Speaker 1: What is going on this Jake Hoefer and welcome to
Speaker 1: another episode of Back forty. This week we have the
Speaker 1: same crew. We have Aaron Warburn, Jeff Sturgis, Adam Keith,
Speaker 1: and Bill Winky providing their insight and information based off
Speaker 1: of one question, one theme. And this is something I
Speaker 1: feel that as hunters, we often like to take in
Speaker 1: all this information. And when you take in a lot
Speaker 1: of information and haven't applied it year after a year,
Speaker 1: like some of these guys, it's easy to over complicate things.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to reverse engineer that a little
Speaker 1: bit and get to what are some things that we're
Speaker 1: all likely overthinking and how it might be impacting a
Speaker 1: variety of different decisions. So simple question this week, what's
Speaker 1: one thing every hunter is simply making way too complicated.
Speaker 1: We're going to kick things off with Aaron from the
Speaker 1: hunting public. Here we go, all right, Aaron, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of hunting information out there, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different hunting styles. There's just so many different things, and
Speaker 1: I feel that some people can just simply get a
Speaker 1: little in the mix of trying too many different things.
Speaker 1: Whether that's good or bad. But to boil it down
Speaker 1: what's one thing every hunter is just simply making way
Speaker 1: too complicated. It could be anything. It could be food plots,
Speaker 1: it could be how aggressive to hunt, how not aggressive
Speaker 1: to hunt, whatever the case may be. What is one
Speaker 1: thing you think it's just simply getting over complicated. It's
Speaker 1: not that hard.
Speaker 2: Trail cameras, Okay, the trail cameras and reading the information
Speaker 2: off of them. I think I think people spend this
Speaker 2: is just I guess this because this is a hot
Speaker 2: take here, Jake like it, But I think I think
Speaker 2: the average hunter spends way too much time worrying about them.
Speaker 2: They they can help you in certain situations, but more
Speaker 2: often than not, they're they're just giving you a tiny
Speaker 2: snapshot as to what is going on. Even a cell
Speaker 2: camera that's you know, place deep in a betting area
Speaker 2: or whatever, it's still you can only put the thing
Speaker 2: over so much, you know, and there's so many other
Speaker 2: things that are happening in that area.
Speaker 3: I think people just put if they took.
Speaker 2: The amount of time that it takes to get the cameras,
Speaker 2: to put batteries in them, to set them up, and
Speaker 2: they converted that time into just scouting and trying to
Speaker 2: understand how deer use their property, and then how bucks
Speaker 2: use their property, and then how mature bucks use their property,
Speaker 2: and start thinking about all those things and really cataloging
Speaker 2: that information over time. I think that's going to make
Speaker 2: you way more successful than worrying about just trying to
Speaker 2: get a picture of a big buck and going and
Speaker 2: hunting it.
Speaker 3: So that's my I do that.
Speaker 2: I've had that issue before personally, especially with the cell cameras,
Speaker 2: where I was unsuccessful because I was being too reliant
Speaker 2: on the cameras.
Speaker 1: So how do you for someone that everyone everyone is
Speaker 1: guilty of that at some point, every every single person's
Speaker 1: way guilty of this. What is the how do you
Speaker 1: overcome this or how do you give yourself permission to
Speaker 1: trust your instinct more so than trust your show cameras.
Speaker 2: For me, personally, it was easy because I was just
Speaker 2: I've I've tried it two different seasons where I just
Speaker 2: kind of went whole hog into the cell camera thing
Speaker 2: and I had a whole pile of them, and I
Speaker 2: got pictures of the giant deer and I was trying
Speaker 2: to hunt those specific deer based on the camera pictures.
Speaker 2: I was unsuccessful both those years. I messed up like way.
Speaker 3: More than usual.
Speaker 2: And then I have went completely to the opposite side
Speaker 2: of the spectrum where I haven't used them at all,
Speaker 2: and I've been way more successful just just basing my
Speaker 2: decisions off of those instincts you mentioned and what mostly
Speaker 2: which is which comes from woodsmanship. So the only time
Speaker 2: when I've when I've really felt like I learned a
Speaker 2: lot from cameras is when it was I was using
Speaker 2: it to aid in my woodsmanship. So when I set
Speaker 2: them up in a particular area, not to get pictures
Speaker 2: solely of just a big buck that I wanted to hunt,
Speaker 2: but when I put them in an area so that
Speaker 2: I could use it to learn how the deer use.
Speaker 3: That particular spot.
Speaker 2: All year, Maybe I run a camera over a crossing,
Speaker 2: a creek crossing for six months, and for two weeks
Speaker 2: out of that six months, that creek crossing was really
Speaker 2: hot with action. Then I'm backtracking in there and I'm
Speaker 2: trying to understand why those deer were there at that time,
Speaker 2: how I could have hunted it during that time, and
Speaker 2: how to capitalize on it in the future. That's been
Speaker 2: the best way I've found to use them. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that's how anybody's got to use them. There's a
Speaker 2: bunch of different ways to use them. I just think
Speaker 2: that it's very easy to get sucked into the trap
Speaker 2: of just being so reliant on those things, especially with
Speaker 2: cell cameras now, where you're just getting notification all the time.
Speaker 2: The more of them you have out there, the more
Speaker 2: notifications you're getting, and the more uh, the more that's
Speaker 2: taking time uh your brain. You're thinking time away from
Speaker 2: what you need to be thinking about, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, what are the upcoming wins? What
Speaker 2: scouting information do I not have that I need to
Speaker 2: get in order to be successful, How to correctly set
Speaker 2: up in a spot to get a good high odds
Speaker 2: chance at a target animal. All those things are just
Speaker 2: those are kind of like the fundamentals of you know,
Speaker 2: bow hunting white tails, if you will, And the better
Speaker 2: that you get at those very very simple fundamentals, the
Speaker 2: more opportunities you get over time. It's like a compounding effect.
Speaker 2: Whereas if you if your brain gets pulled in these
Speaker 2: little different corners and directions chasing pictures, then that.
Speaker 3: Takes you away from that.
Speaker 2: That's what That's what my experience has been at least
Speaker 2: I don't know if that answered.
Speaker 1: Your question, but no, I think people can inherently overcomplicate
Speaker 1: trail cameras as oh i've had pictures. I haven't had pictures.
Speaker 1: Oh it's dead out there and you know, or I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's been times where you've hunted and you know,
Speaker 1: you check your phone and you check your phone and
Speaker 1: ultimately you have no pictures of deer, but you saw
Speaker 1: seven different bucks cruising around and you just I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that is an easy way to overcomplicate it
Speaker 1: and really self hinder yourself. I could see someone listening
Speaker 1: now and saying, well, yeah, that sounds great, but what
Speaker 1: about when you're hunting a specific deer. What do you
Speaker 1: say to that guy? Like I need to know he's
Speaker 1: a live or I need to know he's in the area.
Speaker 1: What do you say to him?
Speaker 2: Or well, if you're having great success doing it, then
Speaker 2: don't listen to me. That's all I got. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like the Broadhead debate. You know, It's
Speaker 2: like people swear by a rage or they swear by
Speaker 2: a magnus or whatever it is they use. Like, dude,
Speaker 2: whatever you're using works, then you don't have to listen
Speaker 2: to what I'm saying. But if you're chasing a specific
Speaker 2: deer and you're having difficulty closing the deal on them
Speaker 2: just using cameras, my most generally my solution is going
Speaker 2: to be, well, do you know how deer use your property?
Speaker 2: Do you know why there are certain trails where they are?
Speaker 2: Do you know how mature bucks cross dough trails at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the rut?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Do you know why that scrape is in that creek
Speaker 2: crossing or whatever? Do you I mean, it just kind
Speaker 2: of goes back to that woodsmanship stuff. If you don't
Speaker 2: have like good spots that you have confidence in, good
Speaker 2: spots that you can get in and out of that
Speaker 2: you understand how the wind behaves, and you understand how
Speaker 2: deer moved through those.
Speaker 3: If you don't have all.
Speaker 2: Those things, then just getting pictures of a buck and
Speaker 2: hunting a specific deer doesn't doesn't help you in some ways.
Speaker 3: I mean, unless that specific.
Speaker 2: Deer is so unique that he never does anything like
Speaker 2: the rest of the deer, which is possible. I mean,
Speaker 2: if once they get to be a certain size and age,
Speaker 2: you know, they they obviously have personalities and they start
Speaker 2: the start acting a little bit different. But I have
Speaker 2: noticed that, you know, regardless of where we go, mature
Speaker 2: bucks tend to hang out in similar spots. You know,
Speaker 2: it may not be just like the rest of the deer,
Speaker 2: but mature bucks do mature buck things in most of
Speaker 2: these areas that we're in.
Speaker 1: Describe a spot where they like to hang out in Iowa, Illinois,
Speaker 1: northern Missouri, something like that.
Speaker 2: Basically across the board, they'd like to spend their daylight
Speaker 2: hours in something that has got high stem count. So
Speaker 2: you know, if you had Adam On not long ago,
Speaker 2: I'm sure he was talking about betting areas and creating
Speaker 2: habitat and stuff like that, that's where mature bucks want
Speaker 2: to spend their time. Like if you just went in
Speaker 2: and you did TSI on an acre and a half
Speaker 2: of your property in a year one to three years time,
Speaker 2: mature buck's going to be spending time in that area,
Speaker 2: very likely because the habitat has changed.
Speaker 3: It's not white open woods.
Speaker 2: You know, they like I mean, Bronson and some of
Speaker 2: those MSU guys have got quite a bit of data
Speaker 2: on this and we see the same exact thing. You know,
Speaker 2: we often talk about mature buck betting areas, but it's
Speaker 2: the same thing. People overcomplicate the betting area thing. It's
Speaker 2: like mature bucks want to be in an area where
Speaker 2: they feel safe and secure. That's the number one thing.
Speaker 2: So high stem count you know, they love to travel
Speaker 2: in corridors. So if you're talking about like you you
Speaker 2: just mentioned some states kind of farmland type ecosystems, If
Speaker 2: you're talking about that, they love to travel in corridors
Speaker 2: where they have security and escape on both sides. So
Speaker 2: I'm thinking in my mind, like northern Missouri. Say there's
Speaker 2: a cornfield and a draw running down through the middle
Speaker 2: of it with a creek with some water in a
Speaker 2: pond or something. That draw is eighty yards wide, and
Speaker 2: it's got some thick brush in it and multi floor
Speaker 2: rows and some hedge trees whatnot. But there's corn planted
Speaker 2: corn all the way around it. Well, where that corn
Speaker 2: meets that edge is a corridor. They will travel up
Speaker 2: and down the edge of those corn strips where they
Speaker 2: can either escape into the corn or escape into the woods. Now,
Speaker 2: if it's it's totally different. If that's a wheat field
Speaker 2: or soybeans you know that are knee high, he doesn't
Speaker 2: have the same amount of security. Then although that may
Speaker 2: be the only option that he has to travel, so
Speaker 2: he may use it. But I like areas like that.
Speaker 2: When you find a good corridor like that, it's it's
Speaker 2: almost an instinctual thing. It's like you don't often see
Speaker 2: like a beaten trail or anything. But you might see
Speaker 2: dotted rubs, you might see the occasional big track or two.
Speaker 2: It might be ten yards wide, it might be fifty
Speaker 2: yards wide. But it's often makes sense why a buck
Speaker 2: would use that to travel. They do not want to
Speaker 2: be seen when they're going from A to B. So
Speaker 2: like I got thirteen eggers here I live on. If
Speaker 2: a mature buck is going to come through our property
Speaker 2: during daylight, there is two or three trails at the
Speaker 2: back of the place here that are back in the
Speaker 2: timber that that buck can take. And it's not overly thick,
Speaker 2: but it's the thickest place that they have, you know,
Speaker 2: to transition through this property. We see those and young
Speaker 2: bucks and stuff in the backyard here all the time.
Speaker 2: But if we're going to see a mature buck, he's
Speaker 2: going to be on the back ridge. There's two or
Speaker 2: three trails that run up through there, and he's never
Speaker 2: seen by anybody back there. He can walk up that ridge,
Speaker 2: he can look out over our yard, he can see
Speaker 2: our house from that ridge, but we cannot see him.
Speaker 2: That's a type of an area that they really like
Speaker 2: to be in.
Speaker 1: I like it so, so don't rely on your cameras.
Speaker 1: And then also.
Speaker 3: Don't solely rely on your cameras.
Speaker 1: You can use them, but don't everyone. I think anyone
Speaker 1: that's ran any amount of cameras has falling into this
Speaker 1: trap where they're just you just spend a season chasing
Speaker 1: your tail and it's frustrating when you get to the
Speaker 1: end of the season.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: If you get pictures of one that's there on a scrape,
Speaker 2: you know you should have been there that day. And
Speaker 2: if you were worried about getting a picture of him first,
Speaker 2: well then you're you're late. Like you need to be
Speaker 2: hunting it before the camera takes a picture of so
Speaker 2: you can shoot him when he walks in front of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely so. I'm sure everyone can track you down,
Speaker 1: but if you want to feel free to let people
Speaker 1: know where to go. Paul.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Hunting Public YouTube, most of the social media's
Speaker 2: you can check us out there.
Speaker 1: All right, there, you guys have it. We are going
Speaker 1: to roll right into the next guest, Bill Winkie, and
Speaker 1: get his insight. No nonsense, what are we over complicating?
Speaker 1: So here is Bill Winkie's approach and thought to this question.
Speaker 1: All right, Bill, we're back on back forty and I
Speaker 1: feel in the world of white tail media content, and
Speaker 1: maybe this has been going on for a long time,
Speaker 1: but I feel like ultimately hunters are over complicating, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit too much. And so I want to
Speaker 1: get your opinion on what's one thing every hunter is
Speaker 1: simply making too complicated. And the root of this question
Speaker 1: is more of what are the fundamentals and like what
Speaker 1: what do you need to focus on? And what can
Speaker 1: you potentially forget? But I'll let you, you know, give
Speaker 1: your take here.
Speaker 4: Well, there's two things I'm gonna throw out. You said
Speaker 4: one thing, but people make bows too complicated, you know,
Speaker 4: especially if you're a white tail hunter. I mean, gosh,
Speaker 4: you're gonna make a thirty yard shot. I think I
Speaker 4: could duct tape a twig onto my riser and hold
Speaker 4: the arrow with my two fingers, you know, in front
Speaker 4: of the grip and kill that deer. So nothing against
Speaker 4: all the cool stuff that we carry into the woods.
Speaker 4: But don't get so concerned with all the minutia of
Speaker 4: of you know, the products that you're carrying, that you
Speaker 4: forget that this is only a twenty five thirty yard
Speaker 4: sport forty if you're really good. But deer doesn't stand
Speaker 4: still long enough for it to be much longer than
Speaker 4: a forty yard sport. I mean, you might be able
Speaker 4: to hit a dime at seventy yards if the dime
Speaker 4: is still there, but what if the dime moves three
Speaker 4: feet while the arrows in the air. So anyway, we
Speaker 4: way over complicate the stuff that we carry. But the
Speaker 4: I know what you really want to know is strategy wise.
Speaker 4: I think we over complicate the rut. I think we
Speaker 4: try to figure out what the buck is going to
Speaker 4: do next when he doesn't know himself. So what we
Speaker 4: need to hunt are trends, and you know, what are
Speaker 4: the most likely things like playing the odds more. And
Speaker 4: you don't have to know where he beds. You don't
Speaker 4: have to know where he feeds. All you have to
Speaker 4: know is that there's a group of does over here,
Speaker 4: and there's a group of does over here, and there's
Speaker 4: a funnel in between those two spots, and when the
Speaker 4: rut comes, that buck is going to be looking for doze.
Speaker 4: You don't need to know anything else about him. You
Speaker 4: just sit in that funnel until he walks through, and
Speaker 4: if you want to push your luck a little bit,
Speaker 4: you can hunt right up close to those does because
Speaker 4: you know he's going to be there. He's going to
Speaker 4: be looking for the dose. He's not going to be
Speaker 4: doing whatever he did in October when the rut comes.
Speaker 4: So I think we try too hard to pattern the
Speaker 4: bucks that were hunting again when they don't know themselves
Speaker 4: what they're going to do next. You don't need a
Speaker 4: trail camera during the rut. You only need to know
Speaker 4: what's part of your hunting area. There's a buck that
Speaker 4: you'd like to shoot that's living in because that camera
Speaker 4: you might tell you where he was this morning, but
Speaker 4: he's not going to be there this afternoon. I don't
Speaker 4: even want to know that stuff. It just makes the
Speaker 4: whole process too complicated. I just need to know where
Speaker 4: I can kill that deer, like where are the spots
Speaker 4: where I can kill him? And I need to know
Speaker 4: that I'm within his likely range in a spot that
Speaker 4: makes sense. Don't need to know anything more about that deer.
Speaker 4: Then it's just a matter of putting in the time.
Speaker 4: So it's it really is a lot simpler, you know,
Speaker 4: because I've written so many articles about the rut over
Speaker 4: the years. It's like, oh, you know this scrape or
Speaker 4: that scrape, and it's like none of that stuff matters,
Speaker 4: you know, it doesn't matter how big a certain rub
Speaker 4: is or any of that stuff. It's just finding spots
Speaker 4: where the deer doesn't know that he's being hunted and
Speaker 4: putting in your time in areas that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Man, That's not I mean, that's that's not as fun though,
Speaker 1: when you when you have this whiteboard of trail camera
Speaker 1: photos and this sparamecter pressure, this mood face, all these
Speaker 1: different things that you're saying, just throw it away.
Speaker 4: But that but that'll work during other parts of the season.
Speaker 4: It just doesn't work during the rut.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: You know, you can pretend and you can say that
Speaker 4: you figured it out and that's okay. I mean, there's
Speaker 4: nothing wrong with that. It's just you probably didn't. You know,
Speaker 4: it's just there. They don't know. You know, if if
Speaker 4: they knew what they're going to do next, then we
Speaker 4: could say, okay, I can figure this out. But when
Speaker 4: they don't know themselves, how do we pretend like we
Speaker 4: can figure it out? All we can go by is
Speaker 4: you know, general trends and you know typical behavior.
Speaker 1: So in a nushell, when it comes to the rut,
Speaker 1: figure out where he can hunt a grade funnel. Park
Speaker 1: yourself there, don't get busted by deer and hope for
Speaker 1: the best.
Speaker 4: Put your time in it. And as long as you're
Speaker 4: you're not getting picked off, they're not detecting you. And
Speaker 4: you're in an area that makes sense, like near does
Speaker 4: or between two dough concentration areas, you're you're probably gonna
Speaker 4: have as good a chance as any any spot. I
Speaker 4: mean that that buck, he's probably going to be around
Speaker 4: there somewhere, you know. So yeah, he might be with
Speaker 4: the dough one day and you're like, oh dang, you know,
Speaker 4: but then the next day you might catch in between
Speaker 4: does or you know, like I said, if you want
Speaker 4: to push it a little bit and you know where
Speaker 4: the dough's bed, you can get right on the downwind
Speaker 4: fringe of those dough betting areas and then hope to
Speaker 4: catch you know, maybe a little bit more aggressive you know,
Speaker 4: searching action from the bucks versus just that that you know,
Speaker 4: large scale, you know, traveling through funnels. But the bucks
Speaker 4: are going to be where the doughs are, and sometimes
Speaker 4: it's hard to find the dose, to be honest with you,
Speaker 4: during the rut because they don't like being her assed,
Speaker 4: so they start finding places to hide. So I remember
Speaker 4: it was a It was a real eye opener for
Speaker 4: me because Mark Jury was saying and some I don't
Speaker 4: know if it was an article or a TV show
Speaker 4: or something that. You know, sometimes the doughs disappear, and
Speaker 4: when that happens, it makes buck hunting a lot harder
Speaker 4: because if you can't find the dose, you know, how
Speaker 4: are you going to find the bucks?
Speaker 1: Have you found yourself over complicating something like over complicating
Speaker 1: the rut or over complicating some sort of strategy for
Speaker 1: a buck? And now now you look back in hindsight,
Speaker 1: like what was I thinking? Was I over complicating that?
Speaker 1: Or was I trying to connect us that really didn't connect?
Speaker 1: Or do you have such a straightforward approach where it's
Speaker 1: just like fight for another day and try again.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I have a very analytical mind.
Speaker 4: You know, my background is kind of that way too,
Speaker 4: And so so I'm always looking at the odds. I
Speaker 4: was trying to play the odds, and so I get
Speaker 4: away from the you know, the trying to pattern a book.
Speaker 4: So I haven't really tried that in a long time
Speaker 4: because early on it got really frustrated because it didn't work,
Speaker 4: you know, during the rut. Yeah, again, I think the
Speaker 4: last week of October is a different story. I think
Speaker 4: you can pattern box and you can kill them that
Speaker 4: last week of October, but you get into November throughout
Speaker 4: most of the whitetails range and you just kind of
Speaker 4: throw all that stuff out the window. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I would say the only thing I've probably overcomplicated sometimes
Speaker 4: maybe I've given the deer too much credit. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't hunt them, maybe quite aggressively enough. But again,
Speaker 4: you know, my situation is different. You know, I'm not
Speaker 4: hunting public land. You know, I can, like you said,
Speaker 4: I can live to fight another day. So if I'm
Speaker 4: an air, I would err on the side of being
Speaker 4: too careful, too conservative, and I know that I've done
Speaker 4: that a few times, you know, where if I'd have
Speaker 4: gone after the buck, you know, a little bit harder,
Speaker 4: you know, might have had a better chance at him.
Speaker 4: But hindsight's I was twenty twenty. You go after him
Speaker 4: and then you bump him, and then it's like, well,
Speaker 4: now he's not going to be daylight active there anymore.
Speaker 4: It's like now you got to start over. So I
Speaker 4: don't know. I don't think in the last twenty some
Speaker 4: years that my strategy has changed very much. And I've
Speaker 4: stayed really pretty conservative. But you know, if I've done anything,
Speaker 4: if I've over complicated it, I've just given them too
Speaker 4: much credit because they're not they're not supernatural, you know,
Speaker 4: they're not ghosts. You know, like the old Sports of
Speaker 4: Field magazine, you know, forty years ago, it's like the
Speaker 4: deer was like a ghost. He came out of the
Speaker 4: thicket tonight, didn't see him, and all of a sudden
Speaker 4: he was there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like that's what my mind reverts back to all
Speaker 4: the time, that somehow they're one step ahead of us.
Speaker 4: They're not one step ahead of us, they're not. They
Speaker 4: just aren't moving in daylight. We think somehow they've got
Speaker 4: us figured out. That's why we're not seeing him. Well,
Speaker 4: we're not seeing him because they're not moving in daylight,
Speaker 4: or they're locked up with the dough.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a that's a refresher for this
Speaker 1: stuffcoming rut, because that's where a lot of people put
Speaker 1: a lot of stock into their season. I mean, if
Speaker 1: they're still carrying, they're tagg into the rut. It does
Speaker 1: get to a point where it feels like make a break.
Speaker 1: And I think it's easy to over complicate things, So
Speaker 1: I'm glad just to hear a refresher to park in
Speaker 1: a spot where you don't get busted and bring a
Speaker 1: magic eight ball and say, well, I kill a big
Speaker 1: buck today, Shake it and say yes or no.
Speaker 4: Eventually it'll say yes, perfect if you sit there long enough.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 1: Bill, Where can people fall along with everything that you
Speaker 1: have going on?
Speaker 4: The bill Winki YouTube channel is the best place to
Speaker 4: catch up with me?
Speaker 1: All right, next step, we have Adam Keith and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate his insight. I'm not going to spoil it,
Speaker 1: so let's hear what Adam has to say about something
Speaker 1: that we're all simply over complicating, making too hard. There
Speaker 1: we go, all right, Adam in the world of whitetail comment,
Speaker 1: if you listened to let's say the average guy listens
Speaker 1: to two or three hunting podcast a week per a year.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's guys that listen through one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty two hundred whitetail hunting podcasts a year, and
Speaker 1: I feel sometimes that might create an unneeded complexity when
Speaker 1: it comes to hunting a mature buck. And so what
Speaker 1: I want to do here is remove the noise and
Speaker 1: what's this one topic? What's one thing that every hunter
Speaker 1: is simply over complicating. So it could be a complex
Speaker 1: topic or something that could be complex once you layered
Speaker 1: at all, but it's just as a whole. All right,
Speaker 1: we're making that way too complicated. What's the eighty twenty?
Speaker 1: This is what you need to pay attention to. Yes, so.
Speaker 5: Immediately, you know, with my job and working with private landowners,
Speaker 5: and so that's the lens I look at majority of
Speaker 5: things through and I would just say that from my perspective,
Speaker 5: obviously everything is the right answer.
Speaker 1: But we can't do that.
Speaker 5: So we're gonna say, let's pick one, and it's the
Speaker 5: most probably not exactly deer hunter related, but deer huntered
Speaker 5: land manager related. Is the direction I went with this
Speaker 5: question in my head is going food plots. I just
Speaker 5: feel like when it comes to food It gets so
Speaker 5: complicated for guys, it's the most number one asked question,
Speaker 5: or this the most asked question that I deal with
Speaker 5: far and away is what to plant in a food
Speaker 5: plot or understanding the food sources? It seems like is
Speaker 5: so complicated. Is it beats or is it brascas? Or
Speaker 5: is it beats or is it turnips? Is it radishes?
Speaker 5: Is it clover? Is it wheat or oats? And it's
Speaker 5: like it.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be this complicated, So all right, so
Speaker 1: what is it then? What is the most? The most
Speaker 1: just needs to be attractive?
Speaker 5: Like for me, it's like our deer really going to
Speaker 5: notice the difference between wheat notes maybe is it going
Speaker 5: to be noticeable enough for you? Probably not? And eighty
Speaker 5: nine percent of guys out there, and so to me,
Speaker 5: just the complexity of food plotting because it is, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's the most talked about thing I would I would
Speaker 5: imagine in YouTube is talking about food plots, and it
Speaker 5: just it's so complicated. Now we have guys trying to
Speaker 5: crimp and trying to do all this other stuff, and
Speaker 5: it's like we forgot I think the fact that clover's
Speaker 5: pretty marvelous and really easy to grow it is, and
Speaker 5: so to me, it's just like that is far and away.
Speaker 5: What guys as deer hunter's like, what should a plant
Speaker 5: that's going to attract them in more?
Speaker 1: And it's like, did you do soil tests?
Speaker 5: No, so you didn't do the soil tests, and you
Speaker 5: didn't add fertilizer and you haven't lined. Oh never, Okay, cool,
Speaker 5: there is our problem. That's the biggest hole in the bucket.
Speaker 5: And so to me, it's like I would, and it's
Speaker 5: something I've changed so much over the years. Like I
Speaker 5: love blends, I love summer blends, I love fall blends.
Speaker 5: I've done them, but early on I realized that I
Speaker 5: can't do them repetitively a year after year after year,
Speaker 5: because oh look now my field there's nothing but crab grass.
Speaker 5: Oh look, it's all goose grass. And so for me,
Speaker 5: it's like the complicated side of food plotting. It's just like, okay, cut.
Speaker 1: It all out.
Speaker 5: Let's for the next three years, let's just follow the
Speaker 5: soil test. Let's spend our money on fertility, and let's
Speaker 5: go plant from the co op a four dollars an
Speaker 5: acre blend of brassicas and maybe top dress some wheat
Speaker 5: at twenty dollars for one hundred pounds, and let's just
Speaker 5: see what that does. It's far easier than you realize.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter if it's this blend from Basspro or
Speaker 5: that blend from Shields or that one from online. Like
Speaker 5: you didn't do the sole test anyway, Let's just keep
Speaker 5: this simple and follow a soil test and throw some
Speaker 5: cheap seed out.
Speaker 1: See what happens.
Speaker 5: That will be more noticeable than whether you use this
Speaker 5: XYZ blend versus that ABC blend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a lot of value in that.
Speaker 1: I think oftentimes when people are picking their food plot seed,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like they're at the horse racetrack and like,
Speaker 1: all right, what horse am I going to bet on
Speaker 1: this year? And then they always feel like they get
Speaker 1: the wrong horse, like I tried this this year and
Speaker 1: it didn't work. And to your point, it's like, what's
Speaker 1: the real root issue? It's probably the soils.
Speaker 5: Soil and weather, yes, and we can only control one
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I guess now there's irrigation. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: for example, someone's like, all right, I'm that guy. I'm
Speaker 1: listening right now, and I'm one hundred percent that guy.
Speaker 1: I want to go get a soil test. Think of
Speaker 1: general regions. I mean, and I understand the history of
Speaker 1: the farm and how it's been treated is going to
Speaker 1: be impact of impactful of what the soil is like.
Speaker 1: But you know, think of a below average soil and
Speaker 1: they say, Okay, I know I need to add lime.
Speaker 1: I'm going to need some NPK and work all this stuff.
Speaker 1: How long does it take to really start making a
Speaker 1: noticeable difference where my food plot does seemingly feel way
Speaker 1: more attractive than what it was three years ago, four
Speaker 1: years ago, five years ago? Like, what is the what
Speaker 1: is the breaking even have seen that reward of doing
Speaker 1: that work?
Speaker 5: I mean within the season if you do that, if
Speaker 5: you do that this fall, it's you know, we're July,
Speaker 5: and if you prep the next two months, you're going
Speaker 5: to see the noticeable difference this fall and you can
Speaker 5: do quicker. You know, we think soil amendments takes a while. Yeah,
Speaker 5: with pole rise lime, it's going to take four to
Speaker 5: seven months to really see that.
Speaker 1: But we can go get pelotize lime. Throw that out there.
Speaker 5: You can get some liquid lime to really get immediate impacts.
Speaker 5: Now it's long, not as long lasting, but it still
Speaker 5: is going to have impact, and it may cost a
Speaker 5: little bit more upfront, just because we don't have a
Speaker 5: true feel of our fertility and we haven't amended correctly.
Speaker 1: We haven't correct with the pH.
Speaker 5: But if you just go and add, you know, one
Speaker 5: thousand pounds of pelotize line per acre and oh we
Speaker 5: went and got five hundred pounds of triple thirteen, you're
Speaker 5: going to see a difference, and your deer are most
Speaker 5: likely going to notice the difference in the overall benefit
Speaker 5: of those of those plants. So it's pretty quick now,
Speaker 5: change in pH from five to one. Like I'm in
Speaker 5: the ozarks southern Missouri, and naturally we are a five
Speaker 5: five or less, so anywhere from a five to five
Speaker 5: to five, So it takes a little longer to make
Speaker 5: those drastic changes, but you can still add some quick
Speaker 5: fixes to get a pretty quick bump, a bump that
Speaker 5: I think is more noticeable than whether you planted this
Speaker 5: blend or that blend.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, there's some.
Speaker 5: Great blends or great varieties out there that advertise for
Speaker 5: higher performance, whether that be for more pod production or
Speaker 5: holding the pods longer, or higher oil or higher protein
Speaker 5: in their corn variety, and you know, I think that
Speaker 5: a lot of that I love first and foremost. I'm
Speaker 5: probably as guilty as anyone at getting excited about new
Speaker 5: species and new varieties. But I think at the end
Speaker 5: of the day, I would love for every deer hunter
Speaker 5: and deer manager to ask the question, is the cost
Speaker 5: increase going to be noticeable in the performance? And is
Speaker 5: it going to be noticeable enough that I can you know,
Speaker 5: I'm now harvesting a four and a half year old
Speaker 5: or whatever my goals are because I planted that variety,
Speaker 5: or would it be more noticeable if I just put
Speaker 5: it into fertility.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great, great piece of advice. Here's
Speaker 1: an elementary question for someone that's like, Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: have my food pot and I'm going to go get
Speaker 1: my soil sample, and I need to make amendments and
Speaker 1: I'm going to buy a bunch of triple thirteen. Do
Speaker 1: you feel that they can just broadcast that on there
Speaker 1: before a rain? Should they work that in? Like what
Speaker 1: does that next step look like now that they're excited
Speaker 1: they want to do it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would just look for a decent rain chance
Speaker 5: where you're you know, it's not just like a quarter
Speaker 5: inch flash, because it may that may not be the
Speaker 5: best service. So let's look for maybe two to three days.
Speaker 5: Is this some rain chances, go and just throw it
Speaker 5: on the soil. Throw it on the ground if you
Speaker 5: want to work it in, you know. I'm that's another
Speaker 5: thing that I feel like we're complicated with food plots.
Speaker 5: It's like, oh, no, you cannot till soil anymore.
Speaker 1: We care about soil health.
Speaker 5: And it's like, tell that to all the guys that
Speaker 5: are doing this for a living that use tillage as
Speaker 5: a tool, Like it feels a little harsh to now,
Speaker 5: we just throw the baby out with the bath water.
Speaker 5: No more tillage, We're all, we're all, no till Well
Speaker 5: tell that to the guys who just have a four
Speaker 5: wheeler or just have a small tractor and a disc.
Speaker 5: That's all they got, Like they can't plant food plots anymore,
Speaker 5: They're just going to broadcast. Like I feel like that's
Speaker 5: a pretty harsh approach. So if you're doing tillage, sure
Speaker 5: broadcasting on the ground, or if it is lime broadcasting
Speaker 5: on the ground, work it up, work it into the soil.
Speaker 1: Let's let's again, let's not overcomplicate this I take pride.
Speaker 1: I have not worked the dirt of my where I
Speaker 1: live good for you and for five years, but there's
Speaker 1: also times for like man, it would be pretty nice
Speaker 1: to turn out.
Speaker 5: The first food plots we ever planned, we had a
Speaker 5: massive ferguson like a little thirty horse power.
Speaker 1: I think they were mass produced. Everybody's seen this tractor.
Speaker 5: And we had a two a big two disc plow,
Speaker 5: and I mean it was just sink that sucker.
Speaker 1: I can still smell that dirt and it was dirt.
Speaker 5: It wasn't soiled by the time we were done and
Speaker 5: disc it up and plan it and then we had
Speaker 5: amazing food plots. And then over the years we've started
Speaker 5: using no tilling, and I'm a huge no till guy,
Speaker 5: and I've got a corn planter now and I think
Speaker 5: it's wonderful. But there is something about boy disking it
Speaker 5: up or turning it over and smoothing.
Speaker 1: It all out. I know why guys do it well.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great piece of advice of what's
Speaker 1: getting over complicated. Maybe it's not what you plant, it's
Speaker 1: what you planted into, and that would be the dirt
Speaker 1: or soil, hopefully soil, but more likely dirt. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's that's really great advice and timely when
Speaker 1: this comes out. So where can people follow along with
Speaker 1: what you have going on, or maybe they want to
Speaker 1: see some of these projects in motion or send you
Speaker 1: a message and say this seed is the best and
Speaker 1: you have to play it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can find us on social media, Land and Legacy,
Speaker 5: or on all the major platforms for podcasting searching Land
Speaker 5: and Legacy and close.
Speaker 1: Things out, we have Jeff Sturgis with his take. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and get into it. Here we go, All right, Jeff,
Speaker 1: we're back, and this is something I want to get
Speaker 1: your opinion on. I feel that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: content out there, there's a lot a lot of different opinions.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different things that maybe we overcomplicate
Speaker 1: or maybe make it a little bit harder than what
Speaker 1: it needs to be. So I want to ask you
Speaker 1: point blank, what's one thing every hunter is making way
Speaker 1: too complicated? In your opinion?
Speaker 6: You know, I should have looked at these nodes you
Speaker 6: sent over, Jake. I could have come up with somebody
Speaker 6: up literally probably off the cuff is the best. And
Speaker 6: I would think anything to do with scent and I'd
Speaker 6: be curious what the other guys have said. But anything
Speaker 6: to do with scent, hiding your scent, whether that's putting
Speaker 6: scent on mock scrapes or thinking that you can hide
Speaker 6: your scent while you're deer hunting, I think I've seen
Speaker 6: people go through a cent regimen that takes an hour
Speaker 6: of their day every single day in the morning, just
Speaker 6: absolutely ridiculous. The best form of scent control of stand location,
Speaker 6: making sure that you back up to non deer areas,
Speaker 6: making sure you access through non dear areas. And I
Speaker 6: can see the one thing that I like doing is
Speaker 6: just simply keeping my clothes clean. I keeping a rubber
Speaker 6: mad set. If I'm on a hunt out of state
Speaker 6: somewhere for five or six days, then I might cycle
Speaker 6: through closed to where I've used this outfit. A day
Speaker 6: or two, I hang that in a tree or bush.
Speaker 6: If it's not going to rain, or if it is,
Speaker 6: it doesn't really matter, and then I'll go on to
Speaker 6: the next set. And so the point is I like
Speaker 6: clean clothes. I do think there's something that can be
Speaker 6: said for spraying down your boots, your legs. You're not
Speaker 6: leaving a scent trail through the woods every time you
Speaker 6: go in and out. But other than that, if a
Speaker 6: deer is downwind of you, you're done. And when it
Speaker 6: comes to mock scrapes, I think I have over sixty
Speaker 6: seventy mox scrape videos and one of the biggest is
Speaker 6: best sent for mock scrapes. And I'm in there talking
Speaker 6: about no scent at all, So I'm sure the scent
Speaker 6: companies don't like me. But the point is that I've
Speaker 6: had decades of experience of using mock scrapes and no
Speaker 6: scent and free material. So you can just use a vine.
Speaker 6: You can use a hanging vine, a vertical vine, vertical
Speaker 6: jackpine branch up north, maybe a white oak branch, aspen beach,
Speaker 6: anything that deer prefer to rub. Hang it it's free.
Speaker 6: You get thirty cents a pair cord. Hang it up.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of videos that I have out there
Speaker 6: on how to do that. But if I wanted to
Speaker 6: overcomplicate the scent out of it, then I would actually
Speaker 6: have a scent company. I would have materials for making
Speaker 6: mock scrapes, and you can bet I'd sell a lot
Speaker 6: of it because I own, you know, basically those positions
Speaker 6: on YouTube for how to make a mock scrape, how
Speaker 6: to make a vertical scrape, max scrape vines. And I
Speaker 6: think people can spend way too much not only money,
Speaker 6: but way too much time either trying to hide their
Speaker 6: scent or full of deer's nose. Always remember, we go
Speaker 6: buy a bread bakery and we smell bread. Deer goes
Speaker 6: buy a bread bakery and they smell the ingredients and
Speaker 6: they can rank them in order of strongest to greatest,
Speaker 6: even if there's twenty ingredients, and so we can't even
Speaker 6: comprehend their nose. My lab can smell a shed antler
Speaker 6: from twenty yards away with the wind in our nose,
Speaker 6: and we can't even smell a scent on the antler.
Speaker 6: They can smell a fingerprint. We can't smell a fingerprint.
Speaker 6: So it's just if you think you can fool them,
Speaker 6: that's your first mistake heading into the woods. And the
Speaker 6: time and money is spent trying to do so just
Speaker 6: drives me nuts.
Speaker 1: Have you did you ever go through an evolution of
Speaker 1: where you try to be sent free? I put that
Speaker 1: up in air quotes like very very methodical at some
Speaker 1: point like did you try that? And figure like, hey,
Speaker 1: it didn't really make much of a difference, or have
Speaker 1: you kind of had that principle for a long time.
Speaker 6: I've had that principle for a long time because I
Speaker 6: started hunting to wind.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 6: It was different because I didn't grow up with my
Speaker 6: dad or uncle telling me where to sit or buddy
Speaker 6: it was. It was all done on my own. We
Speaker 6: were a fishing family, so my brother and I started
Speaker 6: so I tried to find information out there that was
Speaker 6: accurate and to help me hunt. I just soaked up
Speaker 6: as much information. I loved it. I was very passionate
Speaker 6: about it. So I was always concerned about my wind
Speaker 6: and from that, when a deer would get down wind
Speaker 6: to me, even though I was trying to be careful,
Speaker 6: I'd know that they they they blew at me and
Speaker 6: they take off they run. So then you go through
Speaker 6: the carbon sent phase really using a lot of sprays
Speaker 6: and to try to hide your scent. And although I'd
Speaker 6: see deer walk over my trail if they were downwind
Speaker 6: to me, it didn't matter what I did. I've always
Speaker 6: used rubber maid and tried to keep my clothes clean,
Speaker 6: my boots clean. That seems to be the case, but
Speaker 6: I can go back to nineteen eighty six. I was
Speaker 6: sixteen years old, didn't have a lot of money. I'm
Speaker 6: ode lawn, shoveled snow basically, And I remember I conned
Speaker 6: my dad or talked him into buying me some deer
Speaker 6: yurine rut p and I remember going out to public
Speaker 6: land by us in Waterford, Michigan. It was Pontiac Lake
Speaker 6: Recreation Area. So I go out and sit on an
Speaker 6: area where there were some scrapes and rubs. Hardly knew
Speaker 6: what they were at that time. I think, well, I'm
Speaker 6: just going to take that little bottle and I'm going
Speaker 6: to go sprinkle it on something, and deer going to
Speaker 6: come running. Well twenty minutes later, because it was expensive,
Speaker 6: it's good stuff, and it stuck. So I put it out,
Speaker 6: nothing comes in. I put a couple more drops. You know,
Speaker 6: this summer's supposed to last me a month, I told
Speaker 6: my dad, and you know, and all of a sudden, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, an hour into the set, the bottle was empty.
Speaker 6: And I remember, I still remember that sick feeling in
Speaker 6: my stomach, like I wasted this money. And of course
Speaker 6: I didn't see any deer that set, and I think
Speaker 6: a lot of was money driven to Jake, like, I
Speaker 6: just didn't have the money to waste, so I didn't
Speaker 6: have a lot to try and uh and that was
Speaker 6: you know, it has to do with that scent too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well with your dad not being familiar with
Speaker 1: hunting at that time or I guess a hunter did
Speaker 1: he did? He call you crazy and you're like, you
Speaker 1: want to do what with your money? Or you like,
Speaker 1: what do you want?
Speaker 3: You want to buy?
Speaker 6: Yeah, kind of yeah, you're buying, You're earning a bottle.
Speaker 6: I mean, he was my dad. He passed away in
Speaker 6: twenty nineteen, you had been almost eighty two, and he
Speaker 6: was a very kind hearted person and he was not now.
Speaker 6: We would joke around make fun of each other as
Speaker 6: a family and he fit right in. But as far
Speaker 6: as really tearing you down because you might want to
Speaker 6: do something, it was either a yes or oh. It
Speaker 6: was more like not, you're an idiot. It was more like,
Speaker 6: I just don't think that's something that we need to
Speaker 6: prioritize right now. I don't think that's something that's in
Speaker 6: the budget. I don't think that's something you should be
Speaker 6: spending your money on. More like that kind of advice,
Speaker 6: But I'm sure he was. I can see him shaking
Speaker 6: his head and you would always say something like, oh, Jeffrey,
Speaker 6: that was what he would say. So I got that
Speaker 6: comment a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, that's great. I think that's that's some clarity, somatic
Speaker 1: clarity for folks for this upcoming season. Once again, where
Speaker 1: can people fall along with everything that you have going on?
Speaker 6: Just search anything white Tail Habitat Solutions, whether it's YouTube, Instagram,
Speaker 6: a website, and really if you're looking up white Tail
Speaker 6: strategy information, I think I've covered it all with you know,
Speaker 6: fifteen hundred videos and hundreds of articles throughout the year
Speaker 6: on my site, so over two thousand pieces of content.
Speaker 6: So if you search a topic and can't find it,
Speaker 6: then just drop white Till Habitat Solutions in there and
Speaker 6: you'll be able to find it. So you know, we
Speaker 6: have our seed company, Pure Wildlife Blends, and we have
Speaker 6: we go to clients and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: but you really don't need to spend a time. I
Speaker 6: have over two thousand pieces of content on Google and YouTube,
Speaker 6: so just go check it out and I appreciate you
Speaker 6: watching or reading along.
Speaker 1: All right, there, you guys have it. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed this conversation with the fore guest, and ultimately,
Speaker 1: I think we all can extremely overcomplicate things. And I
Speaker 1: think when you remember learning any new skill or anything
Speaker 1: like that, it was always learned the fundamentals. Stick to
Speaker 1: the fundamentals, stick to the eighty twenty principle. What's the
Speaker 1: eighty percent that I need to apply versus the twenty
Speaker 1: percent outlier information? And I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: good grounding episode to remember, keep it simple, stay focused,
Speaker 1: and don't over complicate things because it's easy to do.
Speaker 1: So I hope you guys enjoyed it. Next time on
Speaker 1: the back forty, we're breaking down some hunting rules, some
Speaker 1: deer hunting rules, and I hope you guys will stick
Speaker 1: around until then. We'll see you have a great rest
Speaker 1: of your week.