Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, we are kicking off another round of our
Speaker 2: what would you Do series, in which we're running a
Speaker 2: hunter through a very specific set of hypothetical hunting situations
Speaker 2: to see how they would handle them, and our guests
Speaker 2: today from the hunting public. It's mister Aaron Warburden. All right,
Speaker 2: welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to
Speaker 2: you by First Light, their camera for Conservation initiative and
Speaker 2: their brand new line of whitetail gear, the Core Phase
Speaker 2: and Thermic Kits. Can check it all out over at
Speaker 2: first Light dot com. But today we're kicking off another
Speaker 2: one of our series that we have done annually for
Speaker 2: a number of years now. It's a favorite of mine
Speaker 2: and many other folks, and this is the what would
Speaker 2: you Do series, in which we get a hunter on
Speaker 2: the line with me and I walk them through a
Speaker 2: series of very specific hypothetical hunting situations. You know, imagine
Speaker 2: this this day, you're in this state. Here's the conditions
Speaker 2: you have, here's the setup, or here's the thing that
Speaker 2: the deer is doing, or here's what you just saw.
Speaker 2: Now walk me through how you would handle it. What
Speaker 2: would you do? Why would you do it? This is
Speaker 2: an interesting way to learn new things about deer hunting strategies,
Speaker 2: but with a lot of specificity. You know, it's one
Speaker 2: thing to have someone tell you, wow, this is you
Speaker 2: know how I like to hunt the rut. It's another
Speaker 2: to hear specifically how they would handle this various situation
Speaker 2: during the rut. With these conditions and these variables, all
Speaker 2: of that I think allows us to get a lot
Speaker 2: more from an indie and our guest today, Aaron Warburton
Speaker 2: from the Hunting Public, is a great individual to talk
Speaker 2: to about this kind of stuff. He's obviously very experienced.
Speaker 2: If you if you've seen him, which I'd be shocked
Speaker 2: if you haven't on his previous work with Midwest whitetail
Speaker 2: we're now the Hunting Public. You've seen a guy who
Speaker 2: can get it done in a lot of different situations,
Speaker 2: from the Midwest to the South, to the west to
Speaker 2: the east, a lot of different public land experience private
Speaker 2: as well. The guy is just a great deer hunter
Speaker 2: and a really good communicator, and in this episode he
Speaker 2: does a great job explaining how and why he does things.
Speaker 2: And I think we are able to know. You can
Speaker 2: watch him on his hunting videos all the time, and
Speaker 2: you're seeing them do all these things, and sometimes it's
Speaker 2: an incredible surprising, interesting you know, why are they doing this?
Speaker 2: How are they doing this? Some of the stuff seems
Speaker 2: like so off from you know, how we used to
Speaker 2: hunt ten fifteen years ago. But Aaron does a great
Speaker 2: job today in explaining the thought process behind these things,
Speaker 2: how he would deal with different challenging circumstances. So if
Speaker 2: you want to learn how to be a better deer
Speaker 2: hunter on public land or really even on private in
Speaker 2: tough situations in many different parts of the country, today's
Speaker 2: episode is a great opportunity for you to do so. Now,
Speaker 2: before we get to that, one quick update for you,
Speaker 2: I want to let you know that if you are
Speaker 2: listening to this when it drops, which would be you know,
Speaker 2: oh gosh, this would be August twenty second, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: if you're listening now or soon after that, We've got
Speaker 2: an event coming up August twenty fourth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: in Northern Minnesota that I will be at and would
Speaker 2: love to see you at as well. This is going
Speaker 2: to be paired with one of my Working for Wildlife
Speaker 2: Tour events. This is our last Working for Wildlife Tour
Speaker 2: of the year, and we are going to be working
Speaker 2: up there on the edge of the Bounder Waters with
Speaker 2: Sportsmen for the Bounder Waters and a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: volunteers to help improve a WMA on Lake Vermilion. We're
Speaker 2: going to be planting conifers and oak trees for whitetails
Speaker 2: and other species of wildlife up there. We're going to
Speaker 2: be doing some canopy opening to make sure there's some
Speaker 2: light getting down on the ground so that new growth
Speaker 2: can come up and provide wildlife habitat. We're going to
Speaker 2: be helping create some access trails for recreators and hunters,
Speaker 2: a boat landing so you can boat across and use
Speaker 2: this area and experience this great new wildlife habitat that
Speaker 2: we're going to be creating. So it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: great way to give back to our public lands. The
Speaker 2: downside or the bummer here is that we are capped
Speaker 2: out on how many volunteers we can have at that event,
Speaker 2: so we are full up as far as people who
Speaker 2: want to participate in the actual work, but we have
Speaker 2: a open to all celebration later that evening. So anyone
Speaker 2: up in Northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, if you want to
Speaker 2: get over to Ely, Minnesota this Saturday evening, I'd love
Speaker 2: to see you. This is going to be at the
Speaker 2: Grand Eely Lodge from five pm to nine pm August
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, twenty twenty four. There's gonna be live music,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be speakers, including myself. There's gonna be barbecue,
Speaker 2: a bar raffles, auctions, some swag from First Light that
Speaker 2: you can enter to win. I think there's gonna be
Speaker 2: some stuff for me, maybe some signed books, all sorts
Speaker 2: of good stuff. We're just gonna have a great time
Speaker 2: celebrating hunting, fishing and public lands and would love to
Speaker 2: have you there. So again, if you want more details,
Speaker 2: you can go to the Sportsman for the Boundary Waters website,
Speaker 2: which is let me get you that ur l here shortly.
Speaker 2: I should know this. It is wait for it Sportsman
Speaker 2: bw C A dot O RG SO going over there
Speaker 2: you can get details about the event. There's also a
Speaker 2: Facebook event page that you can rs VP for as well.
Speaker 2: So hope to see on Saturday. Speaking of the Working
Speaker 2: for a Wildlife Tour, I want to give you a
Speaker 2: quick update on this. This is gonna be our ninth
Speaker 2: event since the last spring, so nine of these events
Speaker 2: in which I and many volunteers such as yourself have
Speaker 2: gone out volunteered on public lands to improve wildlife habitat,
Speaker 2: to give back to the wildlife and wild places that
Speaker 2: we enjoy so much, that we benefit from so much.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to kind of give you a state
Speaker 2: of the union. Since we started this twelve eighteen months ago,
Speaker 2: there's been almost I think almost seven hundred volunteers that
Speaker 2: have participated in these events. So far. We have done
Speaker 2: such things as collect more than two thousand pounds of
Speaker 2: trash of public lands. We have improved more than eighteen
Speaker 2: acres of early secessional habitat that was in one of
Speaker 2: the events last year. This year in Pennsylvania and Kentucky,
Speaker 2: we probably you know, more than doubled that because we
Speaker 2: did a bunch of vasive species removal, We did some
Speaker 2: tree cutting to I guess it'd be thinning to allow
Speaker 2: candipy relief for oak trees. We improved eight to eighty
Speaker 2: small game brush piles created northern Michigan for small game
Speaker 2: and other wildlife. Collected eight hundred pounds of white oak
Speaker 2: acorns which are then planted at a nursery, and I
Speaker 2: believe the number of trees is something fifteen thousand seedlings
Speaker 2: that are growing right now that we're then going to
Speaker 2: go plant back on the National Forest next year. Thirty
Speaker 2: five acres of wildlife food plots planted on public lands,
Speaker 2: two hundred crab apple trees planted, more than a dozen
Speaker 2: acres of aspen forest restored. So many cool things like
Speaker 2: this that are going to make for better habitat for
Speaker 2: deer and turkeys and upland birds and birds and butterflies
Speaker 2: and so many other critters. It's going to make for
Speaker 2: better you know, access and opportunities for hunters and recreators.
Speaker 2: And this is the kind of thing that you know,
Speaker 2: you don't need to wait for a Working for Wildlife
Speaker 2: Tour event to be a part of. There are these
Speaker 2: kinds of things all over the country put on by
Speaker 2: many different organizations, and I would just encourage all of
Speaker 2: you guys to consider participating. It's a fun time. You
Speaker 2: get to spend time with other folks who care about
Speaker 2: the things you do. I've made a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: new hunting buddies and friends to this stuff. It's inspiring.
Speaker 2: You come away from these things after doing something tangible
Speaker 2: and good feeling like, hey, I actually can make a difference. Hey,
Speaker 2: I actually gave back to this thing I cared about.
Speaker 2: That's going to make you feel good about yourself in
Speaker 2: the moment. It's going to make a tangible, positive difference
Speaker 2: right now for the landscape. And I think it leads
Speaker 2: to bigger and better things down the road, because when
Speaker 2: you start doing this kind of stuff, it tends to
Speaker 2: snowball and it becomes a little bit of your identity.
Speaker 2: And I think that if we are going to spend
Speaker 2: time out there hunting or fishing and enjoying and taking
Speaker 2: from these resources, right we have an obligation to give back,
Speaker 2: and this kind of thing is a great opportunity to
Speaker 2: do so. I appreciate everybody who has come out for
Speaker 2: the working for a while life to our events. So far,
Speaker 2: it's been great meeting you. I really hope we can
Speaker 2: do more of it next year and hopefully we'll see
Speaker 2: more of you then. And this Saturday, August twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: five to nine pm, grand Elie Lodge, I hope a
Speaker 2: bunch of you can come on out and help me
Speaker 2: celebrate the finale of our twenty twenty four edition. So
Speaker 2: with that said, we should get to our podcast today
Speaker 2: with Aaron. It's a good one. You're gonna enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Here we go, all right, hear me now on the
Speaker 2: line for the I don't know third or fourth time.
Speaker 2: Maybe we got Aaron Warwarden back on the show. Thanks
Speaker 2: for being here, man, no problem, happy to do it.
Speaker 2: I know this is a crazy time of year for
Speaker 2: all of us as we're racing to the finish line.
Speaker 2: So I don't know what time of year is the worst,
Speaker 2: because hunting season obviously is really hard time to get
Speaker 2: a hold of people because we're all in the field.
Speaker 2: But at least we're all dedicated to that time, to
Speaker 2: the work and to being out there, and we're already
Speaker 2: away from our families and it's already kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: But then right now, least for me, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: get a lot done, but at the same time also
Speaker 2: trying to pack in family time or like honey, you
Speaker 2: list kind of time, and so I also feel bad
Speaker 2: pulling people away from that kind of stuff. Now, so
Speaker 2: long story short, thank you.
Speaker 3: No man, it's no problem at all. I mean you
Speaker 3: should see my office. It's a complete tornado in here
Speaker 3: of just stuff all over the place, bows and arrows
Speaker 3: and boxes and hard drives and yeah, I'm in the
Speaker 3: middle of all kinds of stressful stuff. So this is
Speaker 3: this is a good change of pace, just to good
Speaker 3: counting for a little bit good.
Speaker 2: Well, the game plan for this series, as you know,
Speaker 2: is is basically throwing you a bunch of curveballs, a
Speaker 2: bunch of different hunting scenarios, some that you've probably encountered,
Speaker 2: some maybe not exactly. But the idea here is to
Speaker 2: kind of see how you would do this stuff, how
Speaker 2: you would tackle these specific hypothetical situations. You know, as
Speaker 2: a deer hunter, and you know, you and a lot
Speaker 2: of your buddies there at THHP have had such a
Speaker 2: diverse set of experiences, traveling so many places across the country.
Speaker 2: I think we can learn a lot from you guys,
Speaker 2: and these are these are extra helpful. So here's my
Speaker 2: first question. We're just gonna jump right into it without
Speaker 2: wasting any time. Imagine that you've got a traveling hunt
Speaker 2: planned for this season for you know, primetime. You're gonna
Speaker 2: go somewhere in the Midwest in November. But this is
Speaker 2: going to be a new area, so spot you've never
Speaker 2: hunted in the past, and it's gonna be a decent
Speaker 2: sized chunk of public land. All these things sound great.
Speaker 2: The problem is, for whatever reason, you have no time
Speaker 2: to go there and scout it ahead of time in
Speaker 2: the spring, and you can't get there a few days
Speaker 2: early in the fall, so you're gonna have to You're
Speaker 2: gonna drop off, and you're gonna have like five days
Speaker 2: of hunt November, and it's just got to happen. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna give you one day in August to scout one
Speaker 2: day late August. This is you have to achieve anything
Speaker 2: you want to achieve for this hunt on this one
Speaker 2: single you know, twenty four hour period. How exactly would
Speaker 2: you best use that single day in August to prepare
Speaker 2: yourself in some way for that upcoming November hunt. What
Speaker 2: would be like the most efficient bang for your buckway
Speaker 2: to spend that time.
Speaker 3: I would probably end up spending most of that twenty
Speaker 3: four hour period in the car. Honestly, especially if it
Speaker 3: was a big public area or just an area in
Speaker 3: general that I had never been.
Speaker 2: To before, I would start.
Speaker 3: I would start off with the low hanging fruit, which
Speaker 3: is figure out the road systems. Which roads are closed,
Speaker 3: which roads are minimum maintenance, roads that could be muddy
Speaker 3: in a rainy or a wet situation, Which roads are passable,
Speaker 3: which roads can you park off of, try to figure
Speaker 3: out lots of just general regulations about the area. Some
Speaker 3: public areas, for example, you have to park in a
Speaker 3: parking lot. Some you can park right on the side
Speaker 3: of the road in the road ditch and take off
Speaker 3: in there. And then there's also some road systems that
Speaker 3: have like a big guard rail that runs down the
Speaker 3: side of them for two miles where you can't park
Speaker 3: on the side of the road. All these are just
Speaker 3: little details that you get just from the truck, and
Speaker 3: that would be I would have my maps and I
Speaker 3: would just be cruising around that entire area, trying to
Speaker 3: cover every inch of that road system and thinking about access. Now,
Speaker 3: if I got all that accomplished, then I would try
Speaker 3: to dive in to a betting area or two. The
Speaker 3: reality though is that. I mean, if I'm looking at
Speaker 3: betting areas and I'm trying to be efficient, it's hard
Speaker 3: to pick one that's two miles deep, even though that
Speaker 3: might be a good candidate to scout. If you only
Speaker 3: have twenty four hours and you're looking at like a
Speaker 3: third of the day, it's going to take you four
Speaker 3: or five hours just to get back in there and
Speaker 3: start looking around, and then in an additional several hours
Speaker 3: to kick over every rock in there to understand it.
Speaker 3: Because that's ideally what I would like to do if
Speaker 3: I was scouting to betting areas. Once I get in there,
Speaker 3: I want to spend time in there. I don't want
Speaker 3: to just look at it for twenty minutes and then
Speaker 3: feel rushed and have to leave, because then I'm not
Speaker 3: going to know. I'm not going to get all the
Speaker 3: intel that I want. So if I was down to
Speaker 3: a day, i'd spend most of the time on the road,
Speaker 3: and if I had any time left over, I would
Speaker 3: try to think about efficient bedding areas that I could scout,
Speaker 3: So stuff that's really close to the road, stuff that's overlooked,
Speaker 3: fairly small in size, you know, acre two or less
Speaker 3: that I could just burn through as quickly as possible,
Speaker 3: and that's probably gonna fill up the whole day, honestly.
Speaker 3: I mean usually if we're scouting an area, about the
Speaker 3: second and third day is when we really get into
Speaker 3: the nitty gritty of figuring out betting areas in there,
Speaker 3: you know, And after you've got five, six to ten
Speaker 3: days in there, then you really start putting the pieces together.
Speaker 3: But it all starts in the car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what if I change the time of year
Speaker 2: and instead of your one day to scout being in August,
Speaker 2: instead it's going to be the day before you're hunting.
Speaker 2: So now you're allowed to show up on November second,
Speaker 2: or whatever day it's going to be sometime that period.
Speaker 2: You can't hunt for whatever reason. You can't have your
Speaker 2: ball with you, you can't have a firearm with you, just scouting.
Speaker 2: But same question, but now it's the day before, still
Speaker 2: in the car.
Speaker 3: Even if I could hunt, if I had five days
Speaker 3: to hunt, I would, and I was going in blind
Speaker 3: to an area like that, I'd probably devote the first
Speaker 3: half of that trip to just scouting, and maybe the
Speaker 3: first entire day to just being in the car. I mean,
Speaker 3: driving from public area or parking lot to parking lot,
Speaker 3: looking at who's parked where on the side of the roads,
Speaker 3: and just kind of trying to look for a hole
Speaker 3: somewhere that's not getting attention that could be really thick,
Speaker 3: that is getting deer pushed into it from the onslaught
Speaker 3: of hunting pressure. Because you're talking about the Midwest and
Speaker 3: the Rut, I mean, there's going to be hunting pressure.
Speaker 3: That's when everybody takes your vacation. So if you show
Speaker 3: up there on a Saturday or a Friday or a especially,
Speaker 3: those are the days when I really want to be
Speaker 3: on the road looking for pressure because that's gonna ta
Speaker 3: Those are those are the high pressure days, right, I
Speaker 3: mean that's when most of the people are out there,
Speaker 3: is on the weekends. So I want to look and
Speaker 3: mark as many hunters as I can in that given day,
Speaker 3: and there's gonna more times than not we find you know,
Speaker 3: sixty seventy percent of the property's got hunters on it,
Speaker 3: but you know the rest may not have anybody in there.
Speaker 3: And then if we scout again the second day from
Speaker 3: the road and nobody's in there, then we know, okay,
Speaker 3: that's two days in a row during the beginning of
Speaker 3: the rut where it doesn't appear, at least from the
Speaker 3: outside looking in, that there's any hunting pressure on this
Speaker 3: little spot, and then we might drill into that one
Speaker 3: a little bit well also if it's in the rut too.
Speaker 3: We we're always on the move, whether we're on foot
Speaker 3: or in the car, and we're looking for the hot action.
Speaker 3: I mean, whether that's driving down the road and running
Speaker 3: across a big buck with a dough that's in a
Speaker 3: road ditch, or whether we're burning boot leather and in
Speaker 3: search of you know, the rut if you will, trying
Speaker 3: to find a hot dough with several bucks on her.
Speaker 3: We do the same thing.
Speaker 2: When you are doing this kind of hunting pressure check
Speaker 2: and you see a car at a trailhead or an
Speaker 2: access point, how big of a radius are you crossing
Speaker 2: off the map? And I wonder, like if this has
Speaker 2: changed it all? It like maybe ten years ago most
Speaker 2: guys were hunting close to the truck, but now most
Speaker 2: serious hunters know, or at least a lot of serious
Speaker 2: hunters want to go deep now because of you know,
Speaker 2: continued attention and you know, discussion about best ways to
Speaker 2: do this. So now when you see a truck at
Speaker 2: a trailhead, how much are you crossing off the map,
Speaker 2: assuming well, okay, that's been pressure because there was someone here.
Speaker 3: It just depends on the nature of it. You know,
Speaker 3: some public areas are real smaller. Even a portion of
Speaker 3: a public area maybe just a narrow access with a
Speaker 3: you know, a two spot parking lot. So if somebody's
Speaker 3: parked there two days in a row, and you can
Speaker 3: assume just by looking at the map that they're going
Speaker 3: in in one direction. Now, if it's a parking lot
Speaker 3: that's surrounded three hundred and sixty degrees by public land,
Speaker 3: and they can go two miles in every direction, then
Speaker 3: one vehicle isn't a problem. I mean, five vehicles may
Speaker 3: not be a problem. You know, it just depends on
Speaker 3: where they're going. You can't infer as much from that.
Speaker 3: But say, for example, you're driving down a road. Left
Speaker 3: side of the road is private, right side of the
Speaker 3: road's public, and you're seeing a car every three hundred
Speaker 3: yards down that road. You can assume on the public
Speaker 3: side of the road, you can assume that those people
Speaker 3: are parking, and they're going straight in for the most part,
Speaker 3: at least for the first couple hundred yards, So it
Speaker 3: kind of just depends. I don't know how to answer
Speaker 3: that accurately with that out seeing the exact scenario that
Speaker 3: you're that you're dealing with. But those are the thing
Speaker 3: that's what I'm thinking about. I guess that those are
Speaker 3: the things that are going through my mind whenever I'm
Speaker 3: whenever I see a vehicle there, I see a hunter there.
Speaker 3: And also to caveat that, how do you know if
Speaker 3: it's a hunter. It's if it's public land, it's close
Speaker 3: to a city or something, and there's lots of hiking
Speaker 3: trails or something there. It could be somebody out walking
Speaker 3: their dog, right, I mean, there's dan Imfall used to
Speaker 3: talk about that about how he would have like his
Speaker 3: old mom car or something that he would take out
Speaker 3: there every once in a while that he would park
Speaker 3: on the side of the road because they didn't want
Speaker 3: to They he didn't want to have his truck out
Speaker 3: there with his hunting stickers on it because then everybody knows, oh,
Speaker 3: that's a hunter and he's in there. He you know,
Speaker 3: had some old minivan or something that he was in
Speaker 3: out there to try to make it appear like it's
Speaker 3: somebody just out walking their dog. So I don't know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of these things that are going through
Speaker 3: my mind as I'm thinking came through that.
Speaker 2: But interesting. Okay, let's shift a little bit into a
Speaker 2: real hunting scenario. Now we're going to start the year out.
Speaker 2: It's early September still, and it's one of those states
Speaker 2: like Kentucky where you've got that early September opener. It
Speaker 2: is super hot but also wet, not only muggy, but
Speaker 2: there's actually been kind of sporadic rain showers. It's that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And you are hunting near a beanfield
Speaker 2: where at least you can see into the bean field
Speaker 2: from where you're sitting up in a tree, and you
Speaker 2: are set up assuming that there will be deer coming
Speaker 2: out of some thick, nasty bedding cover off to your
Speaker 2: let's just say to your west, but in the opposite
Speaker 2: direction is the bean field. You glass out there and
Speaker 2: you see a shooter buck stand up out of the beans.
Speaker 2: Turns out this buck was betted in the beans the
Speaker 2: whole time. So there's a betted buck steps up out
Speaker 2: of the beans. You watch them the rest of the evening.
Speaker 2: Day two arrives. The morning of day two, how do
Speaker 2: you approach the next day after seeing this buck stand
Speaker 2: up out of the beans? Are you hunting in the morning?
Speaker 2: Are you waiting till the evening? Either way, what are
Speaker 2: you doing?
Speaker 3: What are the conditions when I get up that morning,
Speaker 3: same kind of thing, hot but scattered showers, windy at
Speaker 3: all or no wind. We're gonna say this is a
Speaker 3: light wind, like less than ten twelve miles an hour
Speaker 3: type wind. I'm going to try to observe again, unless
Speaker 3: I noticed something the day before, like if he was
Speaker 3: betted in the beans with a waterway nearby, or with
Speaker 3: a weed patch out there, or something to that effect,
Speaker 3: that I could maybe use his cover when I'm slipping
Speaker 3: into that spot. The other thing you got to take
Speaker 3: into account is how tall are the beans, because if
Speaker 3: they're really tall beans, how you're going to get an
Speaker 3: arrow through the crap If he's in the middle of
Speaker 3: the beans, So you have to find some sort of
Speaker 3: mini transition out there that you could set up on
Speaker 3: where you could maybe kill him. You know, if the
Speaker 3: beans are below chest heighth on the deer, then you
Speaker 3: may not have as big of an issue. But the
Speaker 3: thing that I'm immediately thinking of is trying to observe
Speaker 3: him again if the conditions don't lend itself to slipping close.
Speaker 3: Now you said it's wet, it's been rainy or whatever,
Speaker 3: so that helps quiet my noise down as I'm trying
Speaker 3: to sneak in close to that deer where he's at.
Speaker 3: But if it's not very windy, it's still going to
Speaker 3: be a challenge, especially if he's up and feeding, you know,
Speaker 3: first light in the morning. So what I'd rather do
Speaker 3: is I'd rather watch him bed down that morning, see
Speaker 3: if I get eyes on him, and then watch him
Speaker 3: as long as possible. That's sort of the chink in
Speaker 3: his armor, if you will, is he's choosing a bed
Speaker 3: in an area that is wide open until he lays down.
Speaker 3: So if you can get eyes on him while he's
Speaker 3: up and moving around out there, you can really get
Speaker 3: a lot of information without spooking.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: You can sit back from a long ways away and
Speaker 3: put together all of these pieces and then watch where
Speaker 3: he beds down, wait for the day winds to pick
Speaker 3: up in the middle of the day, and then sort
Speaker 3: of crafts you're playing to get in there really close
Speaker 3: to him. Jake and Hayden did that a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago in October. They did it with a muzzleoder,
Speaker 3: but they were watching from and it wasn't a beanfield,
Speaker 3: but it was similar vegetation height. You know, they watched
Speaker 3: a buck travel all the way across it in the
Speaker 3: morning and lay down out in the middle of it
Speaker 3: day winds picked up.
Speaker 2: They marked the spot.
Speaker 3: They marked many lan you know, many landmarks around the
Speaker 3: buck so that they could have a point of reference.
Speaker 3: That's another thing you have to consider is when you're
Speaker 3: watching that deer, if he's out in a big, monotonous beanfield, Yeah,
Speaker 3: he might be easy to see from tree stand twenty
Speaker 3: feet up from four hundred yards with a good set
Speaker 3: of binoculars, But how you're going to know where exactly
Speaker 3: he's at once you get out there on the ground
Speaker 3: with him. So is he next to this little green
Speaker 3: bush out there? He is he next to this little waterway?
Speaker 3: How far is he from that little waterway? You know,
Speaker 3: I've heard lampers talk about that a little bit. When
Speaker 3: he's spotting and stalking mule deer, Like he's always trying
Speaker 3: to measure how deep the cuts are and how far
Speaker 3: across they are as he's glassing, so that he can
Speaker 3: anticipate where he needs to get to be in range
Speaker 3: of that mule deer buck, And it's kind of the
Speaker 3: same situation. You're trying to anticipate where you can get
Speaker 3: to get a shot at that deer within his bubble.
Speaker 3: The good thing is is that you know right where
Speaker 3: he is, so and you and if it's a giant
Speaker 3: beanfield and he's out in the middle of it, you
Speaker 3: can seemingly get the win right and come in from
Speaker 3: any direction possible. But I would definitely wait till the
Speaker 3: day winds pick up and then create a plan to
Speaker 3: slip in the narrow on him and try to get
Speaker 3: an arrow to him when he stands up later in
Speaker 3: the day, or even when he stands up in the
Speaker 3: middle of the day just to brow.
Speaker 2: Does your answer change it all if I tell you
Speaker 2: that no longer do you have that rainy situation. So
Speaker 2: now it's been just parched dry, it's been drier than dry,
Speaker 2: and it's one of those very still days, so maybe
Speaker 2: like two miles an hour and very very still, you know,
Speaker 2: very very hard stalking conditions. Now, so what are you
Speaker 2: do in that scenario?
Speaker 3: It depends on how much time I got left in
Speaker 3: the hunt. I'll push all my chips in. If I
Speaker 3: don't have much time, and you know, and you feel
Speaker 3: like you're not going to be able to get on
Speaker 3: this deer again, then you got it. Then it's like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, what do I have to lose? I might
Speaker 3: as well go after him. He's not going to be
Speaker 3: on this same pattern in a week anyway, more than likely,
Speaker 3: especially if it's early in the year like that, those
Speaker 3: beans are going to turn by the middle of the
Speaker 3: month and he's going to be on acorn somewhere or
Speaker 3: on natural brows or whatever. They just don't you know,
Speaker 3: So spooking him ain't necessarily going to run him out
Speaker 3: of the county. You're probably gonna be able to come
Speaker 3: back in there and hunt him within the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: So he's in a vulnerable position.
Speaker 3: The problem is is that when it's dry and calm,
Speaker 3: it is so hard to get close because everything is
Speaker 3: magnified every step that you take. Your noise factor is
Speaker 3: a problem, but also your movement because those beans aren't
Speaker 3: blown around, and the grass isn't blown around. Everything's dead, calm,
Speaker 3: and you're the only thing that's moving in that field.
Speaker 3: So all he's got to do is here, you know,
Speaker 3: a little twig or a bush or something break, a
Speaker 3: stem of a bean plant break, and he whips that
Speaker 3: head over there, and he catches a little bit of movement,
Speaker 3: and he knows that something's up, you know, while you're stressful.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, if it's wet and windy, you can you
Speaker 3: can go about it a lot differently. But in that scenario
Speaker 3: you've got to be infinitely more patient because your movement
Speaker 3: is so critical. You know, you may not be able
Speaker 3: to get as close either. You may have to kind
Speaker 3: of push back from the table a little bit and say,
Speaker 3: all right, this is as close as I can comfortably
Speaker 3: get to this thing. Here's a little waterway or a
Speaker 3: weed patch, and these beans are a hard pin in
Speaker 3: the field where the beans aren't his tall, where if
Speaker 3: he does decide to come this direction, I can get
Speaker 3: a good shot in there. So maybe I should just
Speaker 3: stay back one hundred to two hundred yards, make a
Speaker 3: good setup and see what he does. Those would be
Speaker 3: things going through my mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would you ever employ something to try to get
Speaker 2: him to come to you? Like, would you call it all?
Speaker 2: In that scenario because of the fact you have to
Speaker 2: stay back farther even though it's early season or anything
Speaker 2: else like that.
Speaker 3: I'd consider it, but not calling without a decoy in
Speaker 3: the wide open like that. He's going to stand up
Speaker 3: in those beans and he's going to be able to
Speaker 3: look right over there. And if he doesn't, if he
Speaker 3: doesn't see this source the sound, he's he's a not
Speaker 3: going to come in, or B maybe worse, he's going
Speaker 3: to come in, but he's going to come in straight
Speaker 3: at you on alert looking. You know, you don't want
Speaker 3: an alert deer facing you at forty yards stomping his
Speaker 3: foot at you.
Speaker 2: You It's it's.
Speaker 3: Better, in my opinion, at least to catch him by surprise.
Speaker 3: Or if you've got a decoy and he commits to it,
Speaker 3: that's a that's a great situation. And they could do
Speaker 3: that that even early in the season, So I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: I would not rule that out as a potential option.
Speaker 3: Does any of this change if you are doing all
Speaker 3: this along a very busy road and this is all
Speaker 3: within sight of a busy road, and you know there's
Speaker 3: gonna be people walk driving by frequently, other hunters driving by.
Speaker 2: Do you worry at all about doing anything that makes
Speaker 2: you visible and or encourages someone to stop and start
Speaker 2: watching or glassing or anything like that. Or do you
Speaker 2: just have to say, well, it is what it is
Speaker 2: and we're gonna hope it doesn't mess things up.
Speaker 3: Uh. If it's under the perfect conditions where I can
Speaker 3: get in there real tight to the buck and I
Speaker 3: feel good about getting within fifty yards of him, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go. I don't care about anything else that's going on.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what that's when my brain kicks into Okay,
Speaker 3: it's killed time. This is the situation. We need to
Speaker 3: get close to this thing and killing so we're going.
Speaker 3: If it's if it's the second scenario that you talked about,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit more difficult and I have more time,
Speaker 3: or I'm coming back in a few weeks or something,
Speaker 3: I might just hang tight and watching. But I mean,
Speaker 3: if he's close to a road, you got road noise too,
Speaker 3: that could aid you. That's also another distraction that he's
Speaker 3: probably watching and paying attention to his car slowing down
Speaker 3: on the road, people driving by. You know, he's not
Speaker 3: able to devote all of his senses just to you
Speaker 3: as you're going in because he's distracted, So that could
Speaker 3: con benefit you.
Speaker 2: That scenario man. I mean it could either be like
Speaker 2: feast or famine. Right, you could see this being like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is amazing, what a great situation to some degree,
Speaker 2: or then if you've got that wrong set of conditions,
Speaker 2: then it's then it's like, jeez, this is kind of
Speaker 2: a nightmare. I almost wish I didn't see him, because
Speaker 2: now it's gonna be so stressful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it could definitely be stressful if you don't have
Speaker 3: the right conditions, you know, but there's so many things
Speaker 3: that if it's hot and dry and calm, and there's
Speaker 3: a ditch with water one hundred yards from him, or
Speaker 3: a little pond out there with a little brush around
Speaker 3: two hundred yards from him, that may be a perfect
Speaker 3: place to just go and make a good setup for
Speaker 3: the rest of the day. You might kill him right there.
Speaker 3: I mean, you got a bow in your hands. So yes,
Speaker 3: you can be aggressive at times under the right situation,
Speaker 3: but a lot of luck is almost always involved.
Speaker 2: When you have a bow.
Speaker 3: You have to almost wait for them to make some
Speaker 3: kind of mistake.
Speaker 2: All right, let's fest forward through the calendar just a
Speaker 2: little bit. Let's get to like October first, and you
Speaker 2: guys are going to a swampy part of Louisiana, which
Speaker 2: might be almost all Louisiana. But let's say you're hunting
Speaker 2: down south a swampy area of public land, planning to
Speaker 2: start hunting on October first. What does your e scouting
Speaker 2: look like leading into that hunt. I imagine you're gonna
Speaker 2: do some map work. Let's say this is the spot
Speaker 2: you haven't hunted before again, so you're trying to learn
Speaker 2: it ahead of time to plan things out. You talked
Speaker 2: about your driving scouting, but what kind of stuff would
Speaker 2: you be looking for in swampy southern ground when trying
Speaker 2: to plan a hunt before showing.
Speaker 3: Up that early in the season. I have very little
Speaker 3: experience down there, so what I would be looking at
Speaker 3: doing is calling somebody that's got some I'd be trying
Speaker 3: to talk to biologists, other hunters in the area, anybody
Speaker 3: that could glean that I could glean some info out of.
Speaker 3: Not necessarily on well where are the bucks right now?
Speaker 3: I want general info like early October, what are the
Speaker 3: deer generally feeding on in the woods around here? Like
Speaker 3: which oak trees are dropping acorns this early? And you
Speaker 3: might even be able to do a Google search and
Speaker 3: figure some of that stuff out, Like for example, down south,
Speaker 3: a nut all oak tree will drop acorns much later
Speaker 3: in the year, so in like December and January they
Speaker 3: will be flocking to those things, whereas in October they're
Speaker 3: holding all their acorns. So maybe you know, it could
Speaker 3: be any other type of food source, not just acorns,
Speaker 3: but I wouldn't need to get more information on that.
Speaker 3: And if you're looking at a thick swamp that is
Speaker 3: essentially endless betting cover, especially early in the year before
Speaker 3: there's been you know, when the woods are super thick,
Speaker 3: I'm not so much focused on betting. I'm more focused
Speaker 3: on food, just trying to figureigure out what on earth
Speaker 3: the deer or feeding on at that given time. And
Speaker 3: then i'd also be looking from a map on like
Speaker 3: creative ways to access the area, ways in which that
Speaker 3: other people might not access it. I'm not saying that's
Speaker 3: a that's a clear, hard and fast rule by any means,
Speaker 3: because it's early in the year, there hasn't been a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure yet. But if there's a canal running
Speaker 3: through there, or a stream of little marsh by you whatever,
Speaker 3: where I could get in a canoe and I could
Speaker 3: efficiently move up through the middle of that area without
Speaker 3: spooking deer, because in most of those situations of swamps
Speaker 3: are flat, so you need any if you can find
Speaker 3: even just a couple feet of elevation difference, that can
Speaker 3: help you when it comes to moving through the woods undetected.
Speaker 2: Whether that's just like.
Speaker 3: A mini ridge in the middle of a bottom, or
Speaker 3: like I'm talking about, a swamp or a creek or
Speaker 3: something that would I would I really like those situations
Speaker 3: where you can get a boat with a trolling motor
Speaker 3: in there, or a canoe something quiet water access where
Speaker 3: you can go up every three or four hundred yards
Speaker 3: and pop out of that water, raise your head up
Speaker 3: two or three feet and look around at the situation.
Speaker 2: You can spot deer.
Speaker 3: That way, you can observe deer, you can learn stuff
Speaker 3: about the area without putting a bunch of grounds in
Speaker 3: in there or spooking deer. I mean, we've paddled past
Speaker 3: deer in canoes dozens of times within bow range and
Speaker 3: they don't hardly look up. It's a very very low
Speaker 3: impact way of learning an area. So that would be
Speaker 3: one thing I'm looking at, But I will caveat that
Speaker 3: by saying early in the season don't be surprised if
Speaker 3: there's a huge buck three hundred yards from the parking
Speaker 3: lot and he's feeding right there on a daily basis,
Speaker 3: because there has been no pressure up to that point.
Speaker 2: So there's a couple of ways to look at that.
Speaker 3: You know you can you can try to efficiently scout
Speaker 3: those area that are really close that don't have a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure, Or you can look at the water access,
Speaker 3: but also combine that with the food intel that you get.
Speaker 2: MM. So you've looked on your maps and you've found
Speaker 2: some water access, maybe you've talked to someone to figure
Speaker 2: out what the best food sources of that time. What
Speaker 2: does day one or day two of the actual hunt
Speaker 2: look like in this kind of wet, big country where
Speaker 2: let's say you've driven around, you've done that night before whatever,
Speaker 2: you you've kind of figured out where there's people where
Speaker 2: there's not. What does your actual first day of hunting
Speaker 2: look like. Do you think you would do that first
Speaker 2: thing that you described, which would be the float around
Speaker 2: and eyeball everything, or would you do that part of
Speaker 2: the day and then eventually pick the best looking piece
Speaker 2: of high ground and hop up in a tree, or
Speaker 2: how would you navigate that Uh, yeah, more than likely.
Speaker 3: If there was a good place where I could access
Speaker 3: via water and I could really cover some country, I
Speaker 3: would not be too worried about hunting that first day
Speaker 3: unless there was like a phenomenal front that was coming
Speaker 3: through and deer we're going to be definitely on their
Speaker 3: feet and moving. I'm just focused on learning at that point,
Speaker 3: so I'm trying to I'm trying to find as many
Speaker 3: points of interest in spots as possible, get and gather
Speaker 3: as much information as possible. I'm like, where's the fresh
Speaker 3: deer sign?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 3: I'm not worried necessarily about spooking some deer here and there.
Speaker 3: That's actually a good thing because then I start to
Speaker 3: you can start to put little pieces together every time
Speaker 3: that happens. But the kayak and the canoe in the
Speaker 3: water would be you know, if I had that scenario
Speaker 3: where I could cover a few miles or whatever of
Speaker 3: country with limited low impact and ideally learn half a
Speaker 3: dozen spots or more in a given day, I might
Speaker 3: not even hunt. I might not even get in a
Speaker 3: tree unless there's a situation where I can get in
Speaker 3: a tree and I can observe a great distance, or
Speaker 3: I really find something that's super hot and very convincing,
Speaker 3: you know, But a lot of times that's not what
Speaker 3: you find. It's like, you find and here's a little
Speaker 3: bit of sign. Here's a little bit of sign here.
Speaker 3: Especially down south and so much big monotonous terrain, you
Speaker 3: you'll occasionally find a feed tree that's got a lot
Speaker 3: of sign under it, and those you need to hunt asap.
Speaker 3: But that's not the norm, at least it hasn't been
Speaker 3: in my experience. You have to do a lot of
Speaker 3: scouting in order to find that. So that's what I'm
Speaker 3: focused on.
Speaker 2: So describe for me. You give one example there the
Speaker 2: feed tree, but describe to me an example, what are
Speaker 2: some examples of amount of sign that would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I need to stop, Like what's the threshold of freshness
Speaker 2: of amount of what that looks like? And then just
Speaker 2: for people that maybe aren't familiar, can you also expand
Speaker 2: on a feed tree how to identify that situation too?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. Google Warren Womack. You'll learn
Speaker 3: everything that you need to know about feed trees. He's
Speaker 3: the he's the freaking g he knows what's up, especially
Speaker 3: with hunting deer down south. But when you find signed
Speaker 3: underneath them. Say, I'll try to equate this to some
Speaker 3: examples even up in the Midwest, because it's similar. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just different food sources in different parts of the country.
Speaker 3: So you're creeping through an oak flat and there's white
Speaker 3: oka corns all over the ground. Tree to tree to tree,
Speaker 3: there's white okay corns everywhere. Well, you find a fresh
Speaker 3: pile of deer poop here, there's a fresh rub here,
Speaker 3: fifty yards later, another fresh rub one hundred yards later,
Speaker 3: another fresh rub, and some deer scat fresh like you
Speaker 3: step on it with your boot. You can see that
Speaker 3: there's flies on it. It's moist that the deer just
Speaker 3: pooped in the last day or two.
Speaker 2: Right there.
Speaker 3: Then you come upon a big tree that you can
Speaker 3: hear the acorns falling out of it, and you can
Speaker 3: visibly see there's a higher percentage of them on the ground.
Speaker 3: They're fairly fresh. And now you're looking down there and
Speaker 3: within a ten twenty foot square you see ten piles
Speaker 3: of deer poop and two or three fresh rubs, and
Speaker 3: you're like, you're paying attention to these other trees, and
Speaker 3: like there's no other tree in the woods. That's raining
Speaker 3: acorns like this one. This one's got more you know,
Speaker 3: per square foot down there underneath the cap or the
Speaker 3: canopy of the tree than any of the other ones
Speaker 3: that you found up to this point. That's not to
Speaker 3: say a buck ain't gonna walk to one of the
Speaker 3: other ones, but that's like, that's what I would classify
Speaker 3: as a feed tree. Lots and lots of tracks going
Speaker 3: around in opposite directions, you know, in circles, almost just
Speaker 3: in a feeding pattern. Lots of deer poop in a
Speaker 3: concentrated spot, and then obviously the acorns raining down. Now
Speaker 3: you can here's the thing that you got to watch
Speaker 3: out for with feed trees is weak old sign can
Speaker 3: trick you. So you roll up on a big tree
Speaker 3: and there's a bunch of caps on the ground. There's
Speaker 3: not a ton of acorns, but you can visibly see tracks.
Speaker 3: You can see deer poop everywhere, but some of it
Speaker 3: is dry and it's four or five days old, and
Speaker 3: there's only one pile of deer poop that looks like
Speaker 3: it's a day old. And some of these tracks are
Speaker 3: a little worn in since the last rain. They're not
Speaker 3: real sharp in the dirt, and you don't hear any
Speaker 3: acorn fresh acorns falling on the ground, And like I said,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of caps, so there's not a lot
Speaker 3: of actual acorns left. But it's obvious that the deer
Speaker 3: we're here in a high concentration. Those will trick you
Speaker 3: because you'll sit there and you'll see one fall in
Speaker 3: or a spike or nothing, and you'll be like, what
Speaker 3: the heck? This is a feed tree? Is like, no,
Speaker 3: this was a feed tree a week ago. And that's why,
Speaker 3: you know, just looking at the overall amount of sign
Speaker 3: doesn't get you there that that's why you ask a
Speaker 3: good question there is because the details in which the
Speaker 3: sign is left in is what is most important. Like
Speaker 3: I would rather find the beginning of a feed tree
Speaker 3: than the very end in that sense, even though there's
Speaker 3: way more sign to look at it that you know
Speaker 3: a week later because they've been using it, but they're not.
Speaker 3: They're not using it like they were before. You want
Speaker 3: to be there when the sign is getting laid down,
Speaker 3: so that fresh sign is paramount.
Speaker 2: So that brings me to another scenario. And I'm betting
Speaker 2: that some of the stuff you just talked about applies
Speaker 2: to this next one. But let's just throw it out
Speaker 2: there and see what else you'd ad. Let's take you
Speaker 2: out of Louisiana. I'm gonna bring you up north and
Speaker 2: we're gonna go kind of northeast ish in Appalachian State,
Speaker 2: so a state with some of that national forest, big woods,
Speaker 2: big hills. You know, this could be like Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: something like that, and you're hunting national forest, but you
Speaker 2: just have a weekend. So you've got a weekend to
Speaker 2: hunt national forest in one of those areas. Walk me through,
Speaker 2: and again, let's let's assume you've done your scouting with
Speaker 2: your maps and you've driven, You've you've kind of figured
Speaker 2: out where there's people. Now you're actually stepping foot into
Speaker 2: the woods for the first time. But the problem is
Speaker 2: you don't have a whole lot of time here, so
Speaker 2: you can't Well maybe you can, but how do you
Speaker 2: how do you spend two to two and a half
Speaker 2: days if that's all you have in this location? Walk
Speaker 2: me through on the ground scouting slash hunting. How you
Speaker 2: give you the up, what specifically you'd be looking for,
Speaker 2: and how you would approach those next two days? What
Speaker 2: time a year? Uh, good question. This is gonna be
Speaker 2: the late October. Ah, it's grape time. Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Okay, that would that that has a big impact on it,
Speaker 3: because that's going to change the strategy for me, whether
Speaker 3: it's an early season scenario like you talked about a
Speaker 3: mid season mid to late October scenario versus a rut scenario.
Speaker 2: And let me let me let me preface this or
Speaker 2: let me add to this. I'd be curious to hear
Speaker 2: your perspective for late October, and then I would also
Speaker 2: like to hear let's let's move it like ten days
Speaker 2: later and now it's like November tenth or something like
Speaker 2: you know, ruddy stuff. Are you bow hunting or your
Speaker 2: gun hunting or you bow hunting on both bow hunting only,
Speaker 2: bow hunting only. Okay, So.
Speaker 3: Every I was thinking about this before we jumped on here.
Speaker 3: Every buck, I'm trying to think back to all the
Speaker 3: bucks that I've killed, and then the other bucks that
Speaker 3: that the guys have harvested or close calls, whatever, and
Speaker 3: like as you go down the list, every single one
Speaker 3: of them is a different, unique situation. But the one,
Speaker 3: the one thing that has yielded the most success. Now
Speaker 3: it's still in the the grand scheme of things is
Speaker 3: a small percentage of the total deer killed, but it
Speaker 3: is yielded the most success of scrapes and hunting scrapes
Speaker 3: with a bow close to betting areas. Okay, So that
Speaker 3: would be my first thing that i'd be looking for. Now,
Speaker 3: if you're in big hills in big national force like that,
Speaker 3: where there's not a lot of transitional cover, it's very big, monotonous,
Speaker 3: closed canopy forest, I'm gonna look at topography. So if
Speaker 3: there's a road at the bottom of a giant hill,
Speaker 3: for example, and it's really steep to get up there,
Speaker 3: and kind of bluffs out and benches out up towards
Speaker 3: the top where it's very difficult to access, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: think about those benches and how i can get above
Speaker 3: them and look for scrapes on that ridge or look
Speaker 3: for scrapes along that bench. Also, if the conditions permit
Speaker 3: it to where I'm gonna have fairly calm winds where
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna get a lot of swirling going on,
Speaker 3: I'd be checking thermal hubs. So any place where four
Speaker 3: or five ridges, you know, or three ridges whatever, converge
Speaker 3: and then drop into a bottom, I'd be trying to
Speaker 3: access up that little creek or drainage at the bottom
Speaker 3: looking for thermal hub scrapes best I could. If it's
Speaker 3: mid to late October and there's still is leaves on
Speaker 3: the trees, so there's a fair bit of shielding cover
Speaker 3: for me to slip up that bott them without being
Speaker 3: detected from deer that are betted on the benches and
Speaker 3: on the ridges around that hub. That may be a
Speaker 3: good a good place to check out. You just have
Speaker 3: to be real careful scouting those areas, especially in the
Speaker 3: middle of the day, or in this situation, only got
Speaker 3: two days, so I've got to be fairly aggressive. You
Speaker 3: gotta be careful going in there in the middle of
Speaker 3: the day when you got day winds, because your scent
Speaker 3: will just whip around in there and roll right up
Speaker 3: those hills sometimes. I mean not in every scenario, but
Speaker 3: you got to be thinking about that when you're going in.
Speaker 3: But if I found some thermal hub scrapes, that would
Speaker 3: be spots that I would be trying to sit, or
Speaker 3: if there was some logging that was going on, I
Speaker 3: would be looking for scrapes in the edges of those
Speaker 3: You know, if I found some feeding areas where deer
Speaker 3: are traveling to some acorns, I would be trying to
Speaker 3: set up on scrapes near those I shouldn't say near
Speaker 3: the feeding areas. Depends on how close the betting is.
Speaker 3: Be trying to find scrapes in between the two feeding
Speaker 3: area to betting, so a clear cut or something like
Speaker 3: that where there is some you know, chest high cover
Speaker 3: growing up where deer could potentially bed. I love hunting
Speaker 3: scrapes that time of the year. A lot of times
Speaker 3: they don't work out, but when they do, it puts
Speaker 3: those bucks on a spot. So you know, I said
Speaker 3: a minute ago that it's it's still a small percentage
Speaker 3: of the overall deer killed by that strategy, but that
Speaker 3: I could think of five or six different ones that
Speaker 3: we've killed over scrapes. And the next thing, as far
Speaker 3: as general tactics went was decoys, and there was like
Speaker 3: three or four on decoys, and then everything else behind
Speaker 3: that was, you know, one we did it this way, one,
Speaker 3: we did it this way, one we did it this way,
Speaker 3: and so far on down the list. But scrapes are
Speaker 3: great for bowhunting because it puts a buck on a
Speaker 3: spot and if you get close to security cover or
Speaker 3: close to an area where there are no people, where
Speaker 3: those bucks feel comfortable moving. Sometimes that's all you got
Speaker 3: to worry about, is just him coming into the scrape,
Speaker 3: get the wind right, set up over it, wait for
Speaker 3: him to get there, draw your bow back and shooting.
Speaker 3: And sometimes that's as simple as it gets.
Speaker 2: Then what if we go up into November now, so
Speaker 2: November tenth ish, does that change things at all? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I if I only had two days, man, I would
Speaker 3: be tempted to sit in a saddle for forty eight
Speaker 3: hours and just try to kill a buck that is cruising.
Speaker 3: But I know what I would probably end up doing,
Speaker 3: and it's not that now I'm saying that that could
Speaker 3: definitely work. If you've got the patience to do it,
Speaker 3: and you've got the right wind to sit there in
Speaker 3: a good setup, that may very well be worth doing
Speaker 3: to get a good shot at one. What I would
Speaker 3: probably do is I would be popping ridges into the
Speaker 3: wind and I'd be looking for action. When you said
Speaker 3: popping ridges, what do you mean. I'd get in a
Speaker 3: situation where I can go. I would map this out
Speaker 3: my route up through there, depending on where the wind
Speaker 3: direction is, because I want to be going into the wind,
Speaker 3: and I would be I would creep a ridge. So
Speaker 3: what I mean by that is, as you get close
Speaker 3: to the cap of the ridge, you start to really
Speaker 3: slow down and still hunt. So you stand behind a
Speaker 3: big tree and you watch out ahead of you for
Speaker 3: several minutes until you can get to a point where
Speaker 3: you crush right over top of the ridge where you
Speaker 3: can visibly see the next one, because they roll over
Speaker 3: one after another, you know, in a lot of those situations.
Speaker 3: So you want to get to the point at the
Speaker 3: peak of that ridge where you can see down in
Speaker 3: the valley below the next one, and then up the
Speaker 3: side of the next one if you can. If you
Speaker 3: can get to that point without spooking the deer below you,
Speaker 3: you can cover a lot of ground with your eyeballs
Speaker 3: doing that. What I'm looking for in the rut is
Speaker 3: the action. So where's the hot dough? Where are the
Speaker 3: cruising bucks? If I pop over a ridge, is there
Speaker 3: two bucks over there that are postured up to each other?
Speaker 2: And what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Well, there could be a hot dough in the thermal
Speaker 3: hug right below them, or in the bottom or on
Speaker 3: the bench bedded right next to them, and we might
Speaker 3: be in for a party right here, like there there
Speaker 3: might be four or five bucks right here in this
Speaker 3: one spot. And now I've found the hole, and I
Speaker 3: just got to stay with the action until I get
Speaker 3: a chance or try calling or whatever.
Speaker 2: What happens if you do that? Sorry interrupt, No, say
Speaker 2: go ahead? What happens if you if you pop over
Speaker 2: one of these ridges and you end up bumping some
Speaker 2: deer that you didn't see and you scatter, you know,
Speaker 2: you can see a few dos run off, and then
Speaker 2: you do see some antlers as they top over the
Speaker 2: other hill.
Speaker 3: We then I'm just watching the direction they're going, and
Speaker 3: then I'm getting on my maps and thinking about, like,
Speaker 3: where's the next secure place that they're going to go to?
Speaker 3: If I've got the wind in my favor, which is
Speaker 3: that's why that's kind of a fundamental thing starting point.
Speaker 3: If I got the wind in my face and I
Speaker 3: spook them as I'm still hunting, the likelihood of them
Speaker 3: going more than four or five hundred yards is pretty low,
Speaker 3: especially if they're if you're dealing with a hot dough
Speaker 3: in multiple bucks, Like they're gonna run off a few
Speaker 3: hundred yards, They're gonna put a ridge or two in
Speaker 3: between you them and the danger of me, and then
Speaker 3: they're gonna calm down and they're gonna go back right
Speaker 3: back to what they're doing, which is running behavior. So
Speaker 3: that's what I'm trying to anticipate, is the direction they go,
Speaker 3: and where's the next likely spot. It could be three
Speaker 3: four hundred yards away, it could be six seven hundred
Speaker 3: yards away. But as long as I have put the
Speaker 3: wind in my favor up to that point, and I
Speaker 3: wasn't just gomming through there and blowing the heck out
Speaker 3: of them, you know, spooking them hardcore, then they're usually
Speaker 3: not going to go too far. If I'm in a
Speaker 3: big public area, like you're talking about a huge national forest,
Speaker 3: most of the time, I'm going to have room.
Speaker 2: To work with. If you're what if we're let's go
Speaker 2: back to October and let's let's let's shift years back
Speaker 2: to late October, and we're in the Midwest, so kind
Speaker 2: of your classic whitetail country stuff you're pretty excited about.
Speaker 2: And let's say you are set up in a saddle
Speaker 2: in like a buck nest type place, like you're you're
Speaker 2: hunting some great buck betting nearby. You're confident, and you're
Speaker 2: set up, you're setting there, It's it's early afternoons still,
Speaker 2: but you have high hopes. And then another hunter comes
Speaker 2: walking in and he walks past you, heading towards that
Speaker 2: betting that you were set up on. Do you stick
Speaker 2: it out or do you bail and do something else?
Speaker 2: What do you? What do you do? Mid October or
Speaker 2: late October? I'm thinking more late October?
Speaker 3: And I can see the betting area from where I'm
Speaker 3: set up, I would assume, So, yeah, okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: watch him go all the way through that thing and
Speaker 3: see what happens until I because I'm gathering information the
Speaker 3: whole time. I can see him, and I can see
Speaker 3: the betting area. I'm gathering information. So where is that
Speaker 3: hunter going? Are they walking through there? Are they walking
Speaker 3: in there to set up? Are there any deer getting
Speaker 3: up as they're going through the betting? And what are
Speaker 3: my options? So?
Speaker 2: Do I have? Is this?
Speaker 3: It is this the X And I don't have any
Speaker 3: other good options for that afternoon hunt. If I do,
Speaker 3: and I have two or three other ones that are
Speaker 3: four or five hundred yards from that spot, I may
Speaker 3: just bail out of there completely as soon as he
Speaker 3: starts walking through that betting area. I might just, you know, say, okay,
Speaker 3: I got four hours of dark, I'm climbing down. I'm
Speaker 3: moving five hundred yards deeper in the opposite direction, because
Speaker 3: I know there's another betting area back there, and I
Speaker 3: can be set up back there in an hour and
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, So I may bail and do that. If
Speaker 3: I do not have the option, I'm gonna watch what
Speaker 3: he does and see what happens. There's a chance he
Speaker 3: might bump a buck out of there, and I get
Speaker 3: to watch the direction in which that deer goes. There's
Speaker 3: a chance that that hunter walks clear through the middle
Speaker 3: of it and doesn't spook a single thing out of
Speaker 3: it and nothing gets up. In that case, I'm probably
Speaker 3: not going to continue sitting there because he just left
Speaker 3: his ground sent all the way past me. But I
Speaker 3: might still hunt that betting area because a buck could
Speaker 3: have easily been laying fifty sixty yards from where he
Speaker 3: walked through and not gotten up. But now I'm going
Speaker 3: to think of that area that he just walked through
Speaker 3: as kind of a dead zone, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: look for spots on the outside of that because I
Speaker 3: do not want a buck a buck could easily stand
Speaker 3: up one hundred yards from where he walked through and
Speaker 3: start coming my way. But I do not want that
Speaker 3: groundcent on the ground between me and the buck. So
Speaker 3: I'm going to maneuver a little bit to try to
Speaker 3: get in a better position. But I mean, we've seen
Speaker 3: that situation happen several times, especially during gun season, where
Speaker 3: we watched a buck bed down in a betting area
Speaker 3: and then drivers proceeded to walk all through that betting
Speaker 3: area for the next five hours and that buck never moved,
Speaker 3: and we just stood there on a rock watching that spot.
Speaker 3: And I mean there was a guy whistling and singing.
Speaker 3: We could hear him from three quarters of a mile away,
Speaker 3: and he walked one hundred yards past that deer, and
Speaker 3: the deer never got up. And that evening I killed him, wow,
Speaker 3: because we got right in there next to him, and
Speaker 3: we were confident that he was still there, and he
Speaker 3: got up with three or four doze and came out
Speaker 3: just like nothing had ever happened. Man, So in the
Speaker 3: middle of a thick betting area, they got they'll let
Speaker 3: you get pretty dang close. And if they're moving quickly
Speaker 3: through there, it makes them harder to smell the danger
Speaker 3: because they're moving past. It's not like you're set up
Speaker 3: there and your wind is just blowing in there for
Speaker 3: a long period of time.
Speaker 2: Interesting. That's so like what an eye opening exp to
Speaker 2: get to see that thing happen and play out in
Speaker 2: front of you and see exactly how those bucks just
Speaker 2: hunk her down sometimes and wait and uh, yeah, they give.
Speaker 3: You too much credit. We give We give bucks, especially
Speaker 3: too much credit. The big ones they don't. I was
Speaker 3: thinking about this earlier this morning because you mentioned you
Speaker 3: wanted to talk about situations and scenarios, and I was like, man,
Speaker 3: a doe is responsible for, you know, bearying young and
Speaker 3: making sure that those fawns don't die every year. So
Speaker 3: a four or five six year old dough every year
Speaker 3: for part of the year is paranoid. I mean she
Speaker 3: is looking out for anything, a twig break here, whatever,
Speaker 3: And they mostly rely on their eyes, their their nose
Speaker 3: or ears. But I mean those are in family groups
Speaker 3: A lot of times they're just paranoid and they drive
Speaker 3: me insane. But a buck from birth never has to
Speaker 3: worry about that. He's not thinking about protecting a fawn
Speaker 3: or anything like that. He's worried about eating and laying
Speaker 3: down and sleeping until it's the rut, and then he's
Speaker 3: worried about girls. He's either worried about fighting his buddies
Speaker 3: or girls or eating and sleeping. So by the time
Speaker 3: they get to be old bucks, they just are. They
Speaker 3: are not nearly as skittish as does are.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Their nose is a different story. They live and die
Speaker 3: by that thing. But if their noses compromise, if you
Speaker 3: got to wind in your favor and you're walking through
Speaker 3: the middle of a betting area like that, you got
Speaker 3: to darn your step on them things to get them
Speaker 3: up and to move them. And sometimes when you jump them,
Speaker 3: they run forty fifty yards and turn around like they
Speaker 3: didn't know what the heck just happened. They just don't
Speaker 3: have the same level of I don't even know paranoia
Speaker 3: as a as a doe does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the ones that get old I think, have
Speaker 2: a certain level of confidence in their thing once they
Speaker 2: get that, because the only reason they made it to
Speaker 2: that age is because their thing worked right. And so
Speaker 2: it's hard to push them off the routine, off their spot,
Speaker 2: off their safety zone, because man, that's worked really well
Speaker 2: for them. If they've made it to the weeks, right, Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's one thing that I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: early on we assume that these things are like magicians
Speaker 2: and that oh gosh, you you you ever give them
Speaker 2: any clue, they're out of there. But oftentimes it's it's
Speaker 2: kind of the opposite. Let's let's do this one. Let's
Speaker 2: let's stay in the Midwest Ish and let's say it's
Speaker 2: November and you're working in to hunt a mixed aag
Speaker 2: and timber kind of property like your your textbook. Great,
Speaker 2: you know some ridge, top fields, some cover, some draws,
Speaker 2: et cetera. You're heading in and you were going to
Speaker 2: you were playing to hunt a ambush location. You've brought
Speaker 2: your saddle in, you were planning on getting up in
Speaker 2: a tree. But as you go in there you spot
Speaker 2: a buck locked onto a dough, slowly moving, but slowly
Speaker 2: moving away from you, so they have no they have
Speaker 2: no awareness of your presence, but their general direction is
Speaker 2: heading away from you. It's the rut. It's early afternoon,
Speaker 2: because you're heading into hunt. What do you do in
Speaker 2: that scenario?
Speaker 3: Burning the hand guy, I'm going after him some way,
Speaker 3: shape or form. I'm either trying to use the cover
Speaker 3: whatever that offers to continue moving in the direction just
Speaker 3: right behind them, because they're walking. If they're walking away
Speaker 3: from me, they're not looking at me. And if we've
Speaker 3: got a little bit of wind, which is which I
Speaker 3: would ideally have in the middle of the day when
Speaker 3: the day winds are up or early afternoon, I'm moving
Speaker 3: aggressively towards them until I get to a point where
Speaker 3: they can start to hear me or see me, and
Speaker 3: then I've got a Then I need to be a
Speaker 3: little bit more strategic about where to go and how
Speaker 3: to get there. But the movement in the rud is
Speaker 3: so sporadic and unpredictable, especially whenever it involves a buck
Speaker 3: and a dough. One thing that we have noticed is
Speaker 3: they'll occasionally push them up against a barrier of some kind,
Speaker 3: just like a river or a fence or a road
Speaker 3: or a wood lot or something like that. But it's
Speaker 3: still as hard to predict. So it's I've made the
Speaker 3: I've done this so many times and not had success
Speaker 3: where I saw that happen, and then I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I just need to set up nearby. Well, I set
Speaker 3: up nearby, and then I ended up watching them all night,
Speaker 3: or I watched them until they moved away or called
Speaker 3: at him, rattled at them and didn't do anything. Now,
Speaker 3: a few times we've decoyed the men from a way's way,
Speaker 3: but most of the time we're trying to get in
Speaker 3: tight to that action, you know, and just wait for
Speaker 3: them to make a mistake, and they're they're dictating our
Speaker 3: plan at that point. Once we see them, especially if
Speaker 3: they're not spooked, that's that all the eggs are going
Speaker 3: in that basket.
Speaker 2: Let's say you try to, you know, try to circle around,
Speaker 2: try to make a move something, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: you can't get close enough. It doesn't work out. But
Speaker 2: you can see, like this buck is on this dough.
Speaker 2: It gets dark, there's still not away of your presence.
Speaker 2: What's the next morning plan?
Speaker 3: It kind of depends on the conditions of that morning.
Speaker 3: Ideally you slip out of there without Boogernham. If they're
Speaker 3: not aware of our presence, that's a great thing. But
Speaker 3: the next morning I would just want to know if
Speaker 3: they're there. So if I could get right back to
Speaker 3: that same spot where I could see a long distance
Speaker 3: or whatever, then I would do that. If I couldn't,
Speaker 3: I would try to get to a spot where I
Speaker 3: could observe again into that same area, and I might
Speaker 3: sit there for a while, because at daylight they may
Speaker 3: not be they may not be standing up out there.
Speaker 3: A lot of times they'll move around all night and
Speaker 3: then they'll bed down before daylight and they may not
Speaker 3: even stand up until nine ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3: You know, if I can't see in there good enough
Speaker 3: until they stand up and start moving around, then I'm
Speaker 3: just going to go right back to observe me again
Speaker 3: on the ground, or would you get up in a
Speaker 3: tree to see more. It just depends on the situation
Speaker 3: and what it yields. You know, if on the ground
Speaker 3: you're dealing with chest high cover and you can't see
Speaker 3: that far, then I would try to get elevated in
Speaker 3: whatever way that I could. I mean, I've thought about
Speaker 3: taking an eight to ten foot step letter out there
Speaker 3: and just going two hundred yards out in the middle
Speaker 3: of that stuff and popping it up and sitting on
Speaker 3: top of it until I see a rack move or
Speaker 3: a deer move around in it, and then down I
Speaker 3: go and over to them and repeat the process again
Speaker 3: that we did the day before. But it's the rut.
Speaker 3: Everything is so unpredictable. So yes, they could still be
Speaker 3: there the next day, but there's also a high chance
Speaker 3: that they ain't there, and you don't want to just
Speaker 3: burn your entire day in there. If you get real
Speaker 3: aggressive and you go right back to the same exact spot,
Speaker 3: that could work out. But if you can't see fifty yards,
Speaker 3: then you're putting all your chips on them coming through
Speaker 3: that spot, and it's easy for people to run out
Speaker 3: of patience in that scenario. So you know, by nine
Speaker 3: ten o'clock in the morning, when you need to be
Speaker 3: watching and ready, you're starting to second guess yourself and
Speaker 3: you're like, are they even here anymore? And I've got
Speaker 3: this other spot or you know, only have three days
Speaker 3: left to hunt, and I'm hungry and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: All that stuff starts going through your head. So I'd
Speaker 3: rather get to a spot where I know if they're
Speaker 3: there or not.
Speaker 2: So this might be a scenario that you never put
Speaker 2: yourself in, because I know you are pretty aggressive and
Speaker 2: like to move around and everything. But let me lay
Speaker 2: out a possible scenario and if this is like, if
Speaker 2: the premise is ridiculous, then you can tell me, I
Speaker 2: would just never be in this. But let's just say,
Speaker 2: like you found the spot of all spots for the rut.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely dynamite sign It is a funnel pinch,
Speaker 2: some kind of situation where it's just like God, it screams,
Speaker 2: it screams, this is good. Maybe you have historically seen
Speaker 2: all sorts of bucks cruise through this place, or you
Speaker 2: have trail camera pictures from the past or something that
Speaker 2: tells you, like, man, this is it, and you decide,
Speaker 2: I am going to sit this spot because a cruising
Speaker 2: buck will hit this on November seventh or sixth or
Speaker 2: whatever it is. And you set up there and you
Speaker 2: spend a day or two daylight to dark. So again,
Speaker 2: maybe you wouldn't do that, But let's say you've spent,
Speaker 2: like you put in serious time because you believe in
Speaker 2: it so much. Is there ever a scenario like that
Speaker 2: in which you would marry yourself to a location and
Speaker 2: sit it out for more than that, or if you
Speaker 2: if you go a full day in a dynamite spot
Speaker 2: like that, or a full day and a half or
Speaker 2: two days, you're just you're gonna give up and you're
Speaker 2: gonna move on, and you're gonna keep seeking out something fresh.
Speaker 2: What would you do in that situation, and or what
Speaker 2: is the more realistic version of that scenario for you?
Speaker 2: Did it?
Speaker 3: Last fall found a spot like that on a relatively
Speaker 3: small public piece that was really thick.
Speaker 2: Where it didn't.
Speaker 3: Really allow for you to move around a lot there
Speaker 3: just wasn't I mean, it wasn't that big. It was
Speaker 3: a small area. So we sat that spot like two days,
Speaker 3: and then eventually middle of the day we had a
Speaker 3: huge buck come through. We'd seen a lot of does
Speaker 3: that kept coming through this spot. It was a funnel
Speaker 3: in between two beding air Its just a small little
Speaker 3: hardwood region between two thick bedding areas and would we
Speaker 3: constantly saw does moving through there. And then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden we had a cruising buck come through. He
Speaker 3: was actually about twenty minutes behind a dough that had
Speaker 3: been panting a good bit. She came past and we
Speaker 3: could tell something was up with her, and she went
Speaker 3: through there, and we got ready and we waited a
Speaker 3: long time, and then all of a sudden we heard
Speaker 3: brush breaking and grunting and everything, and he ran right
Speaker 3: underneath us, and I messed it up. I should have
Speaker 3: killed him, but that was an example of sitting in
Speaker 3: that spot and waiting, and that buck we never had
Speaker 3: pictures of. We had never seen him. Nobody else that
Speaker 3: hunted that area had ever seen him to my knowledge.
Speaker 3: So if you if you had been sitting that thing
Speaker 3: for one or two days and then gave up on it,
Speaker 3: you'd have never had that encounter. So it it depends
Speaker 3: on the spot and what you can and can't get
Speaker 3: away with. If your access is awesome and you leave
Speaker 3: the little ground scent and your wind is super consistent,
Speaker 3: I don't see any reason why you can't hunt it
Speaker 3: day after day. But that scenario just doesn't. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's there's always a wrinkle in there. It's always like, man,
Speaker 3: this spot is great until ten or eleven, and then
Speaker 3: the day winds pick up, and then the wind starts
Speaker 3: to swirl around, and then I start getting busted more.
Speaker 3: And then it's like, well, you got to think about that.
Speaker 3: And so with that said, the fuse spots that I
Speaker 3: have found like that, I would sit them over and
Speaker 3: over and over again.
Speaker 2: But I also.
Speaker 3: You know, if I've got other options in the immediate area,
Speaker 3: I'm probably gonna go give those a world too. Just
Speaker 3: to give that spot a rest in most situations where
Speaker 3: you don't have all the factors in your favor, where
Speaker 3: you know you are spooking a few deer here and there,
Speaker 3: going in and out of there, I'll give it a
Speaker 3: rest for a week, for a few days at least.
Speaker 3: But it's it's it's always on the table, you know.
Speaker 3: If you say, for example, you have a south wind
Speaker 3: for ten days in a row, and that's a perfect
Speaker 3: south wind spot, and you hunt the first two days,
Speaker 3: you see a lot of activity. You just don't get
Speaker 3: a shot, but you do spook a few deer here
Speaker 3: and there, and you go down the road and you
Speaker 3: hunt Plan B and Plan C. Well, by day five six,
Speaker 3: the best action that you've had are still in Plan
Speaker 3: A in that spot. So it's like, man, I still
Speaker 3: got a good win to go in there, go back,
Speaker 3: give it a try again. If that's the If that's
Speaker 3: the best option that you have, you might as well
Speaker 3: keep trying it until it yields poor results.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, at least let the deer tell.
Speaker 3: You all right, yep, yeah, And remember you're in the
Speaker 3: middle of the rut. Anything can happen to a certain
Speaker 3: degree that the thing I don't want to do, especially
Speaker 3: towards the middle and the end of the rut. I
Speaker 3: let me let me back up. The thing I don't
Speaker 3: want to do at the beginning of the rut and
Speaker 3: the end of the rut is I don't want to
Speaker 3: blow those dough groups out of there. You know, in
Speaker 3: the middle of the rut, when most of them are
Speaker 3: in heat, it's just utter chaos everywhere. But as they
Speaker 3: start grouping back up, getting on the back half of November,
Speaker 3: you don't want to blow those dough groups out of there.
Speaker 3: You're hunting the doe group. You want to make sure
Speaker 3: that you're getting in and out of there without boogering
Speaker 3: them up, because bucks are going to swoop through there
Speaker 3: regardless of whether you're there or not. If the dos
Speaker 3: are right there, the bucks are going to be there,
Speaker 3: So don't booger the doze up.
Speaker 2: So would that mean that you would usually avoid the
Speaker 2: more aggressive move around popping ridges, checking spots. You're not
Speaker 2: going to do that that first few days of November,
Speaker 2: last few days of November. That's going to be just
Speaker 2: that core ruck.
Speaker 3: Uh No, I still will It depends like your scenario
Speaker 3: that you illustrated earlier, I only had two days and
Speaker 3: I was in an area that I wasn't familiar with. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I don't know where the X is. I can guess,
Speaker 3: and I might be right twenty percent of the time,
Speaker 3: who knows. But if I only got two days, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to leave it up to guessing. I'm going
Speaker 3: to go try to make my own luck. If I've
Speaker 3: already scouted in the ideal scenario and I've hunted that
Speaker 3: property a year or two, and I have a better idea,
Speaker 3: like you mentioned with this last exam of where bucks
Speaker 3: traditionally cruise through and where doughs like to bed, I
Speaker 3: have a lot of that information that I need at
Speaker 3: that point, I don't I may not need to go
Speaker 3: popping ridges, although if you get bored and you got
Speaker 3: enough room to go do it. It can work, especially
Speaker 3: if you have good conditions. If you've got windy, wet conditions,
Speaker 3: you can go. You can get right up on them.
Speaker 2: One follow up question on the spot where you really
Speaker 2: know the X and you have history, what's the MAXI
Speaker 2: amount of time? Or I guess what's the sweet spot
Speaker 2: of time? You will give a spot like that before
Speaker 2: going and checking out options B, C or elsewhere is
Speaker 2: two days that amount that you'll give it or what
Speaker 2: is that amount? Man?
Speaker 3: If I get in there and I just ain't seeing sign,
Speaker 3: and I spend an entire day or a morning and
Speaker 3: evening sit in there under good conditions and I don't
Speaker 3: see any deer at all, I'm going to bail, but
Speaker 3: I'll read.
Speaker 2: What is it it? Again? What about the scenario you
Speaker 2: talked about with that big buck that you ended up
Speaker 2: should have had a shot? I guess you said. So
Speaker 2: let's say it's it's great conditions, it's great sign and
Speaker 2: you are still seeing deer, Like there's a lot of
Speaker 2: does moving through. You just haven't had the right buck
Speaker 2: in that situation. Is that any different? Oh? Yeah, I'd
Speaker 2: hang with it.
Speaker 3: Then, I'd hang with it for a few days potentially,
Speaker 3: so long as I can get in and out of
Speaker 3: there without bugger and stuff. It's like, I don't know
Speaker 3: the best way to put this. You only get so
Speaker 3: many strikes. So if you can get in and out
Speaker 3: of there, Man, if you can get in there and
Speaker 3: you can take it bats without getting struck out or
Speaker 3: seeing strikes and they just keep walking you, then you
Speaker 3: just keep stepping.
Speaker 2: Up to the plate. Yeah, So that makes sense if.
Speaker 3: You go in there, though, and you blow a dough
Speaker 3: and she's blowing down through the middle of the bedding area.
Speaker 3: And then a spike comes in and he does the
Speaker 3: same thing. You know, when you're leaving grounds in all
Speaker 3: around the tree, you're gonna notice if you just sit
Speaker 3: there day after day, you're gonna notice towards the end
Speaker 3: of that three, four or five day stretch that those
Speaker 3: deer are starting to get more nervous.
Speaker 2: That brings up like another question that I've had some
Speaker 2: situations like this. We probably all have. But let's say
Speaker 2: you have a spot that you know is like the spot.
Speaker 2: It is a creek crossing with amazing bedding on both
Speaker 2: sides of the creek, and it is just terrific thick
Speaker 2: brushy cover, bushes, shrubs, tall grasses, the kind of stuff
Speaker 2: that white tails just love to be in. And you
Speaker 2: know from past history and scouting that, man, if you
Speaker 2: had to pick any one place in this zone, this
Speaker 2: big old oak tree by the creek crossing is the
Speaker 2: spot that every buck passes by. But there's deer betted
Speaker 2: on all sides of you, and there's deer traveling on
Speaker 2: all sides of you, and there's there's no safe wind.
Speaker 2: There's nowhere you can go that there aren't going to
Speaker 2: be deer getting you eventually, at some point, will you
Speaker 2: ever throw the hail Mary and say, yeah, I got
Speaker 2: to try it because it's that good, even though I
Speaker 2: know there's a very high chance at some point you're
Speaker 2: gonna get winded. Or are you going to say, Man,
Speaker 2: it's just going to be too high risk, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: blow things up eventually during the afternoon set or whatever.
Speaker 2: I have to find somewhere on the edge that's not
Speaker 2: quite as good but safer.
Speaker 3: I might try the edge first, but ultimately dear the
Speaker 3: way that they go through their fall. As you know that,
Speaker 3: it's like segments and patterns change and behaviors change. So
Speaker 3: if you know they're in there and you have all
Speaker 3: the intel, I'm gonna hunt it at some point. Now
Speaker 3: the conditions may dictate when I do that. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe there is no safe way. Like you said, there
Speaker 3: is no safe way, But is there a way that
Speaker 3: is safer than the other. So, for example, early morning,
Speaker 3: late in the day with a calm wind, does it
Speaker 3: blow straight down that creek and take your scent back
Speaker 3: down the middle of the creek under you know, between
Speaker 3: five and ten miles an hour. Will it do that?
Speaker 3: Versus midday fifteen twenty miles an hour. Your wind is
Speaker 3: literally going in all directions. That's a problem because you
Speaker 3: have betted deer that are stationary all the way around you,
Speaker 3: and you're essentially jacked up in a tree right there,
Speaker 3: and you're a scent wick that's just blowing your scent
Speaker 3: with those swirling winds all the way around you. Is
Speaker 3: that is as unsafe as unsafe gets as far as
Speaker 3: deer getting you. But if you have that calm wind scenario,
Speaker 3: but you only have it for a first couple hours
Speaker 3: of the morning, I'd be trying to hunt it. Even
Speaker 3: if you blow a deer here or there, I'd still
Speaker 3: be trying to get in there because if that's the
Speaker 3: ex it's the X you're hunting with a bow. You
Speaker 3: got to get within twenty thirty yards. In my opinion,
Speaker 3: you got to get within twenty five yards of the thing.
Speaker 3: So if that tree is right there and then you
Speaker 3: can blow your wind away from that trail, that's I mean,
Speaker 3: you're talking about two may check marks, excuse me, check
Speaker 3: marks right there. Yeah, I'm gonna hunt it.
Speaker 2: Let's do one last question in these kind of scenarios,
Speaker 2: and then I'll run you through some really quick rapid
Speaker 2: fire stuff. But this one's gonna be very different because
Speaker 2: I want to throw one out here for the folks
Speaker 2: who are newer and who are looking to just get
Speaker 2: a deer killed. They're not worried about killing a big buck.
Speaker 2: They're not killing worried about killing the mature buck. They're
Speaker 2: just trying to get a deer killed. And all they
Speaker 2: have is public land to hunt, and they're still trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how do you kill a dough how
Speaker 2: do you kill a young buck? And we're talking this
Speaker 2: whole time, which we always end up doing about how
Speaker 2: to kill the big giant deer. So so imagine you're
Speaker 2: that person. You are really just trying to get some
Speaker 2: meat for the frazer. You're in a meat crisis, you're
Speaker 2: relatively new to hunting, and you've got a day job,
Speaker 2: so you do not have time to get out here
Speaker 2: for long spells. You're not going to take a week
Speaker 2: of vacation. You've got a weekend, you've got a Sunday morning,
Speaker 2: you've got a few hours, and you want to try
Speaker 2: to kill a deer, feed the kids, et cetera. Describe
Speaker 2: to me how would you approach this If let's say
Speaker 2: you've got one evening or one morning on a weekend
Speaker 2: and you just need to get a deer killed on
Speaker 2: some piece of public land, how would you approach that hunt.
Speaker 3: I would spend a day scouting and just looking for
Speaker 3: kill holes quote unquote. So say, for example, you got
Speaker 3: you scout and you're four hundred yards from the parking lot,
Speaker 3: and there's a fence that runs up through there, and
Speaker 3: there's an open gate in that fence, and there's two
Speaker 3: deer trails that are coming through it a bunch of
Speaker 3: tracks on it. You can tell that deer are passing
Speaker 3: through that spot. If it's legal, you might run a
Speaker 3: trail camera there and just see what shows up.
Speaker 2: If deer are.
Speaker 3: Passing through there during the day, more so in the evening,
Speaker 3: more so in the morning, then you may that may
Speaker 3: give you a better idea of when to hunting on
Speaker 3: your weekend, whether it's a morning or an evening hunt.
Speaker 3: But I would look for situations like that, at least
Speaker 3: handful of them in my scouting day. And while you're scouting,
Speaker 3: I'd pick a tree over that spot, over those trails
Speaker 3: where you can set up with a given wind, so
Speaker 3: there's a tree south of that open gate north wind
Speaker 3: is blowing away from those trails, I can sit right here,
Speaker 3: and if a deer walks those trails through that open gate,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get an eighteen yard broadside shot and that
Speaker 3: I would mark that spot, and I'd try to find
Speaker 3: half a dozen more of those. Not just the open
Speaker 3: gate scenario. I mean it could be a potential feed
Speaker 3: tree too, like we were talking about before, during the
Speaker 3: early part of the season. You know, it could be
Speaker 3: the inside corner of a ag field where deer are
Speaker 3: funnel down and are coming out there where you know,
Speaker 3: if you're looking at the soybean field, for example, maybe
Speaker 3: that's the side that gets the most shade and it's
Speaker 3: it's heavily browsed in that corner. Find you a good
Speaker 3: tree where you can shoot the trails coming into that corner.
Speaker 3: But don't find a good tree that's sixty yards from
Speaker 3: those trails. Find a tree that's twenty yards or fifteen
Speaker 3: yards from those trails where you can blow a wind
Speaker 3: from the trails to you, and I try to find
Speaker 3: on your scouting day, I try to find as many
Speaker 3: of those locations as you can mark those trees, and
Speaker 3: then all the guesswork is taken out of it. When
Speaker 3: you go in there to try to kill your deer,
Speaker 3: say for especially for a morning hunt, you know exactly
Speaker 3: which tree that you're going to, under which wind condition,
Speaker 3: and even if the deer, most of the deer aren't
Speaker 3: even there. You're trying to kill a deer. So it's
Speaker 3: better to have one deer at fifteen yards than to
Speaker 3: see fifteen at one hundred and fifty. So if one
Speaker 3: deer comes through that spot and onto your trail, that's
Speaker 3: your opportunity. I would rather have that as far as
Speaker 3: killing deer. That's the way my brain always thinks with
Speaker 3: a bow in my hand, especially, it's.
Speaker 2: Like where's the kill hole? Yeah? And are you less
Speaker 2: worried about other cars in the parking lot, less worried
Speaker 2: about getting far away from the parking lot that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff in this scenario. Uh, kind of, But it
Speaker 2: still is a consideration, definitely. You know, we kill a
Speaker 2: lot of dose though they are real close to the
Speaker 2: parking lots, that are not far off at all, and
Speaker 2: they're nervous because they see hunters all the time. But
Speaker 2: like I was just mentioned a while ago. Dose are
Speaker 2: paranoid because they they stay in those situations and they
Speaker 2: got to look after fawns and things like that. So
Speaker 2: a doe will stay there and she'll deal with all
Speaker 2: of the chaos all year, where a buck isn't gonna
Speaker 2: A big buck isn't going to do that until it
Speaker 2: gets to be the rut when he throws caution to
Speaker 2: the wind. But yeah, we we don't. If we're trying
Speaker 2: to kill a deer. A lot of times we are
Speaker 2: really close to the truck, whether there's other vehicles there
Speaker 2: or not. All we got to do is get a
Speaker 2: deer on the X, on that on that trail crossing,
Speaker 2: on that scrape, on that feed tree, whatever it is
Speaker 2: that we're set up over we're looking for, or a
Speaker 2: quality set up really close to that where the deer
Speaker 2: can get to that spot without detecting us. We can
Speaker 2: get drawn and shoot them. But it's got to be close,
Speaker 2: especially if you're a new hunter. That is a big
Speaker 2: deal being close. So true, so true. All right, let's
Speaker 2: do really quick rapid fire that you've got like one
Speaker 2: word answers here as I'm going to give you, Aaron,
Speaker 2: your first thought on this there's five or six of them,
Speaker 2: and then one. I'll let you expand on, but just
Speaker 2: give me what your quick thoughts are on these. Number one,
Speaker 2: would you personally take a fifty yard shot at a
Speaker 2: white tail with your bow? Yes? Or no? No? If
Speaker 2: you could only have one of these tools for the
Speaker 2: rest of your hunting days, you got to choose radley,
Speaker 2: Antler's or drunk tube which you'd taken, grunt tube expandable
Speaker 2: or fixed? Labora heads fixed? Should you stop a moving
Speaker 2: buck with a sound before shooting with a bow? Maybe? Yeah, exactly?
Speaker 2: The do is give a question there? If you could
Speaker 2: only scout one season of the year, you could pick
Speaker 2: winter scouting, summer scouting, or in season scouting. Which would
Speaker 2: you pick in season? If you had to get a
Speaker 2: buck killed in one single day, a buck has to
Speaker 2: die and you cannot do it. You have to pick
Speaker 2: one of your hunting public team members and you have
Speaker 2: to draft just one of them. Who would be your
Speaker 2: draft pick to get a buck? Not saying big buck,
Speaker 2: not saying any specific but just bucks gott die. Who
Speaker 2: are you gonna pick? Greg? All? Right, now, this one,
Speaker 2: I'll let you expand on a little bit. Let's say
Speaker 2: that I rule the world, I control all hunting regulations, etc.
Speaker 2: And I am going to take your hunting license away
Speaker 2: in every state across the United States. Unless you kill
Speaker 2: a four year old buck or bigger. You have one
Speaker 2: day to do it, and you are the hunter. You
Speaker 2: have to kill a four year old buck or older.
Speaker 2: You have one date. That's I'm gonna let you pick
Speaker 2: a calendar date on the a date on the calendar,
Speaker 2: and then I will let you describe the location. And
Speaker 2: if you don't get a four year old buck or
Speaker 2: older killed on this one single day, you can't hunt
Speaker 2: for the rest of your life. So describe to me
Speaker 2: the day you're going to pick, and what this picture perfect,
Speaker 2: amazing setup would be for this very high stakes hunt.
Speaker 3: Betting area, scrape win coming out of the betting area,
Speaker 3: consistent win. So ideally a flat scenario, flat topography with
Speaker 3: a solid consistent win.
Speaker 2: October thirty first, All right, October thirty first. You're downwind
Speaker 2: of the betting, so the scrapes in between you and
Speaker 2: the bedding. It's right on the edge of the betting.
Speaker 2: It's right on the edge of the betting. The wind
Speaker 2: is coming.
Speaker 3: Ideally, the betting is there, the scrape is next to it,
Speaker 3: and then I'm down wind to the scrape and the
Speaker 3: betting both.
Speaker 2: What's this betting look like? What's your best possible betting scenario?
Speaker 3: Waste to chest high marsh grass cover with what's some
Speaker 3: with some mixture of trees out in it. Just nasty
Speaker 3: stuff that if a buck stands up in it, you
Speaker 3: can see his rack moving across it, but that's about it.
Speaker 3: Can't see much else.
Speaker 2: What's your tree like?
Speaker 3: Lots of branches up around stand heights, not too high,
Speaker 3: up twelve to fifteen feet ideally for a good flat
Speaker 3: shot into the scrape fifteen yards away, but plenty of
Speaker 3: horizontal branches.
Speaker 2: To aid in cover. And what stadium in.
Speaker 3: She if it's October thirty first, I'm probably gonna have
Speaker 3: to be in Wisconsin, Iowa.
Speaker 2: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio. Yeah, that was fine. Can't go
Speaker 2: wrong with any one of those kansas. Yeah all right, man,
Speaker 2: you I believe in you. I'm pretty sure you'd get
Speaker 2: your buck killed in that scenario, and you can keep
Speaker 2: it on high.
Speaker 3: I would not want to be in that situation. She
Speaker 3: gave me twenty years, you gave me twenty chances. I
Speaker 3: would be much more compy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very true, so real quick. Then anything folks should
Speaker 2: look out for from the hunting public, anything new or
Speaker 2: anything that has come out that you want us to
Speaker 2: check out right now or look forward to this season.
Speaker 3: Not in particular, working on a bunch of elk cutting
Speaker 3: stuff right now from last year that we're pretty excited about.
Speaker 3: We've got several elk tags in September that we're going
Speaker 3: to be going on, so that should be a lot
Speaker 3: of fun. And then we've done a fair bit of
Speaker 3: scouting leading into this season for deer, which has been
Speaker 3: hard to do for the last couple of years. So
Speaker 3: I feel really good about a few of the scenarios
Speaker 3: that we have this fall. We're not Sometimes we overextend
Speaker 3: ourselves and plan too many trips and try to get
Speaker 3: to too many places, and then we don't adequately scout
Speaker 3: the ones that we do have to hunt. But I
Speaker 3: don't feel like we're in that situation as badly this
Speaker 3: year as in the past. We're more focused this year,
Speaker 3: so hopefully that will yield better results. I guess we'll
Speaker 3: find out.
Speaker 2: What's what's a slam dunk for you this year? Like
Speaker 2: if what would be the thing that would make this
Speaker 2: year an amazing success for you.
Speaker 3: Personal jinks me, Mark, I can't. I can't say it
Speaker 3: or it will all go wrong, all right there, it's like, Man,
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I like gun hunting late in the year, like hunting
Speaker 3: with a muzzloader. After thanks, that is that's that's quality
Speaker 3: time out there. People are fed up with deer hunting
Speaker 3: by that point. There's not near as many of them
Speaker 3: in the woods. It's cold, it's nasty. You got a
Speaker 3: muzzle udder in your hands, so you can reach out
Speaker 3: there a little bit further. You can make things happen
Speaker 3: quicker during that time of year. So we'll see. That's
Speaker 3: been It's been good to us in the past. Let's
Speaker 3: say that.
Speaker 2: All right. I'm gonna counting on a muzzle utter buck
Speaker 2: for you here late season. We'll be watching for it,
Speaker 2: all right, buddy, I appreciate the time. Thanks for doing this.
Speaker 2: I man, I know you guys have a great season.
Speaker 2: I'll be pulling for it in can't wait to watch.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, you too, all right, and that's a wrap.
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in until next week. Stay wired
Speaker 2: to hunt.