Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1014: Scouting Strategies That Separate the Elite Deer Hunter from the Average with Andy May

Transcript

Ep. 1014: Scouting Strategies That Separate the Elite Deer Hunter from the Average with Andy May · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go farther, stay longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by legendary whitetail bow hunter Andy
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: May to discuss the scouting strategies and philosophies that separate
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: the elite deer hunter from the average. All right, welcome
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: back to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: First Light. Today we are talking scouting, all things scouting,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and we are joined by one of the very best
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: in the business, my good friend and one of the
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: most renowned, well respected DIY whitetail bow hunter in the world,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: the one and only Andy May, and our discussion today
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: is going to revolve around the next level or two
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: of scouting. Not the surface level, not the beginner, not
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the basics of where to scout, what to scout, what
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: sign means, but rather how do you go from being
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a pretty good scout of white tail sign and of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: a property and of a deer and instead become elitd
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: What were some of the changes that Andy May had
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to go through to go from average to great? What
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: are the things that he wished he had known sooner?
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: How do you actually look at all of this, look
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: at all these different pieces of the puzzle and put
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: them together into a cohesive plan and understanding of an area.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: We discuss all of this and much much more today,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: with of course a focus on spring scouting, since that's
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the time of year we're living in right now, but
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: much of this could be applied to the rest of
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the deer hunting year as well, So we dive into
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: everything from the differences between Andy May ten twenty years
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: ago and what he does now. We discuss different things
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: as far as what he looks at that the average
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: deer hunter maybe doesn't. We discuss what I just mentioned
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: there a second ago, which is connecting all the dots
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: into a single cohesive understanding. We discuss some conventional wisdom
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: around scouting and where some of those things might be wrong.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: We discuss some of the changes that Andy has been
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: making now with how he scouts because of the increasing
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: understanding that everybody else has about deer behavior or reading
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: maps for understanding where eigh quality deer hunting areas might be,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and a whole lot more than that. I will leave
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: it with this. Andy is one of the best in
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the business. And he's not just a great deer hunter
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: and understander of deer behavior, but also a humble, kind
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: human being. So he's a good person to talk to.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: He's a great person to listen to, and I think
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: you guys are going to enjoy this podcast. Without any
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: further ado, let's get to my scouting discussion with Andy May.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: All right, back with me on the show after too
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: long of an absence is the one and only Andy May.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Welcome back, Bardy.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Good to be here, man, it has I didn't realize
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: it's been so long. But yeah, I mean we used
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: to you know, we used to try to do a
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: couple of year, you know, and it's uh, gets by,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: and but yeah, it's good.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Good to catch up with you always.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Well it's it's funny, you know, we've we've done so
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: many of these, and I know that you are in
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: such high demand with every deer hunting podcast that I
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: think I've started feeling bad asking you to do them
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: because I know that you're getting these all the time.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So all that said, I finally was like, you know what,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna feel bad anymore. I'm gonna get Andy
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: May on the horn. We got to catch up. The
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: world needs to hear from him on this podcast. But
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: in all seriousness, I'm glad it worked out. I appreciate
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: you making the time, and what I want to do
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: is kind of do a speed round almost see if
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: we can pack as much information as possible into a
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: sprint of a deer hunting conversation. Because you have always
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: been about efficiency, I think if there's a lot of
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: ways we could describe you and your approach, but I
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: think efficient is right up towards the top of the list.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So I want to see if we can have one
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: of the most efficient podcasts for teaching people about how
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: to take the next step as a woodsman and as
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: someone who is scouting for Intel. And where I wanted
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: to start was with a little bit of imagination here,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So bear with me, Andy. Imagine Andy May of twenty sixteen. Okay,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: think back to yourself ten years ago and try to
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: recall the things you believed about scouting, the approach that
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: you took, the things that you did ten years ago
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: when you were trying to figure out where to hunt
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: or how to hunt a buck or a piece of
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: public or a piece of private, whatever it was. How
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: does twenty twenty six Andy May's scouting routine and approach
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: differ from yours ten years ago?
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: What stands out is different? Now? Yeah, that's a good question.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I haven't really thought about that, but.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: Well, one thing that comes to mind is, back then,
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: I definitely felt the need, like if I was going
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: to go somewhere new, I felt the need to get
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: eyes on that ground, to walk that ground, and to
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: thoroughly scout it before I really felt comfortable dive it
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: in there and hunting it effectively. And I believe at
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: that time, and and prior to that, I probably did
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: because I didn't have or maybe I was developing a more.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know, a more.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: More, I was developing more experience and more confidence.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe at that time that I.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Really needed to like see it firsthand, to really feel
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: confident to dive into an area and feel like I
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: was going to be effective.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Versus now, I still have that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: I still feel that way, and I still do that,
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: but I also feel confident.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: I feel more confident.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: Now that I can look at maps and just kind
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: of hit the ground running and and sometimes part of
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: the reason I've kind of tried to do that and
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: implement that into my my hunting a little bit is
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: because I have I have friends and I've talked to
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: some other guys that I respect as hunters, and that's
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: their approach. They actually prefer not to walk ground and
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: thoroughly pick it apart.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: The reason they do that is because they don't want
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: to feel like married to a spot. You know, like
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: if you go and you scout it and you walk
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: it and it's like, all right, this is where I'm
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: gonna hunt. These are the trees I'm gonna hunt out of,
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: you almost you almost get married to that spot.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: So when I.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Learned about that approach, I heard about that approach mainly
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: Jared Scheffler, but I have a couple other buddies too,
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: But Jared did I talk about it a lot. We
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: just had a great conversation about you know, kind of
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: touched on this a little bit the other day on
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: my drive.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: But that's a skill set in itself to.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: Be able to just kind of briefly look over maps,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: get the lay of the land, and to based on
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: what you see kind of nowhere to go on that
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: piece of ground where you potentially could or should get into,
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: you know, some good hunting. And that's something that I
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: feel way more confident in doing now and I actually
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: try to do that on purpose in some cases to
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: develop that skill set, where back in twenty sixteen and
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: probably before that, I didn't really have that confidence. Yes,
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: I could go in and I could run and gun
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: and kind of feel things out, but I feel like
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: I really wanted to like explore every inch of a
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: piece of ground, for instance, like if I got a
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: piece of permission ground or something, or you know, I
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: always want to just walk everything and figure everything out,
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: or a piece of public ground when I'm out of state,
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: just walk it all, walk all those good areas and
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: really get a feel for it. And I still like
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: to do that because that's ultimately that's my favorite way.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: I like taking in information and you know, reading the sign,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: reading the terrain, and then kind of figuring out where,
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: you know, where where the deer a living, if they're
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: bedding on the property, where they're feeding, how are they traveling,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: and how can I take advantage of that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: But it is a skill set itself to be able
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: to just look at.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Maps and aerial photo or a terrain you know, a
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: topographical map, and then just dive in and have that
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: confidence through probably developed through lots of experience, you know,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: doing that over the years, but just being able to
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: go in there without having to walk every inch of
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: it and get yourself into some some pretty high percentage areas.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: I think that's a good skill set to have, especially
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: if you're or a traveling guy like me. I can't
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: tell you how many times I've went to a state
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: or piece of ground that I've scouted I feel comfortable
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: with and this is this is where you know I'm
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: going to be hunting, and it's overrun with people or
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: I lost access last minute, and it's like now I
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: have to like, you know, shuffle and find something new.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: So it's a it's a good skill set to have
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: to be able to kind of make things happen on
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: the fly and and be efficient, you know, being efficient,
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: which you know I do try to be that way
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: because I'm living on time, but you know, being efficient
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: certainly through you know, thoroughly scouting an area and knowing
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: the ins and out of it and knowing where the
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: deer beded, knowing where they're feeding, Knowing how they travel,
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: knowing your access all that stuff really increases efficiency. But
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: sometimes that stuff falls apart a traveling hunter, when you
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: don't own your ground, sometimes that stuff, you know, things
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: have a way of falling apart, or a wrench getting
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: thrown in your plan. And to be able to pivot
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: and make something happen when you're on a short time schedule,
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: you know, that's efficiency also, and that's developed just through
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: a lot of experience and gaining confidence into just diving
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: into a new piece of ground. Looking at a map
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: really quick. Oh you know what I know, Dear like
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: this type of habitat. There's a lot of diversity here.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: I like the way these terrain features match up with
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: this diversity. It's far away from access points, That's where
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: I'm going to go. So I would say that's the
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: first thing that came to mind when you ask that question,
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: is just that I actually don't feel the need to
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: always walk aground thoroughly to be able to hunt it effectively.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: And maybe I'm not going in there and killing the
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: biggest buck in the neighborhood, but I feel like I
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: could go in and have a good hunt in most cases.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: So that ability to be able to you know, you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: you said not not go into the season married to
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: a spot, so instead of kind of studying the maps
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: from a far east scouting and that gives me a
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: game plan. We'll call this swinger scouting. Since you're not
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: married to it. You you're just getting the sense of things,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: try and dabbling, get getting a taste.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Is that something? And I think I know the answer.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: You kind of alluded to this, but I want you
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: to explicitly say this, whether this is true or not.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Can you get to that point.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Where you can do what you just described just by
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: having a Spartan Forge or on X subscription and studying
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: maps like crazy and really learning all the mechanics and
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: all the tips and all the little details and really
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: becoming an expert in escouting. Can you do what you
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: just described and be successful simply by becoming an E
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: scouting guru?
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Or do you first.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Have to go through the twenty years of all on
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the ground, pile on the ground stuff that you described
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: until you can actually then have the ability to be
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: an EAT scouting guru and have it actually pay off
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: on the ground.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's another good question.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: You know, I think if there's a time where you
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: can be effective with just eat scouting, now's the time.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: Because the maps are incredible. There's tons of information on
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: what white tails do, where they live, the types of
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: terrain that they prefer across all parts of the country.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: So if you are if you were a kind of
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: a student of that, and you took in a lot
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: of content, maybe read some articles and some books from
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: you know, experienced hunters, listen to podcasts. Yeah, I think
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: a guy probably could you know, be effective doing that.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Is he going to be as effective without all that experience,
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: that on the ground experience. I don't believe so, but
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: I think he could. I think he could be successful.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: Just just the amount of information that's out there now
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: compared to like when you and I started, it's just,
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: you know, it's incredible. And if you learn to read
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: a map, I mean you can watch YouTube videos on
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: how how to read a map like an expert. You know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: where you know it took. I didn't really have that.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: You didn't have that. None of the guys that came
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: up before now really had that. We had to just
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: kind of learn that as we go. Yeah, and lots
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: of trial and eron, and you know, guys that are
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: coming up now, they can bypass a lot of that
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: time and a lot of those mistakes and probably be
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: you know, pretty darn effective. But I do think that
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: experience of you know, walking various types of ground, various
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: types of terrain that the white tail calls home. I
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: think that's invaluable and I think part of the.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Reason that.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: In some cases I am efficient. I'm certainly not always efficient.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: I know people think that, but trust me, there's times
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: when I'm not. But it is from that experience, that
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: groundwork that was laid prior to this, you know, all
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: those years of learning and making mistakes and walking you know,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: different types of areas. I always try to challenge myself,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: like new areas and new types of terrain.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: It's just something that.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Inside of me that I always wanted to do is
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: just just be like really versatile. And I don't know
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: if it was just that like a strong just urge
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: to learn. I just wanted to learn, and then I
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: feel like I would start to get a grasp on something,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: and then I'd hear somebody else talk about white tails
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: in a different state or a different type of terrain,
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: and I was like, wow, you know, like, I don't
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: know any of this, and I thought I knew white tails,
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: you know, so then so now I just want to
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: learn all about that. And so that would kind of
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: lead me towards an area or a state where I
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: wasn't super comfortable with, wasn't super confident, but I just
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: wanted to learn. And I mean, I still have that
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: feeling today, even you know, after all these years, I
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: still have that that's.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Such a strong urge to learn.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: And I feel like, yes, I've learned a lot, and
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: I do feel like I know a lot, but I
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: feel like there's just so much that I don't know still,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: and so much that I'm not confident in, and I
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: just there's just that constant, you know, that constant craving
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: for information and experiences and just to learn.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Like, for instance, like.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: I was talking to you a bit before we started
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: the podcast, but I just got back from my second
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: trip in down to Illinois to scout hunt there this fall.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: I haven't hunted in Illinois in probably eight or nine years.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: I used to go pretty regularly, and I've already made
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: two scouting trips down there, and it's just one of
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: those instances where you know, this is the way I'm
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: going to tackle this hunt. I want to make the
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: most of this tag, and I'm going to go out
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: and I'm going to scout. We got access to a
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: private piece of eighty acres, and then other than that,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: I've been scouting public land because I don't want to
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: put all my eggs in basket, all the eggs in
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: my basket for that eighty acres. Even though it could
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: be decent, I wasn't super impressed with the sign on it,
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: to be honest with you, and so I just started walking,
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: you know, various pieces of public ground. And I'm just
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: going to keep doing that. And I'm just trying to
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: build this kind of rolodex of information in areas where
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I find that big deer have been living, or the
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: way it sets up, the way the train sets up,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: maybe the cover and the diversity.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: That is then on that ground.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: It lends itself to bucks surviving, you know, to older age.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: And it's been you know, I love it. You know,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: it's just like so much information in new ground. But
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: I'm really starting to feel, already after two trips, like
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: really confident that I'll be able to get something on
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: the ground, and it very well might be on one
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: of the public pieces. That's where I found the biggest
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: sign and the most you know, the most mature buck
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: sign by far. So this hunt in particular, that's how
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: I decided to tackle it, as opposed to just you know,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: shooting down there in November and getting in some rough
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: funnels that look good. I feel confident I could go
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: do that and probably, you know, if I'm not super picky,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: probably kill a good deer. You know, I've I've demonstrated
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: that I can do that. But I just chose to
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: tackle this hunt this way. And there's other hunts that
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I have this fall that I'm going to tackle a
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: completely different way and not scout at all and just
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: kind of show up and try to make things happen.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: And I do that by choice. A lot of cases.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: I do that by choice. So what's what's what will
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: help with my efficiency in Illinois is I'm gonna I'm
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: gonna go down again and then.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Probably one more time because it's not far. It's only
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: five and a half hours.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: So I picked an area that I can get get
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: to relatively quickly. But what's going to help with my
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: efficiency is that I'm going to have dozens of spots.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: You know, at least I would say that I'm going
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: to have confidence in I already found two or three
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: different areas that I can't tell mature bucks were living,
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: found their on their beds, found their sign kind of
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: know what they're doing out of their beds, got a
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: you know, a rough gauge on when that activity happened.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: And you know, if I strike out with one, some
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: other spots that I feel confident in, and I'm just
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: kind of trying to build on that. So I'm going
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: to have kind of like maybe not playing ABCD like
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: in order, but I'm going to have lots of options
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: where I'm not going to be you know, stuck in
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: a situation where you know, I pick out a couple
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: of rough funnels on that eighty acres and nothing's panning out,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: and then I don't know what to do, and then
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I'm yes, exactly, So I'm going to have some you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: I'll be able to pivot and go to something else
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: really quickly if I need to, and that does help
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: with efficiency. That can turn you know, a kind of
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: a dead end trip or a failed not a failed,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: but a struggle a struggle trip into success pretty quickly.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, so imagine and maybe you don't need to
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: imagine this. Maybe you actually have real life examples of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: this where a buddy was with you. But imagine you
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: had a friend with you when you were scouting there
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: in Illinois, or maybe you agreed to mentor a hunter.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: And let's say it's not a new hunter.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: This is like your average serious deer hunter, like somebody
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: really loves it, but kind of average out all those people.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Let's like the average wired to hunt listener. Let's say
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: if you were to have that person walking alongside of
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: you while you're scouting this Illinois property, or imagine this
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: being like a friend of yours.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: What do you think that you would be.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Paying attention to that that person would miss? Like when
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: you go with your buddies, what's the thing that you're
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: seeing and thinking about in cataloging and they are like
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: off in some other total different world or they totally
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: miss this thing and you're like, oh no, AB and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: C was the important thing and they were thinking it
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: was E, F and G. Do you have a sense
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of what that might be, Like, what is the average
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: person missing when they scalp that Andy May is actually
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: looking at paying attention to and and and seeing as important.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: I think the average guys is.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: Probably you know, okay at seeing the obvious stuff. The
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: obvious stuff would be, you know, you're walking you you
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: walk into you know, maybe maybe we're talking some some
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: hilly country or something, and you're walking into the timber
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: and you're working the ridges, and you start to see
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: some rubs and some scrapes, and they're like, oh, you know,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: like here's some here's some stuff.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: You know, a buck was here, a buck laid this
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: sign down.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: I think probably the average guy, and certainly like early
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: on Andy may would have seen that and probably not
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: really thought about, Okay, why is this here? You know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: where is this coming from? What is this relating to?
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: What does this sign mean?
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Is this.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: You know, is this sign here because there's a buck
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: living nearby? Or is this an area that a buck
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: isn't really vetted by? But a lot of does live
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: in here in the in the sign is marked up
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: kind of around in and around this do activity. That's
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: the kind of stuff I'm picking up on now because
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I have more experience where the average guy would probably
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: just see the sign, get excited, not really understand why.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Not always, but a lot.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Of cases I can find sign like that, And if
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: I investigate enough, if I look at the maps, I
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: see where the sign is, I start checking, you know,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: if it's ill country, I start looking for those drainages.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: I look start looking for those little knobs that aren't
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: shown on a topographical map, you know, in those drainages
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: where bucks would would typically bet I'm starting to explore
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: these and see if I can find some evidence of
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: a book that's actually like living here in this system,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: living here on this ridge system, and you know, I'm
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: looking for dough betting. I'm looking for all of that,
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: and I'm trying to put the puzzle pieces together. A
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: lot of times, when I find that sign, I can
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: connect all these pieces, and the more pieces I get,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: I can almost, you know, sometimes fairly accurately estimate when
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: that sign was laid down. I mean, maybe not to
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: the week, but it could be a mid October type thing,
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: or it could be a late October, it could.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Be more of a rough thing.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: So I think the average guy misses that they see
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: the sign, but they don't know how to tie it
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: all together. Like maybe they can find rubs and scrapes
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: and trails, and that's all great that stuff is important,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: but how does that relate to what else is going on?
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Is there dough betting? Because dough betting is sometimes hard
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: to identify unless you're open up deer. I mean you're
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: not commonly finding like depending on the train, like well
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: used beds down to the dirt near a hill country
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: you find little little depressions that you I mean, you
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: wouldn't even know it's a bed unless you're really really looking.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Same with the buck beds. He's the one we found
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: in Illinois and this ridge system. It wasn't were down
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: to the dirt. It was just a little knob, a
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: little depression there, and then when you look, you found
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: a rub. And then we worked up the ridge we
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: found another one of his rubes. These are big, you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: like the size of my between my calf and thigh,
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: and found another rub. It all related back to that
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: bed and he was working up the ridge. There was
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: some little water holes up there. We figured he was
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: staging there. There was agg corn flat up there. So
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: we started putting these pieces together and it was it
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: was clearly a deer that was living in there through
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: a fair part of the season. He laid down a
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: lot of sign and that tells us so, Okay, this
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: is a deer that's probably in here in October, you
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: know before he's really moving around searching for doze. So
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: it's just little things like that, you know, It's just
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: I think I experienced woodsman, experienced scouter just as able
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: to gather more of the pieces of the puzzle. And
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: when you have more pieces of the puzzle, your chances
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: go up. And the fact that I know, like in
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: hill country where bucks tend to bed, you know, there's
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: certain features that mature bucks tend to bet on, So
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: I know where to look.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: You know, I can look at a map, I know
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: where to look. I can go in and check it.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: If it's not there, it's not there, I go to
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: the next one that has those features that I'm looking for.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Eventually I find it. If it's a marsh or a
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: swamp or something like that, I know what they like.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: I know where they like to bed. Doesn't mean every
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: feature is going to have that, because there's just not
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: that many mature bucks around most cases, But you just
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: keep searching until you find that. And when you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: when you know those spots, you know how to find
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: them and you know how to pick them out from
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: a map. You can go right to them and you
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: can check them. You can look for that sign and
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: if it's there. Now I'm trying to tie in those
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: other things. Okay, what's the timing of this? How can
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: I figure that out? What's the food sources? How is
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: he getting from point A to point B? Is he
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: here during the rut? Is it something that you know
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a bed, but it's not like super
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: well used.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Or is it a bed that's.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: Like worn down to the dirt in the marsh on
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: a little island or on a little point. That's a
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: lot of You know that there's a lot of information
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: there that you can dissect and then come up with
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: a hypothesis. And like I said, the more pieces of
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: the puzzle you get, the better your hypothesis is. So
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: the average guy misses out on all of that, and
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: the more experienced guy can pick that apart rather quickly
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: because he knows what he's looking for. As far as
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: betting food sources, you know, fairly straightforward to find in
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: most cases. It can be a little bit more challenging
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: in the timbered areas, but you know you're looking for,
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: you know, prior depending on where you're at. You might
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: be looking for honeysucker, you're looking for acorns. You know,
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: oak flats, certain acorns produced certain times a year, so
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: you know, if you can identify those, and you're finding
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: the sign near those, that can help you narrow things down.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: So there's a lot there, and you certainly don't need
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: all that information to be successful. But the more that
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: you can gather, the more efficient you're going to be,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: the more you're going to have just a better chance
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: of being successful. And I'm still learning, you know, I'm
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: still learning. I felt like we put a lot of
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: pieces of the puzzle together in a lot of these
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: areas we searched in Illinois, like where I feel confident
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: enough to like go in there or send a buddy
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: in there, and he's going to have, you know, a
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: decent hunt, I feel like, and maybe even a good
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: chance to have an encounter.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: And really that's that's what you're looking for. That's all
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: you can ask for.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, I would say the average guy is
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: just seeing the obvious. He's seeing the trails, he's seeing
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: the ropes, he's seeing the scrapes, but he's not able
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: to tie everything together. Another example would be, you know,
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: you might find, like on a certain rich system around
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: a point, you might find all this sign and you're like,
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: you're so focused on that. But then you know, maybe
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: the experience hunter, the experienced scouter sees that sign and
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: he's like, all right, there's good sign here.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: There's a good, good mature buck sign. What's over here
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: on this part of the ridge? Oh?
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Here, So he's going to explore the rest of it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: Maybe he finds dough betting over here. Now he's looking
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: at the train and how that all ties together. It's like, okay,
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: you know there's bucks sign over here on this point
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: or on this this drainage. I'm seeing a lot of
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: dough activity over here, lots of droppings. I'm finding beds
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: on these flats or on these points. How is this
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: all tied together? Okay, Well, there's a nice little drainage,
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: you know, a little drainage that comes up, and the
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: way the train works around that drainage, it kind of
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: connects us.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: That'd be a great ambush you know, an ambush.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Point, and that's something you know, an experienced guy would like.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: He'd find that first bit of information. Now he's looking
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: for other information in that area, whether it's food, whether
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: it's does, whether it's you know, water or you know,
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: brows or whatever, it is the nearest scrape, and then
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: he's tying that all together and then finding different ways
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: the terrain might set up to give him an ambush.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Spot, especially with a bow.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: So that that's kind of like how my brain is
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: working when I'm gathering all this information, where the average
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: guy is probably going to struggle, you know, tying all
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: that together.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the more experience he has, the more he
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: does this, you know that that will come. It comes
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: with time. I certainly didn't have that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it to to rephrase a little
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: bit of what you're saying there in my own mind,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: it sounds like the first step and what the average
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: guy or girl typically does is they can they can
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: identify the pieces of the puzzle. And what the next
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: level is is, as you said, it's connecting all those dots,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: is putting all those pieces together. And the way you
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: were able to do that is by looking at the
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: individual pieces and asking like three questions. It's when, it's why,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: it's how, It's like when did this happen? Why did
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: this happen?
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: How? Did it get here?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: And by building what that story is in your mind
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: to connect all those pieces, that's how you make sense
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: of it and then insert yourself into the right place
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: at the right time to take advantage of the next
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: time that story plays out.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Right. That's that makes a lot of sense to me.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: But I have a question related to that, to the
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: assumption that a lot of people have, which is like, Okay,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I'm an average hunter. I can identify the pieces, and
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I think maybe that I wonder if that might be
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: wrong because these days, if you watch YouTube videos like
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: you said, if you listen to podcasts, there's so much
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: information out there about how to identify the pieces.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: There's so many people saying this is how you find
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: betting on a top of map. There's so many videos
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: that help you see like, hey, you need to know
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: this feature of this feature and this feature and that's
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: where they're going to be. You'll hear all these different
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: experts say, all right, marsh betting is XYZ, hill country
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: betting is ABC. Farm country betting is EFG right, And
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: I think there's a whole generation of deer hunters who
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: are being raised on that and now are like indoctrinated
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: in this conventional wisdom of what betting is supposed to
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: be or what travel is supposed to be, and they
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: have like a blueprint for it, and it's supposed to
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: be replicated exactly how it shows on the map on
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: YouTube should be exactly how it is on the ground.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: I know that you have seen all that and have
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: heard all that, and.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: We talk about a lot of that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: But I'm curious, are there any of these pieces of
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: conventional wisdom that you've found to not hold up in
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: real life as much as either we all think or
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: as much as you once thought, even like, you know,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: is there something like, hey, Buck's always bet on the
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: end of a point, or Bucks always been in a
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: high spot in the marsh, or deer always going to
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: take the settle?
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Whatever?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Is there any one of those kinds of things that
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: now in twenty twenty six you're like, you know what,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: it's not as much that way as everybody says, or
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: it's not as much as I thought. Does anything come
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: to mind that has now that you've seen some conventional
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: wisdom turned upside down or be a little bit different
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: than you thought.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think I think the basics are uh.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I guess like the basic information that we've all heard
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: is certainly it's certainly true. Like those are.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Things that I see, you know, leeward sides of ridges. Yes,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: I see I see beds there, I see deer there.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: I have encounters there. But I've also seen embedded on
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: the windward ridge, you know, the windward side. So yeah,
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: there's there's things that I see that that seem to
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: go against the grain. But the more I talk to
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: people that are familiar in that type of habitat, that
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: they talk about it all the time, you know, to them,
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: that's that's pretty normal. But if you were just to
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: listen to know, you know, certain podcasts or read certain articles,
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: you wouldn't even think that would even be a possibility,
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: wouldn't even look over there. So yeah, you know, that
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: one comes to mind. Certainly, I've had some great hunts
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: on the windward side of the ridge, and that's you know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: if you were to just to read about ill country
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: or listen to certain podcasts, you would think that that
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: was like a ghost town.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: You wouldn't even mess Yeah, it wouldn't even mess with it.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: So another thing that kind of comes to mind is,
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: you know, you hear. You hear so often about the
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: down wind side of dough betting and in certain types
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: of habitat, but there's there's no doubt that that is
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: an area that bucks gravitate towards. There's no doubt about it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: When when the does are betted and the bucks are
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: making their rounds, that is a great place to be,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: depending on what type of habitat and cover that is.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: That like the down one side of betting sounds like,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: you know, real cut and dry. Okay, find where the
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: dose are, I'm gonna set up just down wind of it.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: But it's not always that simple. I mean, you know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: in a marsh or something where there's a lot of
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: hard edges and the betting is very specific. It's easier
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: in hill country where there might be three betted on
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: this little point and there might be you know, four
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: betted down the ridge on a different point. It's like
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: they're kind of scattered through all. It can be a
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: little trickier. But the thing that I find, the thing
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: that I found even more consistent than that. And this
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: is just my opinion and I've heard other people mention it,
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: But if you can find like the the the edge
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: of like say, you know, deer coming from bed to
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: feed like a bed defeed.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Pattern like dose.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: For the most part, all year long, they're kind of
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: on a bed defeed pattern. That's what does do. The
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: bucks are the ones that really change their behavior throughout
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: the fall. Food sources can change so that that travel
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: pattern can change for those does. But when those bucks,
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: when it's when it's time to go, and those bucks
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: are the does are ready and the bucks are looking
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: finding those food sources or those betting areas, those those
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: areas that they travel through.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: What I'm finding a.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Lot and what I've been able to capitalize on a
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: lot is these bucks will cross section or perpendicular check
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: these trails going in and out, not necessarily the downwind
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: side of betting, but they'll for instance, like I'm trying
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: to come up with an example that you guys will
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: be able to visualize where this makes sense. But in
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: a marsh setting, you know, you got the marsh betting
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: up here, you got the food you know, maybe to
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: the south, Well, those travel routes in between those are
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: really good checkpoints for bucks when they're on the move.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: They're not necessarily hitting the down winds side, which I'm
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: sure some bucks are, but that that area where they're
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: traveling through, either just off the food source or closer
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: to the bedding, those are great spots to be where
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: there might be several travel routes of different dough groups
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: coming back to bed are going to feed. But those
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: bucks can cross. They could take one route and they
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: can cross several trails. They can cross several dough travel
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: routes and they can instantly know what dose are in heat,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: or if there's one in heat, or where she's at,
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: what trail she took. And he's taking one route where
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: you know, if there's scattered do betting everywhere, he has
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: to really make the rounds and check those individuals.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: So I have seen that. I don't I don't think
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: that necessarily goes against the grain.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: But I haven't heard that talked about as much because
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: there's there's been many times where I've sat down end
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: of doll betting and then I you know, it's like
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: the does are in there, it's the rut and it's
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: like nothing's happening.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: And I've killed there too.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: But that's something that I've really seen and I've been
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: able to capitalize on, especially in a scenario where you
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: do have that like main betting. It could be like
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: a river bottom system, and there's there's different no groups
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: or a or a marsh or a swamp or anything,
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: but they're all kind of coming out in the jet
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: same general direction, going to a destination, food source, that
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: line of movement, and then you're looking for that perpendicular
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: movement that the bucks would take. That's been that's been
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: very very consistent. I found that to be very very consistent.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: So that's something.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Well, let me let me let me pause you there
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and and pivot you just a little bit, because I've
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: seen that same thing. And as you were describing that,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: my mind wandered just a bit to how you know
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: we all kind of kind of to the beginning of question.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Everyone kind of knows this stuff. Now, if you are,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: if you're a half decent, half serious deer hunter these days,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: we all know where they're supposed to be, right, we
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: all know what they're supposed to do.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: There's a whole lot.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Of folks that are pretty competent now with your conventional approaches.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: But if you hunt public land or public land or
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: pressure private that you share with other people, that means
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: that everyone that you're out there competing with to some
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: degree also likely knows the same stuff you know, and
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: is also likely looking for the same things you're looking
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: for and approaching things the same way. So if we're
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: all doing things the same way, we're all going to
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: get the same results, which on pressure ground or public
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: ground means you're probably all not doing all so well
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: because you have to be exceptional. You have to be
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: doing the opposite of the average if you want success
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: in those settings. So when it comes to your scouting
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: in these pressured places, whether it's public or private, today
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty six, when there's more people than ever
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: who know this stuff, when there's more people than ever
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: who take it really serious and spend a lot of
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: time out there doing this stuff, maybe there's maybe there's
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: not more total hunters total, but I still believe there's
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: more super serious hunters than there's ever been. So that
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: being the case, do you scout differently at all, knowing
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: like oh yeah, everyone's looking for the same stuff, or
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: oh yeah everyone has seen this, betting they already know,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: like this high spot in the swamp is it got
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: to go check this? Or if you come across the
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: no brainer obvious like oh wow, there's a buck living here.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: This is amazing. All the sign screams it, but it's
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: almost too obvious. And you know that there's four other
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: guys that hunt here and they probably have all seen
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: the same thing, and so they probably are all going
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: to be camping out in this spot. Have you ever
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: found yourself having to almost like reverse psychology the other
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: hunters to try to find the next peel, the next
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: layer of the onion back to avoid these obvious places
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: to some degree? Is that Are you to that point
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: where you're thinking about that at all?
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, in a way, because I do feel that way.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: This example came up when we were in Illinois. I
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: looked at them app I looked at all the access
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: routes or all the all the parking spots. I looked
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: at the hardest to get to place on the whole property.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: And this was a big, decent sized chunk, not huge,
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: but you know it was a good clip back there.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: I found the hardest to get to. You had to
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: cross a river, you had to go over several ravines.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: It was the longest walk.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: And then I looked for the terrain that I like
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: to find, you know, potential betting, some good funnels, good
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: terrain that you know, if a buck was, if there
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: was a mature buck living on this property, that's where
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: I would guess he would be. And we hiked back
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: there immediately found the big buck bed almost where I
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: dropped the pin, Literally almost where I dropped the pin.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: In fact, we were, we were, we stopped. I was
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: with my buddy, Justin Wright.
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: And another guy, my other buddy, Luke Levitt, and we
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: were sitting on this ridge and I said, I said,
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: you see that knob right there.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: We went to this main drainage, I go, you see
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: that little knob right there.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: Because Luke hadn't hunted a lot of public land, he
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: had had a lot of permission land. And I said,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: that's exactly the type of setup I see mature bucks
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: betting in this type of pill country. You notice how
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: it's not the main point. It's like we're in this
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: main drainage and there's the main point over there, the
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: main point over there, but this is just this little
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: knob that doesn't even show up on a topographical map.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: That's where that buck beds. And I said, you get
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: in here. The wind's swirling. He's sitting there, he can
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: see deer dumping, dumping off all the points around him.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: If something approaches from behind, he'll be able to hear it.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: He's got the wind blowing over his back. I was like,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: it's it's perfect. It's almost bulletproof. And you know, Justin
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: chimes in. Justin's super, super experienced with hell country. He goes,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: I see the same exact thing, man, I said, Justin.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Go over there and check that.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: I said, I go, I go go over and check
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: that nob and he goes over there. He goes, there's
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: a huge bed here. And that's that's the one where
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: we started scouting, you know, up the ridge. We found
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: the rub, we found the rube line, we found we
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: determined where he was going. Come to come to find out,
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: that's where all the trail cameras were. Also like the
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: hardest to get two plays. We found cell cameras, we
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: found SD card cameras like literally all along this deer
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: sign And I was like, man, there's just like it's
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: just people just know now. So how do you beat
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: that the way? I don't know if you can beat
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: it with scouting. I think you can beat it with
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: just being relentless. As far as the amount of scouting,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: you do, you're gonna run into that. And that doesn't
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: mean I wouldn't hunt that spot, because when I see
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: cell cameras and hard to reach spots, that's telling me
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: a guy's probably not hunting it unless he's getting pictures. Yeah,
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: So there's a lot of guys like that right now.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: So I don't let the cell cameras, specifically the cell
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: cameras deter me too much. But they also probably known
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: when that buck's in there. You know, potentially, you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: some bucks wise up to that pretty quick. So you
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: can be relentless with your scout. You can find you
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: could almost make yourself undeniable. Like you you're going to
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: find spots like that. We you're gonna find a hundred
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: more like that, so that you can just boom boom boom,
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: and you're you're going to be so prepared that you're
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: just going to outwork the competition. I like that, you know,
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: I think the guy that works the hardest and is
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: the most thorough should be the most successful. But that's
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: a grind, and that's a lot of time, and you
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: know it's hard to do, and you know, the more
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: experienced you are, you can probably be more effective with that.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: Another thought is, you know you can be more versatile
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: than the next guy. And that's what I lean into
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: with my hunting. Yes, Like there's the basic kind of
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: ambush type hunting. You know, you're scouting the sign, you're
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: looking for an ambush point, you're setting up, and you're
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: trying to make it happen, you.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Know, when that deer is on the move.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I think being versatile as a hunter, being able to
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: hunt off the ground, being able to you know, still hunt,
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: still hunt through an area and you know, read and
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: react to what's.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Happening right now.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: Where Like I'm going in there and I'm scouting that
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: sign in Illinois and we just found it, you know,
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: a couple of days ago, trying to.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Gauge when that's happening. And that's all great, and.
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: We might nail it and we might go in there
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: and have a great hunt. But a lot of guys
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: would shy away from just slipping around the timber. You know,
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: there's pressure everywhere. Okay, you know, I'm gonna keep moving.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna keep scouting. I'm hunting while I while I scout,
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: I'm slipping along, I'm glassing, I'm moving trying to just
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: read and react to what's in front of me. I
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: love to hunt that way, and that's led me into
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: It's got me some skills.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: It's led me.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: Into the next spot where I might set up an ambush.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: It's led me into bumping deer and now it's like,
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: oh man, I just bumped a big one. Now I'm
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: in the game with this deer. There's that, there's decoy strategies,
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: there's calling, there's all these things that you can become
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: more versatile and not so like one dimensional as a
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: deer hunter. And that's one thing. Like when guys asked
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: me about my style of deer hunting, I really have
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: a hard time answering that because, like when I start
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: thinking about all the bucks I've taken it specifically in
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: the like last fifteen years, like they're all so different.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: I've called them in.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: I've snuck into their beds, their betting areas and hunted
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: them from the ground because I was so close I
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: didn't want to get up in a tree. I've tickled
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: the antlers together when I know they're they're betted sixty
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: yards away and got them to come investigate because they thought,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: you know, there's a there's a buck in my betting area.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: What else? You know, how could it be another person?
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: Because I knew he was there or I had a
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: good feeling it was there, and I was able to
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: slipping close. And it's just like you're in that bubble
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: and you're making realistic sounds like of course he's convinced
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: that that's a that's a deer, and not you know,
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: not a guy that's twenty five up and up in
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: the tree banging his antlers together. You know, it's like
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: these little things that make the biggest difference. But that
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: versatility has allowed me to, I think, find success when
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: maybe some of the basic stuff isn't working or everybody's
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: using the basic stuff. Now. I know that doesn't answer
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: like the scouting question, but I do think. I do
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: think being versatile as a hunter and having that mindset
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: as you're scouting, you know, you might be able to
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: you might be able to conceptualize a different approach to
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: the information you're getting that might say like one step
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: ahead of the competition.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: That's I was curious about it. If you're going into
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: a hunt with that goal of being versatile, Like if
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: I were going into this and I, let's play hypothetical.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Let's say like I've always been a one trick pony hunter.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: I've always just ambushed. I know how to scout for
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: that style of hunting. But what if this year my
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: goal is like, Man, I'm gonna go outside of my box.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna try this stuff. I'm gonna try still hunting.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go in and work my way in. I'm
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: gonna hunt from the ground sometimes, I'm gonna try these
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: different things. Should I be looking for different things when
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I'm scouting or thinking about my scouting differently in any
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: way if I'm opening myself up to that kind of
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: hunting now or is it all like I no matter
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: what style of hunting, you should still be looking for
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: the same things. You should still be, you know, connecting
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the dots like we talked about. Is it the same
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: or is it different when you have this new approach.
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: I think you can still scout and still look for
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: that sign and still try to put all those pieces together,
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: but have an open a mind of have an open
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: mind of different ways to hunt that situation. You know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: it might be Yes, I found the perfect funnel that's
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: you know, between two betting areas.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: It's great.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: It's a great pinch point. And I'm gonna get twenty
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: five feet up and I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna wait.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: But you, like you said, you might find yourself. That's
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: where everybody goes because it's so obvious.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: So when you find.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: That, Okay, maybe that's obvious, maybe there's guys doing that.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: I still know where the betting areas are. I still
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: know where those dope betting areas are. Now maybe I'm
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: gonna slip in from a different direction and I'm gonna
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: hunt hunt my way in and get in tight. I'm
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: gonna get in real tight to that betting, and I'm
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: gonna hunt from the ground where those deer aren't expecting me.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: You know, maybe you find something there that you can
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: capitalize on. That's just kind of off the top of
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: my head. But I think like just still scouting, but
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: having having that open mind of different way to to
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: hunt in different ways to maybe capitalize on the situation.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: We were talking a little bit about that today, like
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: I sent justin a polo. I said, do you remember that,
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: I said, the buckbed that we found on the first
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: public piece we walked. I said, you know, just going
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: by what you saw, the sign that you read. We
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: were there together, we saw all the same stuff. I said,
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: tell me how you would hunt that deer, you know,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: what would what would be your approach? And he told me,
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: you know, he sent the polo back. He told me,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: and he said, well how would you hunt it? And
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: I said, well, that's certainly one way that like, that's
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: one way I would do it. And then I thought,
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: you know, because we found some other sign a little
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: ways away, a big primary straight down in a thermal
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: hub that was just over I saw to the north,
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: you know, he he had he had worked his way
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: to the south. That buck had worked his way to
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: the south. That's where the sign went. There was water
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: holes up there. I had a feeling he was going
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: up there out of bed, staging around that water, waiting
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: till dark. And then I noticed to the north there's
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: giant crop fields. So it goes public and a piece
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: of private ground that had great thick cover and.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: Then crop fields.
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: I said, depending on you know, the oak production you
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: know here in this in this this timber here on
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: this ridge, you know, he might be working all the
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: way to those those fields, like after dark.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: So even though the sign led to the south.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: I almost had a feeling he was going up there,
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: maybe having a drink, marking some sign up on the ridge,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: and then actually working down into the bottom and working to.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Those crop fields at a certain point season.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: So I had like three different scenarios where I was like,
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: I could hunt him this way, I could hunt him
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: this way, I could hunt him over at that primary
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: scrape in the next thermalhob that's that's really just over
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: the ridge. So there was there was three situations there
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: that I thought that book potentially could be killable. So
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: you know, if I were to go to hunt it,
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: I might try one approach, and if I'm running into
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: people or you know, I don't have the encounter, I
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: might I might go to that second approach. That was
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: an example of that that I thought was really interesting
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: that we had. We had similar thoughts, but then when
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: we started talking about different tactics, different options with that
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: same buck, with that same general information, there was a
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: lot of possibilities there, you know, and depending on the terrain,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: different types of habitat and stuff, like I hunt a
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: lot of you know, kind of open country, open ground
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of times, like guys want to be up
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: in a tree. I feel like a lot of times
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: I'm at an advantage in the ground. You know, I'm
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: an advantage. I have an advantage out.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: In the open.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: I can I can decoy while everybody else is in
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: the little bit of timber there is. So I'm trying
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: to do things a little different. Even though those spots
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: that are in are it's a great funnel man, that's
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: a great betting area. Like yeah, I would hunt that too,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: but like that's where the people are, That's where the
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: guys that know all this information, that's what they're doing.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: They found it.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: So my approach might be, Okay, I'm gonnahunt away from that.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: I'll be open, try to catch these bucks coming and going,
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: or get these these bucks that are getting pressured out
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: of there that are living, moving, searching in the open.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: And maybe I have a decoy, or maybe I'm spotting
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: and stalking on the ground, or I'm slipping around, you know,
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: from cover to cover and trying to you know, take
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: advantage that way. So that's an example of like when
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: you can be versatile or you have that that those
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: skills to pull from. Maybe when the textbook style or
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: the textbook you know, ambush spots that everybody knows about
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: that everybody's trying to do. That's that's what can set
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: you apart, and not everybody has that, you know, in
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: the repertoire you do like I've seen you do it,
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: You've done it well, you've done it successfully, so you
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: have that confidence like, yeah, there might have been you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: on some of those Nebraska hunts, there might have been
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: an area you wanted to hunt, but man, some guys
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: moved in and you had to pivot, you know, so
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: you had to figure something out. Next thing, you know,
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: you're on the ground with a decoy and you're having encounters,
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: so you know, and there's more and more guys getting
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: versatile too and more skilled, so the competition is elevating.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: You know, there's no doubt, so you can adapt and
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: elevate yourself or things.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: Are going to get tough.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: So it's it's it's certainly in a lot of ways
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: more challenging than it used to be because there just
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: wasn't that many hardcore guys back then and now there
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: are and there are guys that have hunted for less
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: than ten years that are way more now eligible or
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: you know, as you know, as knowledgeable as some of
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: the you know, the great really, you know, because if
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: you think about it, a lot of those guys were
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: hunting at a time where there was less bow hunters,
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: less bow hunting competition, and now there's all kinds of stuff.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: There's all this information. Guys are taking it in. Guys
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: are out there just grinding and you know, quitting their
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: day job and hunting NonStop, and it's just like blows
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: my mind. There's a lot of great hunters out there.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: But I also see things going a different way too.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: I see guys getting lazy with the cameras. They're letting
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: their cameras do the work for them. They're letting the
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: cameras tell them when and where to hunt. And the
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: guy that has that woodsmanship, the guy that has that versatility,
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: the guy that can put the pieces together when he
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: sees them through scouting, is going to have that edge
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: because there are a lot of guys that are just
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: planting cameras everywhere and then hunting or that biggest buck
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: you know, pings on that camera. So there's a mix.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: There's guys that get after it and there's guys that
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: hunt that way. And if there's guys that are hunting
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: that way. There seems to be a big portion of
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: guys hunt that way. Now, I do think that guy
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: that you know has that woodsmanship and puts in that time,
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: has that versatility that he's working on. I think I
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: think that guy will in the long run continue to
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: be successful.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, kind of like you you kind
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: of led with this. You mentioned how oh you know
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: now today I don't have to go and scout as
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: much as I did. I don't have to do I
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: don't need to pound the payment all the time like
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: I used to, because there's all these I know how
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: to use these tools to be more efficient and to
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: e scout and understand these things. And there's all these
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: tools like cameras, like the knowledge we have about the
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: conventional places that deer do X or dear do Y
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: or all that stuff, and that's available to everybody now.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: And like you said, so many people have access to
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: that and know that that it's it's easier than ever to.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: Reach a certain level of like competency.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: But then if you want to take that next step,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: which is having success above and beyond the average despite
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: all the competition, despite those challenges, it still comes down
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: to what you said in the very beginning, which is
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: like the actual experience that got you to the point
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: where you can leverage those tools to their fullest, so
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: you can actually have that on the grounds, on the
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: ground insight to pivot when you need to pit, to
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: pivot to understand how the puzzle pieces actually come together,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: not how they're supposed to come together, not what the
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: experts say it's supposed to mean, but what your real life,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: true lived experience has told you, and how you can
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: adjust to what you know. The on the ground circumstances
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: is like, yeah, it's great to be efficient, and there
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: is definitely efficiencies to be gained, but the only way
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you get to that point is with good old fashioned
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: hard work and developing that well of experience and that
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: you know, all the podcasts, all the social media, all
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: the YouTube videos, it can't shortcut that, truly. You still
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: you still need that. So so tell me this to
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: wrap it up, Andy, if you could go back in time,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Let's let's kind of end where we began. Let's go
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: back to twenty sixteen, Andy, twenty years back. Let's go
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: back to two thousand and six. Andy, All right, so
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: you were you were killing a lot of deer back then.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: You were definitely in the in the heat of it still,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: but not old salty Andy that we have now, what
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: what do you wish you could go back to that
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: guy and tell him about about this topic? What do
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: you wish you could tell two thousand and six Andy
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: May about scouting that. Of course, you know you can't
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: shortcut the twenty years of experience, But what do you
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: wish that person knew that could have helped you better
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: take advantage of the experience that you would gain for
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: these next two decades.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: M hmm. Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: You know, when I when I think about two thousand
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: and six, Andy, I.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: Was scouting a lot like I do now.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: To be honest with yeah, I didn't have the knowledge,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: but I was scouting maybe even harder than I do
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: now in a lot of ways. It was just at
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: that age where things were really I was really fired
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: up and I was really in that learning phase. And
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: yeah I was I was shooting some nice deer that
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: were mostly rut related deer. But gosh, what would I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: tell him to do differently that would help me? I
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: certainly wasn't very versatile back then. I was a rut hunter,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: you know pretty much much. That's that's when I killed
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: my deer, even though I was trying to kill.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Him in other ways.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: So if I could go back and tell maybe two
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: thousand and six Andy and maybe tell it, give him
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: a few tips of how he could be more successful
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: back in two thousand and six, or maybe kind of
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: just insert that that knowledge into him, or insert that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: that scouting, that type of scouting tactics into him. Would
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: be to learn to scout for other parts of the season,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: you know, try to put more emphasis on finding dough,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: betting on individual buck beds, try to gain more knowledge on.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: The variety of food choices that the deer have in
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: the areas of your hunting. Like I didn't really.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: Know any of that back then, you know, I knew
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: oaks and apples and water, you know, But now, you know,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: I'm still learning that stuff, especially as I traveled a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: different I'm learning about all these oak trees that like,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: some of them I've never even heard of, you know that,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: because we don't have them here, and you know, some
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: of them like post oaks and chestnut oaks and black
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: oaks like not like stuff that we just don't have
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: a lot of and how you know how valuable those
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: can be at certain times of the season. Like, I'm
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: learning that stuff more and more as the years go by.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: But I would insert that knowledge into two thousand and
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: six Andy of you know, yes, you're pretty good at
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: that scouting during the run.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: You can pick out those funnels, you can read.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: Some sign you can find some dough betting areas, you
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: can find those those good funnels, and you can you
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: grind it out. You can do those all day sits
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: and you can you know, you'll never quit. You're you're
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: so stubborn and you're you're willing to sit all day
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: every day and you're gonna kill some stuff. But there's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: so much that you don't know. And this is why
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: you're not killing them early. This is why you're not
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: killing them late. So I would I would insert that
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: those scouting tactics into two thousand and six Andy of
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: learning to scout through for other parts of the season
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: outside of that rut. I was very kind of locked
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: into that timeframe. So, Yeah, identifying a variety of food
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: that's available to the whitetail in the area of your hunting,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: I think that's I think that stuff is so overlooked,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: and it's so important too, because there's so much out there.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: A very high percentage of their their diet is brows, right,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: you know, a super high percentage. So like being able
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: to identify you know, different brows, dreambrier, red osier, dogwood,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: and all these different things that are out there that
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: most people don't even talk about. Those are so important
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: and they can lead you to you know, leads you
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: to deer in the in the late season when everyone
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: else is struggling and they're looking at their know, they're
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: cut cornfield expecting deer to come out, but the combines
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: are so effective. Now there's no corn loft. Yeah, you know,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: so those types of things. I really didn't have that knowledge.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: I really didn't know what to look for, and I'm
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: I'm getting more of that now over the past.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: Like ten ten years or so.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: So I would insert that into two thousand and six
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: Andy to kind of make him more effected, more deadly
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: throughout the season, as opposed to just break there in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: the rut.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you one thing.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: I am glad that this is just a thought exercise
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: and not something that's actually possible, because if two thousand
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: and six Andy, had all the knowledge that you have now,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: there wouldn't be a mature buck left in Michigan for
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the rest of us to hunt. So I'm very glad
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: that you didn't figure that out until later in life. Andy,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: And I appreciate you. Know I've said it before, I'll
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: say it again. I appreciate the that not only are
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: you a great deer hunter, but you're a humble one
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: and one willing to share your knowledge and help others too.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: That's that's a unique quality, and it makes you not
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: only a good friend, but also a really good person
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: to be a part of our community. So thank you
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: for that, and thanks for taking time late tonight to talk.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate, I appreciate the kind words, and I value,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: always value our conversations on our friendship.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: So thank you.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: Let's do it again sooner than it's taken to get this,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: to get this chat in the calendar, and good luck
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: with that Illinois trip.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: All right, Thanks buddy, all.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: Right, and that's going to do it for us today.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Thanks for being here. I hope this one armed you
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: with a few new ideas that you can take into
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: the field this week. It's coming weekend, Great time to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: be out there scouting. So get out there, put some
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: miles on the boots, get to know your property or
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: your local public land a little bit better. Take that
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: next step, and I guarantee you it's going to help
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: you this come hunting season next time. Thanks for being here,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: and stay wired to hunt. Mm hmm