorn crop, it's tough on the deer and there's
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: not much under brows. And I'm not a biologist, but
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: from what I've read, they call a lot of those
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: areas old heath forests, which means like the soil is acidic,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: so it's not producing a lot of that good undergrowth
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that comes up for them to feed on. But brows
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: is definitely probably their their primary diet when it comes
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to that. But would you call that old what forest?
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Old heath h E A t H. And I'm again
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I don't know much about them,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: but that's just I've been doing some research on trying
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: to figure out why these types of forests look a
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: certain way or why some of them grow a certain way.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And and that was one of the things that I've found.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, some of the areas I've scouted with Johnny,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: we've noticed, you know, I don't have much browse and
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: typically are rocky or the soil is just kind of
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: a cidic and you get some of those like we
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: call on rock oaks. I'm not sure if that's the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: technical term for them, but they're just they're they're not
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: as good producers as some of the other areas. So
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: when you're describing all this stuff, I the first thing
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about is how do you find all of
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: these different random types of food sources? Right, And there's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: big mountainous country, big woods in many cases, and you're
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: talking about brows that you know, it's hard to identify
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: unless you're there, and and it's not something as obvious
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: as oh, there's an a d acre cornfield. Of course
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a huge draw. It's more like, oh,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: here's an oak tree, Oh, here's a certain set of
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: bushes oh, here's a tech acre cut um. And what this,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: what this has got me thinking about is the amount
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of country you try to focus on when figuring out
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: your strategy for the season. You know, Andy and I
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: here hunting in mixed egg land in Michigan. You know,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: we could have a sixty acre property and an ad
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: a property and ten acre property and and be able
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to get in on deer on any of those small
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: types of properties because stuff is so concentrated. There's so
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: many deer into small areas with great food sources and
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: very specific betting areas. So give me eighty acres and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I might be able to do just fine. But when
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you're talking these vast expanses with food very spread, with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: betting probably very spread, and with lower deer numbers, I
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: gotta believe that you just have to operate at a
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: different scale. So this is a very open ended question.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But Boat, how do you think about the scope of
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the amount of land you need to work with to
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: find a buck? I mean, are you going to this thing? Okay,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna really try to figure out this thousand acres
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: or I've got to figure out this two acres or
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: this twenty square miles what are you operating at? What
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: level are you operating at? Yeah, that's that's always that's
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: always a tough question. But if I'm looking in a
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: new area a lot of I mean, first of all,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and folks now where I think pressure is coming from,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and I focus on areas that are away from major cities, towns,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: anything like that. That what the way I would say is, like,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you know, your typical weekend warrior can would have trouble
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: getting to They'd have to make a pretty serious effort
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: at getting there. Luckily, you know, a lot of the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: where I live at is kind of in the middle
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: of nowhere, so that helps with that. But from there,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at where I can find the most diversity.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So if I'm looking on on X and looking at
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the the aerial photo, I'm trying to find where you
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you can you can tell on the map um if
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: you're in federally owned public land. On X has a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: timber cut feature, so you can actually see those. But
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: even if it doesn't, you can see different timber cuts,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and then you can also kind of see where the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: hemlocks are, and then you can see where there's more
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: like say, bigger trees. You can't you can't really tell
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the brows a whole lot from looking into aerial map,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: but usually timber cuts have brows in them, and depending
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: on the way the photo looks, you can you can
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: estimate the the age of that cut and to be
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: able to look at it. But I'm looking for the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: most habitat or habitat diversity and trying to be able
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, what the the vegetation looks
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: like from afar, and then I'll narrow it down and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: try to get in there in the spring and actually
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: walk it. And I know that's not always possible um
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: as far, especially if you're traveling from out of state,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: But nonetheless, I think the most important thing is getting
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: boosts on the ground. So even if you have say, um,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: you know, five or five or seven day rout hunting,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you're going into an area instead of just you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: setting up on the first hot side, you see really
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: walking the lay of the land and figuring that out.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And because there's gonna be you know, there's gonna be
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: cover that's different, that looks different than um you know
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that you won't see on a map app there might
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: be a small patch of something, and then how I
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: correlate that with terrain. So if you can find you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: as you're thinking of anywhere else in hill country, anywhere
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: that has trained, and you think of your typical you know,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: your funnels. Um, A lot of times a deer like
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the bed out and around the points of the of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the mountains, and which isn't always the case, but they
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: like the bed out around those points. They like to
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: bed on the inn or on the edges of timber cuts.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: So those are all things that I'm I'm thinking of
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm noting, and I'm trying to find areas that
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: compound a bunch of those features, and that's where I'm
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: gonna focus on. So when I get in there, those
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: are the areas I'm going to first. And I might
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: end up, you know, walking half mile or a mile
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: a different direction and finding something better that I didn't
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: see on a mass. But that gives me a really
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: good starting point. Yeah, that makes sense. What about you, Jenny? Yeah,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: both said it great. I mean, um, it's definitely a
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: diverse habitat terrain or age class of the forest cuttings.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: If you can see a lot happening on an aerial
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: onyx uh or papo there's a lot going on. Chances
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: are it's going to meet the needs of the deer
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: there because they need all they're going to utilize, utilize
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: all that throughout there there day or or how you
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: want to say it. But the first thing I do,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I'm because I'll look at the onyx and I'll find
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: um where because most part I'm hunting area that's pressured
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: public Well it is public land, but where are the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: hunter is going to be? I find that diverse area? Okay,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: where's the hunter parking? Where's he coming in? At? Is
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: their parking spot? Um harder to access areas I'm kind
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: of stuck on maybe a five square mouth area now
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that I've been into for six eight years. Uh. Some cuttings,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: some roads cutting through it, kind of flat gradual um
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: feet in elevation change, kind of a plateau um. But
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of this beach brush in these areas
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: and under saplings that grow up that make a lot
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of cover that you can't see from on it. So
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you want to get them boots on the ground. But
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: also what I'm learning now is a lot of guys
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: are starting to hunt this public land. These mountain deer
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: in an area that I was hunting five years ago.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: That was like a mile and a half walk gated
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: road all the way back and out on the point
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: of this mountain goes out around and I had good
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: luck out there with deer and that's why I seen
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the biggest buck that would go there. And then in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years, i'd run cameras. I didn't
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: even hunt there. I just run cameras randomly, and I
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: get more hunters and more hunters, and it seemed like
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: people were going to these It wasn't. It was time
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: consuming to walk there half hour or so forty five minutes. Um,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: it was a pretty gradual trail, easy to get to,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and um, these people are starting to go that I'm
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: gonna get back in there. And so this year I
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: kind of started hunting halfway back and that's where the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: bucks were hanging. They weren't and I walked the logging
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: road out and seeing cameras, seeing stands in the sign
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: would fall off like I could really see sign, you know,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: fresh shine, uh, dear ship tracks, rubs, you would see
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the screens, but um, prior to the the yearlings. But the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: bigger deer are really they really know their area and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the hunters are pretty typical at what they do, and
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: they're onto them like white on rice these deer nos.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: So that's exactly what I'm looking for. But you've got
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to have the boots on the ground or at least
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: get to an area, drop a bunch of cameras and
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: see I'm not just looking for the deer. I'm looking
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: for the hunters. See how they're going, where them guys
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: are hunting. And but that's the biggest thing, like both said,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the diverse diversity. You know, it has a little bit
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: of everything happening, a little bit of everything. Terrain, Um,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: so now he's deer. And then like I said, yeah,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: hard to reach location, um, and maybe where the wind
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So maybe the winds blown in one direction a lot.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: It's hard. You might have to go down over this
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: mountain and come back up this other mountain. Just the
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: access said well, um, because most of the people will
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: maybe go straight to that spot. And the deer is
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: onto the hunters. They know they're onto the gig the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: gigs up. So I kind of do different things than
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: what the normal hunter does because pretty much, um, they're
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: onto you, the mature deer that are living there. Um.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: So That's the biggest thing I try to find is
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: all the pressure it is affecting this deer. Because if
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it wasn't for the pressure in these areas, you can
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: hunt that rub. That's great, and they would they would
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: probably can hunt the sign a lot better because they
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: won't be as nocturnal or be afraid to come to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: that area until right before dark or something. So you
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: got to kind of not take I mean, the sign
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: tells you the deer is there, but if the pressure
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: is there that they're worried about survival, they're definitely afraid
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: to do recording and you might just be awful little
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: bit of that diversia. You've got to kind of figure out,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: you know, you kind of talk. And that's another thing
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I like, you're always thinking. My brains always turning and
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: learning different year to year, different deer move into the area.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: It's always evolving, the forces growing, it's changing different deer
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: or see it in a different way. That's why I'd
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: like being up there and learning and learning everything. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: then I talk about finding these little nooks. So we
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: found a couple of big Bucks this year and a
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: hundred fifty class pushing. They were kind of hanging around together,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and they were kind of in that area where the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: people were going all the way back this road and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I was about half way back and there was a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: calm scens and little nooks were these deer. No, they're safe,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: that nobody's hitting up and uh so, I actually a
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: couple of days ago, um I headed in the area
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they were coming from, not where I was getting more camera,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: but just across the creek, and I did some hiking
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: under some big tracks. You know. I got down in
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: a way from the road, and I wouldn't be surprised
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: if he hangs out in there. A lot of lankers
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: in the guinning and shed hunt, but it's an area
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: that it's easy to overlook in an area, and really
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: with all the cover in the areas, now this is
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: area I'm hunting. So I mean an area that might
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: be an Ohio, West Virginia. Some open woods might be different,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: but I'm sure there's a nook or theme. But these deer,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: these mature deer that are um looting these humans, they're
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: gonna use that. You might have to get out there
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and walk and hang cameras to find it. But that's
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the that's the thing I find it nowadays, and it
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: might be like five acres or something, just noting little bit,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's what you call his bedroom, but
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: just knows where he's safe during a day. Then they do, Uh,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of randomness to keep you know, predators, guests,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and I finally a lot of these mature bucks kind
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: of random movements and if you know, maybe sometimes we're
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: trying to hunt him through a camera and he might
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: be day lad a short. Um. That's what keeps them
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: alive is doing random you know, try to earn a winner.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And it's like I'm like, I would put a camera
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: here and he walks Like I'm what, why would you
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: walk there? That's not the path at least, you know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: But it's just how they are nomadic in a certain way. Um.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: And it's just all that that I that intrigues me.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: And I thought, then I did talk to us people
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: that probe fund scientific reason why do you do this
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: or that? Some say that it's there's no signs behind
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: by how they move, you know, But the biggest thing
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I find is pressure. Um, Like even the both said earlier,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: they're they're made to survive and carry on and and
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: their biggest predator is the human and so that's how
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: they're is deer get in the way of adapting to
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the humans. So so on that note, then you know
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: that finding these little nooks, finding these little spots where
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: these big old bucks do feel safe in these vast environments,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: it's got to be awfully hard to pinpoint that little
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: tiny nook out of five thousand acres or ten tho
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: acres or whatever the scale is that we're operating on here.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: You mentioned several times trail cameras and and I've also
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: seen just you know, across your social media and different
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: things like that, you seem to be pretty prolific when
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: it comes to how you use trail cameras and the
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: information you turn up. Can you just detail how specifically
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you're using cameras in these environments, because I know it's
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: different than what I'm doing here in southern Michigan or
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Iowa or whatever. You know, how many cameras are you
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: running across these landscapes? You know exactly what kind of
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: spots are you putting them on? You know, what is
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the key information you're trying to get. I'd love to
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: understand all that detail. Definitely, scrapes are a big thing.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I think communicating a kind of mean bow hunt. UM.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Definitely have them on them, and sometimes there's a lot
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of hunters. I try to get them up the three
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: and I always try to honestly, as opposed to when
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: I was twenty years old. I stay away from trails.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: There's not so many trails up in this series because
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like we're kind of roam UM, so
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I try to stay away from true now if i'm
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: looking for them, a trure animal, but definitely scrapes and yeah,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: like that milk I'm I'm talking about um. And then
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, since they are nomatic, i'll put three.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Can't tell people don't depend on one camera trying to
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: get three or four, and I try to. I don't
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: like to get a broadside shot at a deer because
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of times your truser won't catch it trying
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to get if he's walking. I don't like a straight
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: on maybe like on the Stooty five kind of UM
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: broadcast with camera. But every time I go in the woods,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: i'll take well we're onto hiking, I'll take two or three.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I'll just pm around my waist. Sometimes i'm pressure with Tom.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I just want to run in the woods and look around.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I'll take two or three, because if you take one,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: you end up I've done it. Your walk look for
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the best spot, and you get back to the truck
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: and you just throw about your camera. So I try
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: to take a leach too. Then you could drop one
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and find a decent law. But um, as far as
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: where I guess maybe um um kind of more of
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: a a little bit of a pinch that's kind of
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: where he has to walk, but it's usually not narrowed
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: down to like like a trail. I just kind of
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: feel like he's going to move through here, whether it's covered,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: he's going to gravitate an edge. Um, but definitely scrapes maybe.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: And I found sometimes rubs aren't always scientific to the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: point where he's there A lot. I find sometimes like
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: he put it on rubs, and how do you know
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: he didn't just kind of um make those rubs out
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of anger one time he come through and he might
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: not ever come back again. But that's they're all individuals,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: and they might be claiming that terror reporters. Sometimes I
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: think they put rubs there because they're not actually there
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: as much as they want to kind of mimic them
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: being there by putting the nine puss there um, and
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: he might be somewhere else. Um, but it's weird. I
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: find there's a lot this year. It just gonna be good.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: This is gonna put cameras here. I got him, I'm
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: gonna get him on camera, and I'll leave it go,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: you know, getting into October. I'll let it go a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: week or so. I want to see what's there, and
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I like to check my camera. Sometimes I check him
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: at night. I don't want to ruin the spot if
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: it's maybe they're cutting. I feel like the winds blown
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: in there. Um. I'll wait two nine o'clock at night
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: because I feel like they're they're guard for humans. There's
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: probably never been pressured at night by humans, and it's
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: kind of like whatever. But I'll check cameras at night. Um.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: But I found this year a lot of would put
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: cameras maybe like a scrape or leaving to rubs, and
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: he's coming through here, and it's I feel like the
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: spots like put cameras and thought i'd see here. This year,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't get anything. I spotsors I'll just throw in here,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and it turned up dear so trying to get a
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: bunch of came Um, like in p a team twenty
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: of them, I'm running. Um. But the more you have,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the more knowledge of the game by getting them out
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: there and just learning and seeing what's there, because like
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I said, I don't I think it's going to be
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: a good spot in here. It's the bucks, then the
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: other spot. Then I start putting pieces through the puzzle
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: together and the one do a hunt a dishes. It's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: kind of he was here in September and then my
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: cameras up and on octoberver it was a clear FECh.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Guy started hunting there and he disappeared and then he
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: was hitting this one scrape and I actually set up
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: on him one morning and I screwped them out of there,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and then um, he gradually moved downstream, so he like
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: started here, and I think it was all because of hunting.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Sure that this gear adapted his lifestyle through the hunting season,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: but UM, I just feel like the more you're seeing,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it is a buck bet or it's hard.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of hard to explain that if
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: he got two or three cameras, you go out there
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: and you know, you find a sign just putting cameras up. Um,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: if you just got a hunch, sometimes it's you make
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: mind that seeing that edge. Maybe. UM. I can't really
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: describe because it's all it's like a feeling. Um, it's
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: not all has the same type of thing, you know.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: It's just how they feel because they don't. That's how
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: they are wired. It's how they feel. This feels good.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna move from here. I don't I don't see
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: any hunters in here. And actually the deer issue was
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: walking out on the logging road that went all the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: way back from that point where them guys hunting high noon.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: It was seventy degrees and fifty yards off that longer
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: I had it off that longer road. I had to
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: deep stord and it was me and I thought about bogus. Um.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I was walking out on that logging road. I was
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: walking like a human. And I know it was one
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: of the big hunters being here. Was in there maybe,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: but he was let me fifty seven yards. He was pissed.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: He knew that at me every time I walked because
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: in his head, I think he wanted to cross that
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: longer road. It was like, that's a human. It just
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: pissed him off, but he knew that he was safe,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: and they're fifty years that the scene and knew people
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: walked out. But it's just it's just wild to be
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: around him and experience that. Every time, ever, I stopped
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and looked old enough, and then I walked like a human,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: and just the noise of a human walking through the
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: leaves just irritated him. And he was like kind of
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: above most of them, the hunters, and I'm sure he's
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: still out there now. And then, um, but yeah, every
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: time I started walking like him, and he just like
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: pissed snore at me, and it was that's where he
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: was along the bucks moved or in high high noon,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you know. But a lot of randomness. I mean, you know, Mark,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: you I could go on and just take one story
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: into another and keep talking. But um, yeah, you know,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: if I get lost, I'm like, where was that? I
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: can relate to that, Johnny, I can relate to that myself.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Uh it's funny you talk about how these deers sometimes
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: just get lost themselves in in that. I mean, their
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: movements are random. It's it's hard for us to pin down,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and uh god, I wish they'd be more considerate of
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: us and make things more simple, but they don't. Uh bow,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: What about you when it comes to cameras, What's what's
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: your take on that specifically? So I do run a
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: lot of cameras, and I do weigh a lot of
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: input on cameras. But I have I have kind of
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: a couple of different strategies. So if I'm I'm hunting
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: a brand new area and this is my first time
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: going in, UM, I typically try to put cameras at
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: different elevations and then also around different vegetation type features.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: So but them are on scrapes. So I'll definitely say that,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and that if that's any time of the year, So
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: whether that's in the summertime, um they'll still work those
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: looking branches. I usually spray like a foehead Gillian sent
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: on it, and um they'll they'll work those looking branches
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: just about year round. But so I'll try to get
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: different elevations to be able to to learn it. And
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of times I won't even hunt that area
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the first year, so I'll just run cameras, leave them
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: up all year, come back this time of year and
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: pick them up and try to learn from it. So
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I'll try to spread them out quite a bit. And
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: then as I get to focusing on these these areas,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: say I find a specific buck, like this past year,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I was hunting um, a specific dear that that was
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: just it was incredible. And but after I ran and
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I think it was thirteen cameras in this area, I
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: ran a lot more than normally would in a new spot,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: but I found a shed in the spring, so it
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: made me want to want to try to learn a
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: little more. And out of all those cameras, and I
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: had them not that far apart, like some of them
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: would only be forty yards apart, but it was on
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: a different elevation down below UM on a different scrape.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I ran a lot of well, I didn't run a
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: lot of camera that ran a couple of cameras on
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: some big signpost rubs, which is something that was kind
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: of new to me this year. But I found I
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: had really really good results from a few of these
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: specific rubs. And what I learned about this deer was
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: he was only using a certain portion of it, and
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of hunting pressure, but the hunting pressure
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: was on the top and also from the bottom. So
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: on this steep side hill that was just thick hemlock cover.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: You can't you know, when I would when I would
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: hunt in there, you can't see more than twenty yards
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: in any direction. And there was three cameras that that
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: deer focused on that was there quite a bit. So
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: now like going in to this year, what I would
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: do is cluster more cameras, you know, trying to figure out,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: you know, where he might be living, at least for
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: during the hunting season. And so maybe I might stay
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: around those elevation lines, but move down the ridge further
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and you know, put some more and try to you know,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: get more consistent daylight photos, um more stuff like that.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: But I'm I'm focusing around different train features and and
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: then also vegetation features that I talked about and but
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: scrapes to the majority of it. And then if I say,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: if I know of an area, say there's a timber
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: cut that, um, I don't know anywhere from ten to
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: twenty years old, it's growing up quite a bit. They
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: tend to like to bed in those types of areas.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I'll run cameras on the inside of those, on some
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: of the logging trails where there's um, where there's you know,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: say I find a big community types great big linking
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: branch broke off, I'll run him in there. And a
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: lot of times hunters will have trouble hunting in those
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: areas because there's not any good trees to get in
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: because they're not big enough to put a tree stand
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: in but there, but they still they provide a lot
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: of cover and security for the deer. So I'll run
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: them closer to those betting areas and just I won't
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: check them unless i'm you know, specifically hunting them. But
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: cameras are a huge learning tool for me personally. And
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: what I'll do with with that data is I'll take
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: all my cameras for the year, and I have like
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: a um it's a Google sheet, so like an Excel
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: spreadsheet essentially that I'll I write down the location, the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: specific location that I had it on. They all the
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: general area at the specific location. Say I say I'd
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: name it Hemlock Side Hills great, and then I have
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: the buck identification how I would kind of either name
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: it or figure out a way to identify that deal
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: And now write down the date, time, weather, wind directions,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and anything else that might be prevalent to it. It
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: just kind of keep a running log of that. So
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: if I'm hunting a specific deer, you can learn a
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: lot by doing that, because I've found that even when
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I run a lot of cameras don't get this information.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: It goes in and out of my head just as
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: fast as a lot faster than I like, and I
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: don't remember all of it. So for me, by writing
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: that down or typing it up, I guess it helps
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: me to be able to review it and learn because
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: you know you can you can definitely have success. Uh
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: and you know in your first year hunting a spot,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: but that historical data from cameras is is huge. If
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: you can hunt an area, you know, multiple years in
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: a row, you can learn so much and and and
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: you have to take that a little bit with the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: grain salt because you know, as food sources shift and change,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: and like we mentioned, you know earlier about saying there's
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: not any acorns. If that area had acorns, all those
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: things can change. But it's, you know, an odds multiplier.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: It's helping you gain some more knowledge that you wouldn't
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: have had otherwise. So I'm running in Pennsylvania alone, I'm
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: running probably around I think just over thirty cameras right now.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: So let me run an assumption by you guys and
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: tell me if I'm right or wrong. Here. Uh, it's
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: my assumption as I'm hearing you guys talk about these deer,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: that these bucks are being that they're relatively nomadic, as
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: you guys have described that when you're running trail cameras,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: you're not really getting a specific pattern like you might
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: get by me here. I might be able to tell
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: you based on trail cameras or observation that man, this
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: buck is gonna come walking over this creek crossing every
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: other day or three times a week or something. Maybe
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you can't get that level of a pattern on these
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: deer because their range is so vast and their food
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: embedding is so diverse that they're much more random in
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: those movements. So a is that correct? And then be
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: assuming that's correct? Is the main thing you're trying to
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: get with these trail cameras simply confirmation of their general
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: presence at the time of year. So can you just confirm, Okay,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: the big eight pointer is back in the area. And
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: if I know he's back in the area, I'm gonna
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: hunt this general region because he's here. Is that the
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: case or do you actually nail down like he's coming
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: through here this specific spot for this specific reason and
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: you pattern to that level of detail. Does that make sense? Bo, Yeah,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: it does, and your assumption is right. There's I personally,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: maybe Johnny has a different opinion on it, but I
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: have not been able to pattern a specific dear to
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: the level of I know he's gonna come by this spot, um,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: you know, every three days. So like so, what I'm
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: trying to do is get the general area. And so
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: if I'm looking at the specific hunting season, what I'll
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: take like that data from saying i pull my camera
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: in mid October and I'm gonna be hunting the following
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: week or whatever that is. It depends on that type
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: of time of year, on how I would hunt that.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: I might you know, hunt that specific spot. You know,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a good scrape that's he in October and
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping he's gonna come by again. But a lot
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: of times, like you said, I'm just trying to confirm
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: he's in the area. And you know, say I had
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: that picture October and I'm in there on November one. Well,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna focus more on this dope betting area that
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: might be a quarter mile away that has some similar
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: you know, he has the security and is what's on
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: his mind right now, which is the does so those
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: are So that's how I'm kind of using in that data.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: And then so that's for the specific season. If I'm
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: using it, say I had the camera picture this year
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking at it next year, one of the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: things I'll pay attention to is the time of year
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: that he came through, the specific date, and but more
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: importantly is the the weather and any other conditions that
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: might make, you know, make him repeat himself or maybe
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: you know, during this four days stint, you know, every
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: year from November four to seventh, he might go back
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: to this area, check this specific dope betting area or
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be, or that that you know, he
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: comes to the scrape in the third or fourth week
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: of October. There's a lot of guessing that goes into it.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: But I try to use that data and then also
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: my knowledge for the of the area to give my
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I guess my my best guest as to
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: how I would set up in that in accordance to that. Okay,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: and what about you, Jenny yeah, I think it's more,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: um a confirmation that the deer exists. But there is
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: i'd say a little more of a pattern when you're
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: into the middle and October, when it's the hunting pressure
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: is lower in these bigger areas and these vast mountain
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: mountainous or breezons or whatever you wanna call them, um,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: and there's the does aren't heat, they're just kind of
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: they're gonna hit these scrapes to where that one big eight.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: I had him hitting the scrapes pretty regularly right around dark,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: just after dark. But it was like he was the thermals.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I know, we're coming to Daryl getting drawn down this drainage,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and it's like, I just want to cry because I'm like,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: when he's on this type of pattern, he's doing it religiously,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: not I mean like clockwork. But I'm getting some decent
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: pictures from every couple of days come out of these scrapes.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: And because he got the odds are in his favor
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: and that's what he wants and that's what he lives
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: by having the odds in his favor. So that was
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I didn't really hunt there. I kind of got in there.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Then I got in the door or rut and you
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: know what, he never in touched the scrapes, you know.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: So it's like and that's this is a new deer
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: that I had found this year was a place I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: found shed hunting last year. So I'm just learning about
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: this animals like a whole new world, you know, a
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: whole another deer, but the the other one I was
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: kind of after this year. Just for example, that two
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: here that um I was running cameras trying to chase
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: is was that older more mature uh, nine year old
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: eight year old to where um I had some pictures
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: of them. This is going on four years now, and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: I had him in this one area, UM he was
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: three or four years old, really aggressive, had the whole
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: clear cut, rubbed up beds everywhere. And I mean the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: first time I hunted and had my bow back on,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: I'm probably a hundred forty class three or four year old.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Just really a lot of test tossed their own aggressive
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: deer and UM claim that area more of like a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: twenty year old human, uh that has a lot of
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: a young guy that has a lot of maybe wants
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a fight or something comparable to that. Where the next year,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: UM I went in there, and he just said he
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't there, So you can kind of their individuals are
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: differency and kind of use year to year knowledge from
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: your cameras and you're hunting um. So the next year
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: I went in there, and but it didn't happen because
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: he disappeared, he moved. I didn't catch him until two
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: years later. I picked him up and then I started
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: following him again. It was because the deer die off
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: a jockey for positions and where they feel more comfortable,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: where they want to live, and all this is going
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: on out there. And and but once you get to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes in that groove around six seven eight, you can
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: kind of get a little more patterned, like so this
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: eight point I was hunting this year. I caught him
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: up in this clear cut and then he kind of moved.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: He's worked his way downstream, like further away from humans
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: as the season went on, and he's up in that
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: clear cut and I never I didn't hunt it because
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: it was early in October. Then he caught him in
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: that one day I spoke to him to further downstream,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: like November, he come in. I thought at first it
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: was like the first time I really started hunting rot
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: and I had him right there, and um the wind
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: just swirled hit him and he took off. But I
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: think I could use the knowledge I have for my
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: cameras and my hunting this year because I feel like
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: in his age, I feel like he's gonna be there
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: next year, and I kind of can kind of know
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: where to hunt him throughout the season to catch him.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: But as far as the cameras are considered, UM, I
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: can maybe pattern, like both said, maybe within a time
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: zone a few four or five days, I might be
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: able to catch him here because um data that I
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: collected from this year, Like I said, you get to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: that three, four or five year old age, it might
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: they're not really mature yet. They're still kind of maybe
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: learning their area and where they want to live. But
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: like that big a point this year, Um, like I said,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: he kind of sit the scrace. But when he started
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: doing that, God's word really in his favor. You couldn't
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: even hunt him. But mainly confirmation that the deer is there,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: and then I try to find this kind of away
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: from the rest of the deer heard there but not there.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: And that's what I said. It's like a balance scale.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I tell people, it's like, yeah, this situation and going
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: this way and it's tipping the scale this way. But
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: that's this situation because people say sometimes when I talk
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: on a podcast, I'll say this one time, that the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: complete opposite the other time, because because sometimes you need
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: to do that. You'll be using this tactic and your
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: tip on the scale this way, then boom, you you
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: got to go to complete opposite and do it. But
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: that's why I like talking about having a lot of
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: tools in your toolbox and the different you know, if
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: you're changing a boat, you a twelve millimeter, but you
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: know the next boat might be a three quarter inch
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: or something. You need a bunch um, a bunch of information,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: bunch of knowledge to use a bunch of tools in
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: your toolbox. But as far as the the cameras mainly
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: confirmation and um. But like I said that, and I
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: tried to grab a take away from the rest of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the herd because they aren't they don't see themselves as
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a yearling and too like they're their own individual um.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Animals leave mature deer and they lived differently to survive
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: and carry these rocks. So he hold on, mark, if
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: I could step in here for a second. I wanted
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: to bring up a point that Johnny kind of um
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: what he was talking about there. I mean, Johnny, I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: mean that was a similar situation. I hunted with Johnny
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: this past year and actually killed my buck, which is
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: a buck that he had a lot of history with
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: and going in there. He had brought up you know
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: about this, dear, and you know two years ago of
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: trail camera data you know, in in and around those dates,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: you know, spending time in that area. Remember, John, we
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: were talking about that when you were you were showing
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: me pictures of the buck end up killing when he
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: was in that area a few years in the path
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: around that time of year, but he had disappeared for
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: a couple of months and you know, kind of going
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: on some of that historical data there, mm hmm, Yeah, definitely.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how that was. It was. It was a
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: little bit of a better acorn crop down low and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: years I knew he was there on that point and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: around that mountain. It was hard to get to and um,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: he had a lot of odds in his favor. Was
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: that was a pretty rugged area, good elevation. UM's not
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: many people when he had covered he just um, He
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't sit and think in his head, Okay, this is
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: what I need, like you checking the checklist. It's the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: feelings he gets as he lives through his life. What
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: he needs as security is the food cover and and
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: that's Um. And like I said, it's all about getting
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: the odds. He has the odds in his favor most
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: of the time, and you've got to find that angle
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: on them to get the odds in your favor. Yeah,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: that historical doubt on that dear Bow got Um told
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: us he was there and actually had a camera running
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: a couple hundred you canden a couple hundred yards from
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: rebumped them, and it was a cell cam. I ran,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a picture. It was a big scrape
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: on his point, like you would think he'd hit it.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I had him a couple of times in October game
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: in November, Dever caught him on that big scrape. There
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: was like four scrapes right on this point within ten
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: fifteen yards of each other, and him a couple of
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: times in November. Then I think Bow got his deer.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Was I don't know it was December Bow that you
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: shot your deer. I didn't even have him on and
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I know he was he was laying within a hundred
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: two hundred yards And that's great. Just tell you like
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: that throws a lot out the window right carry you know,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: what do you think? Andy? Where's your head on this?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: What do you what do you want to move towards? Next? Yeah? Well, Um,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: but you touched on this a little bit. Um, I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: wanna just ask a little bit at least about uh
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: buck betting. Um, you know specifically these these older books
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: that you that you guys are left or after. Um
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you know the points and you know kind
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: of inside the edge of the clear cuts, which is
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: basically what I see too down in the rugged hill
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: country that I hunt. Um. Is there any other locations
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: in the mountains where you're finding these older books? Bed? Um?
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: And are you seeing this? Kind of maybe a two
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: or three part questions so you guys can talk on
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: it for a bit. But are you I know you
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: guys are saying that you are seeing as they get older. UM,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: some historical data as far as like showing up and
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: in certain areas during certain times this season, but stay
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: outside of the rut, are you guys seeing um? These
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: books stay relatively tight to a core betting area, um,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: during that time frame say maybe say like you know,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: early season, you know through you know, late in October
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: or something before they start kind of venturing out more.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Are they are they staying roughly in an area? And
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and then also like in hill country, you know typically
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: you see most of the betting on the lee side.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Is it the same you know? Do you guys see
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: that the same in the mountains or are there some variance?
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: Is there? Um? How about you both? So yeah and
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: uh yeah to a lot of your points there. But
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: so the leeward the leward side of the hill, they
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: definitely um favor to bed. Now. I will not say
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: that's a that that that's what they're going to do, um,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: But a lot of times you can do that scenario.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: We just talked about with my dear from this last year.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: That's what he was doing leeward side, um, down over
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: the hill. But a lot of the times, you know,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: they they like they like that thick cover, but they
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: also like to be able to see. So whether that's
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: using the terrain, say they're over on that leeward side,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: just over like where it's where it gets super steep
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: down below and they can look at it and then
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: either have some cover to their back, but they want
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: to be able to see. And then when it comes
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: to say a log and cut, um, either you know,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: towards the edge where they can see out on some
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: of the big open timber, or on the interior of
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: those cuts where you have like a little opening. You
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: know a lot of areas we have gas wells, old
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: gas wells from seventies and eighties, UM, that will create
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: these little openings, or wuld be an old log landing.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: And but they like to be able to see. There's
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: there's again there's always variance, is there. But for the
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: most part, I've noticed that these bucks, even if they're
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: in a thick cover, they always have a good visual
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: and more more so than the wind. I think the
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: wind is huge, but I feel like they're there. Visuals
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: are a huge part in that. And so that that
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: would be UM. But as far as um you know,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: whether some bucks stay in there, you know, a core
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: area during that time of year, or if they're spread out.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: That honestly comes down to the specific deer. I found
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: deer that are more repeatable. As far as bres, I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: think they're betting. And when I say, you know that
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: might be a five to fifteen acre area on what
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: I would consider their core bedroom. Um, and then there's
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: other deer that one deer might be bedding out at
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: this point and there might be a couple of rods
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: over if you days later, and that they kind of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: move around a little bit, right. I definitely think that
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: that the food is the biggest dictation of that, and
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: then also their own personality and how they they kind
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: of react. But if you had an area that has
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: a bunch of different food and it kind of meets
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: all their needs, they don't typically want to go just
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: venturing out outside of the run for for no good reason.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: That's just again some of my experience with it. How
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: about you, Johnny. Anything they had there yeah, um, both
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: said a pretty good definitely a visual in their mind.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: They got an escape route um planned if something comes
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: in UM. And like I said, I don't think they
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: sit there, okay if someone comes this way around that way,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: but they just can feel it. Um. Definitely maybe some
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: coverage from back and see out front. And some of
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: these areas that I hunted last year were really rugged
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: down near Ohio and they goorn into the hunting season
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: when the people are starting to hunt. They're in the
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: heart of the rugged the ward sides down low to
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: where they might venture top when the when the thermals
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: come down. UM, mainly of a visual scene around them,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of cover big a lot of
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: times in them a wide open big oaks and that
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: it's just a big treat. I lay up against maybe
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: a log um And then sometimes they you know through October,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: when they're there, their feeting when the pressure is low
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: might be just they might just lay down for an
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: hour the top of a ridge or somewhere where they
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: could see. UM. But yeah, it's like both said in
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: the individual preference to where like I said that one
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: three year old that year he was all bedding in
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: that clear cut. I haven't seen it since that's what
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: he did. He felt comfortable there. Um, there was a
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: lot of more flat land and it's not typical of
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: the area I've been talking about here that I'm picturing
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: my head where these eight points are don't have a
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: lot of um elevation change. It's kind of plateau ish
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: type area to where I think there's a lot of
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: random bedding. Um, I'm going to really get into where
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: that big eight point is here um, and hike that
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: and maybe try to find and you're gonna watch your bed,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: um that a deer will lay down and maybe the
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: leaves will be pressed down. Then it might be a
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: day or two and the bed's gone, you know what
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: I mean. So that's one thing to think about, is
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: observe a bed and it's not going to stay there forever,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: you know. So even sometimes I ran cameras to where
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: I see a deer bed down in front of my camera.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: Then you look at didn't even see it didn't even
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: look like a deer lay there. So keep that in mind.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: I've been kind of keep an eye on that. Bet
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: only lasts so long. Um, So that's something to think
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: about when look for beds. Why don't I see a
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: lot of beds because they don't especially be later for
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: an hour so and he gets up and the wind
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: comes blows range and until a deer lay there. But
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: definitely they just got to feel secure for the time
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: they're laying there. For one reason or another. Odd's got
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: to be their way, whether it's sight, smell, you know,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: we're just really thick and they're hidden. Um So yeah,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: it could be definitely a wide wider range it's it's
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: hard to just keep a black and white answer, um,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: because there is a lot of different things I experience
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: and seeing. Yeah, really well, yeah, And to add on
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: that a little bit, you know, as Johnny was talking,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: I was thinking a little bit more like as far
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: as identifying like specific areas where a deer my bet
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: or a buck my bed is. Like, so when you're
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: looking out at those points as leeward bridges around you know,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: around those points some of the this isn't always the case,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: but a lot of the times, you'll find rubs that
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: are kind of on their exit trails. And typically when
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: I know I'm you know, getting closer to a potential
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: like kind of betting spot, the rubs will start to
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: cluster a little more. So you start seeing them sporadic
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: up on top of the ridge. As they start diving
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: down over on like say a not stuff beaten down trail,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: you'll start to see them getting closer together and closer together.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: And and you don't always find a specific bed, but
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: that that to me, has been one of the more
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: consistent things that I found. Or if you're looking at
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: like a timber cut, if you start finding a lot
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: of rubs on the edges of them. Uh, then you
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: know that buck might be on the interior a little
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: bit and and you know, so you kind of have
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: an idea. I mean, I think hunting specific beds is
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: is extremely difficult. And but how thing that general area
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: of where they're betting and and figuring out what they're
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: you know, a specific deer, what they're using more often
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: than than not. And that's where you know, cameras going
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: to play as far as you know, putting them around
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: that potential betting areas on you know, big primary scrapes. Uh,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it is a rub line or whatever
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: it might be. But by running cameras around there, you
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: kind of figure out which ones they like to use
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: more than others. But um, there's no, there's not always
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: a pattern. But if you're looking at the odds again,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: trying to get the odds in your favor, figuring out
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: that betting, you know, after understanding kind of the train
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: and some of the vegetation, they're like looking for that
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: sign that that leads up into that. So that's um,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: I guess that was just a little bit of an
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: ad on I was thinking about. Yeah, so when it
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: comes to actually hunting these deer. You know. One of
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: the things again just kind of comparing and contrasting my
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: home turf yours. You know, here it's you can clearly,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: you know, determine dear bed in this kind of spot,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: and they're gonna feed in this kind of spot, and
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: they're gonna travel in between the two. And that's usually
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: pretty easy to tell where those things are happening. And
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: you know what direction that travel is gonna happen to, right,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: because it's you know, in the morning, they're gonna be
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: heading from the food back to bed. In the afternoons
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: are gonna go from the bedding out to these obvious
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: food sources. When you're hunting this big timber, big hilly country,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: and the bedding and feed is is so spread all
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: over the place. In a lot of these cases, seems
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: just the the travel pattern itself on any given day
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: just seems like it would be so random too. I mean,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I feel you could almost throw a dart at a
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: map and say, well, he might go that way today.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you make those decisions? And
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: it realized every time you go out there is different.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: So I realized every situation is different. So what I'm
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: looking for here is insight into your decision making process.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: So not a specific thing, but like, Okay, when you're
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: heading in on this kind of day, what are the
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: two or three things you have to determine or answer
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: to say, Okay, I'm going to go to X spot
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: because it seems like it's a harder decision to make
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: where you're hunting than it is where I'm hunting. Or
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe it's not. Maybe maybe that randomness sets you
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: free and you don't need to overthink it and you
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: just say, hey, I'm gonna go to a good terrain feature.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit it out, and what happens happens, I
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: don't know. Uh but what do you think about that?
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Uh So, yeah, that's that's a million dollar question. But
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: when so specifically, if you're say, like an earlier scene,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: I'll kind of break it down into the season here.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe this isn't exactly how your question was worded, but
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: you know, the first thing I'm thinking about is the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: time of year when it comes into my decision making.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: What what are their primary focuses? What do they want
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: with that? You know, security is always something that's important
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: to them. The rut it can kind of go either way,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: but I'm looking at the time of year. And also
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: you know, dear like to communicate in one way or another.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: So if I were to, if I were to put
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: the odds in most of the time of the year's
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: scrapes or something that really that I focused on a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: lot near cover, near betting type of cover, I'll set
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: up on those scrapes. Um, if if the hunting pressure
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: is higher, you know, that's something else that comes into consideration.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: Then I'm trying to figure out areas that the hunters
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: might not be in, and that that doesn't mean you
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: have to go you know, another mile in that like
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: you know, Johnny gave an example of you know, actually
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: coming back closer, but that might just be that hidden
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: nook again using Johnny's terms, but off the side of
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: a hill or something that you know that is a
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: little bit um overlooked. And and for for me, I'm
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: not focusing on the the amount of deer. I'm focusing
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: on a certain type of deer. So there's primary scrapes
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: in some of those areas that that might kind of
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: funnel them through, but they also have that security so
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: you know, side hills. Um, I'm having a little bit
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: of trouble answering this question just because of the broadness
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: of the uh the situations in the time of years.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: But it's poor work on my part for giving a
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: too prevate questions. I get what you're asking, it's just
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: it's a difficulty answer. But I'm really I guess to
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: try to sum that up is I'm focusing on the
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: time of year, which will dictate what my next move
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: is and and if for this direction of this question here,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I'll just say, focusing on when most people would be hunting,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: you know, say pre rut rut time frame, I am
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: going to focus on, say the end October. I'm looking
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: for those primary scrapes. I'm looking at the scrapes that
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: have the security that they're gonna work in daylight or
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: have the potential work in daylight close to that bedding cover.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: And then as it gets into more of the rut
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: time frame, you know, beginning in November into the second
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: week in November, I'm focusing more on the doughe bedding areas,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: which typically is in more of that thicker cover and
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: hunting the edges of that and the wind is never consistent.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: But I try to again use what are gonna be
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: the best odds for the wind. I'm not a person
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: that that hunts solely. Like you say, if there's a
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: um the wind starts shifting, I'm not going to climb
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: out of my stand. It's it's going to shift. That's
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you know, can you blow a deer out? Yes, but
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I'd be bouncing around from tree to tree all day
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: if that was what my mindset was with it, so
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: focusing on, you know, the the edge of those dope
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: betting areas. But it always, I always seemed to find
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: a scrape in the picture. There's always a scrape around me. Um,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: whether that's at fifteen yards rate that I'm kind of
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: sitting over or within the hundred yards of it, it's
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: always kind of in my my picture there. So again, Mark,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: I apologize if I answered that question poor Lee, but
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: that was kind of what was on my in my mind.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: You answered it better than I asked it, so that
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: was pretty good. But yeah, what do I think for sure?
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: He said it great? He said some good points there
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: that I liked and the one he said was overlooked.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: And going back to the betting um, all the knowledge
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: and I have of the area and the deer that
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting in the area. I kind of funnel it
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: down to keep hanging out here. That's the best I
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: can do. It's a shame, but all them myers in
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: the woods and all this time, And yeah, if you
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: knew exactly where he was, and you could say I
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: would hunt here, but you get to the point where
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: he's hanging out here with that bedding. So and it's
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: usually an overlooked area, like both said, but don't go
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: to an overlooked area because there's places you can go
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: that are just so vast and there's no deer. It's
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: an overlooked area that's in amongst um the rest of
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: the deer community. You know, he has his own little area.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: And I usually don't hunt much in October because of
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: my work and a lot of times I try, I
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: gotta travel. I don't. I live at least two two
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: now fires to these places I hunt. So for me
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: to go up and hunt maybe an evening on a
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: scrape that might take me a forty five minute walk
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: to get to and stuff like that. So I kind
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: of just focused my time into November. So, like both said,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: talking about November rut, your odds are a little better
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: but then again, I'm starting to see that the hunters
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: are pretty uh there's a lot of hunters starting to
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: hunt when the time is right, and the deer are
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: just going to shift and adapt to them hunters to
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: where I know this year Drner right there wasn't it
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: kind of sucked a little bit up and he's in
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering in my head as a good hunters. But um,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: later in the year, I'm starting to in the January,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: although this year I had three different states I was
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: hunting in January, so that was tough. But I feel
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: like I got a better grip on where the deer
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: can be found later because the pressure is low. But
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: um yeah as far as um like both said on
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: that overlooked area and but it but also in amongst
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: the rest of the deer herd, and a scrape is
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: something that I've I've caught him on Cameron these areas
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: midday because the population is pretty equal buck the dough,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: so it's not like there's uh so there the buck
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: that doesn't have the dough or waiting for the next one.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: He might not control himself and to be checking the
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: scrapes throughout the day. So I mean both said, are good. Um,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: I liked what he said there and that was what
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: I could uh put into it. So yeah, and and
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: Mark the one thing I would added again as as
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: after I answered, I think of things I should have said,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: but there was there was you know what I was
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: talking about the edges like of the dope betting area.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: One thing that is important to note is I've ben
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: stay set up on the edge of a thicket where
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: it was it was so thick that it was difficult
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: to be able to shoot into. So I'd back off
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: on the edge where I see some trails and some doughs.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: But a lot of the times those bucks don't want
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: to get out in that open. They'll just be just
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: inside that cover. So even if you can't, you only
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: have a small window setting up to where you can
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: shoot into that cover, even if it's ten yards or
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: five yards into it. Is is critical as far as
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: like when you're really focusing in on your setup. And
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: and I tend to find a lot of my areas
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: that I'm not able to shoot over twenty yards. So
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: that seems to be a very uh a very uh
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: repeatable characteristic of the hunting spots that I'm in. Is
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: is not being able to shoot very far because if
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: you're focusing on the more mature, mature deer that they're
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: using that cover to their favor and they're they're really
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: liking there, there's more opportunity for them to move within
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: that cover, within that thick those thick areas then than
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: they are in the in the wide open. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: that's certainly something we can relate to. Uh, even out
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: here the you always want to shoot into that thick stuff.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: You know, you guys have talked a lot about, you know,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: up high ridges, points, spurs, plateaus, different things like that.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: But there's also the opposite in mountain country, which is
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: way down low, the creek bottoms, the the I don't know,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: the drainage ditches, all that kind of stuff. There's a
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: lot of different thoughts on those types of things. But
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: in most cases, you know, those bottom areas are still
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: areas of high deer traffic. There's deer crossing these drainages,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: they're crossing these creeks, um. But it's something that historically
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say, it's really hard to hunt
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: down low because of swirling winds. Boat. Do you have
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: a take or do you have anything when it comes
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: to the bottoms that that you can share as far
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: as you know how you use them, how you hunt them,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: if and when. Um, I've I've heard you talk about
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: this a little bit, so I know you have some thoughts. Um.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: Curious to hear what those are though. Yeah, I love
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: creek bottoms, but what I'll say is not all of
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: them are created equal. And ones that have steep steep
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: train that comes down and there's not a lot of
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: space in the bottom, or say like a draw that
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: goes up that has a creek, it's really difficult with
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: the wind in those areas. Yeah, swirling winds you get,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: it's just it's really difficult. But when you get an
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: area where you get a little bit more of a
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: flatter bottom that grows some thick cover because it's always
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: kind of a little bit marshy in there and swampy
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: during the rut, those are some of my favorite places
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: to hunt. And a lot of the reason is so
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: once once you get those cold temperatures in November. Um.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: One thing I'll say is I don't normally hunt bottoms
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: is much when it's warmer. And even though you might think,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: oh it's warmer, they need water but the wind is
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: tougher to hunt at that point where you when you
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: have the colder weather or still days, it's not swirling
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: as much, and your thermals are almost always consistently following
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: that correct downstream. So I like to set up as
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: close to it, almost over up of the water, which
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: is difficult to be able to hear, but it gives
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: you a consistent wind direction. And the ticket for that
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: is that there's a lot in a lot of these
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: areas up here will have beaver ponds that the beavers
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: will damn up an area the stream that are in
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: these valleys. And if you set set up on the
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: top end of those beaver ponds one that body of
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: water creates its own natural funnel, so they have to
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: either across above or below it. But if you set
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: up above it, your thermals are coming down down, you know,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: down the stream towards that pond, and when they hit
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: you and they and you say, your wind and your
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: sense going out across that water. What happens when it's
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: cold out is that water is warmer than the air
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: and it pulls up your scent up, so you're I
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: call I feel like I'm invincible when I'm in one
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: of those situations because your winds coming right at your face,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: hitting that water and going up and so on those cold,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: frosty more things in November. I really can't think of
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: a better spot, because there's to to talk about a
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: little bit more. Is you know an area that I'm
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: looking at that would almost create like a So the
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: ridges would almost like create like a turkey foot, and
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: you have these draws that run down and they all
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: meet in that one spot, which will create like a
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: bigger bottom. And those areas are travel spots. So although
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: they like to run the tops of the ridges and
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: do all that, they're coming down at some point and
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: they're crossing there. Those are spots that that I'll sit
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: all day and I've had more luck in the middle
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: of the day than i have first light and in
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: in last light. So for for me, I guess the
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: key takeaways with crick bottoms are crip bottoms are are
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: known for having a lot of nine but a lot
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: of people say there at night, you know you can't
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: hunt them because of the the wind. But I almost
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: feel the opposite on that. But you have to pay
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: attention to the condition. Colder weather still winds and the
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: route when they're crazing. I mean, those foss a are
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: money for me personally. All right, I'm convinced. What about you?
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: Johnny is both full of it or is he onto something?
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: Bows on it? He's the man. He's really good with
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: thermals and wind and he's definitely right that. Uh, there
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: is a consistency though when when it's later in the
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: evening the thermals are long, you know, you get that
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: just calm day and the thermals and the thermals will
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: come perpendictionary down the hill, but also down maybe the
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: stream where I said that one buck, you know, I
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: know he was. I think he was coming kind of
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: up the stream to that's great, But he was coming
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: from um the one side in particular. But it was
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: it was kind of I don't know where on that
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: side because it was all thick where he's m and
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: and it made it difficult to hunt um that little
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: creek bottom because I didn't chances are I was gonna
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: be above him. Um. If I was below him, um,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: I was screwed. Like if I went too far down
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: the creek, he would come above me and go to
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: the scrape. But it was just a difficult situation. You
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: can find the rights to switch situation where the deer,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Like we're both said, if maybe a couple of points
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: come together a deer cross, if you find a crossing
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: to where he's sent checking maybe what's up one in
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: points where some does or bed, would that be a
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: great spot to sit because you're gonna do the same
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: thing as him. You're you're you know, he's crossing at
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: that point where that buck that was using in thermals
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: um coming up that creek to check out scrape. I
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: don't know exactly, I'm sure he's popping out and random area.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: It was just like you can't sit at the scrape,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: and you know, you go fifty yards too far from
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: where he jumps down and works that creek up, you're screwed.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: You know. So your odds are were pretty poor there.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: But there's definitely situations, um where it's you can use
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: it to your advantage, you know, whether acrossing perpendicular um
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: or um like he said, if it's kind of a
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: flatter area, um, it's it's not so contained. And then
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: that one spot, UM, I hunt a lot of them
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: crypt bottoms and like that one bucket, you just you
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: can't always and it was I was right there by
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: a beaver pond too, but um, I was up in
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: the timber a little bit of swirled and it just
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: it's hard to play that way. I just try to
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: get a scent free. Like both said earlier, in these
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: areas that we hunt up there, we'd be jumping tree
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: to tree, you know, to try to play the wind
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: where get your scent in the quota it is the
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: more you're able to bundle up and hold keep that sending.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, you know, they help you with them
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: swirling winds, and sometimes you gotta you gotta take chances,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: um to get an opportunity, but you don't want to
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: over and there are situations where you can hunt in
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: the wind and be consistent. That's a good spot, um,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: like the mid Less and that, but it would be
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: careful you can you're gonna like people tell me there's
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: somebody hunting there, but then you're there putting that scent
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: and that's swirling around, so you can't be hunting there
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: a lot. You're gonna leave a lot of cent, But
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: you gotta take chances, you know, and always have five
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: six spots, five six different deer places to hunt, because
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: like that, you could one hunt, you could just screw
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: up the whole place ruin that buck. So you're gonna
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: have a couple of areas and ideas and it's just
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: coming back to scout and boots on the ground and time.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: And like I say, I live the closest piece of
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: public land hunt that I live close to two and
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: a half fire. So I'm kind of in a situation
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: where UM take advantage and know all you can before
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: you you know, you don't have the opportunity. You got
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: your back door and Scott you know so I think,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that mark. I was gonna say, if if
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: you had to guess or give me an estimate, if
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: I asked you, all right, how many different quality spots
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: do you have scouted and in your back pocket, let's
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: say for the rut. If if if you had to
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: estimate how many spots you have in your in your
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: on X or in your mental list of spots you
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: can go to the hunt during the rut that are
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: kind of scouted thought through. I bet you I got
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: I got a lot of spots marked that I know
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: are good that um I don't even hunt. I have
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: them just because I love scouting more than I do hunt.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: I think now that I'm older, I love learning new areas,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: so I do have I'd probably have ten fifteen spots
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: in spots that will just you know, if I don't
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: bring up my NYX and look at a pin that
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: I forget about individuals. Sometimes I was hunting kind of
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: these two individual deer, the one I found this year
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: and the one I the one I was kind of
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: hunt a little bit. So I got like two three
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: bows deer, four or five individual deer, and then I
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: also have maybe um so I got like maybe two
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: or three spots with them deer, and so you're looking
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: at six ten spots there and I got maybe ten
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: fifteen just spots that, um I don't know maybe what
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: the deer, what the actual deers living there, but I
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: know they are good spots. And a lot of times
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: when my friends come to hunt and I don't have
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: the time to hunt all these spots, I'll put them
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: there and they kind of helped me scalp. But the
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: area that means bow hunt. In the area, there's hundreds
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: of thousands of acres, you know, and there's a lot
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: of cover and there's a lot of um I do
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: obtain a lot of spots that ances a good spot,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's hard to define that spot where
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: that's the scrape who just maybe out of the way,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: But I bet you yeah, I I could think of
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: maybe twenty spots that are good and not generalized trees,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: maybe just this area you know that I have there.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: But then I hunt the Midwest a lot in Ohio
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: and I got I got like I hunted Iowa Lake
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: season this year, and over the years i've hunted there,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: I got six eight spots and then I dropped cameras there.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: But every year is different, you know, so it's kind
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: of like, um, it could be like a you could
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: just guess like roll of dice, or sometimes I'll put
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: cameras and see what's what's there this year. So yeah,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: I have a lot a lot over the years, you know,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: twenty years whatever, how many years hunt in public land,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: religiously years six seven years of public land. But I
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: have a lot of spots in a lot of different
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: stages because I I love scout and that's what I
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: like doing so and that's why I'm not afraid to
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: hunt with other people and send them different It's like
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: some people That's why I like helping people. You know,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going here or trying to spot I ain't been
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: there in years, but it used to be good, you know,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: and just see what they see, what they come up with. Yeah,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: it's nice to have. And that's it's such a consistent
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: thing among the folks that we talked to. I mean,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: if if you're gonna pick one consistent trait among you know,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: consistent deer hunters, it's the fact that they have a
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: lot of good quality spots scouted out and in their
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: rolodex of possible places they can hunt. You know, they're
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: they're never under prepared, They're always overprepared. I mean, you
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: guys are clear examples. Uh Andy here on the other
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: side of the line, he's an obvious example of that.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: He's got more spots than he could hunt in twenty
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: five years, even if you let me hunt them all
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: to um so, So I know that that's something that
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: you know, anyone listening, if you want one simple thing
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: to do today to get better at this and have
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: more luck and more consistent success, scout and find more
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: quality places, whether you hunt mountains or the farmland or whatever,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: just scout. Scout, Scout find more spots, find more spots. Um,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's it's just it always always comes up,
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: and it's it's one of those effort related things. So
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: it's within each of our control. It's not something that
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: you have to be crazy smart to figure out. It's
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: not something that you need to have a lot of
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: money to figure out. It's not something that you need
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: a big, fancy property to do. This is something that
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: any one of us can do. Whether you you know,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: are a millionaire or you're graduating high school and you
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: don't have a dollar to your name, you can find
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: more spots and uh right there put yourself in a
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: better position. So, um, we're we're getting we're getting up
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: on time here. Somehow an hour and forty minutes has
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: got away from us somehow. So I want to I
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: want to wind us towards an ending here before it's
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: two in the morning and none of us can stay awake.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: So and Andy, what do you have any final thing
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: you want to cover with these guys or final thoughts
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: you want to get from Johnny and bo? Yeah, I
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: got I got one more question. Um, so let's say
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: there is you know this big old buck you guys
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: have followed the you know, previous few years. He's he's
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: a big, mature dear, high scoring gear or whatever, your
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: dream book. You're gonna put all your eggs in one basket,
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: and it's let's say it's November on so you're gonna
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: you you you finally locate this book, you know, or
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: he's he's showing up in this area and now is
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: the time to hunt him. So it's basically rut and
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: you know that he basically you have it narrowed down
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: to like a ridge system or a mountain that you know,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: with a main point, a couple of main points, and
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: some secondary points. In your opinion or I guess for
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: your guys, a strategy, would you be more mobile and
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: bouncing around two different kind of pinch it like terrain
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: pinches and travel like benches and saddles, kind of hitting
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: new areas, constantly moving around, or would you be more
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: inclined to plant your butt in one specific spot, whether
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's the head of a drainage, head
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: of the big main drainage or the major saddle coming through,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: or a big bench on that leeward side and just
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: sit there day after day after day. If the weather
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: and wind permitted, Do you guys have uh uh an
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: idea of what you would do in that hypothetical situation
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: or what you think would be most effective at getting
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: an arrow in that book about let's start with you both.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: So I would say, I think, I think that's a
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: great question. And my my response to that is I
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: would stay in that one spot more than I would
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: bounced around. And the reason for it is one low
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: dear den to the two. With those sporadic patterns, you
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: just if you know that a buck um, say a
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: tro camera data is hitting this scrape or going through
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: this pinch or whatever, you're going to do it, eventually,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: you've got to be there for it. And as I'm
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: saying this so confidently on the line, I screw this
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: up more times than not because I want to bounce
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: around or I lose some confidence in that. But I've
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: learned that the the more that I do stay in
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: those specific spots they during the rut um specifically, the
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: better chances that I have during it. Now, if I
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: if I go, you know, three or four days and
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't all I've seen was a couple of squirrels. Um,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be inclined to move and realize things have changed.
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: But for the for the most part, sitting still and
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: at least giving it. Uh, you know, two or three
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: days of constant you honey in those areas because you
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: don't burn them out as quick as others spots because
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: there's not as many deer and you're not blowing them
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: out going in or anything there. So that's that's my
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: short and sweet answer to it. All right, how about you, Johnny, Well,
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: it's been a while since I've had my dream buck
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: that I've been chasing. Um. You know this public land
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: that we hunt, there's hundred forties, hundred fifties. But I
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: am my goal and it's been my goal for the
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: last five six years at the shoot a hundred and
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: seventy inch on public lands where a few years ago
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: I had one. And now it's like where I'm at
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: my hunting career. Um. I enjoy the run, I enjoy
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: hunting with friends, and sometimes I'm impatient because I don't
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: have that deer that I would do whatever it takes.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to. I didn't shoot a deer this year.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: I had my bow back once on a deer in January.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: This year, you know, and I don't care. Um, I don't.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: But um, if I had that dream deer, I would
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to get that deer. And like
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: both said, I would probably sit if I knew. Chances are, Um,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: the more experience you have with a deer, the more
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: you'll know. So if it's only a deer that I
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: just found this year, and um, so actually I got
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: another deer that I had on camera this summer, he
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: was pushing one seventy and he just that's all I
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: got as a summertime picture. But this shed seas I'm
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: going to kind of head maybe in the direction I think.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: So it's my if I do catch him this summer again,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: or I find a shiit, it's gonna be a new deer.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: So I might not know that much like we always
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: talked about, it takes years to know about these deer
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: to where. Um, it's gonna be harder to hunt them,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: harder to sitting at one spot because I don't know.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: But if it's a deer that I've chased for a
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: few years and I know him, um, and I know
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: he's gonna come by this spot, I'm gonna stay there
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna do whatever it takes. It's been years
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: since I've done that and wanted one bad enough that
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: I would do that and sit because I am Maybe
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: I'll sit till noon and maybe i'll just do midday.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: I'll go scout or whatever, because that's where I'm at.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: I'm just enjoying my hunting. I'm not trying to prove
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: myself and that that. Yeah, I was sitting one spot,
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: but as long as in your head, um, like, be
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: optimistic with your spot, and no, it's a good spot,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: but also be realistic. You say, I'm in the city
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: here eightden days until I shoot the deer. But if
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: you get that feeling like maybe the wind come across
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: the back of your neck, maybe you think he's over there. Um,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: I don't take chances with the mature deer. If I
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: think I screwed it up a little bit, I'll get
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: down and move. So. Yeah, but there are some stands
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: that I have that the winds right. I said, Man,
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: I could sit here every day on the southwest wind
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: and to be great, the chances are in the situation
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: maybe you're going to And a lot of times I
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: find myself getting into where these bucks are and it's
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: risky even getting into them spots. That's a big s
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: That's the whole another conversation and getting into hunting these areas,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: how you might blow them out, blow a deer out.
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: But and it's if you're walking a fine line. Did
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: I blow him out? Where did I blow maybe just
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: a smaller buck out as he's steal here. So it's
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: it's really a mental game when you're you are hunting them,
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: those animals, whether I should stay or where I should go.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, if if you've got him
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: nailed down and it's a deer, or if I got
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: him nail down to's a deer that I want to harvest,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: I'll stick to that spot that I know he's gonna
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: come by. And but yeah, it's it's that's Those are
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: some great answers. Um, I've been thinking about this a
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: lot lately. I am admittedly am a very mobile hunter.
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: I do get a little impatient just kind of pounding
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: away at the same spot. But I did that this
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: year with my Ohio buck and it and it led
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: to me killing him. Um, I just felt like I
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: was always chasing he sent him around and now he
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: was always like two or three steps ahead of me.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: So I decided to just stay in one spot that
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: I knew he frequent um a few times this season
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: before UM. And then there's two other mountain hunters that
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: I know that you guys, I'm sure I've heard of
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: Troy Pottinger and and Bobby Worthington. Um are both you know,
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: guys that are pretty stationary, you know, on the on
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: the mountain, um if they're after a particular book. And
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: I mean I've read stories of Bobby hunting like thirty
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: straight days in the same tree, you know, for a
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: for a specific book. The thing that I struggled with
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: with that, though, I think, is like you never know
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: if that buck comes through after dark and catches like
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: you know, a boot track or something like that. And
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: that's what's always kind of messing with my mind is like, Okay,
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: I might be sitting there on the fifth or sixth
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: day and it's like, you know, did he did he
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: come through and catch my ground saying? And he's never
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: coming now, So I just, uh, I just want to
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: ask you guys that, But I don't know, Mark, you
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: got another one for these guys before you wrap it up? Yeah?
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: I think, Um, I think to your point, Andy on
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: that one, it takes a lot of confidence. It takes
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in like knowing that you're in
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: the right spot, and it takes a lot of confidence
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: in knowing that you've been able to pull it off
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: effectively all those previous days. But if you have that,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: if you have that experience or that knowledge, I can
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: tell you that, yeah, you're you're getting away with it.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: It makes a lot of sense to do that. But
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: it sure seems hard to get to that point where
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: you're not constantly second guessing yourself. I could certainly see
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: that that being dangerous. That's definitely a good point that
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: the confidence. Um, if you're so confident, I've been in
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: the situations for I'm so confident I don't care what
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: I did being in that tree. Um, I just knew
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: I was going to kill a deer. So if you
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: get to that point you're confidence is up that much,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: then yeah, but all means stay there if you believe
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: that spot, and if you believe it that much, you
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: will see it just in life, you know, whatever it is.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: And Johnny always that he always pumps me up when
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say I'm during a rout, and I'm down
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and either we'll meet up there in
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: the season or text me or something. He'll be like, Oh,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: you're confident, and you you know these deer better than
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: than anyone these deer that you're hunting. He's like, be
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: confident in your spots, you know, And sometimes that that
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: helps give you know, having friends like that give you
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: a little pick me up. And you do even when
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: you do get down on things, you know, understanding that
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: you know you did the work, you kind of learned it. Yes,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: you gotta know when to move and kind of have
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: that feeling. But at the same time, you know, just
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: because you had one or two bad hunts doesn't mean
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: it's a bad spot. And and you gotta somehow figure
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: out a way, depending on your personality, how to kind
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: of keep that confidence and and you know, you know
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: when you're gonna do that. Whenever I tell you know,
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: I'll tell Johnny good luck. He always says, I, I
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: don't believe in Lockwood. Well, if we get it done
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: this because we put ourselves in the raised spot. Yeah,
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: A lots truth to that. So so I want to
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: end I think that's some really good stuff we cover there.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: I want to end with this one last question for you,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: bo Uh, because at the very beginning Andy mentioned that
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: you think the best mountain hunter you know is your dad.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: And what I'm wondering to wrap us up here, what
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: is the one single most important thing that your dad,
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: who has been this incredibly successful mountain hunter for years
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: and years, what's that most important rule or guideline or
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: piece of wisdom that he's pounded into your head over
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: the years. What would that be. Let's let your dad
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: in this episode. I wish you'd tell me that answer. No,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: what I when I picked up on is just he
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: knows his areas like the back of his hand. He
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: knows every square inch. He's scouts them to a point
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: that is, I mean, he knows these areas like no other.
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: And if I were to speak for him, which I
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: may not be doing it that the way it should be.
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: But he puts in a ridiculous amount of time every
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: single year in learning areas and also having a bunch
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: of backup areas, having a bunch of spots. As you
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: discussed earlier, my dad, every time I talk about going
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: to scout in the area, He's like, oh yeah, I
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: hunt there too, And I'm like, what, you know, he
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: tends to have a lot of spots and and and
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: so I would think that, you know, just the amount
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: of time he puts in scouting. And then I guess
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: that I'm making this a little bit long winded. But
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: in the persistence side of it, like he just continually
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: haunts and hunts and hunts and just goes goes through it.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: And I haven't seen him come out of a November
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: without an archery tag field since I was a kid,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: So he tends to do pretty well with that. And
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: I'm again, I'm still trying to figure out all the
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: details and if there's like one secret that he has,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't always convey that to me. I'm joking.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: He definitely shares a ton with me. He's a he's
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: a funny guy. He's a he's mysterious when it comes
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: to it. That's a good That's a good place to
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: wrap it up. Good great wisdom from Papa Martinic and
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: uh Bow and Johnny. I just thank you both for
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: taking the time to to share all this with us
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: and tell your stories and give us some insight to
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: what it's like to hunt places like this. And I'm
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: excited to do more of it myself. And in fact,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: my my, uh my place out in Idaho is is
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: pretty similar to this type of habitat, so I'm I'm
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: gonna be put it into action this year, uh in particular,
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: So thank you selfishly for helping me get that done. Yeah,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: no problem, Mark, it was. It was a blast coming
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: on here and talking to all you guys. I love
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: these round table discussions. And I told Andy that before.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: I've been listening in to him and it's it's always
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: creates a really good conversation. So I really really appreciate
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: you having us on here, all right, and that's a rap.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in, Thanks for sticking with us
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: on a long conversation there. I hope you picked up
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: a few things that can help with your future hunts.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: And until we chat again, thank you for your time
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: and your attention, and stay wired to hunt.