Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #95: Lindsay Thomas Jr’s Lessons Learned Deer Hunting the South

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #95: Lindsay Thomas Jr’s Lessons Learned Deer Hunting the South · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  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 day
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: in the show, we're joined by Lindsay Thomas Jr. To
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: discuss the lessons he's learned deer hunting the South. All right,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: by Sick of Gear, and today we are addressing a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: request that we've heard loud and clear from many of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: our listeners, and my apologies has taken so long, but
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: finally we're going to be talking in depth about the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: unique circumstances and challenges that are present when deer hunting
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in the South. Now, Dan and I are Midwest guys,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: as you know, so Southern deer hunting isn't something we've
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: been able to really comment on, given the fact that
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think either of us really have any experience
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: with it. But I know there are lots of you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: out there who have been wanting some Southern insight, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: today I'm happy to report we're finally going to give
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that to you. Joining us hailing from the Great State
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of Georgia is Lindsay Thomas Jr. Now, Lindsay is a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: terrific deer hunter. He's the Quality Deer Management Association's director
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of Communications and the editor of Quality White Tails magazine.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So in just a few minutes are going to give
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Lindsay call to dig deep into all things Southern deer hunting.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And I want to say one other thing, you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: for all of you folks who live elsewhere and who
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: aren't in the South, don't tune this one out. I
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: promise you. There's gonna be plenty that Lindsay is going
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to say today that's going to be relevant and helpful
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to you as well. So with all that said, before
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we do get Lindsay on the line, I have an
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: important announcement. Daan, is it big? It's it's real big.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: It's a I was about to make a Donald Trump joke,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: but I'm not going to this. You know, you and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we have talked about this a lot. Right in the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: beginning of most of our episodes, at least for the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: past year or so, we usually have like an intro
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: period where you and me talk and bs for all right,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: And I've mentioned to you in the past that we
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: occasionally get complaints about that. Um. Every once in a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: while I get a tweet or a Facebook message or
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: something that says, stop talking about the stupid stuff at
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the beginning and just get to the point. UM. So
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that bummed me out when I first heard that. But
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: but since we've, like, since i've verbalized that, you know,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to you, like I don't know, so many months ago,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I've gotten lots and lots of other comments and emails
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: from people saying, no, no, we love it, we love
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the bs, keep it going, keep it going. But it's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: always been something I've always wondered about, you know, is
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it too much? Do we talk for too much to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the beginning? Do people not want to hear from you
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and me because we're idiots and they just want to
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: get to the guests. I've been kind of sensitive to it.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Try and you know, what's the right balance. So this
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: past to two weeks ago, I think I sent out
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a survey to our audience through our email, subscriber list
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and social media and the blog and everything. There's a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of different questions in that, and some of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it was related to feedback on this podcast. So we
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: had lots of people right in with comments and all
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. So, so, first off, thank you to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: everyone that took that survey um, but specifically in that
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: suggestion section. A lot of people commented on our introductory
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: BS session, Dan, A lot of people have opinions on it.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: So I am going to announce today what the overall
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: consensus was on our BS session. Do more people like
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it or not like it? What's your guest, Dan, what
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: do you think are we? Are we winning with a
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: B S session or not? I think people like it
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: because it makes them feel smarter, just to hear how
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: how dumb we sound. Those guys are idiots. Hey, I
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: feel pretty good about myself. That might be what it is.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I never thought of that, but it makes a lot
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: of sense. Oh that's funny. Well, regardless of what. I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: don't guess. I don't know what the reason is. It
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: could be that, or it could be some other reason,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: but I'm here to report the results. Eighty one percent
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: of those who commented about our BS session loves them,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So I apologize it, but we're going to keep doing them.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Those other people they can skip to the good stuff
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: if they want to. I guess, yeah, I think you
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: know I don't guess who knows you and me. Our
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: opinion obviously is biased since it's our junk that we're
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: talking about, but like it, so we're gonna stick with it.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: We're gonna share our little stories and uh, the dumb
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: little insights. Although someone did complain about you always complaining
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: about your kids, Dan, good Good, that's what I was
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: just gonna say. I was like Mark talks about what
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: he did out in the White Tail Woods, and Dan
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: bitches about his kids. I got a real big chuckle
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: out of that. So was there a lot of them
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: or was there just like one guy going hey man, No,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I think there's there's just one person who mentioned the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: kids specifically. Um. Otherwise it was in general that they
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: like what we're doing, and you too, Dan, So okay,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: full disclosure. I love my family. Okay, I love them.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I know you do. I know you do. They know
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you do. But hey, I can understand the challenges you got.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: You need event once in a while. That's that's important,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and I got to do it to somebody. This is
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I can't complain to my wife. No, this is your
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: safe place, Dan, I want to keep this your safe place.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: You can share those things all right, thank you, thank you.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So so that said that, I guess we do have
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a couple of minutes before we need to call Lindsay,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: so we are going to b S and I want
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: to hear about your shed rally. Right. This past weekend
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was shed Raley. We both went shed hunting. Talk to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: me about it. I really don't know if I would
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: call it a rally of any sort of. I went
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: for an eight hour walk. It was nice, I guess. Uh.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Took my wife and this was her first real experience
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of what I would call not really an all days
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: shed hunt. But we were out for eight hours. And
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: when I say out for eight hours, there was like
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: an hour maybe a little over an hour lunch break
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that we we went into a small town and got
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a oh ah, Iowia pork tenderloin, which we're famous for,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and um, yeah, we found one shed. It was a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Bingo bengo too, wasn't it. It was right the very
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: first you know, over the me and my wife walked
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in the middle of this cornfield and we, you know,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: just kind of, hey, let's uh give this little spot
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a shot, and this buffer strip, this really small fork
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: corns antlers just laying right there where I was, uh
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: where I was standing, and sure enough that was it,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and and then we walked for seven more hours brutal,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and she was not like. She was like, I don't
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: know if I'm gonna go shed hunting with you again,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: because because I had to ease her into it, right,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: so's their first first time, So I'm not gonna be,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you know, sending her through the thick stuff right away.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So we went into some open timber along some bedding areas,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and we went into a couple of open CRFEP or
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: CRP fields, and then just to test it out, she
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was like. I was like, hey, baby, you're gonna want
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to wear a hat and you might not want to
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: wear this particular jacket. Oh, I'll be fine. I'm like, okay,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna with you. So I sent her through
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: some multiflower rose, some trails that went through some thorns,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and I was kind of up on top of this
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: ridge going through some really thick stuff and looking down
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: on her and it was like these thorns were getting
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: caught in her hair. And I was laughing on the inside,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: but I had to act concerned on the outside, of course,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So I had a barrel down there and help her, okay,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: back out, walk around this way, and then I'm so
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: sorry hunting, I'm so sorry. Yeah, oh, this was dumb
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: idea on my part. I should have never, you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: said down there, you know. And then we ended up
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: going to a different piece which was easier walking. So
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: although I didn't get a cover as much property as
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I liked, I still gotta go shed hunting. And according
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to my buddy who's still running show cameras, he's like,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: there's still quite a few deer holding. Yeah, that's what
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I've been hearing from a lot of people. A lot
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of people are saying that, um, I had a similarly
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: rough shed rally as you did, Dan As as we've
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: talked about via text. It was, man, A lot of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: people have been hearing from, not just me and you,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but from a lot of people. I've heard that it's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: been pretty slow going lately. We me and my buddy
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Corey and and Josh we went shed hunting all day Friday,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: all day Saturday, and I actually went down early Thursday.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: We knocked on a bunch of doors in the pouring rain,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: trying to get permission on it on some new farms.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: We knocked on like a dozen doors and got permission
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: on just one. So it was very disappointing from that standpoint.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Um also in other news while that night, So i'mknocking
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: on doors, we're getting permission. You know, I only got
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the one spot. So I'm feeling kind of down. We're
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit worried now because we weren't gonna have
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: as many farms to walk as we thought. Well at
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the last minute, like you know what, we need a
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: little pick me up. I'm gonna run down to my lease.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Let's drive by there. I'll run into the woods, grab
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: these trail cameras that I've had running since November, and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: then come back and we'll get to check those tonight
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: when Josh gets into town. So I was all excited
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to check these pictures that have been, you know, stoking
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: for five months out there. So I run out there
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to get the cameras and I grabbed the first one.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: It's still on, the batteries are still going, it's taking pictures.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So I was like, holy smokes, that's awesome. I go
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: to the second one, the cameras not on. I go
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to the third one, the camera's not on, and I
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I'm really confused. I'm like, you know, my buddy Josh
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: got the cameras up before he left last and I'm like, Josh, you,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: how did you do this? You didn't turn the cameras on.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: But when I opened the cameras, look closer, the cameras
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: have been turned off and the SD cards have been stolen.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: All those sons of bitches. God, okay, d I was
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: still want to talk about it. I was. I was
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: just really really upset because someone got busted on those
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: trail cameras and that's where all your sheds are at,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: and somebody's try That's exactly what we've been thinking, is
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: that we got shed poached and they walked by the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: cameras saw that, and I was like, oh, we got
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: pictures taken of us. They sniped our SD cards And
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: so there's someone right now. Maybe you're listening, if you're
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: if you are listening, and there are some people in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that area who who know of me, and so if
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you have me listening and you happen to have taken
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: those pictures, may just email me the good pictures at
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: least let me see what's on there and all serious.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: It's really disappointing. I don't know why people would do that,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Why they got to be trespassing, trying to poach antlers,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: trying to do things like that. I just don't get it.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a shame. And uh, the rest of
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the weekend didn't go much better. We walked seventeen miles
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: over the course of those two days between three of us,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and we found two fresh antlers. That is it. UM,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: So it was just a tough weekend. I think it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I wrote an article actually to him where to hunt
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: about this? UM couple A couple of questions, you know,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: what's going on? You know, because there's so many people
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that said that this was such a tough weekend and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: a tough shed hunting season in general. UM. And I
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: had three theories. I don't know if these hold up
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: at all, but one, it was such a mild winner that,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you know, there's some deer that are still holding, right,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: there's deer holding longer than maybe they typically do, like
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, and a lot of people have talked to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: you have said number two, maybe because of how mild
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the winner is. You know, the deer have not had
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to congregate in small areas like the typically due to
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: take advantage of limited food or cover, and so you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: now the sheds are spread out over wide distance versus
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: some years like that really hard winner we had in
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, I think, where you'd find tons of
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: sheds and in a couple of a couple of different sections. Um.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: So that wasn't the case this year. And then finally,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: shed hunting just seems to be getting so much more
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: popular that there's more and more people out there, more
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: people shedding on the same properties or trespassing and poaching
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of property like happened to me. And in addition to
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: our one, our least, which got poached, we think of
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the other four farms we walked, three out of this
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: four had already been walked. There's bootprints all over the place.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: So it's like you know when you live out of
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: state and you come in for one weekend, it's it's
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: a pretty tough situation because you know, if you get
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: there too early, the sheds are on the ground. If
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: you get there too late, everyone's already walked it already.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Um So, you know, it was fun to be out there,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: had a great time with my buddies, but it was
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it was frustrating from that standpoint too. Now, I tell
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: you what. My stepbrother lives south of me, and he's
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: finding a ton of dead mature bucks, dead bucks, dead bucks.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: So he's found like four or five dead deer ranging
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: anywhere from one fifty one seventy yikes. Yep. Now I
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: haven't found any dead deer. And the guy who hunts
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: m the property north to me, and he's got food plots,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and he went out and he said he hasn't found
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: any dead deer yet, or he hasn't and he's only
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: found like a couple sheds, and he's got food plots,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and nobody touches his property because he makes sure of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: it now, and he's got trail cameras out and he's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: kind of a you know, a property nazi, like anyone
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: should be if they owned property and are serious about
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: white tail hunting. And he tells me. I call him up,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and we've never spoken before, and I just was kind
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of curious. I wanted to know what he was seeing,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and he said he had kind of had the same
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: thing going on as me. He's like, as soon as
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: right around the velvet strip where all the deer started
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: um shedding their velvet, all of his mature bucks disappeared
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and he does not know where they went. And this year,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: he said he was chasing one four and a half
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: year old and everything else was a younger age class.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So is this your this is your southern farm, southern area. Yep,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: this is my southern farm and it and other people
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that I've talked to said that the quality of deer
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: in our area has gone down, and the mature bucks
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: have seen. You know, although there were a couple when
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the season hit, they all disappeared. They weren't showing up
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: on trail camera. They weren't showing up, you know, in
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: food plots. I guess from what he was telling me,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: just big deer weren't getting killed in our area. Now,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: this isn't the neighbor that we sometimes talked about. This's
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: got the great, really really really great property with the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: tons and tons of food. Right. I kind of wonder
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: if that's maybe where once the season hits, you get
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: tons of deer flocking to that section, do you think, Well, possibly,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But during the rut, you know, they have so many
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: deer on their property, they you know, the loser leaves.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've just seen a change in a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: change in movement over the past couple of years. Um,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and this guy to the north of me kind of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: confirmed it. And interesting, very interesting. I don't know, I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: don't know. Well, I need to get I needed to run.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It sucks because I want to leave traill cameras out
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: all year round, but I'm afraid to you because I
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: think people are going to steal them. So it's like,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: how how the hell am I supposed to do what
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I want to do. I'd just be wasting money. It's tough.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: It's a bummer these days. Now that I've had these
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: issues on this lease, I'm probably gonna start locking those
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: cameras up. I've done that on other properties, but I
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: hadn't been an issue to this point here. But but
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna start doing that soon. So well, here's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the deal. You lock it up, they cut the they
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: don't just steal the SD card. They break your camera
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: either to get to the SD card or they take
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the whole damn thing. Right, Hopefully you can avoid at
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: least the lazy ones, but some guys like that will
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: take will not take no for an answer, I suppose, right, right, Uh,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: not ideal, not ideal at all. But we're gonna have
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to put a time out on this h on this
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: convo because we do need to bring Lindsey on the line.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Who will I think we'll uplift us. He's gonna give
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: us some positive deer hunting stuff to talk about. We're
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: going and south on the Wired to Hunt podcast. Yes,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: we're going south. So let's take a quick minute here
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: to think our partners at sick of Gear and then
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: we will give Lindsay a call. Alright, So as we
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: do on each episode, we're talking to sick Of product
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: category leader Dennis Zuck, And today I want to ask
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Dennis a little bit about a question that we sometimes
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: hear about Sickup, and that being how can sick of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: managed to produce clothing for such different groups as Western
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: big game hunters, white tail hunters, and water followners and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: still be able to produce awesome stuff for each of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: those different groups of people. Here's done us. Yeah, and
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you know we don't you know outwardly that those categories
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: are absolutely existing and and it's real, and we make
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: different products for all of them. But you know, before
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: we see ourselves as you know, big game brand or
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: white tail brand or waterfol brand, we see ourselves in
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: an apparel company, We see ourselves as people who spend
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about materials and thinking about cuts,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and thinking about how to address hunters needs, you know,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and and in the walls. So sick that we have
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: people in each of those categories who are are absolute
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: fanatical hunters in their own right, then we have a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: host of people who, whether they're an ambassador, approach staff,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: or an athlete, who absolutely carry that torch as well.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: So the combination of us understanding apparel and understanding apparel
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: development and understanding the hunt in the hunter um that
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: makes us absolutely qualified to make products for all those categories.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And that with an engineering or a scientific kind of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: mindset around making sure you do things you can prove
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and making sure there's real legitimacy behind the claims you
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: want to make. UM, I think as an as absolutely
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a recipe for success, or at least I hope it
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: is alright awesome awesome insight. So if you'd like to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: learn more about Sick of Gears clothing, whether it be
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: for white Tails, other Big Game, or Waterfall, you can
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: visit sick of gear dot com. And now let's get
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: back to the show. And give Lindsay a call. All
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: right with us Now on the line is Lindsay Thomas Jr.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Lindsay. Thanks Mark. I am honored
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to be here and really please to join you guys.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that. We were really excited to chat
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: with you as well. I've really enjoyed over the recent
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: years getting to know you, and Uh, it's gonna be
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: a blast getting a chat today about a topic which
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I'm also personally excited to talk about because it's something
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: we really haven't dive into at all on the show yet,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: which is um, which I'm sorry about. I wish we have.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: But we're gonna be talking about deer hunting in the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: South um. And I know that's something that you are
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: very familiar with, given where you live and where you hunt.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: But I guess before we get into all that, I'm
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: getting ahead of myself. I briefly introduced you to our
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: audience just a couple of minutes ago at a very
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: high level. But for those who aren't familiar with who
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: you are and what you do, can you give us
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit of background as to what you are
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: doing today in the White Tail world? Yeah? Um, I
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: am director of Communications for the Quality Deer Management Association
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: q d m A, and one of my main roles.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of things in that role, but
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: one of the big ones is editor of our magazine,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Quality White Tales UM. That's QT makes Membership journal I've
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: been doing that now for almost thirteen years with q
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: d UM A UM, and before that, for about nine years,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I was an editor with a Georgia hunting and fishing
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: publication called Georgia Outdoor News. So I've been an outdoor
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: journalism for wow, more than twenty years now. I'm just
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: sitting here calculating it up. But and I'm originally from Georgia,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: grew up in southeast Georgia near the coast, um grew
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: up hunting there, and fortunate enough to not have to
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: leave my home state uh in my career, and and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: now worked with q d m A, you know, in Athens, Georgia,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: which is northeast Georgia, roughly about an hour east of Atlanta.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: And so I'm really only about four hours from where
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I grew up from my family's hunting land and the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: ground I'm from here with. So yeah, I'm you know,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: from the South, born and raised here hunt here, still
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: live here, but very fortunate and pleased to be able
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to do what I do for q d um A
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because you know, as an outdoor communicator and a person
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: who has a passion for deer hunting and deer management,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you know I'm right where I want to be. Yeah. Well, uh,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I can say quite honestly that I think that the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: work you're doing some of the very very best in
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the outdoor journalism world. I absolutely love quality white tales.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: From a long time ago, before I was even writing
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: or doing anything, I was just a member of qut
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: May and seeing the magazine you guys put out, it's
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: it's just always a fun read and a very educational read,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: uh and just really nicely put together. So I guess
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: just mad props to you for for such a great
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: job you guys are doing over there. I really enjoy it.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I would I would say, well,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it comes from great contributors, and Mark, you have been
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a contributor as you know, over the last couple of years,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and we're uh pleased to have you as one of them.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, uh, as as members learned here in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: our our new issue, a couple of your articles from
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: last year were voted very highly among our readers at
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the end of the year survey in terms of some
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: of their favorite articles of the year. So, um, again
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: we are uh, we we have high quality contributors like yourself.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: So uh that kind of bounces back on you. Well,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: thank you, I appreciate That's. That's awesome to hear the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: people enjoy those pieces. And uh, and I'm looking forward
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to putting together some new ones for for you guys
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: this year. Hopefully, hopefully all the all the strange, dumb
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: things I do in the woods turn out into good
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: stories I can share with people. Well, that's that's a
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: lot of the appeal is, you know, following along and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: in a lot of people are in your shoes of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of where you are and your in your hunting career,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: but also your communicatings and journalism career of really pulling
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: yourself up by your own bootstraps and uh, learning as
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you go, but and not being afraid to tell your followers, um,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: not only your successes, but your failures and what you've learned,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and you know, kind of the the downs and the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: ups of of being a deer hunter and and being
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Martin Kenyon and That's what I really think is kind
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of the key to some of your appeal. I appreciate
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that it's funny on this topic. I was talking to
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to your colleague and my and Matt Ross who also
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: works with the q d m A, and we're talking about,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you know, what I've been doing and kind of the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: stories I've shared everything, and Matt kind of said something similar.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: He said, he told me that I have the market
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: cornered on failure. So I guess, I guess that's the thing.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't go that far. But then Matt's from New York,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and there we have a good illustration of you know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Southern hospitality and politeness versus uh, Northern honesty exactly. I
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: gotta kick out of that one. So that's awesome. So so, lindsay,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: speaking of the North versus this, well, I don't want
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to say the north of the South, but I'm speaking
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: about the differences between hunting in the South and hunting
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: other places. You know that That's really one of the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: main things I wanted to talk about today, given the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: fact that you know, me and Dan, we don't have
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: any experience hunting in the southern part of the country,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: but a lot of our listeners do and our interest
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: in learning more about it. And I think even those
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: that hunt in the northern parts of the country, in
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, I think we can all learn something that
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: we can apply to our own deer hunt just by
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: better understanding what's going on in other parts of the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: country too. So so really, at a high level, that
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: was my goal today is to to kind of pick
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: your brain about what's different, What do people need to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: do differently that down there to have success, and a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: lot of things like that. Um, And it sounds like
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you were you were raised in Georgia, you hunting Georgia. Um,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: maybe you've hunted other places across the South from your experience.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Do you believe that deer hunting in the South really
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: is that different from other places across the country? There
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: are a lot of small differences. I think I would say, Um,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: it really, at the end of the day, is not
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that different. Um. You know, you and I and Dan,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: we're all deer hunters, and your listeners were all deer hunters,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and at the core there is a lot more that
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: connects us than separates us. But there are you know,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: when I think about it, and there are a lot
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: of little ways that that it's different, um, but but
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: not so big that we don't still all understand each other,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So yeah, there's a there're a
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: good many small ways that is different. And UM I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: have not you know, I've hunted mostly in Georgia, hunted
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit outside of Georgia, I have, honestly, though
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I've traveled there and seen dear properties there. I've never
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: hunted in the Northeast or the Midwest. UM So I
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: really haven't hunted out of the outside the South, I guess, uh.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And I've written about this before how I kind of
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: shared this characteristic with a lot of qum may members
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and people who practice qt um in that you know,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and you can probably you know, you guys could probably
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: agree to this too, that um, I have a passion
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: for where I hunt and where I managed deer and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: where I kind of know the dirt. And I get
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: invitations from friends who live in the Midwest, you know,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to come hunting with them and the man I would
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: love to do that given the time and money and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: more of those resources were more abundant. But but it
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: even the day I have to be honest and say that, UM,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I still would rather go hang and hunt. I stand
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: in a place I know, based on information I know
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: about the de here, I've come to learn and hunt
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: those deer than to be, you know, go hunt with
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a friend and be put in a stand that that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: they know and even if it means seeing a bigger,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: better deer. So um, don't get me wrong, I still
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: hope to take up those invitations one day when I
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: have more time again and money to travel and and
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the freedom. But but really, you know, I'm passionate about
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: what I do and the deer I know. And there's
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks, deer hunters and q A members
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: that will tell you that that, yeah, we understand that
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: that I can't grow the same dear body size and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: aunt ler wise then you can in other parts of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the country. But I still would rather, you know, hunt
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the deer. I know. That's that's what this passion is about.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: So no, I haven't gotten out of the South, but
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in terms of hunting, but being an editor for Quality
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: White Tails and current communications direct for qum ay. You know,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: when I came here at thirteen years ago, all of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a sudden I had a national audience where I had
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: not had that before. And I have learned over the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: years many of these little ways that separate us terminology
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and and differences and approach, differences in habitat um that
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: do make a difference when it comes to perspective and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: communicating one deer hunter to another about what you do
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: versus what I do, um and making assumptions you can't
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: make about you know, understanding what you understand about how
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: deer hunting works and what our perspectives are. So so yeah,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I've it's been something over the years that I've I've learned,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: uh again, all these sort of small ways that separators.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I first want to say that we I think Dan
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I both definitely a percent agree with you about that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: special connection you can have with a place and how
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: much fun and how fulfilling it is to hunt you know, uh,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a location or dear population where you can get to
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: know the area, get to know maybe the deer and patterns,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and figure all those things out and do it yourself.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: For me, at least, I love being able to do
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: it myself. I just I just don't have the same
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: enjoyment or fulfillment if I was just showing up at
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a random place and being put somewhere Um, so I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: totally get what you're saying with that for sure. Um.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Another thing you mentioned though, was was kind of your
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: connection with that region and deer hunting in the South,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and it got me thinking about culture and history. Um,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I imagine, I assume there's some interesting things
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: about deer hunting culture in the South that me up
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan and dan Iowa we just don't know
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: about or understand. Is there anything that you can think of,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: you know, off the top that you had about the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: history or culture of deer hunting in the the South. It's different.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: That's you know, something important to to you down there
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and to other hunters in the area that is worth mentioning. Yeah,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and and a lot of these things kind of tie
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: back to some of the big picture differences between these
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: regions of the country, you know. To to cite an example,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: one of the first things I learned when I came
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to work for QT May and began organizing and planning
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and publishing quality White Tales with some of the terminology
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I had to be careful about, like hunting lease or
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: hunting club. Um. In the South, you know, I grew
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: up talking about going to the hunting club or the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: concept of having a lease, a deer hunt lease. And
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I what I learned, um, right off the bat was
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: those terms are not well known in the North and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, and that I think that's changed some over time.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: And in fact, there's even some you know, you you're
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: here complaints that the concept of leasing hunting rights has
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: expanded from the South into the North and a lot
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of people in the North aren't happy about that change. Um.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: But historically, growing up in the South, the idea of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a hunting club and a hunting lease was sort of ubiquitous.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, just understood that that was the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: predominant way a lot of people had the rights to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: hunt land, was they least those rights, um, And often
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: they would form what we're called what we just sort
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: of referred to as hunting clubs. And I think in
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: North maybe that evoked, um, kind of the the idea
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: of a country club, you know, where sort of the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: elite go to play golf or in this case, go
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to hunt. But that's not at all what it is.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It's just kind of became the term for where average
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: deer hunters like us, that was where you went on
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the weekend to your lease. And joined the guys in
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the club, and you camped and whatever, and you did
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: your hunting and those terms when I stop and think
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: about them, not only the term hunting club and leaves,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: but the idea of leasing property rights goes pretty far
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: back in the South. And ultimately what that comes from,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I believe is the predominant UM landownership pattern historically of
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: large timber companies owning most of the land UM. And
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I think timber companies were some of the first to realize, hey,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: if we're owning this land to produce timber income, what
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: else can what are the types of income can we
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: get out of this? And the hunting lease, the lease
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of hunting rights became one of those things. We will
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: charge folks extra for the right to come in during
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: deer season and hunt deer on our timber lands. And
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that's an additional source of income. And that goes way back,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and you don't have I think those concepts are more
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: foreign in the North and the Midwest because that historical
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: pattern of large sumber companies a small number of very
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: big for profit timber companies owning the majority of the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: land UM is not there. You don't see that that
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: pattern UM and like we have in the South and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: still have today. Now it's changing, but historically, over the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: long term, timber companies were if you didn't own a
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: you know, a farm or whatever, or own land you
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: were most deer hunters were going to a timber company lease. Uh,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: they were leasing those rights. And in fact, many of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you know, when I was remember being a young, very
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: young boy, even before I was tagging along my dad,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: my dad was hunting least timber company land, or he
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: was hunting you know, with his friends local w may's
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: that were timber company land leased by the state for
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: public hunting opportunities. And many of those w mays go
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: way back. They're still around and many of them are
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: still timber company land that the state leases on behalf
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of of hunters to have to hunt that public land.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And I think even some of the very first w
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Mays in Georgia in the South for that concept that
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: timber coumptany land to state least so so, but you
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: also had you know, probably had more, and certainly today
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: have more situations where a group of hunters get together
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: lease a chunk of timber company land and that's their
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: quote hunting club and um you know, whether than call
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: it the lease or whatever. Hunting club kind of became
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the predominant name for it, and it's you know, Friday
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: before opening day of gun season here in Georgia, you
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: can watch the Hunting Club head, you know, the all
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the trucks pulling trailers loaded down with four wheelers and
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: coolers and food plot seed um heading out of Atlanta,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: out of urban areas, out of the town's um, you know,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: into the countryside to the hunting club and the hunting lease. Uh,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, big picture that that
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: format there of timber company land um explains some of
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that culture that you don't find in the North, where
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: in general, as I've come to find, property sizes are
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: on average much smaller. Uh. You have a lot more
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: private landholners with much smaller tracts than you do in
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the South, where you have fewer private landowners and bigger tracts.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Now that's changing that the timber company model of course
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: is now breaking up even in the South for a
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: number of reasons. But it really ultimately can be tied
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: back and helped explain a lot of things we'll talk about,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: you know right now, including habitat um the the average
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: habitat that a Georgia or Southern deer hunter looks at
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: when he or she hits the woods UM is different
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: than what you see in the North and the Midwest.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And a lot of that's explained by that historical UM
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: pattern of timber company ownership. That definitely is it makes
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: sense when I think about some of these things that
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the few things I do know about UM hunting in
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the South, with that context of the land ownership and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: how that works, I can see how some of those
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: things kind of kind of happened to the point of
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: deer hunting clubs. That's something, right, I'm not really exposed
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: to that having experience with that, but but I've heard
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: about it a lot. Can you tell us a little
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: bit more about I know you mentioned a group of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: guys and that they'll have that you know, they'll share
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: hunting access to a property. But can you elaborate a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: little bit about, you know, what specific how specifically a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: deer hunting club works, because I've always kind of wondered
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: about this. You know, I've heard that sometimes clubs have
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: like a board where you show up on a Friday
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and you have to you know, you get rights to
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: a certain stand or different things of that. I mean,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: how do these large groups of people twenty thirty people
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: or however large they might be. I guess you could
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: better tell me that. But how does a large group
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: of people like that share properties, share responsibilities on the property,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: all those things that I'm kind of I don't know
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. So so tell me, lindsay, how
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: does the deer in the club work? It varies? Um,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: You'll see a lot of different groups trying different things. Um.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: And ultimately that's kind of one of the dynamics. It's
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: interesting about a lot of clubs and how they manage
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: that and how everybody gets along and um. But it's yeah,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you see different things. Um. But basically, like I said,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: it's it's a group of guys, whether it is you know,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: me and some of the people I work with, or
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: neighbors or church group or just you know, sometimes even
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: people just put out want ads and meet each other
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: on the line or whatever or that way. I got
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: a lease in so and so County looking for members, um,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, someone somewhere gets access to the lease,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: whether it's from you know, leasing them rights, from a farmer,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: from somebody who owns private land or timber company or whatever.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: And let's say they got the lease, and now we
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: put the club together. You get your members, however you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: recruit those people you don't know, people you do know. Um,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you divide up. You kind of look at Okay, so
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I've got you know, uh, lucky enough to lease two
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: thousand acres, let's say, and how many people do I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: want on that given the rate the timber company is charging,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and and you know, hunting pressure, what's what's the balance
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: we can find there? So everybody can you know, I
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: can afford it. The people I invite can afford it.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: But we don't have you know, people crawling all over
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: each other in the deerwoods. Um. And and everybody sort
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: of has an enjoyable experience for the price they're paying.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And so you start there. You you kind of, you know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: decide what the mix is. And a lot of it
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: depends on who organized the thing. Um my dad, Uh,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the club still exists, but my has no longer in it.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I'm no longer in it. I was a member for
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a while several years ago. But my dad was a
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: member for a club for years that was actually put
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: together in like nineteen seventy two way back that one
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: of my dad's good long time friends put together in
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Middle Georgia on the Flint River leasing timber company land.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And in fact, the timber company owning the land has
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: changed over the years as various companies have sold each
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: other out, but the club is still there. It's probably
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: one of the you know, one of the longer running
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you know, same group of deer hunters in the club
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: in Georgia. But um, and it just depends on who
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: organized it. Well, the guy who who put this together
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: was kind of the guy who who didn't mind spending
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the time putting together rules and kind of serving the
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: uh the leader and you know, calling the shots and
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: um deciding you know what the everything from um uh
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: you know what kind of camp or can you bring
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to the camp to sleep in? And and how many
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: people can be in camp and you know on a
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: weekend and and and like you said, how do you
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: decide who once where? There's various ways people have done it,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: from having you know, a map on a pinboard where
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: his first front, first come, first serve and you you
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: get there in the morning or whatever, and you put
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: your pen on the board and saying I'm going here
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and you've got that stand for you know that day.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: It's any number of ways you want to carve it up.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Us have literally areas where you know, Okay, Mark's got
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: his stand down by the creek down there, and that's
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: his area. I don't go in there. I've got to
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: find some other area and put my stand. Um, and
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: you hash it out that way. So a number of
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: different you know, plans and regimes have come up in
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: ways that hunters have dealt with this, you know, And
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: it raises the question then of rules and and what
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: happens with the rule violator? Um, if you've got somebody
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: in camp who showed up where he's not supposed to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: be or not supposed to be or hunting, somebody stam
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: when they're not there and they didn't have permission. It's
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: just like uh meaning any branch of society, just like
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: a workplace where you know, you've got people you get
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: along with, sometimes you get people you don't and uh um,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you know, how do you handle infringements in in any
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: corner of society? To the Hunt Club is a microcosm
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of that. And and you know, the leadership sometimes like
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: you said, there's a board, um and and you know,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a board votes to decide on the rules and what
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: happens to people who break them? And so yeah, it's
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it's a many many little political world and many hunt
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: clubs and some last and and because they've got you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: good organization, good core group of people, and some don't
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: last long, and there's turnover. Uh. Though generally what you'll
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: find is it can be tough to find a good
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: timber company lease. You know, timber company leases don't sit
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: out there waiting for people to get them, unless you're
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: talking about a hundred acre clear cut that just as
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a miserable place and nobody wants to pay the rate.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: But and you know, generally what's available each year is
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the less of desirable stuff. But if you've got a
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: hunting cup, a timber company lease on quality land, you
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: know you don't want to lose it. So people will
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: often put up with, you know, maybe less than desirable
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: conditions with the people they hunt with, or the rules,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: or they don't necessarily like you know, how the group's
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: governing everything. But you know, the alternative is being back
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: out in the cold hunting for a place to where
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: are you gonna be hunting this fall, and that can
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: be tough. So it's a it's an interesting dynamic. Wow.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I got a quick question for those people who who
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: don't have, um, I guess hunting clubs or hunting leases
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: to go to, does Georgia or maybe the rest of
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the South, because I lived in Alabama for a while
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and I mark I actually did hunt one bow season
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: down in Alabama. Not not a lot because I was
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: because I was really busy with my job back then,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: but I hunted in a large national forest that allowed hunting.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And is there a lot of public ground where you
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to lease? I know you mentioned um
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: some of the state leases the timber ground, But is
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: there any I guess property in the South that is
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: st public ground that guys can go to whenever they want. Sure,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we've got public land just like y'all do.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: We've got national forest land, we've got state owned w
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: may land, UM, federal refuges. Uh. Yeah, we've got all
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: that too. Um. You know, and I know a very
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: state state and around the regions in terms of percent
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of private versus public land, we've got that too. Um.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: You know I've got we've got in Georgia. Just an example,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: I've got w May's all over the state. I hunt
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: public land myself from time to time. We've got you know,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: everything from the wide open w May. That's just state
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: seasons and and no quote on numbers of hunters and
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: anybody can go. And we've got the higher quality hunts
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: that are limited by quotas and you apply and get drawn.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Um that are you know, more desirable, So you know,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: hunt public land too. And now there's there's plenty of
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: that too. And and I guess I didn't mean to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: imply that every deer hunter in Georgia and the South
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: hunts and a hunting club or an a least situation,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't. We've got the other aspects like
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: y'all do where you know your neighbor has hundred acres
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: of the farm land and let you hunt there, or
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: you know your buddy at church brought you in on
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: hunting his his granddaddy's land, or um, you know whatever.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: And also just the folks who own their own land
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: or have a small recreational track, you know, and that
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: number is growing. So we've got all those other aspects.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: But I think it's the um, it's the hunting timber
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: company lease that's very common throughout the South that stands
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: out as being something that you don't see in the
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Midwest and the North. Is that that answer your question? Yes,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: it does. And on that. On that to that note,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I guess, um you mentioned while you were explaining kind
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of this situation with a lot of these large timber companies,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the fact that there's some unique habitat in a lot
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of parts of the South that that's pretty unique compared
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to maybe what we're dealing with in different parts of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the country. Can you share this what some of those
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: unique habitat types are. Um, I'd love to hear about,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: you know, a handful of those common habitat types across
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: much of the South. And then I, um, you know it,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: we'll dive into a couple of one or two of those,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: um and getting some details of how you might approach
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: hunting it or how it makes things unique. But I
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: guess at a high level, first question, are there some
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: common habitat types unique to the South? Yeah? Just um,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: big picture and this kind of explains that, I think,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: or will health explain it in in in an area
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about when we talk about the South.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: We're don about multiple states. Even within Georgia, you've got
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we have I was growing growing, grew up
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: in the coastal plain where sandy soils and palmettas and
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Spanish moss and live oaks, um and we've got everything.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: You go to North Georgia just north of here where
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I am now, and you've got Appalachian Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: uh and everything in between. So we've got a very
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: you know, wide range of habitat types just within the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: state of Georgia, but across the face of the South
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the dominant kind of pattern and this can be explained.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if you want to share this
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: website in your show notes later, but there's a neat
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: website I've been referring to in the last couple of years,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: just before you know, to to helping me understand some
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. And it's a site put together by
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the University of Maryland Department of Geographical Sciences, and it's
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: called Global Forest Change and it shows the whole world,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: but you can zoom in on the US and what
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: this thing shows in color is loss of forest, extent
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of forest cover, gain of forest cover. Basically changes in
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: forest cover around the world. And it doesn't in colors.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: It shows you, you know, forest that has vanished in
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the last year or two, forests that has appeared in
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the last year two, forest that's been there, you know,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: in place unchanged. UM in forest that doesn't exist. UM,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: places like the plains where you don't have forests or
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: agricultural areas. And in real quick, I mean, if you
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: could see this thing, it will show you what I'm
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: about to tell you. And if you look at this
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: thing like I'm telling telling you, there's a you can
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: toggle this map setting called loss extent gain. Uh. It's
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: largely red, greens, blues, purples of those sorts of colors,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: and black where you don't have forests. And here's what
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at. Across the South, from East Texas to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Georgia and up the Atlantic coast to Virginia. You're looking
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: at uh, reds, blues and purples. And what that is
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: is constant forest turnover. That's that is timber practices in
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the South. UM. It's not forest laws necessarily, though certainly
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: around areas like Atlanta and other urban centers you were
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: seeing some forest laws, but by and large, in the
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: majority we're looking at in rural areas that I'm well
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: from you with. We're looking at forest turnover, timber practices
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of harvesting timber, replanning timber, and growing it again UM.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: And what that produces is young forest, a lot of
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: young forest cover. Whether you were talking about a clear cut,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: you know, a hundred acres that was just clean cut
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: last year and they're gonna come in and replant it
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: in time, or you're talking about you know, one two
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: or three year old um what we call planet times.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: It's that clear cut replanted in rows of pines um
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: or just a select cut where they've come in and
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: cut certain trees and left others um to regenerate certain
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: pine trees, to regenerate pine or hardwood growth. But anyway,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: this this timber process turns over and creates a lot
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of young forest cover. And that's the big picture of
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: what we deal with in the South. When you look
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: at this map, what you see, uh in the northeast
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: is a lot of bright green and that is mature
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: forest that is not seeing turnover. And when you look
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest, even southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin, southern Minnesota,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: but across the Illinois, Iowa, Ohio. You see a lot
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: of black that's farmland interspersed with little, tiny, little threads
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: of green, you know, just a barest, little blush of
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: bright green of you know, mature hardwoods. So you know,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: in a nutshell, what you're seeing is the Midwest where
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you don't have much forest compared to open agricultural lands,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: and the Northeast where you have a lot of forested cover,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: but it is mature hardwood forest that is rarely turned over,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: versus the South where it is highly active uh in
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: timber production and timber rotation, thinning, cutting, clear cutting, replanning
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and growing timber, and that produces us said before, what
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: hunters are faced with. What I'm faced with when I
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: go hunting in the South is a lot of cover.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: It's good in a way, it's a lot of covering,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of forage for deer, but it makes it
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: tough to hunt deer because, um, we don't have you know,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you talk about funnels and bottlenecks, I don't know what
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that is. Um. Really, in the South, most hunters find
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: it difficult to identify what Midwesterners talk about as a
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: bottleneck or a funnel. Um because we're dealing with, you know,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: two hundred clear cuts that are you know, two years
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: old and neck deep in briars. Uh, we're dealing with
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: the same size and planet pones. We're dealing with you know,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: thin timber that's developed a very good understory. Again, good things.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: These are good for wildlife and particularly dear forge and
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: deer cover, but makes it mighty tough um to predict
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: specific deer movements, especially if you're talking about in bow
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: range of one um. So big picture, that's kind of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: when you say habitat differences or habitat types, there's kind
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: of the key that explains a lot of what differs
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: in lingo and hunting approach and habitat management South compared
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: everywhere else. Yeah, that's it definitely sounds very different compared
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to much of what Dan and I operate within here
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest. So, so will that being the case,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: then let's just operate under this assumption that a significant
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: amount of the South Southern hunters are facing those types
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: of circumstances that kind of habitat. How in the heck
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: do you figure out how to hunt those places? I mean, let'
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: let's start at a high level lindsay, how do you
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: how did deer use that terrain? You know, I know
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: that here in the Midwest, right, we can easily identify
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: betting areas, we can easily identify feeding areas, and then
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: it's you know, not too difficult to figure out how
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: they get from A to B and then a lot
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: of our hunting strategy revolves around that. But in a
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: situation like you, like you shared huge timber, maybe really
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: new timber, or clear cuts of these different types of deals,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: how do you personally go about figuring out how dear
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: behavior excuse me behave there and then hunt them. Trail
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: cameras are a big part of it now, and I
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: know that's true where y'all are. Um, I know, you
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: know there's not a deer hunt anywhere in North America
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that doesn't love and use trail cameras. Um. And in
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: many cases to pattern deer they weren't hunt and those,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, are a key. But you know,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: by and large it it comes down to and again,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: much of what I'm gonna say here is won't surprise you.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Y'all do it too. Keying on food sources, keying on
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: where are the dose During November during the rut um,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: which November didn't needn't necessarily the rut In the South,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: we've got plenty of areas where you know, in coastal
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Georgia where I'm from, the rud is in late October. Um,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: you get down into Florida, it's even earlier. You get
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: into Alabama, it's even later. Uh. You know. So we're
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: kind of all over the map in terms of rut peak,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: although most of it is November, like you guys, But
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: but in November it's where the dove is gonna be
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: getting somewhere where you can see a long way. A
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: lot of folks, particularly on Timber Counting land, will hunt
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: a clear cut, get in a climber and get a
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: big tall pine tree, and get where you can see
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: a long way um, and make sure you're you know,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: make sure that your your rifle is dialed in and
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: you've shot it at three yards um, because when the
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: deer moving, that's your best opportunity to really get your
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: eyes on amature buck. And when you look at some
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: of the data like in our white Tail report. Uh.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: And I know you've already visited with Kiffle by the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: white Tail Report, and I don't want to get into
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that too much. But if you look at um our
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: latest White Toil report, look at deer harvest by a
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: weapon type, what you see is in the South it's
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: dominated by rifles UM and not so much by bows
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: and muzzleloaders, whereas in the Midwest Northeast you see a
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: lot higher harvest with bows UM and and less with
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: rifles UM. I think that's probably a factor also of
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: in the South, we have a lot longer firearm season
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: traditionally in many states than you do in the North
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and Midwest, so we spent a lot more time hunting
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: with rifles. But I think a lot of it too
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: has to do with that that tendency of much of
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the habitat we hunt being being fairly thick and trying
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: to get somewhere where you can see a long way. Now,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: we certainly have bottom heart bottom land hardwoods, which is
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: kind of the equivalent of the um mature hardwoods you
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: see in the Northeast, or the mature hardwood fingers and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: creek bottoms and drainages in between a fields you see
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest. That's our open hardwoods is you know,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: rivering floodlands floodplains um where we have a lot of
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the oaks species white oaks and swamp chests and oaks
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: and others that that produced the mast, particularly swamp chests
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and oaks that fall later in the year. That can
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: be where you'll see doose and of course the bucks
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: during November when the ruts on. UM. But generally folks
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: are trying to get where they can see a long way.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Food plots, of course play a big role in it.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Think I really can't to how important food plots are.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Two hunters in the Midwest and the Northeast, so I know,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: you know they like you guys like food plots just
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: as much as we do. But um, food plots are
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: a key for many hunters in the South. Uh. You know,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: particular a lot say that are hunting a timber company
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: leaves where you're dealing with a lot of young pines
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: and a lot maybe a lot of clear cuts, and
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: you've got for edge and brows pretty much across the
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: landscape coming up in that young forest. So you know,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: providing a food plot with something that is green on
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: into the cooler season, um like cereal grains or oat clover,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: uh like Brassica's that's gonna be attractive, particularly you know,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: into December in January. Um those are key. Unfortunately many
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: of us over hunt them because of that. You know,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: many people think of food plots as being the plate,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the place to go, and they can be as we
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: all know, just like y'all know, it's just like anything else,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: if you overpressure it, it's not gonna be good. You're
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: not gonna see mature bucks on food plots regardless if
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: you're over pressuring it. Um So, from a behavioral standpoint, dear,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: just like y'all dear, they respond to pressure. They behave
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and act in response to how we behave in act.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes the prediction predictability comes with predicting
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: places where you haven't been and and working around your
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: own pressure. Uh So, food plots are important. Reading pressure
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: is important. And in trail cameras really delineating, um where
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: a buck's home range is on your property that you
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: can hunt. We all know that. You know, unless you've
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: got thousands of acres, you know, we know most of
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: us out there are hunting a hundred two hundred acres
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: maybe at the most. That's not going to contain the
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: average bucks home range in most cases he's gonna overlap
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: you or maybe you know, cover three quarters of your
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: property with his home range or whatever. So using that
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: trail camera, once you identify a buck you like, um,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: that you really love to see during hunting season, UM,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: using your trail cameras to to really define what parts
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: of your property that you can hunt. Uh. And I
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: don't mean to say property in terms of implying on ship,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: but wherever you're hunting, using that trail camera to delineate
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: that box home range and how it overlooks where you
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: hunt and where he's using those areas most often to
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: help you kind of intersect with him during the rut,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: all while trying not to pressure him out of that area.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: So a lot of that would sound familiar, you're to you,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, right, yeah, yeah, there definitely, But I think
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: to your point, it seems like there's definitely some unique
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: reasons why it might be even more important where you
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: guys are at with that type of terrain, because you know,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: like we talked about, I think terrain and the lack
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: of the lack of cover in some areas can help
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: us in the Midwest, you know, kind of assume dear
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: movement because it's just obvious there's going to be certain
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: areas they are or are not going to travel versus
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I think in these types of habitats, as you mentioned,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: you can't make those types of assumptions. So so I
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: can totally understand how a trail camera has a disp
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: disproportionately higher value to start learning some of those things
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: that in other places you might be able to assume.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting, Dan, what do you think about all this?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I have a question in regards to I guess weather
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: and temperature specifically. I mean, I lived in Atlanta for
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: about six months and it was hot down there, and
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: it was hot all the time, and even in December
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: when I was down there, And my question is I've
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: never really you know, I hunted that one year in
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Alabama and it it's it flurried for maybe a day
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: and it didn't even it didn't even accumulate on the ground,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: and they closed schools. You know, up here in Iowa
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: a foot of snow and you're still it's a two
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: hour delay. But what I'm getting at is does temperature
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: down there affect dear because it is warmer down there
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: differently than the Midwest and the reason I ask, is
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: we all we all try to get in the stand
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: when there's a huge weather pattern coming through and we
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: know the temperature is gonna drop drastically. Is that same
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: thing happening down there? It is the same thing. I
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: would have said, just what you just said. We all
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: try to get int the woods when there's a front
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: coming through and you know the temperature is gonna drop,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the barometric pressure is gonna swing, and we know that
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you know that bluebird day when the winds finally settle
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: the day after the front's gone through or two days after. Man,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: they're gonna move, particularly in November. So yeah, that's yeah,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: it's hotter. I mean I burned a thermal cell the
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: entire deer season this year, literally November December. Uh, in
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the January when our our season wrapped up, I had
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: my thermal cell with me smoking the whole time, um
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: to keep the mosquitoes off. That's just now, that's it's
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: not always that way. We y'all know. We everybody had
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a normally warm fall this year. Um So, but yeah,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: pretty much through November you better have some some bugs prayer,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: skiter repellent um. So yeah, it's warmer, but the deer
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: still respond which which I think is interesting too that
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: maybe this explains why, you know, I encountered the term
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: buck pole, which seems to be something you guys do
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: where everybody hangs their deer or and comes to see it.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: And we don't do that here because if you hang
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: your deer for a couple of hours and wait for
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: somebody to come see it, you know it's gonna be spoiled. Um,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: so we don't, you know. And I remember visiting some
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: family during deer season one time in New Jersey and
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: we were riding around and I saw deer just hanging
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: swinging from people's trees in the yard, you know, and
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: look like they've been there, like people had, you know,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: shot some deer, shot a deer few over the weekend
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: and was letting an age in a tree. And I
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: can see where you could do that when we can't
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: do that here. And um, maybe even I don't know,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: we have walk in coolers all over the place. That's
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: a phrase you may not hear in the North walk
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: in cooler, but a deer hunter in the South and
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: knows what a walk in cooler is. Uh. It's a
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: place you can put your deer other than in a
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: physical cooler with ice. Um. So yeah, weather certainly plays
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: a role there in terms of things like that, like
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: what you can how long you can your deer out
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: and taking around to show people before you've got to,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: um do something else with it. Um. But from a
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: dear behavior standpoint, no, they respond the same way your
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: dear dude to swing and temperature swings and barometric pressure,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: high winds, uh, rainy fronts um. And certainly you know
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: that's what you're always hoping for in the South. Is
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: you hope for that that post frontal bluebird day cool
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: or deep cold um, calm day to align with your weekends? Um?
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: And not you know happened on a Tuesday Wednesday when
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: you've got to be at the office or or at work.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: So um yeah, same thing. So so I got a
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: question for you, Lindsay related to that. Um you might
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: have heard we had you might have for the episode
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: we had Matt Matt Ross on the show last October
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and November I think it was last November, I think,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: and we talked about the science of the rut. And
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: in that discussion, Matt showed a series of different studies
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: that have been conducted across the country that disputed a
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: lot of commonly held beliefs that we deer hunters have
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: about how uh weather systems or the moon or different
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: things might or might not influence deer movement. A lot
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: of things you mentioned there that that me and Danon
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and are of our guests talk about a lot that
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: we have seen and believe impact dear movement. But these
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: studies in some cases seem to say that, no, those
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: things aren't impacting dear movement. I'm assuming you probably saw
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: these same things that I think you've probably written about it,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: published some things about some of these studies. How do
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: you explain some of that where there's these commonly held
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: beliefs that I think most of us agree, like gosh,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: we've seen it happen so many times. But some of
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: this data coming out of these studies is you know,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: not showing that. How do you explain that or what
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: are your thoughts on some of those? I don't know.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I struggle with that too, just like you'll do. I mean,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you know, as as communications direct for QB m A,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: you know that we base what we tell folks on
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: the science and if you know, you look at a
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: number of peer reviewed scientific studies, and they all seem
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: to be pointing in a direction that really doesn't job
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: with what you've been experiencing. You know, we can go
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: to many examples over the years where something hunters assumed,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: even me included about dear behavior shown to be completely incorrect,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: you know, when a number of good, sound scientific studies
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: looked at that. So I struggle with that too, because, um,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: just like I just said, you know, man, it sure
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: feels like those calm, cold days uh in November, or
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: when you see more deer um, and that the deer
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: seemed to move. And I do feel like I've hunted
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: through the hot, buggy weather and felt like, man, they're
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: just not moving. You just seem to have that, I mean,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: don't you just seem to have that instant when you're
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: in the woods that it just doesn't feel like anything's moving. Um.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: So I don't know how to reconcile that other than
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe it's the fact that we have this ingrained
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: idea that that's that's when you go and we don't
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: go when it's warm, and that can certainly play a
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: role in what you know, if you're not in the woods, Um,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: when it's hot because you believe they're not gonna move
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: till this weekend when the cold front breaks. How can
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: you compare? And I don't know. That's the only thing
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I can figure is just across the masses of deer hunters.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Most of us go when we think conditions are good,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and so that's when you see the deer or certainly
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the evidence is there that the movement rates are the same.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: You know, look at breeding data on the rut hunters
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: seem to feel and I know I've been there too,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: where you think, man, they're just wasn't a rut this year. Man,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: they just weren't moving. I didn't see the bucks, I
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: didn't see the doze. The rut didn't happen, or it
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: was late or it was early, or it was a
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: trickle rut. You know, we have all these terminologies we
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: talked about, and ye're in year out that the scientific data,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: the data coming from backdating fetuses from those harvested in
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: late season or a various other studies and ways they
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: get at this data shows you're in, you're out. The
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: does are bred at the same time every year, even
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: when it's hot, and we're thinking, man, the rut ain't
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: happen and guess what they're doing. They're breeding. So the
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: science is there that that despite what we perceive, um,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: you know, deer doing sometimes deer and doing things sometimes
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: that really go contrary to what we think they're doing.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Believe you know, after years of hunting, they're doing. So yeah,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I struggle with those saying questions. As a hunter, I
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: still would maybe it's just because of the mosquitoes. I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: still would rather be out there on that you know,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: twenty degree morning in November, um with calm, you know,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: calm clear skies than you know, eighty five degrees and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: burning a thermo cell and sweating. Um. Yeah, so I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, I can definitely relate to to that.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine having to use a thermo cell all
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: the year because man, that those couple of early season
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: hunts every year where there are mosquitoes, Hey, I hate
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: it and be thank goodness for thermo cells. This is
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: I guess we're kind of giving a strong endorsement here
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: for the thervice cell on unintended, but man, they do work.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: They were and it's you know, it's funny you say
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: that because thinking about hunting memories and culture and that
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. When I first started going my hunt
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: hunting with my dad, when I was a little and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: too you know, I was too small to carry again,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: I was just sitting on the deer stand with him,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: which is brings up another topic of hunter safety. How
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: we used to ply the trees with nobody I knew
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: on the safety harness. But I could climb up in
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: the lock on my dad and I'd sit at his
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: feet on the bottom part of the lock on and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: we you know, And that's how I'd go hunt with him.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: And there there was a product then. I don't know
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: if they still make it called muscall in U s
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: k O L. Have you ever heard of that? I
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: don't think I have. It was and it's a hund
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: percent deet I think, basically just what's in today's you know,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: bug repellents praise. But it was in a little plastic bottle.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: It was. It was kind of an oily tight liquid.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: You just put a little drops on your hand and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: rubbed it on your ears and your neck and your
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: your face to keep the bugs off. And the smell
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: of that stuff today, if I got a whiff of that, man,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: that would take me back. That's like for some people,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: you know, the smell of a comb and lantern and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: deer camp, or the smell of their woolning jacket or
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: for whatever. You know, everybody has those smells to take
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: them back to those memories. And for me, you know,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and I bet you you would find if you surveyed
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Southern deer hunters and said how many of you are
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: taken back by the smell of skeeter repellent, you know,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be a high percentage. But that's awesome, that's funny, interesting,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: it's it's that is definitely one of those. It's so funny.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, there's so many different small, you know,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: cultural things or application type of things just a little
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: bit different in the South that could have you know,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: larger implications or or our reflection of larger differences like that. Um.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: There was about seventeen things in the last like five
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: minutes that you mentioned that I want to dive into further. Um.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: One of those is we talked a little bit about
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: timing and how deer moved as an influencer, how deer
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: move in relation to different factors, and you talked about
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: the moon and the rut and how the rut seems
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: to be pretty consistent, you know, year after year, despite
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: what we may see. Um, I do know, and as
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I know, you mentioned earlier that the rut is a
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: little bit different in different places in the South. Can
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you elaborate on that a little bit. That's something we
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: haven't covered a ton in the past, But the rut
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: is definitely a totally different thing in the South, that seems,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: at least in parts of the South. Can you tell
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: us how it's different, why it might be different, and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: and what that means for hunting down there trying to
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: figure out how to hunt the rut? Yeah, UM, basically
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: kind of the under underlying machinery there is deer rut
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: um longer and at various times earlier later in the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: South because they can um in the north. You know
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: how it works that if um, given the extremes of
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: seasons and forage availability and the harshness of winter, UM,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that phone needs to hit the dirt at a certain
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: time period during the year and a fairly narrow window
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: to have you know, adequate forage for the mother and
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: the milk, and adequate forage for weaning, so that that
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: phone achieves a certain body side so that it can
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: survive the following winter. We don't have that. We don't
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: have that that pressure or survival survival pressure on on
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: farms in the South, and as you go further into
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Central America, it's it's even less so. And what you
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: find is down in Central America a white tell species
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: breed almost year round and again because they can because
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter when the phone hits the dirt. Uh,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: forage and winter and weather and climate are not going
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: to be a survival pressure in most cases. And you
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: see some different things here, like in in certain areas
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: that flood seasonally the Mississippi and in certain areas like
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: that that flood seasonally, or the Everglades of Florida where
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: breeding is timed with um putting fonds on the dirt
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: when they're not going to drown. UM, and they might
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: uh you know, breed at a completely different time. But
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: in general, as you go further south, UM it it
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: often the the breeding dates can spread out over time,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: and we certainly see that, UM we do have I believe,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: a less defined rut though certainly you know they're getting
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: the majority of the business done over two to three
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: weeks in November or whenever the peak might be in
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: a certain area, but they're that bell curve distribution of
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: early and late breeders is probably broader in the South.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: You've got a lot more earlier breeders, a lot more
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: late breeders. You know, we felt one of the places
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: a hunt in middle Georgia, we felt really strongly that
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: the rut was um, you know, pretty strong in the
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: first two weeks of November. That was kind of our
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: peak November one and November fifteen, and then late season
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: we killed a couple of those that did have fetuses
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: in them, and we did measure them and backdated them
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: to mid October UM. So you know, there's breeding going
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: on fairly early, fairly late at my family's land in
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: southeast Georgia. Down there the coast, like where I said,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: we have an earlier rut. It's in late October UM.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: And you see that in coastal Georgia and coastal South
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: Carolina and into Florida and along the Gulf Coast too,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: you see a October rut um. And again it's you know,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: mostly because historically they could do that, they could breed
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: that early and not worry about fawn survival and fawns
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: being born that early the following winter spring. So um uh.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: So you know at our my family's land in southeast
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Georgia where I said, they they're breeding mostly you know,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Halloween is a great time to be in the woods.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: The last two weeks of October great. But you know
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: we found fetuses that were conceived in um early sat
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Timber in late August. So um yeah there, and when
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: you get on down into Florida, it's even crazier. It is,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: you know, literally fourth of July. Um. As I wrote
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: in an article in the New Last or two is
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: years ago in Quality Wite Childs, I wrote about some
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: new research that's out on why this is why the
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: mixed up rut in the South and so many dates
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: all over the calendar, and literally fourth of July you're
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: in flip flops and some deer somewhere breeding in Florida. Um.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Now in Alabama, in Mississippi and Louisiana, you've got some
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: even later stuff where they're breeding into January and even February.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: And we think that has more to do with restocking,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: with moving some deer around them taking that photo period
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: trigger with them, you know, the day length trigger that
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: triggers breeding um and being moved from another area. Whether
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: it was up North or Central America, We're not sure.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: And they came into these areas and that daylight trigger,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: day length trigger now was triggered on a different day
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: in the calendar, because, as you know, day links very
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, right now, where you're sitting in Michigan, your
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: day is gonna be shorter than my day here in Georgia.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: So daylink is always different wherever you are in terms
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: of latitude. UM. And so that trigger was triggered at
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: a different time for those deer once they were moved.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: And so these deer in Alabama these other areas that
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: rut late had a trigger for whatever reason that um,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: you know, led to them breathing late. And they did
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: not have a climate control like you have in the North,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: where harsh winter would would tend to thin out any
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: falls that came from those genetics. They didn't have that.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: So those dates persist today. UM. What are some of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the hunting season lengths down south? I think I remember
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: hearing someone say that there are certain seasons or certain
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: states that for the very earliest you can hunt, maybe
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: for archery, is in September and it lasts all the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: way into February. Yeah, it varies. Um in like in Alabama,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: for example, in Mississippi and those states that do have
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: those extreme late ruts, they really don't get into their
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: hunting seasons until later and they will hunt through January. UM.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: I think there's even some effort here afoot in Alabama
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: lately to try to extend the season, or maybe they
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: did successfully extended into early February because hunters were saying,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: look these they are still running and we got a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: quit hunting. Um So, but in in uh, Yeah, in
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Georgia where I am, we end up. Our bow season
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: usually comes in around mid to third week of September,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: and then we hunt four to five weeks. Sometimes we
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: get a and then we get a muzzle over primitive weapons.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: We bolted onto that before gun season comes in in
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: uh the twentieth somewhere and there of October, uh, and
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: then we we have all three firearms, bow and primitive
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: weapons until early first or second weekend of January, and
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: then we shut it down. South Carolina is even longer
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: with their gun season, and they're you know known for this. Uh,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: it's insane. The season comes in August. Rifle season, Uh,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and so it's the longest I believe long. This firearm
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: season in the nation Uh runs um like we do
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: all the way through January. Um. And so yeah, you'll
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: see people in there look like they're going dove hunting,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: or at least dove hunting in the South, where you've
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: got shorts and a T shirt and your boots on
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, a coooner full of cold drinks
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: going deer hunting. So um. But they start August fifteen.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah, traditionally in the South, we have we do
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: have longer seasons, uh for the most part. Um. That's
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: a surprise often to Southern hunters who find out, you know,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: man like in Pennsylvania where you've only got a week
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: or two weeks, or any other midwestern northern Eastern states
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: where the firearms hunting is so much briefer, um, which
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: of course leads to a lot of the traditions you
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: have there, like school shutting down for you know, the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: opening day because it is such a short window and
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: everybody's in the woods. Um. And certainly opening day of
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: gun season and the other seasons is a big event
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: here for us. UM. But it's a little bit more
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: relaxed in that you know, if open day of gun
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: season is October twenty something and it's gonna be a
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: de degrees and you know, you're not that fired up
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: about it. A lot of us go for the tradition
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: of you know, I certainly do, I'm never gonna miss
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: an opening day and tell you that whether it's bow
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: or gunn um. But there's also the uh relief in
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: knowing that, hey, if you go open a weekend you
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: don't see anything, it's okay. You got November in the
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: rut coming, and a lot of hunting in December and
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: even in the January if you need it. So so
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: so given the fact that a lot of these states
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: down there have such so much longer firearm seasons from
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: what I've heard and what it sounds like you mentioned there,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: would you say that there is a significantly different amount
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: of hunting pressure on these deer and is that changing
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: their behavior compared to what you hear about in some
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: of these other states the Midwest and Northeast. Yeah, it's
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: a good question. I'm not sure I've seen any data
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: on that. Um. Certainly we've seen centy of data that shows,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: just like deer everywhere, that they do respond to pressure.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: You can anticipate how they will respond to it fairly accurately.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: You can change your hunting strategies to ensure your hunting.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: You know, areas or deer that aren't seeing that kind
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: of pressure or the pressure has kept to a minimum
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. But yeah, certainly we know that when
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: I know, speaking for Georgia and looking at the data
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I've seen on this before, that then we can A
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: gun season is you know, pretty much a spike in
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: participation um. And then you'll often see a spike. UM.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: You'll see you no no, we one weekend in November will
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: probably be pretty high, and then you'll see a spike
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: around Thanksgiving when you know a lot of people have
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: time off and they're going deer hunting, but none of
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: it really compares to the number of people in the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: woods on opening day. Um. And then it of course
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: falls off into December because by then you know the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: ruts over. Um, you got holidays and family functions coming up. Uh.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Some people just got they got their venison now and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: the freezer. They're good, they got their buck um, or
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: they're just you know, moving on to other things or whatever.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: It's certainly drop off in December UM and you could
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: play those patterns if you wanted to, but you know,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: we're still dealing with the same issues that you have
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: anywhere you have white tails, which is it's post rut.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: The bucks are, you know, trying to recover. You can
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: work some post rut patterns in terms of food UM
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: and but if you you at that point, you have
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: to have a food plot or an area with food
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: at that time of year that hasn't already been pressured
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: into the dirt UM and that can be a good
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: strategy is to plant some food plots and set those
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: aside and not hunt them until you know, put them
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: in something like a brass core or a cereal grain
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: that will be productive still at least in the South
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: UM into December and January, and put it off limits,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: don't hunt it, don't le anybody else on it, and
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: just tell them this is our late season, you know,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: post rut. Find a buck uh strategy here UM. But again,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: in most areas by that time it's been pressured pretty
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: heavily and it can be tough. It can be very
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: tough to find a pattern on the bucks, especially UH
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: post rut in the South on that on that food
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: plot topic. I ask two questions. Number one, are there
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: any unique things you need to consider when planning food
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: plots in the southern part of the country. Number one,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: I guess, well, let's just go there food plots. Is
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: there anything unique when it comes to the food plot
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: standpoint the people in the south, and you'll be thinking
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: about different than than I do up here in Michigan. Um,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: not really. We certainly got a longer growing season and
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: that that affects you know. That's one of the things
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: I had to learn was was the difference between you know,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: a warm season food plot in south versus North that
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: in the you know, in the North, you guys, and
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: many areas can grow clover spring planet, and we can't
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: do that here in Georgia. It will burn up in
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: the summer. Um, it won't. And unless you've got it
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: in somewhere very moist or shady where it can survive
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: through the summer. But a large, you know, food plot,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: half acre acre of clover is not going to make
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: it through the summer. You need to be planning it
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: in the fall, um and and getting it started that way. Um.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: So clover, you know, is not really a warm season
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: planting for us, and I know it works that way
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: in a lot of other examples. Even brassicas and cereal
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: grains and other things like that can be planted um
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: during the summer in the north, and we can't do
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: that here. But at the same time, our growing season
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: extends further into hunting season. We're not We're not seeing
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: plots shut down. You know, our our earliest frosts are
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: coming in uh and freezes are coming in November at best.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: And you know this past year it was even December
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: and later before, particularly in southern Georgia and in the
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Deep South, before we saw any serious cold this year.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: So you know, those plots are are continuing to grow
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: and be productive. And and by the time late season
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: comes around late December la January, you know those braskas,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: those cereal grains or whatever are really kicking it, and um,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: you know it can be be a good strategy and
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: the deer not having to pick through snow to find it,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: So you know, we're not seeing that. I'm sitting here
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: by the way looking at a buck on my wall
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: that was um I killed him in two thousand four.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: He's my best buckever. I killed him on my family's
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: land in coastal Georgia. He at the time, he was
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: the number two buck in the county. Um, and that's
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: something we talk about two is is the importance of
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: measuring your success where you stand versus comparing it other regions.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: But which is important in the south. But he was
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: a number two buck in the county at the time.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: He's now I think number four. He's kind of bumped
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: on down the list in the in the more recent years.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: But um he uh. He netted one thirty nine, he
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: grossed one forty nine. He was five and a half
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: years old. I killed him on Christmas Eve and and
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: which is basically a dead zone for us in deer season.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: But it happened that year at our farm that we
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: had a food plot through whatever, you know, we had
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: set it aside to had brassicas in it that we
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: had planted. Um and it got very Yeah. I don't
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: think it had had any pressure at all during that
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: hunting season. My family members and ours and myself had
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: just not hit that for whatever reason that year. It
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't like we set it aside and said, don't hunting
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: this later, but through chance, it hadn't been hunted and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: me and my my family were heading to the farm
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: that Christmas Eve to be there with my dad for Christmas.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: And we out there, you know, shortly after months on
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: Christmas Eve and my son Jake was four at the time,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry six, he was six years old at the time,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: and he was just aching to go deer hunting and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: it was terrible weather. A front was coming through. It
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: was gonna rain all day on Christmas. It was nasty. Uh,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: it was already missing rain when we got there, and
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: it was kind of, you know, just ugly weather. Wind
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: was blowing and um, and I told Jake was like,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: it's kind of nasty. You're sure you want to go
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: deer hunt. He's like, yeah, let Dad, let's go, and
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: and thank goodness he did. And and my dad said,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: you all ought to go down to the swamp rug
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: is what we named this plot because nobody's been there,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: and uh, he said, I looked at it the other
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: day and the deer really hitting it. So we went
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: and thirty minutes later, outstepped this buck stood there. He
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: had a mouthful Nebraska when I shot him. So you know,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: to me, that example is um just what we were
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: just talking about, having a food plot or area set
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: aside with with the cool season forage in it something
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: that will be productive late, you know, when it might
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: be colder, um, and that has not been pressured, and
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: that could be your go to spot after the ruts over,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: after the bucks and those have all been pressured to death,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: and you know, the bucks were worn out and they're
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: looking for food. And there's no doubt that that front
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: I think played a role too, because the deal were
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: really moving that afternoon. It was nasty weather for a hunter,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: but but there was a long uh front coming through.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: The barometric pressure really was changing. And I really believe.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: Here we go again me saying something that kind of
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: is contradicted by the science, But I really believe that
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: that buck was there because uh, he needed food and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: and he was in an area that was not had
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: not been pressured. All right, now, given the fact that
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: we're on the topic of food plots, we need to
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: pause this conversation for just a quick minute for a
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: word from our sponsors of this episode, the White Tail
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: Institute of North America, and if you're not familiar, white
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: Tail Institute is one of the foremost food plot seed
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: companies in the country and the folks who run this
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: company are some of the most experienced food plot users
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: you'll ever find. So well, that said, today I wanted
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: to share an important food plot hip from White Toil
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: Institute employee John Cooner about the importance of soil tests. So,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: whether you hunt in the north, South, or in between,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: this is an important thing to learn about. The most
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: important thing you can do is a laboratory soil tenness,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: and we hammer and hammer and hammer about that. Uh.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: It is so critical for a couple of reasons. One
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: is for soil pH. That's the most important. This was
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: a big lightbulb that came on in my head when
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: I first understood this, I went, oh, my gosh, used
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: to be we plan a food blot. Didn't look too good,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Throw some more fertilizer on it. When I finally figured
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: out what soil pH means, I guess is the word
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: It really turned on the light bulb for me. It's
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: basically a measurement of how well a plant can get
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: nutrients out of the soil. Okay, and different plants have
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: different ranges that are that are optimum for most high
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: quality deer for just like to have soil pH around
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: six point five to seven point point five, right, and
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: then we'll just call that new utral for our purposes. Um,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: most fallow soils are lower than that there is citic.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: And what happens is this, the lower the soil pH
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: goes below the optimum range for the plant the plants
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you're putting in, the more the nutrients and the soil
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: are bound up in a way the plants can access them.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: And I'll give you I'll give you an example of
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: how that works. Let's say you had a soil with
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: a food plot with soil with soil pH of five
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: point and you went out there and you bought a
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks worth the fertilizer, put it out and planted
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: a high quality deer for it. You might as well
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: have just taken fifty dollars and thrown it down the
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: drain because the plants can't get about half the nutrients
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: in the fertilizer. So there you go. If you'd like
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: to learn more, you can visit whitetail Institute dot com.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: And now let's get back to the show. Yeah. I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: think that's a great piece of advice for for lot
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: of areas in general, just having you know, keeping an
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: area like that safe and pressure free till later in
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: the season when you know so many of these deer
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: are searching out trying to find somewhere they can get
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: to away from all the hunters. And if that happens
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: to be on your property where you can hunt, um,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: you can have a significantly greater my success than a
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: lot of the other people in your area that don't
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: have that kind of safe place left. Um takes takes
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit of self control, but I think it
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: can really pay off. And it doesn't necessarily have to
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: be a food plot. You know, a lot of people,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: particularly these hunters I'm talking about, that are on a
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: hunting lease, um you know we're public land or whatever
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: looking at me and saying, yeah, you had that private
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: farm or you had a food plot you can set aside.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: And this is true, but it doesn't necessarily have to
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: be a food plot, you know, because, like we said
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: in the Hunting Clubs, in that inner scenario where you
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: have UM put as many guys on there as you
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: can to keep these raised down for everybody, and there's
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: not a lot of spare room you can there's not
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of ability to plan a food plot and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: say nobody touched this till December. That can be tough
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: to do um, and particularly on public land too. So
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be a food plot. Those places
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: are still there. You need to break out the map
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: and you need to ask yourself, what's the ugliest place
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: on here that nobody's hunted, that everybody said at that
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: place sucks, I'm not going there, or you know, for
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, didn't go there, And that's where you can go.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: Don't have to be a Braska food plot. It might
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: be a thicket. It might be just some rugged hillside
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: that people didn't want to bother going down UM, and
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: that can be it can do the exact same thing.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: There's a gray story I encountered a few years ago,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: back before I worked for q M a UM writing
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: about a kid who killed this massive buck. He was
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: in a hunt club with his dad. You know. The
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: morning came, he went to the pennin board and he
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: had his heart set on a particular stand. He knew
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: where he was going, and when he got to the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: pin up board, a member of the club had already
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: put his pen in that stand. Of course, the kid's
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: heart was broken, but nothing they could do, that was
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: the rules. His dad couldn't say anything. That was the rules.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: A member of the club had gotten there to the
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: pin up board before the kid did, and there were
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: no other stands left, no other you know, quote good
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: spins up. So this kid literally just in in kind
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: of frustration, jabs his pen in this clear cut um
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: right next to the camp, grabs his climber and beats
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: his way through the brush and the dark um literally
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: a stone throw outside camp, until he finds a tree
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: you can climb, gets up in it, daylight comes up,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: and what's the first thing you see, this monster block.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: And it's such a great example. Here's all these other
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: stands that everybody thought were to quote good stands. They
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: were fighting over him when somebody could have gone into
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: this nasty clear cut nobody wanted to hunt and had
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: not hunted all year right there by the camp and
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: killed this buck. That's a perfect, perfect example of that.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: That's such an I think that probably happens a lot
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: where you have I think a lot of these. You
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: see these examples where a random young person or random
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: new hunter you know, shoots this ginormous buck because they
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: just chose to go some willing only place that nobody
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: else ever thought of hunting, and that's where the big
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: deer are because they've been avoiding all these other quote
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: unquote smart hunters who have been hunting the good spots
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: over and over and over. Um. Then the new guy
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: goes to the unhunted spot and there you go. Yeah,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: that's a great story. So, so you mentioned food plots
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: and you mentioned some different habitat things. Right. I want
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: to make one note for anyone looking for really for
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: a really great food plot resource, you need to take
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: a look at a book that Lindsay, I believe you
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: edited and contributed to correct me if I'm wrong, but
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: Quality Food Plots, published by the QUM is the best
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: food plot book and resource I've ever seen. So so
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: right there, I mean you have to check that book
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: out if you are trying to, you know, better utilize
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: food plots or get into food plots. Um. I'm correct
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: on that, Lindsay, Right, you did contribute and or edit that, right. Yeah.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: Myself and Kent Camermeyer who's wildlif bologist, and Dr Carl
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Miller from the University of Georgia who's a professor of
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: wildlife ecology, we were the three editors on it um
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: and we you know, I appreciate you, you you know the
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: compliment on that, And all I can tell you is
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: what we did was sit down and say, you know,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: the phone, all these rings at qt m A with
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: people asking food plot questions, and we said that gunt,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: let's put together or resource that will answer all of
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: these questions that we answer over and over and over
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: every day on the phone. Um. So that was the
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: goal of the book was a food plot guide for
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: wherever you're staying in north, south, east west UM no
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: matter your soils, to basically take it from soil um
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: to plant planting techniques, to understanding the animal and what
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: it's after to eat all of that, and then of
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: course you know all the various species you can potentially plant.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: That's that's how we put it together. Yeah. Well, I
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: think you definitely achieved that goal of of covering almost
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: any question that somebody could possibly come up with. When
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: I when I first got into food plotting, that was
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: one of the first things I read and it just
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: it put me in such a great position to succeed
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: and have a good start. So highly recommend that to
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: anyone out there with that type of interest. UM. Now
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: I want to flip the page A little bit on
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: that you mentioned you know, food plots aren't the only
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: way you can, you know, have this great late season
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: honey hoole or whatever it might be. Um. When I
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: when I hear what you've talked about when it comes
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: to habitat in the South, you mentioned there's lots of cover,
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: lots of new cover. Um. With that being said, other
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: types of habitat improvements other than food plots, are they
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: less important in the South compared to maybe up here
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: because up here there's a lack of cover. So improving
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: our cover is a really important thing in a lot
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: of areas. Is that? Is that not true in the
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: South or what are other habitat improvements of importance there? Well,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: it's you're right, we've got kind of this um, you know,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: cover everywhere you look, um, and it it makes it tough.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: As I said on on the hunting on predicting dear movements,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: I mean he could even makes it tough shed hunting,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: I have. I have found sheds in two primary locations,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: one in food food plots, cool season plots, which of
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: course we all know that you know that's one of
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: the places you want to look any place, but would
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: have been feeding after you know, at the time he's
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: gonna be shedding those antlers. And the second one is
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: in woods we have just burned. A big part of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: my shed collection includes antlers that are blackened from fire
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: because you know, other than that, it's just pure luck
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: that you step on the shed because of all the
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: cover um, you know fires of those things. We use
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: it to maintain, um timber, you know, the forest industry
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: uses it for timber, but it is great for wildlife.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: I love hunting turkeys in an area that has just burned,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: where the new green growth is coming back, and that's
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: something we do commonly. And it's interesting to me that
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: I don't see that as much in the North, except
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: maybe burning you know, grasslands CRP there. UM. I saw
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: some data the other day, um from the I believe
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: it was the Prescribed Fire Council, and it said some
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: data from where, um, you know, in the total acreage
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: burned with cry fire nationwide was eleven million acres. Eight
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: million of those were in the southeast. So for example,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: in that year in Georgia we burned over one million
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: acres with prescribed fire. Uh. In Michigan, your home state,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: you guys burned fifteen thousand acres that year with prescribed fire,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: So you know, north to south, prescribed fire is something
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: we use a lot. And again we wouldn't find many
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: sheds with out it, but um um we use that regularly,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: and I think it's something that could be used more
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: in the North. Um. As I've heard Dr Craig Harper
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: say before though, and it's the truth. Fire really doesn't
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: do much for you if there's no sunlight. So if
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: you while you could burn, say i'm ature hardwood, stand
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: carefully and not damage the hardwoods, if there's no sunlight
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: hitting the ground, the fire doesn't do much for you.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: The fire, the fire sets back that understory, disturbs the
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: soil a little bit, gives you that flush of growth
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: from the seed bank, but if there's no sunlight in
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: the ground, it's not gonna help. So it really only
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: works in kind of timber stands that you have ten
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: um or clear cut recently where you're gettings or or
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: like a thinly plan to say long leaf pine stand
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: or something like that, where you're getting a lot of
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: sunlight on the ground. Um. And I know that in
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: the North and the Midwest, fire is may be made
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: more difficult by local regulations or state regulations. By you
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: know the fact that it's just traditionally not used or
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: or discouraged even by state agencies. And there's not as
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: much support as we having the South. I mean here
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: in the South, the state forestry agencies will really help
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: you in a big way get fire done, uh and
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: done safely. And I know we don't have you don't
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: have as many resources there, but fire is one of those, um,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: unique things. So but yeah, in general, like you said,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: we're not we don't have the need to produce a
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: lot of cover and certainly not bed and cover, um
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: or fawning, you know, particular types of cover and less
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: than everywhere. You know, there's certainly can be areas where
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: it's lacking through traditional management on a particular property. I mean,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: every property can be different. But we're generally not having
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: to go out there and produce cover. We are trying.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: We are having to do things like change what that
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: cover is in for example, invasive species um because our
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: growing season is so long compared to the North where
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm sitting here looking out the window at
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: at green leaves butting right now, um, and you know
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: it goes right on into the fall, you know, before
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: we have any hard frost that slow that down. We
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: get a long growing season. That's a good thing in
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: some ways, good for you know, producing foraging cover, good
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: for producing timber, which is why we got a lot
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: of the history there in timber management and timber company
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: land ownership. UM. But it's also good for producing you know,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: private and cud zoo and um autumnlive and and all
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: the other um invasive species that are uh a problem,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: that are counterproductive to good dear habitat. And so a
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: lot of what we do is removing those species, killing
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: private um, even killing a lot of sweet gum, which
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: is a native tree, but it's kind of the U
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: cud zoo of the tree world. It um here in
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: the South. I mean, it pops up. It's the first
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: species to pop up in any disturbed ground, any cutover,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: clear cut logging deck, you know, fire break trail, whatever
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: sweet gum is gonna respond um and it will quickly
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: picking up, choke out and and beat out all the
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: other desirable tree and shade the ground. And for years
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a locked out understory, you know. And
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: that's true whether it's wet gum or automoleve or a
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: private head that you know, private bay that has kind
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: of headed out and and it's h ruining the understory.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: So a lot of what we do when it comes
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: to like you said, you know, managing habitat and cover
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: is controlling the unwanted stuff so that the good stuff
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: can grow. Yeah. Yeah, definitely definitely some different things there.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: The gosh, the that statistics you shared about the difference
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: in burning from north to south is really interesting, and
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: I think, like you mentioned, there's there's definitely some tradition
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: or cultural differences there where it just isn't such a
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: common practice here because just other people haven't done it. Um.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: But to your point, now, I've never done prescribed burns myself,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: but hearing from so many people like yourself and others Dr.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: Grant Woods or whoever it might be, there, there just
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: seemed to be so many benefits there that if you
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: can pull it off, there really does seem to be
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: some some value there. Um. It is, you know, basically
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: it is. It's just another tool for rotating and turning
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: over forest succession, just like um we were talking about
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: earlier with the timber practices, Just like finding timber cutting,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: timber clear cuts, whatever, all of that is UM doing
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: the same thing that you know a hinge cut does,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: or any other UM aspect of timber management that is
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: turning back time on that forest succession, changing an old,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: mature canopied forest with no understory back into a young
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: forest that encourages shrubs and vines and forbes and briars
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: and all the good stuff that deer hide in and
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: brows on. UM and fire is just another tool for that. Yeah,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: and that's that's a great, great advice for anyone no
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: matter what region you're in trying to achieve that type
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: of goal. Whether it's the fire or another tool, that's
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: something that's going to definitely help the deer in your area.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: And uh, if you if you can adjust to that
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: with your hunting strategy, can help your hunting to uh
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: den what what what are you wondering over there? Where's
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: where's your hat done? All this? I'm just absorbing everything.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: I I uh, you know, like you said at the
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: very beginning, there's definitely a lot of UM differences, but
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of similarities too. Yeah, a lot we
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: can apply a lot said, it's it's the little things
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: you know now, speaking of UM, something you mentioned a
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: little while ago that just stuck in my head. I
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: took note of it. You we've been talking about some
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: of the different studies, taking a step away from habitat
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: maybe UM you mentioned some of the different studies. I
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: know that. I believe that you went to the Southeast
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: Deer Study Group recently, which is, as I understand, kind
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: of an event where all sorts of researchers and various
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: folks in the deer world come together and share different insights, discoveries,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: research results from over the past year or so. UM.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: What stood out to you from that event this past year, lindsay,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: is there anything any new research that stood out to
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: that that you found particularly interesting, maybe that's relevant to
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: the South or or anywhere. Yeah. UM, there's always good
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: stuff there. UM. Sometimes some of it can be, UM
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: seem repetitive because you know the way that that science works,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: and it's a good thing for all of us, UM,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: whether you're talking about disease research, for human disease research
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: or deer research. UM is somebody does a study, they
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: look at something, and then often that study is replicated
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: somebody else does it to see if they get the
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: same or similar or different results. And over time, you know,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: that's how we kind of get dialed in on certain information. Uh,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: it's happening with coyote predation. As somebody kind of discovered, man,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: coyotes are really whacking the fonds in this location. A
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: lot of people started doing coyote studies as well as
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: to see in different areas or under different circumstances where
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: they're finding the same thing. So sometimes it can be repetitive.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: You're hearing somebody give, you know, a talk on something
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: that kind of news three, four or five years ago.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: But it's just as important that um these you know,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: follow up and studies be done to confirm. I mean,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: the the analogy I always use is, um, you know,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: putting bullets on paper and looking at your group and
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: if you you know, if you've got a six shots
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: in a in a one or two inch group, you
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: know you're looking pretty good. But if one of those
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: went off to the left somewhere, you know, you know,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: your rifle's not grouping off to the left. That was
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: an outlier and and scientific studies can be it worse
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: the same way. The more studies you've got grouping in
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: that type group. Um, the more you feel confident about
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: the findings in the takeaways from that study. So this
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: year there was a lot of a lot of you know,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: more information about coyotes, uh, you know, reaffirming some of
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: the things we we thought we knew already. Um. There
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: was some cool stuff on buck movements. Um. Again reaffirming
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: some of the stuff we saw. There was a couple
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: of new studies looking at hunting pressure that were cool
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: and had a lot of neat new angles. But in
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: the end kind of told you I could I could
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: tell you Mark there was uh. And then there's a
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: couple of studies on hunting pressure. What do you think
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: they found? You know, and probably tell me, well, you know,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: deer was spond to hunters and and you can go
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: where hunters aren't or at times hunters aren't and some
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: more deer and I'd say, yep, you got it. So um.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: But it's it's always interesting to see these studies come
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: out with stuff that's useful to deer hunters, and you know,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: and that's why we're there. You know. One of the
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: one of the ones that jumped out to me was
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: a study out of Texas by Aaron Foley working at
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: Texas A and M Kingsville where he did a bunch
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: of looked at data from a lot of buck harvests
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: over a lot of years, and and data that they
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: had and found that, you know, the the average five
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: and half year old buck loses of his body masks
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: from the pre rut to the post rut. That's just
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: incredible to me. That is, you know, a two pound
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: man dropping to a hundred and fifty pounds in two months. Um.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: So that kind of stuff to me always is very
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: very neat. So it sounds like if there was a
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: limited breeding season, a lot of guys would be a
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: lot thinner these days. That's right. If you had to
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: chase him, yep, you say, we just run from this,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: we'd all be a lot for me and Dan. That
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: might have been the case already. Jeez, that's interesting, very interesting.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to disrupt your your story. That was
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: there any more on that research study you wanted to share? Um? No,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: there's an article on at qt may dot com on
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: the homepage. Is it is linked the of you know,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: the ten stats. I think, um, In fact, I think
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: you made your Friday Morning mash up the week I
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: put it out and I appreciate that, but it's the
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: ten kind of big number of takeaways that I brought
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: home from dear study group. If anybody wants to see
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: more on that, definitely, well we'll make sure to link
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: that again in the in the blog post for this
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: show as well, because there was some great stuff there, UM,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: and that that really you know, looking at the body
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: white and I don't want to I don't know if
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: we're getting short from time. I don't want to hit
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: you off. But that brought up another point to me
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: about North South is dear body sizes. UM. I think
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of hunters don't realize that both whether you're
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: talking about a Southern hunter going north or northern hunter
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: coming south, we don't realize sometimes the difference in average
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: body sizes. UM. We certainly have areas in the South,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: some of the richer soils, the Black Belt of Alabama,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: the Mississippi Valley where you know, even the Georgia Piedmont
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: where you can sometimes get deer on the order of um,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: midwestern and northern body sizes. But for the most part,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: you know Georgia Coast, Florida, you know the Gulf Coast. UM.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: A lot of these areas coast to North Carolina is
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: much of the same situation we're talking about, um, much
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: smaller deer. You know, I've even seen I remember a
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: couple of years back, a staff member got an adult
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: though with his bow here at QB MAY headquarters in Athens,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: and we put it on Facebook, and you know, there
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: were a lot of comments like, you know, wtf, what
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: you know, what you want to what you want to
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: shoot the baby deer for dude, And and it's like,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: it's not, you know, it's an adult deer. This is
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: an adult though here in Georgia, And yeah, I understand,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: and it's it's smaller. But I think many times people
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: don't don't realize that that Like in coastal Georgia where
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: I hunt debt um, the average mature buck that we
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: kill is always it seems like gonna hit right around
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: a hundred sixty sixty pounds on the hoof, um. And
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: that's a very good deer down there where we are.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: You know, a dough is gonna be running eighty to
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: a hund pounds um as an adult, and that's I
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: don't know what I would do. In fact, the buddy
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: of mine from Jacksonville Florida. Phil Bancroft, who hunts both
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: in Florida and Georgia and hunts annually in Illinois with
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: a friend who's an outfit are there. You know? He
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: told me the heartest his heart ever beat was when
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: he was sitting there at fifteen yards looking at a
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: you know, two hundred and twenty pound mature Illinois buck. Um.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: It just blew me away. So I can't I would.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: I hope one day I get to see that. It
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: definitely does sound different, That's for sure. There's a there
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: are some big body deer up here in this part
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: of the country. And I'm glad you brought this whole
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: uh difference between northern and southern deer or deer in
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: different regions in general, because it brings us back to
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: a point you kind have touched on real briefly earlier
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: in our conversation, which was this idea of how we
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: set goals or expectations. Um, And I asked, I want
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on that. Can you tell me a little
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: b about number one? How are in addition to body says,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: how do you see dear in general being different in
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: the South, maybe from antler characteristics or age structure. And
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: then number two, how would you say that should influence
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: or what would your recommendation be for Southern hunters when
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: it comes to setting goals and expectations given those realities. Yeah, well,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: I mean you kind of just summed it up that
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: that we have everybody wherever you stand. I mean it
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: can be even within your state of Michigan, UM, or
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: naming any other Midwestern state, any other than any state
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: within that state, you're going to have microregions where deer
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: produce different things than they do in others, even county
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: to county sometimes where you can't expect to produce a
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: deer of equality that you know another area might produce. UM.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: Georgia has those areas, just like I mentioned. You know, dear,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: we can produce bigger body, bigger antlers here in the
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: Piedmont of Georgia where I work, then we can in
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: coastal Plain, Georgia, where my family's land is. But if
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: you understand those limitations locally and you measure your success
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: by that, UM, you know you you won't be disappointed.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: Just like we're fortunate here in Georgia that UM. The
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: magazine George Outdoor News, which is like I said who
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: I used to work for. They have for years collected
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: officially scored bucks in Georgia and organized them by county.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: And it's a resource you can go look at and
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: see what are the top ten bucks in your county
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: by net score. UM. And that's a great uh yardstick
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: to use, um because rather than worrying about man and I,
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: you know, we just can't. I just had never seen
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: a one fifty class buck like they see up in
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: Middle Georgia, or you know, a one seventy like they
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: see in Illinois or Constant or some other state. But
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: if you looked at your you know, if you had
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: access to a record book locally, or even if you
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: could just kick around a little bit talk friends and
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: who the best buck you know you know of in
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: the county and had some sense of the top end
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: production in your the county. That's a great uh kind
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: of water mark to go by a high water mark
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: and know that, you know, if we're putting a buck
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: every now and then in the top ten in the county,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: you know you're doing great. And in fact, you know
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: where I hunt my family's land. We are now. Um.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: If you look at the top ten bucks in the county.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: About half of them have come on our farm or
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: adjacent to it, killed by friends of ours who also
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: practice quality deer management like we do. UM, so that
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: can be you know, man, that's a that is a
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: very cool thing to know that you're producing some of
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: the best bucks in the county. UM, especially when if
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: you took the number one buck you've ever killed and
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: he was just pale in comparison to other counties, to
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: the best counties in your state, and certainly to the
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: best counties in other states. UM, that gives you something
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: to you know, to be happy about. To measure your
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: progress at uh in a very realistic goal for anybody
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: anywhere you stand to you know, UM, and it goes
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: by age. You know, you've got to do it by
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: age and protect the younger bucks if you're looking at
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: body sides and aner sizing in any deer, but in
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: particular bucks, if you're looking for the upper end of
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: of what you know your your deer can produce antler wise, UM,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: you've got to be a realistic and understand by age
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: is how you're going to get there. But measuring it
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: locally is the way to go. I don't care where
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: you are. I don't care if you're in Michigan or
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: Aiowa or Ohio or Georgia. Yeah. I think that's such
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: a great advice. It's it's so easy today to be
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: and and I think I'm as guilty as anyone, because
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: you know, anyone, I guess in the hunting related media
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: is a little bit responsible for this. We We've shared
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: so many pictures and stories and videos or the TV
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: you know, TV shows where you see these these giant bucks,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: and it just seems like it's so easy. But in
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: most cases, for the average deer hunter, you know, those
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: types of situations and deer are not too terribly realistic
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: in a lot of cases. And if we're setting our
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: goals and our hopes and dreams and expectations based on
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: you know what Mark Drury killed in southern Iowa, I
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: think a lot of us are gonna be pretty frustrated
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: and disappointed when we don't have that same type of
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: deer on our farms. So I love the idea of
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: looking at a local top end and shooting for that
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: and striving to improve, you know, improve what you're already doing,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: maybe but doing in a more realistic fashion. Um. I
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: think that's terrific, terrific advice. Yeah, I mean not to
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: begrudge anybody. They're great buck I mean, I mean I
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: love looking at them, just like anybody else does. UM.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: But when he turns to back to you looking at
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: your trail camera pictures and hanging your stands and looking
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: at the deer you're seeing in the woods and deciding
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: if you're disappointed or not, you've got to remember to
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: where those local eyeglasses and um. And the other thing
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: too is pull edge all bone every set of anglers
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: in my office. I'm sitting here looking at right now,
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: um European mounts and then the one shoulder mount. I mean,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: I've got the jawbone hanging with it. Because they were
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: all four and a half or five and a half
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: years old. They were an age that I was shooting for.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of a point I always like to
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: drive home, is I don't care where you are. I
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: don't care about it or score or body size or
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: where you're spending A four and a half five and
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: a half year old buck up is a rare animal anywhere,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: and not an easy animal to see or kill. And
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: if that jaw bone says he was physically and fully mature. Um,
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: then you should be proud of that, and that's an achievement.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: I don't care what he scored, Um, you know, I
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: don't care. Even if he scored low for your average
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: in your area, that was still a very tough deer
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: to produce and a tough deer to see and to hunt.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: And you ought to be proud of that. And that's
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: why I encourage everybody save that jaw bone. If you
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: don't know how to age it, get somebody who knows
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: how to help you with that and teach you to
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: do it. Um, and hang that jaw bone up with
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: those antlers. That's just as much of the story. Yeah,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: that's a really great idea. I really should do a
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: better job of keeping those job bones, because, like you said,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: it really does come down to age so much of
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: what makes that dear special and a challenge to hunt
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: and produce and see. You know, it's not necessarily you know,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: sure antlers are great and they're fascinating and their their
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: off them to see, but it really comes down to
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: how old that deer is, what they are able to survive,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: what they learned, and that's that's what translates into such
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: a challenging, fulfilling hunt. Uh so, so I love that
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: and I guess kind of related to that. You know,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: we have to wrap things up here. But given what
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: you do for the Quality Deer Management Association, if you know,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: for someone who's listening today that's not a member of
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: the Quality Deer Management Association, you know, there's there's sometimes
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: a live misconceptions about the q DUM A UM, there's
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: some people maybe that just don't know much about it.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Is there anything you'd like to tell those people today
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: that that aren't members yet that you think they really
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: should understand or maybe why they might want to consider
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: being a member? You know, now that you have a
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: we have a little extra time here. Anything you want
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: to share on that standpoint? Oh boy, we almost need
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: to do know the show if you want to talk
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: about the misconceptions not only of q d m A,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: but of Quality Deer Management in general and what it's about,
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: and that really is why we exist, is too you know,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: educate folks on that hopefully just you know, to someone
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: who listened to this podcast up at this point, what
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: you gathered is I'm a deer hunter. You know, I'm
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: a deer hunter who hunts public land, private land. I
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: understand and do a lot of the same things you do,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: and experience the culture and appreciate the same things. And
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: I'm a dear geek. I love learning about them. I
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: love the science. And that's really what we're about. Um.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: You know, we we talk about how we measure success
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: in memories, not anchies of inches of antler. And uh again,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with Crockett score or antler. We all love
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: a big buck too, but there is so much more
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: to it and so many more memories that come from
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: hunting a tuned up deer herd, and you know, sharing
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: that resource and learning about the animal together with other
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: deer hunters, and and that's that's what we're about, you know,
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: we're about And in the broader picture, qu MA works
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: to ensure we always have those opportunities to have that
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: hunting heritage and then it lasts forever, not just that
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: we can hunt them, but that we we can have
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: quality dear populations and sustainable dear populations and a place
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: to hunt them in a way to hunt them. Um.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's a group that if you
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: believe in deer hunting and you want it to be
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: around um, you should be in for that. But the
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: side bonus is we're gonna teach you a heck of
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: a lot about deer and how to have better deer
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: hunting where you stand, just like we've been talking about today, UM,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: that you can have the best deer and the best
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: most exciting deer hunting where you you sit. UM through
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: some of the things that we've learned about deer and
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: that we'll share with you. Yeah. Well, I, uh I
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: can echo those sentiments from from an unbiased point of view.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: You know, I am a member, but I'm not obviously
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: a member of the staff or anything. I gotta tell
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: you that what Lindsay and his team are doing from
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: an education standpoint and and all the other things that
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: that the cut May does is really an incredibly positive
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: thing for the deer hunting community. UM. So I would
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: just you know, uh, I would encourage you, if you're
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: not already a member, take the five minutes go to
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: qtum dot com and sign up. I think it's gonna
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: be really difficult for anybody to go and check out
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: what the QUTI may is doing and really look at
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: and see what they are actually doing and talking about
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: on their website. Straight from the source. I think anyone's
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: gonna have a really hard time going and looking at
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: that and seeing something that they can't get behind. I mean,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: it really is a tremendous organization and the work you
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: guys are doing is terrific, and like I mentioned early on,
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: the magazine itself, is worth the very small dudes that
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: you guys ask for every year. It's totally worth it
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: just for that. So visit qutu may dot com. I
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: urge you do that after you listen to this. I
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: think it's just one of the best decisions you'll make, um,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: you'll make when it comes to deer hunting. So, lindsay,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: is there anywhere else that our listeners should go to
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: to see what you guys are doing or to learn
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: about QDM or the organization at all? Yeah, I would
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: say talk to our grassroots. Folks are volunteers out there
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: in the branches that are in your community, UM, and
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: you can find that through the website you mentioned already.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: Q dum May. You know when you said that, it
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: hit me a lot of times when we hear people
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: who have misconceptions about us or a QTM, you find
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: out that it's because they really didn't know who we
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: were UM, And if you go and look at our message,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: you'll find that, you know, you might learn something that
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: was different than what you thought about us. So I
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: appreciate you promoting the website. It's it's a good place
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: to go and start. And then through the website you
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: can get in touch with our branches. We have a
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: branch directory map UM. We've got them all over the
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: country wherever there are white tails and find some of
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: these folks, reach out to them in your community. Go
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: see what they're doing, your neighbors and your community, and
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: what they are doing to educate other deer hunters, to
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: improve deer hunting UM, to work on habitat locally, to
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: ensure our hunting heritage, to take young hunters hunting for
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: the first time. There's so many great things that our
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: grassroots volunteers are doing out there, and they're your neighbors.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: So if you've got questions, you know, talk to those
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: guys UM, get to know them and and maybe you'll
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: find yourself getting involved. Yeah, that's that's a great idea
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: and a great recommendation. There's there's a whole lot of
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: people now that are that are part of this organization
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: all across the country that that that provide a kind
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: of network that you can tap into. I think that
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: I've personally been able to tap into that network here
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: locally and sign and have got to meet so many great,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: great friends and new people that that love deer hunting
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: just as I just as I do so in and
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: of itself, that right there is a great place just
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: to to build a better deer hunting network, um let
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: alone all the other things you can do. So so
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: lindsay thank you so much. This has been super interesting
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: and I think really helpful to to whether it be
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: hunters in the South or anywhere. I think we all
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: learned something today. Marcus, you appreciate it. This will This
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: will go down in the highlights of my career was
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: when I got to be on your podcast with you. Seriously,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: because I look you to it and it's gonna be
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: very cool to be a part of it. Well, I
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: Dan had to drop off because he had to go
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: pick up his kids. But if he was here, I
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: know he'd be laughing at that because he always likes
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: to give us a hard time about how nobody really
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: respects this. It's nice to hear that you do enjoy
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: what we're doing well, because you know I have. I
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: have enjoyed following your career from your you know, fairly
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: recent start and your bold moved to step out there
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: and do this full time. And I'm envious and an
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: admirer of yours and what you do. You do great
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: work and keep it up. And thanks for including me.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that, Lindsay means a lot, so thank
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: you again, so much. Again, everyone listening. I'll make sure
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: to include links to everything we've talked about on the
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: blog post. Be sure to check that out head to
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: qtum a dot com and Lindsay have a have a
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: great afternoon and hopefully a terrific shed hunting season or
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: scouting or food plotting season, whatever it is it's coming
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: up next for you. Saying to you all right, have
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: a good one. And with that we are going to
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: call this a rap. So before we shut things down, though,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: we need to give a big thank you to our
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: partners who helped make the Wired to Hunt podcast possible.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: So big thank you too, sick A Gear, Trophy, Ridge
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds on Terra Maps, Bosonics, Carbon Express,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of North America. Finally,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: and most importantly, thank you all for joining us today.
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this show and hopefully learn a
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: thing or two as well. So until next time, have
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: a great week and stay wired to hunt up