Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white tailed woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking to the hunting public's
Speaker 1: Aaron Warburton. All right, everybody, welcome to the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: You guessed it. This is not Mark Kenyon's voice. It's
Speaker 1: the old second stringer Tony. Mark is off recovering from
Speaker 1: a surgery that I guess doesn't sound too serious. Apparently
Speaker 1: he got a Brazilian butt lift so that he can
Speaker 1: fit into his saddle a little bit better and be
Speaker 1: a little bit more comfortable on those all day sits
Speaker 1: this fall. So I don't know, feel free to wish
Speaker 1: him a speedy recovery or whatever. Today I have the
Speaker 1: one and only Aaron Warburton on. Aaron is most well
Speaker 1: known for being the glue that holds the hunting public together,
Speaker 1: but he also happens to be an absolute white tailed slayer.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about the sign you should look for
Speaker 1: while winter scouting, and about the sign that probably won't
Speaker 1: do you much good even though it looks like it should.
Speaker 1: This is a really informative episode and I think you're
Speaker 1: gonna love it. And as I always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in war about you doing, buddy, I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good. I'm cold, but I think that counts
Speaker 1: with just being in the midst of winner. But you
Speaker 1: know all about that. I know all about it, buddy.
Speaker 1: This winter has been a long, long winter, and it
Speaker 1: makes me you know, you know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: this happens. You never know when you're getting old, but
Speaker 1: you start to have these little reminders. And I always thought, like,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up, you'd hear about somebody who was
Speaker 1: a snowbird, and I was like, that's so weird, Like
Speaker 1: you just go spend the winter in Arizona or Florida.
Speaker 1: And now I'm at the point where I'm like, how
Speaker 1: the hell can I make that happen? Because being up here,
Speaker 1: you know, locked in this arctic ship for five months,
Speaker 1: it's a lot, but it gives us a few opportunities
Speaker 1: with a deer, which isn't so bad. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. I'm in the same boat I ten twelve
Speaker 1: years ago. I was a young buck that you know nothing.
Speaker 1: I know, there was no mountain too big, you know.
Speaker 1: But now it's like four or five days a tent
Speaker 1: somewhere freezing my butt off. It's like, man, I need
Speaker 1: to really go somewhere to get some legitimate sleeper and
Speaker 1: there or two and regards my batteries. Yeah, I hear it.
Speaker 1: Part of your problem is probably having to manage that
Speaker 1: entire THHP crew there and kind of be the mother
Speaker 1: hend of the whole thing. Huh yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we got we got quite the litany of personalities amongst
Speaker 1: our group. Do you had that call this morning and like,
Speaker 1: it's just so so much diversity within our group and
Speaker 1: so many different perspectives. It keeps you on your toes though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys have I mean, you've done such a good
Speaker 1: job with that and you just expanded so much. But
Speaker 1: what's it like just with the you know, the content
Speaker 1: production that you guys have going on, you have to
Speaker 1: kind of feel like you're always like one step ahead
Speaker 1: of the combine and it's just running you down the
Speaker 1: whole time. Yeah, it always. It's always like that through
Speaker 1: the season, NonStop. This last year, we kind of trimmed
Speaker 1: back the amount of videos that we put out and
Speaker 1: we tried to do like a better job with them
Speaker 1: as far as the production goes. But they did pretty well,
Speaker 1: and I think the viewers. The viewers liked them, but
Speaker 1: I think they liked our old style more where we
Speaker 1: were just doing stuff. You know, as we went this
Speaker 1: last year, we gave ourselves like three or four days
Speaker 1: to get a video out, so that gave us more
Speaker 1: time to kind of relax and work on the video.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe instead of editing six hours every night,
Speaker 1: you're only editing a couple hours and then eventually getting
Speaker 1: it done. But I think we're going to go back
Speaker 1: to I don't know if that's for better or worse.
Speaker 1: It's definitely for worse on us to go back to
Speaker 1: editing videos every night, but um, people definitely seem to
Speaker 1: like that. They seem to get more value out of
Speaker 1: that from our at least our audience does. So I
Speaker 1: think that's what we're going to go back to. But
Speaker 1: to answer your question a long winded fashion is it's
Speaker 1: pretty trying. I lose I still lose ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: pounds every spring and every fall. Yeah, gets around Christmas
Speaker 1: and my face starts thinking in my mom's text to
Speaker 1: me every other day, like are you alive? Are you
Speaker 1: gonna make it? Like yeah, by it's it's a heavy
Speaker 1: lift man. And it might not be directly relatable to
Speaker 1: a lot of the audience when you say you gave
Speaker 1: yourself three or four days, or you gave you know,
Speaker 1: the crew three or four days to put out a video,
Speaker 1: you know, editing wise, and anybody who's ever edited a
Speaker 1: long form video knows that that's not very much time. Still,
Speaker 1: So when you when you crunch down, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a stress filled situation, over and over and over again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when you're thinking about the hunt and like just
Speaker 1: being on the road on one of these hunts. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like fifty percent of your time is just surviving,
Speaker 1: or fifty percent of your focus is just like what
Speaker 1: food do I have to eat today? Where am I
Speaker 1: going to sleep? Where it's dry? Do I have all
Speaker 1: my equipment in order? Do I have all my gear
Speaker 1: in order? What's the weather going to do tomorrow? How
Speaker 1: you know where am I going to hunt? All these
Speaker 1: things are going through your mind, and that is literally
Speaker 1: a full lift for somebody just on its own. And
Speaker 1: then you introduce like every night you've got to catalog
Speaker 1: this footage and then sit in the truck and you know,
Speaker 1: edit it and then find a way to get enough
Speaker 1: WiFi to upload it somewhere, either be it through your
Speaker 1: smartphone or a Starbucks that's thirty miles away. Like there's
Speaker 1: just a there's it's a lot. But that's that's why
Speaker 1: there's there's no way we could do it without our group.
Speaker 1: For an everybody has to wear a number of different
Speaker 1: hats and to get the job done. I think what
Speaker 1: you said there, uh the logistics of it of just
Speaker 1: one out of state hunt, Like, I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the sort of piece of the puzzle. We haven't really
Speaker 1: discussed a lot when we talk about hunt planning and
Speaker 1: doing you know, doing these over the road hunts and
Speaker 1: selling this idea that you should go try to shoot
Speaker 1: a deer over state line somewhere. Is just the amount
Speaker 1: of thinking you have to do, not only like we
Speaker 1: kind of boil it down like, oh, e scout, find
Speaker 1: your spot, get in there, you know, burn through there
Speaker 1: be mobile hunt and it's it's tied around that stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's not tied around like nearly it's tightly like
Speaker 1: where are you going to stay? And like what what
Speaker 1: food are you going to have? And how good of
Speaker 1: a sleep you know, pernight are you gonna get? Like
Speaker 1: all of these things. You know, if you get a
Speaker 1: flat tire or how do you get it? Like can
Speaker 1: you change it? Like where do you go for that? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Like do you have jumper cables in your car? It's
Speaker 1: the most basic thing ever. But if you go out
Speaker 1: there and you're in the middle of nowhere and you
Speaker 1: know your car dies or whatever, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Like how are you going to figure that out? In
Speaker 1: some of the places we go, you're not allowed to camp,
Speaker 1: and you know, the nearest place where you can camp
Speaker 1: maybe thirty miles away. So you have to deal with
Speaker 1: all that before and during your hunt, and it takes
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of time. I mean, on five to
Speaker 1: six day hunt, the first day or two is spent
Speaker 1: dealing with that stuff. Yeah, half the time. Well then,
Speaker 1: and like you said, I mean I was bitching to
Speaker 1: my wife about this at the end of this season
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm sure you guys do this too,
Speaker 1: where you go through a whole season, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you hunt quite a bit, and you're like, can I
Speaker 1: just get the right weather, like for three days in
Speaker 1: a row. It's like it always feels like you're just
Speaker 1: fighting the weather. And it's you know, seventy five degrees,
Speaker 1: you know, November fifth, and you're like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: And then you know a rainstorm comes in for three
Speaker 1: days and you're like, can I just you know, like
Speaker 1: when we when we plan these hunts and we start
Speaker 1: thinking about them, we're like, Okay, I'm going into this
Speaker 1: spot or I'm going to hunt this chunk of public.
Speaker 1: It's it's really easy to just kind of ignore the
Speaker 1: fact that mother Nature is going to throw something at
Speaker 1: you that sucks, and you know you kind of like
Speaker 1: factor it in. If it's an early season hunt, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: i'm gonna be around some water. You're gonna think about
Speaker 1: a little bit. But so often, you know, like fifty
Speaker 1: sixty seventy percent of your hunts in the fall, you
Speaker 1: get weather that is like actively working against you. Like
Speaker 1: it's not even like a net neutral or a positive.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's trying to make it rough for you.
Speaker 1: And it's like almost impossible to factor that in when
Speaker 1: you're planning, So you have to cover that other stuff,
Speaker 1: like the logistics of where you're gonna stay and how
Speaker 1: you're gonna eat and how you're gonna get there and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, because you know, if you do it enough,
Speaker 1: there's all these things you haven't thought about that are
Speaker 1: coming in that are gonna kick your ass in some
Speaker 1: little way and just make it tougher. Oh yeah, that water.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the most basic thing ever. But if
Speaker 1: you're staying somewhere and you're and you're trying to be
Speaker 1: as efficient as possible and spend as much time hunting
Speaker 1: as possible, you gotta have a way to have water.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have if you don't have the
Speaker 1: means to have it while you're there and have enough
Speaker 1: of it stored in your vehicle, then you got to
Speaker 1: have a way to get more of it in some way.
Speaker 1: So yeah, all those little details survival survivaling is what
Speaker 1: Zinger calls it. But all those little details are like
Speaker 1: overlooked by a lot of people that are just getting
Speaker 1: into this. It's like, holy crap, what am I gonna do? Yeah? Well, no,
Speaker 1: once they get there. I was when I was elk
Speaker 1: hunting earlier, you know, elk hunting in the beginning of
Speaker 1: September this year. You know, my buddy that I'm hunting with,
Speaker 1: he's from Colorado and he's he's so good in the mountains,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm this idiot that comes from Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and what we you know, we were kind of doing
Speaker 1: some stuff where we'd go in and look at a
Speaker 1: spot or going to spend a day in a spot
Speaker 1: and just try it out in different areas. And I'd
Speaker 1: be like, why don't we just vivy in here? And
Speaker 1: you know, if we're gonna if we're gonna do the
Speaker 1: heavy lift of getting in there, why don't we stay
Speaker 1: for a couple of days? And like twenty seven times
Speaker 1: that week, He's like, there's no water, dude, we don't
Speaker 1: have any water, so we can't, like we can't just
Speaker 1: go in there and get it. And I always forget that,
Speaker 1: you know, like you you just sort of take it
Speaker 1: for granted if you think, oh, I'm just gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hike in here, and it's like, well, water is heavy,
Speaker 1: and if you can't filter it, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: And it's it's not so simple. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of a Western thing, but like you're talking, it
Speaker 1: can be a white tail concern too. Oh yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're a waste from in a gas station or town
Speaker 1: or whatever, what are you gonna do? I mean, sometimes
Speaker 1: we're able to filter it if we can camp Like
Speaker 1: we did that in Georgia a few years ago when
Speaker 1: we were hunting down there per deer. We just can't
Speaker 1: next to a stream, and then we filtered with our
Speaker 1: storrier like bag filters. We just fill that thing up
Speaker 1: every night and then we'd wake up in the morning
Speaker 1: our jugs would be full where we would filter it out.
Speaker 1: But we didn't figure that out until we got there.
Speaker 1: It's like we got there and we found this cool campsite,
Speaker 1: and then we're like, okay, where what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do for water? We have some obviously in the truck,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's all those things that you just don't
Speaker 1: think about very often. You're staring at the map trying
Speaker 1: to figure out where a deer's gonna be, or where
Speaker 1: people are gonna be so you can avoid them, and
Speaker 1: then you get there and then all of those other
Speaker 1: things are thrown in and then on top of that,
Speaker 1: we're also trying to you know, have our computers plugged
Speaker 1: in the generator so that they don't die and all
Speaker 1: of that. It's yeah, it's an ordeal out there, the
Speaker 1: traveling rodeo always. Yeah. I think that if you're listening
Speaker 1: to this, you should and you're planning a you know,
Speaker 1: an out of state hunt or you've you've gone on
Speaker 1: one and maybe it didn't go the way you thought
Speaker 1: it would. Take some solace in the fact that Aaron
Speaker 1: Warbritton and his crew have been been to seven thousand
Speaker 1: different states over the last ten years, and you guys
Speaker 1: have hunted everywhere, done everything, and you still don't have
Speaker 1: a system that just always works everywhere. It's just no
Speaker 1: matter what you do, you're going to be dealing with
Speaker 1: that stuff. Oh yeah, always gonna be hurdles always. So
Speaker 1: I wonder. I always wonder with you guys, And that's
Speaker 1: that's what I want to talk to you about on
Speaker 1: this podcast, is how how hard it is to maintain
Speaker 1: that balance of you know, you you have a business
Speaker 1: aspect to it in a content production aspect that the
Speaker 1: listener doesn't. The average person doesn't. So that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of out the window for this conversation. But knowing that
Speaker 1: you have that and you're going to hit a bunch
Speaker 1: of different states, and you know, Jake's got a tag here,
Speaker 1: Tag's got a tag here, whatever, how is it? How
Speaker 1: easy is it or hard is it for you to
Speaker 1: keep a balance of like thinking about what the deer
Speaker 1: should be doing while you're managing, like juggling all the
Speaker 1: logistics of that life outside of just like the mission
Speaker 1: focus of killing a deer, because that's what most people
Speaker 1: when they go out there, they're like, that's my concern.
Speaker 1: They don't have the other things that you're worried about, necessarily,
Speaker 1: but they have that like how do I find the deer?
Speaker 1: And like, how do you balance that? Because you have
Speaker 1: all that other stuff going on? Whoever's got the tag,
Speaker 1: we've more. We try to let them worry about only that.
Speaker 1: So we try to help whoever has the tag as
Speaker 1: much as we can. And I mean just from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of make sure that they have all the gear
Speaker 1: that they need for a day to get to go
Speaker 1: out and go honey, make sure they got food, make
Speaker 1: sure they got water, all that stuff that we just
Speaker 1: talked about. Make sure that all of those other things
Speaker 1: are buttoned down. Like we're in Arkansas. For example, Nick
Speaker 1: was cooking every night, so as soon as he would
Speaker 1: get done filming or hunting or whatever it is that
Speaker 1: he was doing, he'd come back to the camp and
Speaker 1: he'd start cooking food and he'd cook enough food for
Speaker 1: everybody there. And then I had a tag, but Greg
Speaker 1: was filming me. So Greg's priority is just filming and
Speaker 1: capturing footage, and my priority is trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to kill the deer. So you guys have our
Speaker 1: roles and you just say, yeah, we have our different roles,
Speaker 1: and then we go to the next place and then
Speaker 1: we switch and you know, I'm filming and editing or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And that's kind of how we roll.
Speaker 1: We usually end up with groups of like three four
Speaker 1: guys when we go somewhere, and we may only have
Speaker 1: one tag or two tags, but the everybody's got their
Speaker 1: role is in camp so that all of those things
Speaker 1: are taken care of. Yeah, because I've had to do
Speaker 1: that where you're juggling tend everything and never ends well,
Speaker 1: it's just like never well, And I mean that's kind
Speaker 1: of a that's the situation, you know, I've talked about
Speaker 1: quite a bit where it's amazing, you know when you
Speaker 1: when you do enough hunts over the road where you know,
Speaker 1: you take a buddy along and their wife calls and
Speaker 1: she's pissed off before you even get there, and you
Speaker 1: see how it changes, changes the dynamic, changes the mission,
Speaker 1: and it's never for the better. Or you know, like
Speaker 1: we talked about, something goes wrong. You know, you get
Speaker 1: the second flat tire in three days and you got
Speaker 1: to deal with that and you got a half a
Speaker 1: day into town to Wally World to get it changed
Speaker 1: or whatever. And you see how quickly just things can
Speaker 1: just sort of suck away the focus, and man, it
Speaker 1: just makes it that much harder to be successful out there.
Speaker 1: So you guys have kind of just morphed into understanding
Speaker 1: who has you know, ABCD role on the hunt? You
Speaker 1: stick to it and everybody. Once everybody has that kind
Speaker 1: of defined role, it's like, Okay, now all these pieces
Speaker 1: are working together and not take can away from the
Speaker 1: other one and you can just keep going and killing deer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's essentially how we do it. Oh that's interesting. I
Speaker 1: think I think it would be really easy for a
Speaker 1: lot of people to assume, you know, with a guy
Speaker 1: like you and all the content you guys produce in
Speaker 1: the fall and all the travel and time away from
Speaker 1: home and everything that when it hits you know, January, February, March,
Speaker 1: like we're at now, you're probably like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be in the woods. I don't want to think
Speaker 1: about deer. I don't want to have to deal with this.
Speaker 1: But you're actually really into winter scouting. We were talking
Speaker 1: about this before the podcast, and you kind of view
Speaker 1: it as sort of almost a relief from not having
Speaker 1: to hunt and getting to answer some questions for yourself.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all the mistakes that you make throughout the fall.
Speaker 1: Because my buddy Joe Elsinger puts it a real good way.
Speaker 1: He basically said, bow hunting is like you get one
Speaker 1: or two guess is right all year. So when you're hunting,
Speaker 1: you you're gonna guess like forty or fifty times times
Speaker 1: if you hunt that many times in a given year,
Speaker 1: and if you guess right one time, you're going to
Speaker 1: end up with potentially a filled tag. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of what you're doing all fall is You're just you're
Speaker 1: going in there and you're making a mistake. After mistake
Speaker 1: after mistake. Now before you go into those individual hunts,
Speaker 1: you think you got to think to yourself and have
Speaker 1: the confidence like I'm going into this betting area, this
Speaker 1: big bucks betted right here, and he's going to come
Speaker 1: out on this trail. But you know, ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of the time it doesn't work like that. I say
Speaker 1: percent of the time. Yes, I mean you blow him
Speaker 1: out of there, he's not there, he comes in from
Speaker 1: a different direction than you weren't expecting, your wind switches.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could go on for weeks with things
Speaker 1: that happen, but essentially that's what you're doing in postseason
Speaker 1: right now, or that's what I like to do, is
Speaker 1: like go back and solve for all the mistakes that
Speaker 1: I made throughout the fall, So go in. For example,
Speaker 1: I was hunting a really big one last fall for
Speaker 1: like a week and a half where I had pictures
Speaker 1: of him in an area that was new to me.
Speaker 1: I had scouted it before a little bit, but I
Speaker 1: haven't scouted the whole piece, and he was coming out
Speaker 1: of this set of ridges that I'd never been into before,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to just dive right in there
Speaker 1: and blow him out because I was getting him on
Speaker 1: two or three cameras. They're pretty regular, and like, I
Speaker 1: got a chance at him before the pressure really hits
Speaker 1: here and the rut because this was the late October hunt.
Speaker 1: It was at Iowa, Okay, Yeah, and Iowa where we're at,
Speaker 1: the pressure really ramps up early in November. And I
Speaker 1: was getting this buck mid October into the late October.
Speaker 1: I'm like, and I was getting pictures of him on
Speaker 1: an access path like I had. I had a camera
Speaker 1: set up there to monitor people and deer over a scrape,
Speaker 1: but I did not expect to get any deer during
Speaker 1: daylight on this thing. I figured it might get a
Speaker 1: big buck or two, but I figured it was gonna
Speaker 1: be a two in the morning. But this thing starts
Speaker 1: showing up right on the edge of daylight and a
Speaker 1: couple of times during daylight walking this trail, and I
Speaker 1: didn't get any pictures of people for like two weeks
Speaker 1: down this thing, and it was like unbelievable. I was
Speaker 1: getting pictures texted, you know, to my phone on this
Speaker 1: cell camera, and I had no I would just assume
Speaker 1: that there was going to be people in there all
Speaker 1: the time, and I knew there would become November because
Speaker 1: that's when the floodgates open. Everybody saves their weeklong vacation
Speaker 1: hunts first week in November happens every year, So I
Speaker 1: knew I had to kill this thing really quick, well,
Speaker 1: if I was to kill him anyway. I got in
Speaker 1: there and I tried to be as aggressive as I
Speaker 1: could without bumping him out of the area. But I
Speaker 1: was unfamiliar with it, and I never saw him. I
Speaker 1: hunted in there like ten different times over the course
Speaker 1: of a few weeks. Never saw the buck. So now
Speaker 1: getting back to it, it's postseason. I want to go
Speaker 1: in there and figure out where in the heck he
Speaker 1: was coming from and what he was doing. And I
Speaker 1: can kind of saw for some of those equations that
Speaker 1: were left unanswered. Right now, I might not be able
Speaker 1: to figure everything out, but I might be. I can
Speaker 1: go in there with a clear mind. Now, just blow
Speaker 1: the whole thing up, dive into those ridges, and figure
Speaker 1: out everything that went on last fall. Because you can't
Speaker 1: do that in the faller you risk flowing him out,
Speaker 1: you know, and then having to start over. What do
Speaker 1: you what would you say to somebody who would be
Speaker 1: like I have watched Zach Farronbell run across much of
Speaker 1: the Midwest. Yeah, and seem to seem to go through everything,
Speaker 1: because that's the way you're talking. Seems like a much
Speaker 1: different style than the way he would go about it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we both hunt, we both hunt similarly. Actually, it
Speaker 1: just depends on the situation. Like if I'm going in
Speaker 1: somewhere where I have no intel whatsoever, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get the wind in my face and be super aggressive,
Speaker 1: and I might even plow right through betting areas because
Speaker 1: I'm searching for a buck to hunt, or I'm searching
Speaker 1: for a good spot, and you keep the wind in
Speaker 1: your face because if you bump one with the wind
Speaker 1: in your face and he doesn't smell you, there's a
Speaker 1: better chance that he's not going to react as negatively
Speaker 1: as he would if he did smell you. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: in this situation, I had intel telling me there was
Speaker 1: a big buck in there, and he was really close
Speaker 1: to that spot, so I didn't you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: go in there completely blind, and I wasn't as aggressive
Speaker 1: as I would have others as I would have been otherwise. Now,
Speaker 1: for better or worse, that's just how it worked out.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you explained that because I think it's easy
Speaker 1: to look at you guys kind of like it's always
Speaker 1: just foot on the gas, but it's foot on the
Speaker 1: gas in specific situations till there's a good reason to
Speaker 1: pump the brakes and then you know, and that's something
Speaker 1: it's so hard to sort of convey that message a
Speaker 1: lot of times when you talk about like a kind
Speaker 1: of an aggressive mobile strategy, is like, that's a great
Speaker 1: strategy in some situations if you know how to rein
Speaker 1: it in or use it. Like so it's not just
Speaker 1: like this cavalier thing where you're like, I don't care
Speaker 1: if I blow them out because they're gonna come back whatever.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's not so simple like there's a there's
Speaker 1: a given take there where you're like, I know, I
Speaker 1: need to know more now, and as soon as I
Speaker 1: start learning just enough, then it's time to just back
Speaker 1: off and go now I play it safe and figure
Speaker 1: out what's what's going on here. Oh yeah, definitely. We've
Speaker 1: bump and dumped a few of them over the years,
Speaker 1: but every time it's it's under very specific scenarios like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you'll even see us when we're when we're
Speaker 1: hunting out west and we're being super aggressive and trying
Speaker 1: to get in the bed with them. We're glassing from
Speaker 1: a high nob or something early in the morning. We're
Speaker 1: trying to spot him first and then get that little
Speaker 1: piece of intel and then booms, go in there and strike. Um.
Speaker 1: It just is so situational. Yeah, I mean, spooking a
Speaker 1: buck in the rut that's locked down with the dough
Speaker 1: is much different than spooking a buck in early October
Speaker 1: and he smells you and say you're hunting a betting
Speaker 1: area that's at the corner of public, and you walk
Speaker 1: into that bettering area, blow him out, and he goes
Speaker 1: on the private next door. He may not visit that
Speaker 1: betting area again for a few weeks. Conversely, or in
Speaker 1: a different example, if you got four thousand acres of
Speaker 1: timber and there's a couple really solid spots in the
Speaker 1: middle of it, you got more room for error because
Speaker 1: if you bump them out of there, they may only
Speaker 1: go through four hundred yards before they reset, and that
Speaker 1: may still be on property you can hunt on. So
Speaker 1: it all depends on the situation you're dealing with. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think I think it's really easy especially if
Speaker 1: you hunt public land to just kind of convince yourself,
Speaker 1: if I jump him, this program's over for a while.
Speaker 1: But man, there's so many times where, like you said,
Speaker 1: depends how the wind's going, like what kind of a
Speaker 1: bump was it? Like, you know, like what happened? You know,
Speaker 1: it's so different kind of trucking through there looking for
Speaker 1: some sign and seeing a white flag go off in
Speaker 1: the distance on the other end of the clearing or
Speaker 1: something versus you know, climbing up in that tree and
Speaker 1: looking over and he's watching you set it up and
Speaker 1: now he takes off, or you know what, there's like
Speaker 1: I've started, you know, I grew up thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: if they saw you, you're done. If you jumped him,
Speaker 1: you're done like they or you're never going to see anything.
Speaker 1: And the more you hunt, you realize, like, man, it's
Speaker 1: not so simple. Like sometimes you jump a big one
Speaker 1: and you think it's over and you set up and
Speaker 1: he comes back like forty five minutes later, and you're
Speaker 1: on public land and you're like this is like this
Speaker 1: should not happen. And then sometimes you don't see him
Speaker 1: again for three weeks or they are truly gone and
Speaker 1: it's there's so much to it. But what I want
Speaker 1: to go back to something you said with you know,
Speaker 1: Joe's advice on you know, you might you might make
Speaker 1: two good guesses right out of fifty in a season,
Speaker 1: and that that's like almost universally true for unless you
Speaker 1: have like a really banging spot to hunt, that's kind
Speaker 1: of a different kind of deal. But for most people,
Speaker 1: I believe that, Like I I think that the best
Speaker 1: hunters have just figured out how to get comfortable with
Speaker 1: what they got wrong, and they've figured out these things
Speaker 1: like we're talking about with the winner scouting, where you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not happy with that with only two. I want
Speaker 1: three or four because if I do three or four,
Speaker 1: you know, that might be three or four encounters and
Speaker 1: I might kill two, you know, because if you get
Speaker 1: two right, you might have those two encounters. You might
Speaker 1: have buck fever on wine, he might you know whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, at that point when you're bow hunting,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of luck involved. Once it
Speaker 1: gets to that point, it's like just getting the opportunity. Though.
Speaker 1: If you can get yourself in those positions, you will
Speaker 1: eventually start killing more of them. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you just don't. I mean I hunted forty
Speaker 1: some times with a bow in Iowa, and most people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, yeah, you know, you go to Iowa
Speaker 1: for a week in the rut, you're gonna shoot one
Speaker 1: fifty on public lant. It's like, and maybe you, but not, um,
Speaker 1: not not this year. At least um some years it
Speaker 1: does work that way. But this year, I just I
Speaker 1: had three or four bucks that I knew about that
Speaker 1: we're really either there. There was one of them was
Speaker 1: really old that I was trying to kill, and then
Speaker 1: there was a couple more that were really big antler bucks,
Speaker 1: and I had just kind of played them close to
Speaker 1: my vest and tried to those deer for a large
Speaker 1: percentage of the fall. And I regret doing that, honestly.
Speaker 1: I wish I would have done way more stuff like
Speaker 1: we were just talking about, where you just go in
Speaker 1: blind to an area into the wind and you kind
Speaker 1: of figure it out as you go. I seem to do.
Speaker 1: I seem to almost do better as far as stilling
Speaker 1: tags doing that then I do. Sitting back and watching
Speaker 1: cameras and things like that, Like trail cameras will totally
Speaker 1: screw your brain up at times, if you put too
Speaker 1: much information or if you infer too much from that information.
Speaker 1: But these deer, there was one that was really, really big,
Speaker 1: and it's like, man, I got a couple of pictures
Speaker 1: of him. I didn't think none of it, and then
Speaker 1: he showed up on daylight and daylight on that camera.
Speaker 1: It's like, man, he's right there, he's living there close by.
Speaker 1: You don't get an opportunity to hunt one that is
Speaker 1: this big very often on public. So I just threw
Speaker 1: a bunch of hunts at him and never did any good.
Speaker 1: If I could go back and redo things, it would
Speaker 1: have been or aggressive. Yeah, but he was showing up
Speaker 1: on these cameras, So it's like you're you know, what
Speaker 1: decision do you make? Do you sit right there where
Speaker 1: the camera's at, or pretty close by where he's gonna
Speaker 1: where he's coming by there occasionally it's safe you can
Speaker 1: get in and out of there, or do you push
Speaker 1: in even further? And I did a little bit of
Speaker 1: both with no success. But that's why I want to
Speaker 1: go back in there right now, is to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out what I screwed up, or what I did wrong,
Speaker 1: or where he potentially could have been. Because I'm assuming
Speaker 1: I'll learn a bunch of things and see a bunch
Speaker 1: of mistakes that I made. Yeah, that the way you're
Speaker 1: talking is exactly how I feel. If I want to
Speaker 1: have an unenjoyable season, just show me a picture of
Speaker 1: a really big buck where I'm hunting, Because I don't.
Speaker 1: I start to second guess, and I feel like it
Speaker 1: sort of just takes me out of that like day
Speaker 1: to day rhythm of what did you see? What sign
Speaker 1: did you bump into? Like what's what's going on right now?
Speaker 1: And for me, I know some people are really good
Speaker 1: at that. That is not my style either. And I
Speaker 1: look at this like like you're talking about when you
Speaker 1: find that situation, you know, you look at it and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: you had this giant, you had some intel on him,
Speaker 1: you know, going down this trail you didn't expect doing
Speaker 1: a few things maybe you weren't Like You're like, maybe
Speaker 1: he shouldn't be doing that, but he is. So what now?
Speaker 1: But you go in there and what you learn from
Speaker 1: that or what you will with this winner scouting, that'll
Speaker 1: feed so much of your hunting beyond the interest in
Speaker 1: that buck, whether he's still there or not or whatever.
Speaker 1: And that's I learned that years ago on some public
Speaker 1: land by my house in the Twin Cities where I
Speaker 1: found a giant shit. My dog actually found it, and
Speaker 1: it changed the course of like a couple years of
Speaker 1: my life because this was like a booner on public
Speaker 1: land buy my house in the Twin Cities. You know,
Speaker 1: like a situation where you're like, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: I actually found that buck the first time I went
Speaker 1: into glass where I thought he was going to be,
Speaker 1: and there he was, and there was two other good
Speaker 1: ones with him, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and it dude. I hunted for thirty days straight for
Speaker 1: that deer, and you know, I left one day because
Speaker 1: I had to go to a funeral and I was like,
Speaker 1: it got to the point where I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not enjoying it. I ended up killing the
Speaker 1: smallest buck that was in the trio, which was still
Speaker 1: a good one. He was the one that stuck around,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think he was the only one who
Speaker 1: didn't go live in somebody's backyard because there's some subdivisions
Speaker 1: and stuff there. But what it made me do is
Speaker 1: I win or scouted the crap out of that area.
Speaker 1: There was cattail slews and stuff, and I just found
Speaker 1: some spots where it's like, Okay, I'm never gonna kill
Speaker 1: that booner. Probably I thought I had a chance, didn't
Speaker 1: work out. But what it did is it put me
Speaker 1: on some spots that other bucks used for years and
Speaker 1: just showed me like, Okay, that special deer was there
Speaker 1: and he was doing that thing that wasn't an accident,
Speaker 1: and other deer or kind of satellite around him and
Speaker 1: doing similar things, and it just makes you look at
Speaker 1: that offseason process differently. And even though maybe that dear's
Speaker 1: the motivation, what you're out there finding is just like
Speaker 1: I'm just learning about the bucks here and what they
Speaker 1: like to do year to year, and that's so valuable. Well,
Speaker 1: right now you have no foliage on ye, which is
Speaker 1: a tremendous asset. If it's cold enough, things are frozen,
Speaker 1: so you can get to places a lot quicker than
Speaker 1: you could have otherwise. And on top of that, you're
Speaker 1: basically looking at a chessboard after the game has been played,
Speaker 1: and you're able to look at all these moves that
Speaker 1: were made by you and them in a sense and
Speaker 1: then assess what went wrong. So I go in there,
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people get tripped up
Speaker 1: when we get to talk about hunting beds. They go
Speaker 1: in there postseason and they find some beds with hair
Speaker 1: in them and they're like, Okay, I gotta hunt right
Speaker 1: here over this bed. Like, No, don't think about it
Speaker 1: that way, because deer in March in February may be
Speaker 1: in completely different spots than they were in October and November.
Speaker 1: Like they may be using that area for different reason. Now,
Speaker 1: that's good that you found the sign, but think about
Speaker 1: why it's there and what else is going on in
Speaker 1: their environment during that time. But I would I really
Speaker 1: get pumped up about is finding scrapes from last fall.
Speaker 1: Finding rubs from last fall. You can even look at
Speaker 1: like some rubs you can tell what time of the
Speaker 1: fall they were laid down. Like you may find a
Speaker 1: group of rubs that is starting to get they look older,
Speaker 1: like they just are they're kind of cresting over, they're
Speaker 1: losing that color, that brighter color, and you may be
Speaker 1: able to infer that those were left when the velvet
Speaker 1: was coming off in September from a bachelor group. You
Speaker 1: know it was feeding on an oak flatter or whatever.
Speaker 1: But then you may find other rubs that are fresher
Speaker 1: that came towards the back half of the rut. That
Speaker 1: deer's doing something entirely different than the other deer that
Speaker 1: would leaving those rubs there. And the biggest thing is,
Speaker 1: and we talked about this before the podcast, because I
Speaker 1: want to get into the middle of those thick, nasty
Speaker 1: and early betting areas and I want to scout every
Speaker 1: trail in and out of them. I want to find
Speaker 1: the beds that are in there, because those are the
Speaker 1: areas A lot of times those really thick betting areas,
Speaker 1: and some are not that thick. I mean it's situation
Speaker 1: once again, but some of those betting areas they will
Speaker 1: use during different times of the year. They may or
Speaker 1: may not be there right now, but it may be
Speaker 1: a situation where if oaks drop and there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of white oak acorns in there in early October, they
Speaker 1: may be you know, socked in there during October and
Speaker 1: bow season. Ye see, you always have to kind of
Speaker 1: be thinking ahead and behind, like how the deer using
Speaker 1: the landscape as so much as changing, because that's always
Speaker 1: I feel like that's where I always get tripped up
Speaker 1: from where so many people do is they don't realize
Speaker 1: in the White Tills world, things are changing every single week,
Speaker 1: not just throughout the fall, but also throughout the winter
Speaker 1: and even the summer at times. But if you can
Speaker 1: find some commonalities in the secure areas that they're using
Speaker 1: to live in, then you can take some of that
Speaker 1: information directly from march scouting and tie it into what
Speaker 1: you find. Like you're talking about finding that shed. If
Speaker 1: you find a shed or a deadhead or something like that,
Speaker 1: especially if you scout that area in multiple years and
Speaker 1: you find big dead bucks in there over and over again,
Speaker 1: there's something secure about that area and those bucks are
Speaker 1: choosing to go there to die. And you'll find that
Speaker 1: the more you track dear that people hit in the
Speaker 1: fall and that they hit marginally, it's like they will
Speaker 1: go to their most secure location where they feel the safest,
Speaker 1: and they will give away a lot of their cards
Speaker 1: right there in those moves when they do that, So
Speaker 1: you can you're looking for all those little bit of
Speaker 1: clues to kind of tie together. But you can learn
Speaker 1: so much, especially with that foliage being off Man. That's
Speaker 1: I scout a lot in the summer because that's the
Speaker 1: time when I have available as well. A lot of
Speaker 1: times we scout in February, in January and then the
Speaker 1: first remarks, But then you know, we leave a go turken,
Speaker 1: so we pick up our scout and again in the summer.
Speaker 1: But it is so much harder in the summer to
Speaker 1: find last fall sign because it's just green and full
Speaker 1: of ticks and hotter than hell. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I kind of look at it like my winter scouting
Speaker 1: is the time for me to learn the land first
Speaker 1: and the deer second. Yes, summer I'm learning deer what
Speaker 1: they're what are they doing now that I can play
Speaker 1: into like on an opening week or whatever type of strategy,
Speaker 1: and then the land second. And I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: man like when you said that about when you go out,
Speaker 1: you know, you walk out there in March and you
Speaker 1: look at rubs and you find a you know, a
Speaker 1: giant you know, signpost type rub that's got a ton
Speaker 1: of shavings, you know, still kind of hanging off of it,
Speaker 1: and you're like that that's like November first or Halloween.
Speaker 1: You know, like that big bastard he spent some time
Speaker 1: on it. And you're like, that's great. But when you
Speaker 1: find those that concentration of rubs in a different spot,
Speaker 1: maybe out a little closer toward the fields or something,
Speaker 1: and it's like, Okay, those are a little older and
Speaker 1: they're not as big, and you know people look at
Speaker 1: that and go not as cool, right, like not as important.
Speaker 1: And to me, like you were talking about in Iowa,
Speaker 1: when you get out there in October before the masses
Speaker 1: get out there, I look at that stuff and I go,
Speaker 1: if I can find early rubs, man, oh dude, I
Speaker 1: will take that. Like when I drew. The last time
Speaker 1: I drew Iowa was twenty twenty, and you know, I
Speaker 1: hunted Opener and then the middle week into October because
Speaker 1: I had to go film some stuff in November, and
Speaker 1: I found three spots with some concentrations or early rubs.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like blow you away sign, but you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're they're staging here and they're moving
Speaker 1: around a little bit. There were good bucks in every spot,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like the kind of sign that would
Speaker 1: just blow you away, but it was like they were
Speaker 1: using this enough, you better get eyes on this area.
Speaker 1: And every one of them had big deer on public land.
Speaker 1: And it's the timing where I did the same thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know there's gonna be tons of people
Speaker 1: out if I don't. If I don't, you know, if
Speaker 1: I get if I have to come back in mid
Speaker 1: November because I haven't filled my tag, I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to be dealing with a ton of people. It's
Speaker 1: a different situation. But you find that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That's an advantage you have over the competition that winter
Speaker 1: scouting gives you in a way that like I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people kind of overlook it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: if you know the land man, that's just so key.
Speaker 1: That's such a huge deal, just to know the little
Speaker 1: subtleties in the terrain. Even it's like it where that
Speaker 1: big buck is laid up when I'm getting pictures of
Speaker 1: him on that camera, I'm pretty sure it's on one
Speaker 1: of three secondary points ridges that come out, and I
Speaker 1: did not know how that lays through there. So in
Speaker 1: the wintertime, when you can go in there with no
Speaker 1: leaf cover, if you can find ways to hide from
Speaker 1: that betting area. Right now, because you're not only scouting
Speaker 1: for deer sign, you're also thinking about like how to
Speaker 1: get in and out of these places without burger and
Speaker 1: deer and if you can come up with a plan
Speaker 1: to get in and out of those areas right now
Speaker 1: when there's no leaf cover on early October, you're set
Speaker 1: because you got way more covered during that time. Because
Speaker 1: that's I mean, we talk about this a lot. You're
Speaker 1: always trying to get close enough to kill them during
Speaker 1: the day because if you're sitting back too far, they're
Speaker 1: getting too that they're leaving a bunch of that sign there,
Speaker 1: but they're not getting there until nine to ten pm, yep,
Speaker 1: and you're out of the game. You're just leaving your
Speaker 1: scent there for him to figure you out. So we're
Speaker 1: always trying to get close. You're always trying to get close,
Speaker 1: and that is man. When you know the lay of
Speaker 1: the land, you just have a card that a lot
Speaker 1: of other people don't have to play, especially if it's
Speaker 1: a bunch of non residents coming in in early November
Speaker 1: that haven't spent a bunch of time scouting boots on
Speaker 1: the ground, like they don't they don't know all of
Speaker 1: those little subtleties in there. They may not know where
Speaker 1: that little ditch depression is that only drops you two feet,
Speaker 1: but it drops you just enough to get out of sight.
Speaker 1: From bedded deer that are hundred yards away. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so important. And like that that big one that you're
Speaker 1: talking about on in Iowa that you were hunting last year,
Speaker 1: When you think about a deer like that, get a
Speaker 1: getting a picture of that deer on an access trail
Speaker 1: is something just about any any like even halfway competent
Speaker 1: hunter could come by, you know, like that's that's not
Speaker 1: high level stuff, right, Like that's low level. But if
Speaker 1: you go out winter scout now and you find a
Speaker 1: couple of rub lines pointed in that direction or pointed
Speaker 1: away from that direction, and then you find those secondary points,
Speaker 1: you go up there, maybe find a big bed here
Speaker 1: or there. Now, if that big one's using that next year,
Speaker 1: or somebody takes his spot because he's out because he
Speaker 1: got killed or whatever, now you know, like okay, if
Speaker 1: if the average guy gets a picture of that buck
Speaker 1: on the trail, he's set up over that access trail, right,
Speaker 1: they're doing exactly what I did this year exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if you're the only one that knows that that
Speaker 1: intel that you're talking about, yeah, yeah, if you if
Speaker 1: you go out and winter scout that and backtrack that
Speaker 1: a little bit, now, you go, okay, if somebody else
Speaker 1: gets on this or that deer, let's say that deer's
Speaker 1: getting there ten minutes before shooting light ends two times
Speaker 1: a week or something, and you go, okay, I could
Speaker 1: kill him on the scrape on this access trail, But
Speaker 1: where's he more killable? One hundred and fifty yards back
Speaker 1: there on that like like somewhere between where his bed
Speaker 1: is where that is, and you'll you'll be in a
Speaker 1: different position than most hunters already because of one or
Speaker 1: two or three winter scrouting sessions where you go in
Speaker 1: there and you go the sign kind of shows me this,
Speaker 1: the rubs show me this, and I know he was
Speaker 1: there a few times. That's the kind of stuff I
Speaker 1: look at and I go, okay. Instead of getting those
Speaker 1: questions right twice a season, now you might get it
Speaker 1: three or four just from that. Oh exactly that and
Speaker 1: that man, that is an ace in the hole because
Speaker 1: you've got lots of those little areas across the landscape,
Speaker 1: and everybody in their dog knows where that access path is.
Speaker 1: It's the easiest way to get in and out of there.
Speaker 1: I mean, so whenever people show up, that's exactly that's
Speaker 1: where they're going to go. That's very predictable. But you
Speaker 1: have all of these other areas around there are pretty
Speaker 1: tight and small, and people don't even think about diving
Speaker 1: in down this ridge. It just there's fifteen ridges that
Speaker 1: all look the same all the way down through there,
Speaker 1: and there's two or three of them that have points
Speaker 1: that drop off into this little bottom that are thick,
Speaker 1: but you can't really see it from anarial photo. They're
Speaker 1: thick enough to hold a couple of deer, and that's it.
Speaker 1: But if you've done that scouting, and if you go
Speaker 1: in there during march, you can see that right now,
Speaker 1: Whereas if you're going in there completely blind in the fall,
Speaker 1: that is really difficult to see without just blowing the
Speaker 1: whole area out, which is what I should have done.
Speaker 1: I should. I wish that I would have never had
Speaker 1: the camera there, because I feel like I would have
Speaker 1: had a better chance of killing him because I would
Speaker 1: have went in there, like we talked about earlier. I
Speaker 1: would have went in there and went straight to those
Speaker 1: betting areas with the wind in my face, and I
Speaker 1: would have risked bumping him out of there to get
Speaker 1: the intel that I needed to know where to hunt.
Speaker 1: Ye instead, I kind of instead, I just stage hunted
Speaker 1: in there, and I felt like I was getting closer,
Speaker 1: but then the pressure hit and gone, He's gone as
Speaker 1: soon as people start going up and down that path.
Speaker 1: No more. Yep. But I think that you'd probably see
Speaker 1: with that buck, at least maybe in the October time frame,
Speaker 1: where if you, if you could have got in there
Speaker 1: and figured him out a little bit better, he might
Speaker 1: have not been that far away from that access trail,
Speaker 1: and he might he might have known everybody who was
Speaker 1: walking in there, like because you see that. I saw
Speaker 1: that This year I hunted some public land in southwestern
Speaker 1: Minnesota that you know, i'd been pheasant hunting. This was
Speaker 1: my first time deer hunting it, and there was a
Speaker 1: spot at this river bottom spot. I was real curious
Speaker 1: in I went in and kind of speed scouted it
Speaker 1: a couple of times and didn't. I didn't fall in
Speaker 1: love with it. It was okay, but I ended up
Speaker 1: jumping a big deer right by the parking area on
Speaker 1: my way back one day. So I had walked out
Speaker 1: by him one through one area, came back and I
Speaker 1: must have made him nervous and got up wind of
Speaker 1: him or something and he took off, and in my head,
Speaker 1: I was like, there was there's a lesson there, like
Speaker 1: you know, But I had three days to work with,
Speaker 1: I had other stuff, so I didn't hunt it. And
Speaker 1: then I went back there right after the Minnesota gun
Speaker 1: season ended. I went pheasant hunting in there, and the
Speaker 1: first thing we did is pulled into that access area.
Speaker 1: My buddy pointed over in the woods. He goes, look
Speaker 1: at that, and there was like a one twenty five
Speaker 1: one thirty standing there in the woods right off of there.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's the same deer or not,
Speaker 1: but where he was was forty yards away from where
Speaker 1: I jumped that deer out of a brush pile, And
Speaker 1: I'm going, man, there's a river there. There's there's ways
Speaker 1: to get out, Like if you want to know, if
Speaker 1: somebody's in there with you, you could be there and
Speaker 1: bedded and you can make a decision to lay there
Speaker 1: tight like he did the first time and let you
Speaker 1: walk by. Or if you know, seven guys get out
Speaker 1: of their trucks to make a drive, he can bail
Speaker 1: across the river into private land. And the advantage is
Speaker 1: like so distinct when you start figuring it out and
Speaker 1: I went, I bet I should have probably been there,
Speaker 1: and I should have figured it a way to park
Speaker 1: way down the road and sneak in there and catch
Speaker 1: that dude off guard when he came back through the river.
Speaker 1: And I just you see stuff like that, and I'm actually,
Speaker 1: I'm going to head back down there and just a
Speaker 1: little bit and look around because it's kind of haunting
Speaker 1: me knowing that we jumped another good buck in there
Speaker 1: in the willows, you know, maybe a quarter of a
Speaker 1: mile away, And I go, that's two big deer after
Speaker 1: the Minnesota gun season on public land, and I just
Speaker 1: missed it during bow season. But I think, like you're
Speaker 1: talking about, with a winter scouting session in there, everything's frozen.
Speaker 1: I can get everywhere I want to. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna answer one of those questions, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get a little bit of intel that's going to
Speaker 1: feed into next season. You're always just building. You're just
Speaker 1: building and building and building to try to increase your odds.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's all it is. Like, that's all it
Speaker 1: basically boils down to, is you're just learning these little
Speaker 1: bitty tidbits here and there and everywhere. And then eventually
Speaker 1: they lead to you shooting a buck, and then you
Speaker 1: can then you can retrace that in your mind and realize, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, when we came in here five years ago
Speaker 1: shed hunting. I learned how to get down this creek.
Speaker 1: I realize that this is only knee deep water, and
Speaker 1: I can come in here with a pair of hip
Speaker 1: boots and get up this thing. And you overlook those
Speaker 1: little details like that at the time, but when you
Speaker 1: are after it's over and you really have time to
Speaker 1: kind of decompress and look at the hole, you realize,
Speaker 1: like those little details were incredibly important and things that
Speaker 1: most people don't know going into that. So like most
Speaker 1: folks didn't know to look over there where that buff
Speaker 1: was at. But you know, since you bumped him out
Speaker 1: of there, now you're like you're glued to that spot
Speaker 1: because you're expecting that pattern to repeat itself. But what
Speaker 1: tripped me up on this big deer was all the
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time, as you know, filming
Speaker 1: hunts on private land that is very unpressured, and those
Speaker 1: deer don't act the same way that public land pressured
Speaker 1: deer or private land pressure deer. I mean it shouldn't
Speaker 1: matter public private. It just comes down to huge pressure's pressure.
Speaker 1: But like on a big chunk of private landor there's
Speaker 1: only one guy hunted and the deer are largely unpressured.
Speaker 1: They act different, like they will walk down an access
Speaker 1: path during the daylight, or they'll pop out on a
Speaker 1: little food pot, you know, next to a beating area
Speaker 1: during the daylight, and you can pattern them and you
Speaker 1: can kill them. Well, what happened to me was I
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of experience with self cams, like
Speaker 1: I've used them a little bit. I love trail cameras,
Speaker 1: and I like leaving them in a spot for an
Speaker 1: entire year and then going back through and being able
Speaker 1: to dissect when bucks used it and figure out how
Speaker 1: they used it or what food sources they were using,
Speaker 1: Like I'll put it up over honey locus pods to
Speaker 1: see what time of year deer start feeding on them,
Speaker 1: Like I love him for that reason. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: was using these cell cameras for the first time this
Speaker 1: last fall, and they really just mess my brain up
Speaker 1: because I got pictures of this buck on this access
Speaker 1: path and no people. So for like two weeks straight,
Speaker 1: there was not a person, and I'm like, man, if
Speaker 1: a person is going into this section of woods, they
Speaker 1: are walking that path, They're not coming in here any
Speaker 1: other way. They're going down that dang path. And then
Speaker 1: more and more Bucks started showing up. This big Bucks
Speaker 1: started showing up, getting closer and closer to daylight than
Speaker 1: he's on there in daylight. And I'm thinking to myself, like,
Speaker 1: from the days of filming guys on, you know, manage
Speaker 1: land where you can manage the pressure. It's like just
Speaker 1: going there and hunting like that, because he's gonna walk
Speaker 1: right through there until I get pictures of somebody else
Speaker 1: walking down that path. He's gonna come down that path
Speaker 1: because he hasn't got any pressure. That line of thinking
Speaker 1: obviously didn't work, but that's that's what was going through
Speaker 1: my mind at the time, was when dear don't have
Speaker 1: pressure on them, they act much differently. But what I
Speaker 1: overlooked was the fact that these deer live in an
Speaker 1: area where there is pressure and they have encountered it before,
Speaker 1: and that that changes their habits permanently in some ways,
Speaker 1: like they're betting habits. And I've all the stuff I'd
Speaker 1: learned just went out the window, and you know big
Speaker 1: Hank showed up. I think that's a good point, though, Aaron,
Speaker 1: because like I think, you know, I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: situation where you go in there and you sat there
Speaker 1: and you do kill that dear like partially been there
Speaker 1: day before. He walks right by, But I mean you
Speaker 1: got to look at that and go even okay, so
Speaker 1: that deer is acting like he kind of lives on
Speaker 1: unpressured ground, partially because he's not getting pressured at that moment.
Speaker 1: The difference there is you go in there and you
Speaker 1: make a mistake, it's over. His reaction to your mistake
Speaker 1: is not going to be the same as that reaction
Speaker 1: to those deer on that well managed private land, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's still like a possibility, like you could still
Speaker 1: do it. But when you go and you find that situation,
Speaker 1: you second guess yourself and you're dealing with cell cameras
Speaker 1: and you're like, I don't know should I should I
Speaker 1: not like what I know about deer, this doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: But then you go and you win or scout that
Speaker 1: for a year and now you're like, I don't just
Speaker 1: have to go hunt him over that scrape on that
Speaker 1: access trail, Like now I can play this like I'm
Speaker 1: hunting a public land buck. Even though he's kind of
Speaker 1: acting like he's not getting a lot of pressure. I
Speaker 1: can play him better. And I know, like that deer. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe he's daylighting here a little bit, and he might
Speaker 1: be killable, but there's a staging area to one hundred
Speaker 1: yards away down below that bluff or that ridge point
Speaker 1: where he's really killable, like you might you might be
Speaker 1: able to observe him and see exactly what he does
Speaker 1: in person one night, move that two hundred yards and
Speaker 1: kill him without ever bumping him or laying down a
Speaker 1: cent trail that he's gonna So like there's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like but that's that's part of the fun
Speaker 1: of it, right, Like it's it's the reality that you
Speaker 1: sit there and you go, you know, like I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people would be like if Aaron Warbritton
Speaker 1: encounter is a big one on an Iowa public land,
Speaker 1: he's probably gonna have a pretty good plan pop into
Speaker 1: his head instantly and you go, Man, just depends on
Speaker 1: the situation. That's so simply nah. I mean, some of
Speaker 1: them just put themselves in terrible spots for them to live.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't. It doesn't happen like that very often. Right,
Speaker 1: most of the time you have to find some little
Speaker 1: chink in the armor where you can get in there
Speaker 1: and exploit a weakness in their plan. Yeah, and what
Speaker 1: we've already found with that buck that we're talking about
Speaker 1: is that not only him, but many of those bucks
Speaker 1: are betting. And you can probably guess it within sight
Speaker 1: of that access trail. Yep. Ye. So I come walking
Speaker 1: down that access path to hunt where that camera is
Speaker 1: and guess what, I don't see anything. You know why
Speaker 1: that is? It's because that thing is laying there a
Speaker 1: hundred yards away where he can see the access path
Speaker 1: because people walk down it often. And that starts to
Speaker 1: make sense, you know, at this time of year, when
Speaker 1: we were able to go in there and figure that out.
Speaker 1: But now I'm thinking, like, after scouting in their summon,
Speaker 1: I'm going back in there because I got two or
Speaker 1: three more ridges I want to scout in the next
Speaker 1: couple of days. But after scouting that sum I've already
Speaker 1: found ways to come in from the back door and
Speaker 1: get into those bedding areas, potentially in the morning before daylight,
Speaker 1: using a creek system that I had never been in before,
Speaker 1: and I didn't go into this last year because I
Speaker 1: was afraid of bumping them out of there. So all
Speaker 1: these things, I mean, sort of confirm what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Like you you just mentioned that example up there where
Speaker 1: you've got bucks that are monitoring pressure on public and
Speaker 1: that's something we see all the freaking time, all the time.
Speaker 1: And I just I did. I got caught up in
Speaker 1: that damn in that trail camera, and I just figured
Speaker 1: out this access path is a nice and quiet, it's
Speaker 1: wet um, it just rained. I can be I can
Speaker 1: move super slow, and I can set up right on it.
Speaker 1: I can make hardly any noise. But what we noticed
Speaker 1: is like we kept bumping deer as we were walking in,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, why are they betted right here on
Speaker 1: top of this thing? And like I'll see them bedded
Speaker 1: off the side of a parking lot or whatever in
Speaker 1: an area where you're not gonna bump them when you
Speaker 1: walk in, but where they can watch you or they
Speaker 1: can slide out undefected. But yeah, that's what we've found already,
Speaker 1: is the dang things are bedded off of this little
Speaker 1: point that's one hundred, one hundred and fifty yards in
Speaker 1: the camera and they can see everything that's going on
Speaker 1: where that human human travel is at and all they
Speaker 1: gotta do is bounce off the end of a ridge
Speaker 1: and you've got no idea they there. But that's so
Speaker 1: when you when you just I have that scenario, though,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would listen and they go, Okay,
Speaker 1: well he's unkillable or they're unkillable if he's going to
Speaker 1: bed there and he's onto this access program. And it's like,
Speaker 1: that's why you win or scout, because now now you go,
Speaker 1: I do have a backdoor entrance, like I can get
Speaker 1: through that, through that creek or whatever. Or instead of
Speaker 1: just that, you go, now I found another concentration, a
Speaker 1: sign or a secondary betting ridge or something I can
Speaker 1: work and so I can be actively hunting and figuring
Speaker 1: out these deer without just going I have to take
Speaker 1: that risk that's too high because they're going to be
Speaker 1: betted right there where they expect nine percent of the
Speaker 1: hunters to come in. And you give yourself those secondary options.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, especially when you talk about
Speaker 1: kind of getting crazy locked into a big deer like that,
Speaker 1: and you're running those cell cameras and every time your
Speaker 1: phone dings, you're like, oh God, is it him? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you start to get into this mentality that
Speaker 1: it's like he's here and here's my spot, and it's
Speaker 1: like that deer has a home range of a square mile,
Speaker 1: so you go instead of you know, like I hate
Speaker 1: I love cameras. I don't like using cell cameras on
Speaker 1: public land hunts a lot of times because I know,
Speaker 1: you know, I might be working on old information even
Speaker 1: if I'm getting cell camera pictures, and it just it's
Speaker 1: a different deal because of that. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get locked into the idea that I
Speaker 1: hunt this deer here because that's where I got the
Speaker 1: picture of him. When that deer he might be a
Speaker 1: half a mile away for half of his life, he
Speaker 1: might be in a more killable spot somewhere else, or
Speaker 1: he just might have, you know, three more holes in
Speaker 1: his routine that are so much better for you to
Speaker 1: exploit than that one. And if you don't win or
Speaker 1: scout and figure it out, if you're if you think
Speaker 1: you're only going to given that information in the fall
Speaker 1: through cell cameras or hunting, it's not gonna happen. You
Speaker 1: got you got to come in there with that knowledge
Speaker 1: of the land and the knowledge of the sign. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're going to fail a lot. That's that what you
Speaker 1: just said there is is one of the most overlooked things.
Speaker 1: But these simplest things in bow hunting deer that people
Speaker 1: just do not think about, including myself in this particular instance,
Speaker 1: it's like, how do you get in and out of
Speaker 1: there without burger them? But how do you get close
Speaker 1: enough to the area of interest? So and also on
Speaker 1: top of that, how do you get in and out
Speaker 1: of there to understand what's going on in the area,
Speaker 1: Like how do you read the sign in that particular
Speaker 1: area to understand what's going on? And when you start
Speaker 1: introducing those cameras into it, you just you're thinking gets
Speaker 1: deflected to that when all you gotta do is just
Speaker 1: get back to basics. You just gotta look like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a really big fresh track right here in this
Speaker 1: sandy dry creek bed and it's going both ways. There's
Speaker 1: one coming out and there's one going back in. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of oaks up on that ridge, and there's
Speaker 1: three or four fresh rubs I can see coming down
Speaker 1: off of them, and white oaks have been dropping at
Speaker 1: those elevations this year, so it's like there could be
Speaker 1: a buck that's bedded up there, and if he's not,
Speaker 1: he's using this trail to come to and from somewhere
Speaker 1: here recently. Like just those little tidbits a signer almost
Speaker 1: that they are more valuable than anything else, or a
Speaker 1: fresh scrape with pea in it that's right next to
Speaker 1: a thicket of high stem count cover yep, Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he might be home today and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: It's like if he's home just today and he's not
Speaker 1: here for two weeks. If you guess that he's there today,
Speaker 1: you're in the chips yep. Well if you see that
Speaker 1: sign and you're like, I'm gonna put a camera over
Speaker 1: at wait till he comes back. Well, then he comes back,
Speaker 1: you get a picture of him, and then you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll hunt now. Well he made he's making a loop
Speaker 1: through there. It's a rut loop in late October. He
Speaker 1: was there for a day and now he's not gonna
Speaker 1: be back for seven more. Yeah. I think I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the most I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the things we miss with cell cameras a lot is Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think, Okay, it's gonna show me there's a deer
Speaker 1: there now, and I'm gonna go in tomorrow and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill him. But what it does is if it
Speaker 1: sends you that picture now and you've got it on
Speaker 1: that you've got that camera mounted over a scrape, and
Speaker 1: it's October eighth, and you've had you know, random movement,
Speaker 1: midnight movement, whatever, and all of a sudden you have
Speaker 1: one evening where there's three bucks visited in daylight and
Speaker 1: you go, oh, I should have been there today. It's
Speaker 1: like you better pay attention to what the conditions were, like,
Speaker 1: what was going on, because next year on October eighth,
Speaker 1: if it's a cold front or if it's whatever, like
Speaker 1: you even not even hunting that scrape, you might have
Speaker 1: your night to kill a buck because you have that
Speaker 1: information that it showed you there's a reason here, or
Speaker 1: like you said, there's a ramp up to that you know, oh,
Speaker 1: he's getting there little earlier, a little earlier, a little earlier,
Speaker 1: Like that's valuable deer intel way outside of just killing
Speaker 1: that specific deer. If you if you use it right,
Speaker 1: if you use it wrong, you go, well, that's just
Speaker 1: I either go in or I kill him now because
Speaker 1: it showed me or not, or like you're kind of
Speaker 1: behind the eight ball. Like you said, there's so much
Speaker 1: more to it, and so I always I like tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, we get so married to cameras. I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: if you want to run a cell camera on a scrape,
Speaker 1: you should because you will learn a lot. It might
Speaker 1: not help you kill a deer on that scrape this season,
Speaker 1: but it might inform how you hunt scrapes for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life, because you might be sitting there
Speaker 1: and go everybody else is going, it's the lull. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go hunt. You're like, well, I'm hunt
Speaker 1: in public land. I don't want a bunch of people
Speaker 1: out there. It's a little warm. But it's October twelfth,
Speaker 1: the moon's doing this or whatever, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're like last year, this week I had five different
Speaker 1: good bucks come in in daylight, and when I didn't
Speaker 1: think they should be there. That stuff so important, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: no doubt, and just knowing the lay of the land,
Speaker 1: like you talked about earlier, this is the time of
Speaker 1: the year when you can understand that stuff better than
Speaker 1: any other time. And that's honestly how we killed me
Speaker 1: and Ted killed a mature buck during the late season
Speaker 1: in a blizzard there a couple of weeks ago. I
Speaker 1: think that was right after Christmas. But the reason we
Speaker 1: killed that thing, and I'm just I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: remembering that as we're talking. The reason we killed that
Speaker 1: thing is because as a group, we have intel from
Speaker 1: past year shed hunting and scouting this area, and it's
Speaker 1: as simple as knowing the lay of the land. We
Speaker 1: knew that this particular area had a lot of really
Speaker 1: good south facing thermal cover like cedars and hedge and
Speaker 1: really thick stuff. It's all south facing in hills. We
Speaker 1: had a blizzard come in after Christmas, had got down
Speaker 1: a negative nine with wind chills and forty below. Like
Speaker 1: you're you're more used to that than I am. South
Speaker 1: of you, so that's like a real shock to the
Speaker 1: system for us. But it's getting down that cold and
Speaker 1: we're sitting there looking at maps thinking about where we're
Speaker 1: gonna hunt. It's like pops into your head. We need
Speaker 1: to look for south facing stuff where dey're gonna get
Speaker 1: out of the blizzard and get out of forty below
Speaker 1: wind chills. So where's a place with north winds? Where
Speaker 1: are some south facing stuff with heavy thermal cover? And
Speaker 1: we thought about this spot immediately, like me and Ted
Speaker 1: each thought about it. He's like, I was thinking about
Speaker 1: this spot. I was like, I was, just I gotta
Speaker 1: pulled up. I'm looking at it right now. He's like,
Speaker 1: that's the spot, man, we gotta get in there, and like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go. We went in there, no camera, intel, no
Speaker 1: nothing all year. We just went in there based on
Speaker 1: the fact that we knew the lay of the lamb
Speaker 1: before and we anticipated dear to react to those current
Speaker 1: conditions in the way that they did. And they were. Boy,
Speaker 1: they were stacked in there. I mean bucks on bucks
Speaker 1: on Bucks just pushed in there because of that blizzard,
Speaker 1: trying to escape those conditions, and would have never known
Speaker 1: that had we not had that prior intel of being
Speaker 1: in there and walking around. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: something when I saw you. I saw you make that
Speaker 1: social post the other day about or you know a
Speaker 1: little while ago about winter scouting and finding some rubs,
Speaker 1: and you made a point that I think is so
Speaker 1: important that we kind of overlook is you know, you
Speaker 1: had a rub that was in a like I call
Speaker 1: it a turkey hunting woods, Like it's the ideal woods
Speaker 1: you want to go put your Yeah, you put your
Speaker 1: back to a big oak and you call them a
Speaker 1: gobbler through the woods and it's the best hunt ever.
Speaker 1: And that's like, that's what you want. But those woods,
Speaker 1: even though they're pretty and that's kind of what everybody
Speaker 1: wants for turkeys, and you know, like they like looking
Speaker 1: at it when you have pressure deer. I just like
Speaker 1: in my experience, they do not. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: kill him in that kind of woods ever, Like it's
Speaker 1: always there. No, I mean, it's just it's just not
Speaker 1: like you kill him in the edge cover somewhere that's
Speaker 1: that's just thicker. And you you talked about stem Count
Speaker 1: and you said, you know, you look at this rub
Speaker 1: in the open you go or open woods and you go, yeah,
Speaker 1: a big buck made it. This is that's great. He
Speaker 1: lives somewhere around here, this is his neighborhood or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you don't kill him here because this is probably
Speaker 1: a nocturnal you know, he probably made it at night.
Speaker 1: And then you showed a place way thicker, you know,
Speaker 1: way different kind of habitat you know, it looks like
Speaker 1: you would be jumping grouse or bunnies out of there,
Speaker 1: and you go, that's where you're going to kill him.
Speaker 1: Maybe not right in the middle of it, maybe right
Speaker 1: on the edge of it, but not out in that
Speaker 1: open woods. And I think, you know, I think I've
Speaker 1: been like guilty of not explaining this enough because I've
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot. But like the you know,
Speaker 1: scrape on the field edge, the rubs way out there,
Speaker 1: way out toward the field edge, we always like take
Speaker 1: it for grant and go, okay, that's a nighttime sign.
Speaker 1: Who cares. You get into the woods and you go,
Speaker 1: there's a rub. That's good enough. I'm hunting here next
Speaker 1: year during the rut because that big rub is here
Speaker 1: and I found it in March and I got my plan.
Speaker 1: Then you go in there, and if there is a
Speaker 1: deer around there, they all know you're in there because
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of oak leaves on the ground and
Speaker 1: they can see for you know, from one end of
Speaker 1: the woods to the other. And you don't kill them.
Speaker 1: But then after the season, you walk through that thick
Speaker 1: stuff like you're talking about, maybe you're rabbit hunting or
Speaker 1: you're just in there winter scouting, and you go, well,
Speaker 1: there's a huge concentration of you know, maybe smaller rubs
Speaker 1: in here because the cover is kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit different. But that's where he's killable. And I think
Speaker 1: people don't. I think a lot of people don't understand
Speaker 1: the difference between that because the sign looks good, but
Speaker 1: it's where it's at that makes it not so good.
Speaker 1: They know they're in danger during the day once they
Speaker 1: reach a certain age and they've encountered human pressure on
Speaker 1: private republic. They know that the days when they're when
Speaker 1: they're vulnerable, especially a big buck, like they don't in
Speaker 1: our part of the world. What do they got to
Speaker 1: worry about? Kyotes? For the most part, a healthy big
Speaker 1: buck they just look at kyotes as they run by
Speaker 1: and like, no big deal. Fawns a different story, obviously,
Speaker 1: But big bucks got to worry about us. So he's
Speaker 1: gonna go to wherever he feels safe during the day,
Speaker 1: and then and then on top of that, wherever he
Speaker 1: can escape too, even more safe areas. So in that
Speaker 1: high stem count cut or cover like that is exactly
Speaker 1: what you're I mean, that's the stuff where he can
Speaker 1: bed in and then when he hears somebody coming, he
Speaker 1: can stand up or he hears something around that betting area,
Speaker 1: say it's a calm day, for example, he can stand
Speaker 1: up in there and he can look out of it
Speaker 1: into all those open woods and see that danger coming,
Speaker 1: and you have no freaking clue he's there until he
Speaker 1: takes out of there like a rabbit out of a
Speaker 1: brush pile. It's just and you can't shoot at him
Speaker 1: in there because it's so thick. That's the that's the
Speaker 1: tricky part with cattail marsh is like what you're talking
Speaker 1: about is sometimes you might find where they're living in
Speaker 1: the middle of that cattail marsh, but how do you
Speaker 1: get an arrow through there? Like they realize that over
Speaker 1: the years, I don't. I mean a buck probably doesn't
Speaker 1: think about it obviously the way that we do. But
Speaker 1: they just know that they're not getting shot at, their
Speaker 1: buddies aren't getting killed in that stuff. So advantages. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think about it. If you could hunt deer with
Speaker 1: a grenade or a mortar, I would be the best
Speaker 1: cattail slew hunter because I find those bastards all the
Speaker 1: time and I'm like, well, unapproachable untouchable when you're talking
Speaker 1: archery hunting in some of those situations. But when when
Speaker 1: you talk about that situation where that bucks he's either
Speaker 1: he's betted right in that high stem count thick, gnarly stuff,
Speaker 1: he's moving through the edge of it, yeah, or staging
Speaker 1: in there and he's he's looking out from that if
Speaker 1: he's hears something, or he's got the wind in his favor,
Speaker 1: which he's going to. I always think about it in
Speaker 1: terms of like a big large mouth right, like you
Speaker 1: think about a big large mouth bass. They live in
Speaker 1: the shadows, like if you've got a stump or a
Speaker 1: dock post or a piling or something, And just think
Speaker 1: about it. If you're in the middle of the summer,
Speaker 1: if you're standing in your garage working and your neighbor
Speaker 1: walks by, you can look out and see them perfectly,
Speaker 1: and they can barely see you moving around in there,
Speaker 1: kind of like the like being in a ground blind
Speaker 1: for turkeys, you know, like if you do it right,
Speaker 1: and those deer in that situation, that advantage is so
Speaker 1: distinct because of their camel and their ability like just
Speaker 1: hide and not move and watch and listen, and you're
Speaker 1: walking by looking into it, and he's got every advantage
Speaker 1: because he's in the cover looking out, Like I think
Speaker 1: we undersell that a lot of times, but they use
Speaker 1: that so much, like it's like ingrained in them, like
Speaker 1: it's genetic, you know, like even fawns do it. And
Speaker 1: when you get a buck that's five and a half
Speaker 1: years old and he's lived on public land or in
Speaker 1: pressure ground, he knows those tricks. It's so much better
Speaker 1: than we could even imagine. Oh yeah, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that they're nocturnal, but I mean you
Speaker 1: can talk to Bronson Strickland and those guys that you
Speaker 1: know MSU Deer Lab, and they'll show you exactly where
Speaker 1: bucks move during the daylight, especially mature bucks, because they
Speaker 1: put radio collars on them and they monitor them NonStop
Speaker 1: and there. And you ask them about mature bucks being nocturnal,
Speaker 1: even on heavily pressured land, They're like, no, there's very few,
Speaker 1: if any, they said, they don't have a single one
Speaker 1: that they can say is nocturnal completely, like they all
Speaker 1: move around somewhat during the day the half to I mean,
Speaker 1: how could it be possible that they were absolutely one
Speaker 1: percent nocturnal? Right? They have to get up they gotta
Speaker 1: they have like five feeding bouts in a day, even
Speaker 1: if that means they just stand up and walk to
Speaker 1: feed and brows a little bit, they're not just betting
Speaker 1: and living in a hole in the ground. And whenever
Speaker 1: they looked at they looked at the habitats that those
Speaker 1: buck used. Bucks used during the day only, and that
Speaker 1: was the consistent thing. Man, those pretty open woods with
Speaker 1: all that sign in there and acorns dropping and everything
Speaker 1: that looks awesome, and those bucks are in there at night.
Speaker 1: They are almost never in there during the day. And
Speaker 1: pressured land, you start getting in the cover that's wasted
Speaker 1: chest high, and that's areas where they're going to start moving,
Speaker 1: Like down in the southeast, and the examples they were
Speaker 1: showing me, it was like river cane, and it was
Speaker 1: just flat, wide open woods for as far as you
Speaker 1: could see. And then you walk up on a patch
Speaker 1: of acre acre and a half of just chest high
Speaker 1: river cane and it's not super thick, but it's just
Speaker 1: enough cover that a buck could bet in the edge
Speaker 1: of it and stand around and move around about that
Speaker 1: river cane and feels safe moving around it during the day,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as it gets dark then they're
Speaker 1: off to wherever, leaving sign all through the woods and
Speaker 1: you know, tricking our brains non stop. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: but this that's like to tie this together. So when
Speaker 1: you when you find a spot like that, or you
Speaker 1: you know, you're out winter scouting and you find that
Speaker 1: open wood sign maybe the scrape that you can see
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then you get to that cover. It's
Speaker 1: not enough to just find that cover. You got to
Speaker 1: wait in there. Look at those trails in there, Look
Speaker 1: how they're getting in and how they're getting out. You know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find some rubs in there, you're gonna find
Speaker 1: some beds probably, And then start thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what conditions does this work? Like does he need to
Speaker 1: be there on September fifteenth when it opens or is
Speaker 1: there enough cover around where he could be somewhere else?
Speaker 1: But by October fifteenth, when the leaves have fallen and
Speaker 1: the pressure's gotten to him. Now is he going to
Speaker 1: be there? Like? What what does it do for you?
Speaker 1: And that that's the beauty of this time of year
Speaker 1: is you can go wait into that stuff and go
Speaker 1: you know, even if it is only an acre, how
Speaker 1: many trails are leading in there, how many trails leading out,
Speaker 1: like how many different ways ailable food sources right there
Speaker 1: close by one, and like those those those food sources
Speaker 1: may not be interesting right now in March, they may
Speaker 1: not be interesting in July, but towards the end of
Speaker 1: November or early December they might be, or in early October,
Speaker 1: like what you're talking about, they might be, and they'll
Speaker 1: they'll shift around the landscape using these different parts of
Speaker 1: it based on food and water and covering and pressure,
Speaker 1: all those different things are going into it. You know,
Speaker 1: there there may be a creek right there that's intermittent stream,
Speaker 1: and if there's no water in that thing, they may
Speaker 1: not bed there very often. But if there is water
Speaker 1: in it that particular year, they may be socked in there.
Speaker 1: Especially if they have water right there. They got good cover,
Speaker 1: a lack of pressure, and they have multiple food sources
Speaker 1: leading out on both sides. Those are areas that where
Speaker 1: my brain starts firing thinking like, okay, these are spots
Speaker 1: that bucks are going to use often, and they're going
Speaker 1: to use them, you know, every single year in mull Tople,
Speaker 1: Bucks will like that big one may be in there
Speaker 1: this year, and then there may be a different big
Speaker 1: one in there next year because all of these conditions line.
Speaker 1: But you're not gonna learn all of that until you
Speaker 1: go in into those bedding areas and scout him from
Speaker 1: the inside out, and then especially getting in there and
Speaker 1: like seeing what the deer can see looking out of them,
Speaker 1: because you're you're playing that scenario in your mind, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this thing's standing up in the middle of this thicket
Speaker 1: and he's walking to the edge of it. He's gonna
Speaker 1: make it a hundred yards during day, Like what can
Speaker 1: he see in that hundred yards? Like what is he
Speaker 1: alerted to? And is there a way that I can
Speaker 1: use this little ditch over here to the left to
Speaker 1: get up here when the wind is when the day
Speaker 1: winds are blowing at noon and climb up in a
Speaker 1: tree to where I can kill him when he's sixty
Speaker 1: yards from that spot. Like you're you're just putting together
Speaker 1: so many little details like that when you're when you're
Speaker 1: finding those areas and scout him from the inside out
Speaker 1: during this time year that you're missing otherwise. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's a really really important point about now it's not
Speaker 1: enough to just find it and go, Okay, here's a
Speaker 1: place a big one spent a lot of time last year,
Speaker 1: because if you don't take a look and figure out
Speaker 1: how to hunt it, then it doesn't matter, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you're missing your opportunity. Yeah. I used to do that
Speaker 1: a lot, where I would I would win or scout
Speaker 1: my ass off almost to the point where I would
Speaker 1: forget stuff, and then I'd like, Okay, I know there
Speaker 1: was like a good staging area I found here, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I never looked for a tree
Speaker 1: to set up in. I didn't look for the access
Speaker 1: or multiple access or something, and it was like it
Speaker 1: was like you only did like twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: the work. Like I've done that exact thing so many times,
Speaker 1: and we should definitely mention that as a caveat here.
Speaker 1: If you guys are getting out there and doing this
Speaker 1: more often, especially this year, like don't overlook those little
Speaker 1: things because I have a tendency to do that. I
Speaker 1: definitely used to where I'd be like, Okay, I got
Speaker 1: scout ten betting areas today, I want to go this one,
Speaker 1: this one, this one, this one. You know, I got
Speaker 1: my coffee and my sandwich and we're just gonna go
Speaker 1: and then before you know it, you scouted them all
Speaker 1: and you definitely learn where some big bucks were living,
Speaker 1: like you said, but you didn't pick up those little
Speaker 1: bit of details. They're gonna help you kill him when
Speaker 1: he's in there. And that's so that's so crucial, like
Speaker 1: looking and seeing can you get up the back of
Speaker 1: that tree without getting spotted, or how do you get
Speaker 1: in and out of that area? Not only walking every
Speaker 1: single one of those trails, but I mean even tracking
Speaker 1: them on your map, like on X has got that
Speaker 1: tracker thing, and we started doing that more where we'll
Speaker 1: start tracing those trails. And I used to over I
Speaker 1: used to just drop a red pin on it, and
Speaker 1: then I'd leave and then and all that stuff's fresh
Speaker 1: on your mind then, but you're gonna forget it. You
Speaker 1: come back in there in October and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know this is a good spot, but I don't
Speaker 1: really know like what the deer can see, so I
Speaker 1: don't know how close I can get without spooking them.
Speaker 1: And I don't really know how the wind behaves in
Speaker 1: here because I didn't check it. I didn't check any
Speaker 1: of that, and I don't really know which food sources
Speaker 1: they have available on the outskirts of this betting here.
Speaker 1: I just know there's a bunch of buck sign here,
Speaker 1: and then there were some beds in here. I know.
Speaker 1: Then you got to go in and re scout that
Speaker 1: thing like five different times before you finally get it
Speaker 1: figured out. But now when I when you go in there,
Speaker 1: it's if you're super anal about really gathering all those
Speaker 1: details right now, it's just gonna speed up there in
Speaker 1: saving them in some way. Yeah, like journal maps, phone
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and don't drop a pin. Drop a
Speaker 1: pin and put notes under it that's say specifics about
Speaker 1: what you're finding. That way you remember it not only
Speaker 1: what you're finding, but you should hunt this in a
Speaker 1: northwest wind or you know what I mean. And that
Speaker 1: tracker feature, man, I started using that out west and
Speaker 1: just like it changed everything, and now I use it
Speaker 1: for white tails all the time. Like if I go
Speaker 1: in and you know, I mean not only not only
Speaker 1: like what we're talking about here with a winner scouting
Speaker 1: deal where you might find some badass sign, you're like,
Speaker 1: I gotta hunt this and I want to know exactly
Speaker 1: how to get to this tree. But even going in
Speaker 1: like the buck I killed this year. For one week
Speaker 1: in November, I walked in and hung a stand in
Speaker 1: the evening. This is on private land, and we had
Speaker 1: an okay, hunt's off, you deer, but it was like
Speaker 1: a brand new setup and I'm filming, so I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're making twice the amount of noise. And it was
Speaker 1: you know, calm and just November conditions whatever, And I
Speaker 1: ran my tracks on the way out, even though it's
Speaker 1: like a you know, one hundred yard walk in the woods.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, I don't want to get off of
Speaker 1: this route by six feet because I have two guys,
Speaker 1: you know, me and another guy who are going to
Speaker 1: be making a ton of noise. And so even following
Speaker 1: like every little turn on that trail and just like
Speaker 1: the exact road I need to take to get there,
Speaker 1: it's just a game changer. And then you think about,
Speaker 1: you know, that's from one day to the next. Now
Speaker 1: you think about go out in March tenth and find
Speaker 1: your perfect tree on that river crossing way back in
Speaker 1: the woods, and you think you're going to go back
Speaker 1: there on October twenty fifth, and remember your exact route
Speaker 1: and take the no way like especially if you used
Speaker 1: to drink like I did there with a pair of
Speaker 1: freaking hiking boots on to cross water, and I got
Speaker 1: all the way in there and then I realized, like
Speaker 1: this water's waist deep. Ye, I'm gonna have to take
Speaker 1: my pants off and my boots just to way across
Speaker 1: this to get back in where i'd scout it. I mean,
Speaker 1: just minor details like that. But you're talking about killing
Speaker 1: them now, Like that's the difference between seeing them and
Speaker 1: killing them is having all of these things buttoned up,
Speaker 1: because I mean, whenever we kill them, it's always like
Speaker 1: you're one step away from from not killing them. Or
Speaker 1: you know, there's one limb that almost got you, or
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I killed a buck that
Speaker 1: we bumping dump, you know, real close to the house,
Speaker 1: and that thing hit it. That arrow hits a limb
Speaker 1: like as soon as it's going into the deer and deflects,
Speaker 1: and I killed him. But I never even saw that
Speaker 1: limb there, had no idea because I've never even been
Speaker 1: in those woods before. But that's my point. It's like,
Speaker 1: you come when it comes down to actually killing these things,
Speaker 1: there are so many of those tiny little details in
Speaker 1: place and things that have to line up in order
Speaker 1: for this to happen for you. The more of that
Speaker 1: stuff you can put to bed ahead of time. With
Speaker 1: you're scouting, the more killing opportunities you're gonna have, not
Speaker 1: just the more encounters you're gonna have, but the more
Speaker 1: killing opportunities you're gonna have. Yeah, and you may not
Speaker 1: be able to like trim trees and whatnot on public land,
Speaker 1: but you can still climb up in them. You can
Speaker 1: climb up in it and see what you can see.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I've I've found
Speaker 1: signing a new area and I've climbed up in a
Speaker 1: tree and then realize once I got up there, like crap,
Speaker 1: this ain't gonna work. Oh, so then you shoot all
Speaker 1: the way down, and then you move ten yards and
Speaker 1: you do it again, and before you know it, you've
Speaker 1: spent four hours out there, and then afternoon trying to
Speaker 1: find a right setup to hunt the edge of this
Speaker 1: bedding area. But all of that could have been taken
Speaker 1: care of before. If I have a major chess grabber
Speaker 1: when I'm like forty eight, it'll be because I've done
Speaker 1: that to myself five thousand times. Hung a stand and
Speaker 1: got up there, or you know, climbed up there to
Speaker 1: set your stand or saddle up and you look around.
Speaker 1: You go, Nope, no way, can't shoot if you want
Speaker 1: to walk out there and look back at the tree
Speaker 1: at what the deer's looking at. But you also don't
Speaker 1: want to leave ground sent three sixty degrees around your spot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's hard. Yeah, And why I do it
Speaker 1: this time of year? Then you're just you're you're crossing
Speaker 1: those off of the list, man. Yeah. And I would
Speaker 1: say on that note because I did that for some
Speaker 1: of the stuff I hunted in Western Minnesota this year.
Speaker 1: You know, I scouted it before we went out there,
Speaker 1: and you know, I looked at trees and I go,
Speaker 1: that's my tree. And then when I get out there
Speaker 1: to set up, I actually walk up to that tree
Speaker 1: and I start looking like where are we going to be?
Speaker 1: Like where's where's the camera gonna be wearing? And then
Speaker 1: you're like, man, it's super crooked and it's actually not
Speaker 1: like figure that's like that is the stuff, like the
Speaker 1: details in the offseason that make the difference, Like it's
Speaker 1: it's all of that, like every little box you can
Speaker 1: check and go, this is actually a tree I can
Speaker 1: get in and be comfortable and and I'm gonna go say,
Speaker 1: team feet up and I'm gonna hang off this side
Speaker 1: with my saddle or what like know that stuff. Don't
Speaker 1: just go oh, there's a nice you know, pine tree
Speaker 1: or whatever there, I'm gonna just use like Nope, not
Speaker 1: good enough, like you got to know it. And what
Speaker 1: I started to do, especially when I'm laying tracks or
Speaker 1: I find a you know, you talk about a spot
Speaker 1: like a high stem count spot in the middle of
Speaker 1: the mostly open woods, I started to do where I'm like,
Speaker 1: here's here's where I think I'll kill. There's my pin,
Speaker 1: here's my tracks, Here's where I'm going to observe like
Speaker 1: I'm in And I think it's really hard, especially if
Speaker 1: you're traveling or you don't have very much time to
Speaker 1: sand bag of hunt and just go I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna bonds eye right in there to my best
Speaker 1: tree and sit like a lot of times because you
Speaker 1: don't know, right like you don't know how they're gonna
Speaker 1: stage through there, or you don't know you know, if
Speaker 1: it's a two acre betting area and he pops out
Speaker 1: here and not there, or at ten twenty acre betting
Speaker 1: area and it's like, are you if you have that
Speaker 1: plan and go I'm not one hundred percent sure where
Speaker 1: the X is, but if I can sneak in here
Speaker 1: and I, oh, I won't get busted. I'm probably not
Speaker 1: going to kill one tonight, but I'm gonna be able
Speaker 1: to look over that whole thing, maybe see him stand up,
Speaker 1: or maybe see somebody coming or going, and then tomorrow,
Speaker 1: if the conditions don't change, that's where I kill him.
Speaker 1: If you plan that stuff out too, where you're like,
Speaker 1: if if I want to get in there, but the
Speaker 1: conditions aren't perfect or I'm not one hundred percent confident
Speaker 1: of it, I'm going to hang back a little bit.
Speaker 1: Man's that has worked for me a lot, and it's alert.
Speaker 1: Oh dude, it's so time hunts. Doing that. Then you
Speaker 1: are diving in there and guessing on which one of
Speaker 1: the fifteen trails he's gonna use coming out. It's either
Speaker 1: that or you also develop a plan. If you can't
Speaker 1: see in you develop a plan where you can scout
Speaker 1: the exterior in that area without boogering anything. So it's like,
Speaker 1: if you can observe in there, where can you tically
Speaker 1: scout those exits? Like how far follow those exits out
Speaker 1: of those betting areas and get to a point where
Speaker 1: you can come across and cut that sign without boogering
Speaker 1: anything out of there. Like that's the stuff you can
Speaker 1: really use during the season to figure out if there's
Speaker 1: a bucket there or not. Like we use that tracks
Speaker 1: example while ago, if you get one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: yards in that bedding area where that trail crosses a
Speaker 1: little sandy dry creek bed and you can go walk
Speaker 1: that thing and see tracks coming and going up and
Speaker 1: down that you know where that trail leads because you've
Speaker 1: done that scouting. Ye. Yeah. The other part of this
Speaker 1: is the attitude, Like your confidence is gonna go up
Speaker 1: so much when you have a plan to go into
Speaker 1: these spots, when you have a tree really nailed, like
Speaker 1: what you just talked about in an access route in
Speaker 1: there and you've been you're just more familiar with it.
Speaker 1: Just I most people are uncomfortable. I'm not uncomfortable anymore
Speaker 1: with going in at three am in the dark, completely
Speaker 1: blind to a spot because I've done enough times. But
Speaker 1: at first I certainly was, you know, but now if
Speaker 1: you've got that, if you have all that intel, you're
Speaker 1: going to be more apt to get in there. And
Speaker 1: get in the right spot. You're not gonna second guess
Speaker 1: yourself near as much because you know what's going on
Speaker 1: and that's just gonna that's gonna help you mentally during
Speaker 1: the season. And you know what that does for you
Speaker 1: that we never talk about. I've been writing about this
Speaker 1: quite a bit. It makes it more fun. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: think about I mean, this is so dumb, but it's
Speaker 1: so true. If you go out and you fully expect
Speaker 1: to see a deer, even if you blank, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a pretty fun hunt just because you're like, it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen, like I'm gonna see him. And I mean
Speaker 1: that stuff happens a lot where you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is gonna happen. The conditions are right,
Speaker 1: I know this spot, I'm gonna see one. Even when
Speaker 1: when you blank it sucks, but whatever, it happens a lot.
Speaker 1: But at least the sit is like you're not sitting
Speaker 1: there going I have no confidence, which is no fun.
Speaker 1: And man, there's like an intangible there where you watch
Speaker 1: people who are we kind of think that everybody's like
Speaker 1: this terminate, like everybody who's a really good public land
Speaker 1: hunter specifically sort of has like a terminator mentality where
Speaker 1: it's like just get it done at all called sit
Speaker 1: all day long and just like hard man, dude, it sucks.
Speaker 1: But if you go out and you figure out a
Speaker 1: way to have fun, which is just building in like
Speaker 1: your knowledge and building up your confidence and going listen,
Speaker 1: I know this fall, there's gonna be a buck concentration here,
Speaker 1: or there's gonna be a good one using this little
Speaker 1: you know, creek bottom in the woods or something like Like,
Speaker 1: there's just something about it that just makes the whole
Speaker 1: thing so much more enjoyable. Even if all the wheels
Speaker 1: fall off and it doesn't work out, going into it
Speaker 1: is so it's so much better. It's gonna and you
Speaker 1: just hunt smarter. You make your I mean, the way
Speaker 1: you walk through the woods, the way you set up
Speaker 1: when you have that belief that you've like you've built
Speaker 1: all this work into this already and you you're like
Speaker 1: he's gonna be here. It's a total game change around
Speaker 1: how you conduct yourself out there and how you feel
Speaker 1: about it. Oh yeah, I definitely would I go that.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I've seen that personally with the way
Speaker 1: that I hunt. If I just go into it with
Speaker 1: that mindset like I'm gonna enjoy myself today and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna learn something. It just pays off in the long
Speaker 1: run because if you just are constantly learning something about
Speaker 1: these areas, it's gonna take care of itself downstream. You're
Speaker 1: hunting with a bow and arrow, like, you can't just
Speaker 1: go out there. It's not like turkey hunting, where you
Speaker 1: can just get mad at one, you know, and then
Speaker 1: just go, go, go, go go, and you're hearing them
Speaker 1: every day and you're getting tighter, you're getting tighter, and
Speaker 1: you eventually kill one. It ain't like that with deer hunting.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's a freaking marathon and it's
Speaker 1: a it's a worl wheels out there. And the more
Speaker 1: info that you have, and if that, if that's really
Speaker 1: your goal, your end goal isn't to kill a buck necessarily, well,
Speaker 1: I guess that's what your end goal is. But your goals,
Speaker 1: in your smaller goals in the meantime is just how
Speaker 1: much can I learn today? How much can I learn
Speaker 1: next weekend when I get to come back here, and
Speaker 1: how can I take that information to sort of spend
Speaker 1: this web up of my strategy going in the next fall.
Speaker 1: And if that's your mindset, man, when I'm when my
Speaker 1: brain is rolling like that, I just always end up
Speaker 1: in better situations to kill Bucks in the fall big time.
Speaker 1: And when I don't get diverted on these these shell
Speaker 1: camera paths, that's what happens. Um And you know you
Speaker 1: said that, you know we're bow hunting deer, but honestly,
Speaker 1: this is this is probably the most underrated aspect of
Speaker 1: being a successful gun hunter too. Like you want to
Speaker 1: talk about winter scouting and finding sanctuaries, Like there is
Speaker 1: no time in a Big Bucks life that he needs
Speaker 1: a sanctuary more than that gun season. So if you
Speaker 1: if you're sitting there and you're listening to this and
Speaker 1: you go up to the cabin every year and you
Speaker 1: got your you know, your hunting party and it's your
Speaker 1: uncles and your dad whoever, and you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been crossing my fingers every year, sitting on the
Speaker 1: same ladder stand and hoping somebody comes down the logging
Speaker 1: road or the power line. Man, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the second best window to scout, right after the gun seasons,
Speaker 1: probably the best window to go burn through everything and
Speaker 1: pay attention to where you jump them. But when you
Speaker 1: go out there now and that woods is laid bare,
Speaker 1: like you're talking about their warb and you find those
Speaker 1: thick areas and that high stem count stuff, that's where
Speaker 1: your bucks are gonna go. When five hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: walk into the woods with rifles like that exactly, it's
Speaker 1: so valuable. Yeah, if you don't know it, you're so
Speaker 1: well yep, so get out there big time, right, we're
Speaker 1: out of time, buddy. I always just absolutely love talking
Speaker 1: to you. I'm pretty sure everybody who's who's listening to
Speaker 1: this knows where to find you guys, but why don't
Speaker 1: you let them know? Anyway, the hunting public just check
Speaker 1: it out on YouTube. You guys don't have a social
Speaker 1: or anything. Yeah, we got Facebook, Instagram, and we're on
Speaker 1: the TikTok too. I'm still figuring out what in the
Speaker 1: world that thing even is. But yeah, yeah, everywhere you
Speaker 1: want to find some good hunting contact, that's where you go.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, man, I always love talking to
Speaker 1: you Youtubo brother. Thanks. That's it for this week, folks.
Speaker 1: Be sure to tune in next week for more whitetail goodness.
Speaker 1: This has been the Wired to Hunt podcast and I'm
Speaker 1: your guest host, Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and if you're looking for more
Speaker 1: whitetail content, be sure to check out the meat eater
Speaker 1: dot com slash wired Again, that's the meat eater dot
Speaker 1: Com slash wired, and you'll see a pile of new
Speaker 1: articles each week by myself, Mark Beaumartonic, Alex Gilsher, I'm
Speaker 1: a whole slew of white tail killers. Or head over
Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt YouTube channel to view the
Speaker 1: weekly content we put up. You see all kinds of
Speaker 1: strategies and different stuff that might help you kill a buck.
Speaker 1: This ball