WEBVTT - Ep. 1051: What Thermal Drones Revealed About Big Bucks 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:09.360 the Whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:13.400 hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:18.759 Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.239 What is going on? Welcome back to Wired to Hunt. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.040 This is Jake Hoefer and this week we have a 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.240 great episode with Derek Dixon of White Tail Research and 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.080 to keep the theme of July about technology and summer scouting, 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.920 this breaks down some of his findings over the years 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.280 with thousands of flights with a thermal drone. And I 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.080 know there's a little controversy with that, but I think 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.720 the information and intel that Derek is able to provide 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.520 can certainly be helpful and useful. We talk about summer 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.120 bachelor groups and what actually happens before the season and 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.680 what happens as all the different things shift and change 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.160 as we build up to your opening day. As you know, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.920 Wired Hunt is brought to you by Multrie. So without 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:00.760 further ado, let's go in to kick things off with 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:02.720 Derek from white Tail Research. 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.520 Derek, Welcome to Wired. How you doing, Yeah, man, thanks 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:12.120 for having me on. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:18.800 Absolutely so it's July, and excitement is getting to be 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.280 very high for all deer hunters. They have likely to 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.759 point cell cameras, there's maybe some deer that they remember 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.600 from the previous year. And I want to dive into 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.640 some of the different trends that maybe you've been able 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.200 to observe with the work that you do with your 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.000 thermal drone and a lot of the resources you put 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.640 out there. But before we get into all of that, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.560 is there anything new or exciting that you want to 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:42.559 share that I might not ask. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:43.839 I want to get that out of way. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:45.759 Yeah, I mean I could take you down a lot 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.880 of rabbit holes with that conversation, because I've recently started 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.240 researching arrows. I've been researching turkeys for the last four 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.320 months or so now, and there's a lot of cool 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.400 findings with that. Really the turkey thing, though, I think 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.840 it it didn't it didn't dive down the avenues that 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.920 I wanted it to. I had an idea, I had 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.480 a strategy, And the more I flew, the less turkeys 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.400 I see in and the less turkeys I seen, the 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.600 more questions I asked, and the more questions I asked, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.400 I just started getting shoved into these like one hundred 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:16.880 and fifty page PDFs for every single state and their 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.919 conservation agency, and I'm tracking where all the money goes 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:21.880 and all these different things. So I have a massive 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.000 video related to turkeys that's going to come out. I 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:25.400 don't know if it's going to be this year, just 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.360 because the timing might not be right for it anymore 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:29.320 because of how how much work I've done for it. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.520 I might wait until next year to post the big video, 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.040 but I'll probably have a small stipit and get get 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.680 posted out. But anything, if anything, I'm gonna have some 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.240 arrow research or an arrow related video coming out before season, 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.080 which will be pretty interesting, just because that's something that 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:44.440 I've always been really passionate about. 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.080 I'm a nerd about it. And I'm going to be doing. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.440 Some broadhead testing and not just like testing five broadheads, 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.080 and I'm going to literally buy every broadhead that's manufactured 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.680 that's that's labeled for penant know, highlight, high level penetration, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.760 and you like, for reference. If you just look at 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.680 a mechanical broadhead company, if they have ten broad heads 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:05.560 that they sell, then I'm going to look for that 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.960 smallest diameter cut titanium, like what is what do they 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.440 claim penetrates the best? And I'm going to own every 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.079 single one of those and then we're gonna go head 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:14.800 to head. Maybe I can get a slow O camera 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.320 and some other stuff, but we'll see. So yeah, no, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.560 I but I could. Yeah, yeah, don't ask that question. 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.800 I could, We would, We will derail this conversation quickly. 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:23.600 Yeah. 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.160 Well that's uh. I look forward to to checking that out. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.000 So I do want to talk about farm Country. You 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.840 recently released a video in regard to some of the 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.960 different things that that you have been able to find there, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:35.280 and so. 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:38.240 I guess getting right into it. 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.560 You know, you mentioned that ad Country is basically a 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.160 white tail feed lot in a lot of in a 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.440 lot of scenarios. What surprised you most once you actually 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.640 started putting, you know, numbers to buck Todough ratio general 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.000 deer density in comparison to to where you fly most 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:55.840 often in Missouri? 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:57.480 Yeah, no, I mean I knew that. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.400 I knew the deer numbers were going to be higher, right, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.160 So I started driving through these agriculture areas with prime 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.200 Ryperian habitat and I'm looking around the entire time, and 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.600 you know, from my area, if I drive through a 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.080 section of habitat that looks anything like it did in 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.280 the areas that I was in with agriculture, then I'm 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.960 automatically looking to the back of the fields. I'm looking 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.480 for deer in those areas because it's just got hunters know, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.080 you know, the passive instinct whenever you drive through an 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:22.440 area and it's like, oh man, there could be a 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:23.920 deer over there, and you're just you're kind of looking 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:25.720 at the back of a field. In that setting and 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.560 agriculture setting I was. I was in like like a 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:30.719 child in a candy shop type setting. My wife was 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.120 having to keep me in control looking at the highway 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.520 driving because I mean everywhere, I just felt like there 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.880 should be deer everywhere, and there there was. And I 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.800 got the drawn up in the sky and helped verify that. 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:42.640 And you know, the initial part of it, I think 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:43.960 I even said on the video, is that I was 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:48.080 going to do a population analysis, just a basic get 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.080 get a herd count, and then also I wanted to 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.440 know dot to buck ratio. Maybe if I get to 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.920 dissect fawns from the ratio as well, which I was 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:56.520 able to, but I just kind of lumped them in 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.000 with does, and I think sixty bucks is what I 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.760 what i'd rated it at. But in the end, I mean, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.080 whenever I flew up the drone, it was just immediately like, 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.680 oh my gosh, this is I'm gonna be here a minute. 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.080 And I actually ended up doing the main portion of 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.840 the analysis right at dark and I was just flying 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.320 a straight bead line and I would zoom the camera 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.480 in and I would immediately pop it back off and 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:22.200 zoom on the next year, pop it back off, zoom 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:23.880 on the next year. And the entire time, I had 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.080 a guy next to me, and normally I drop pins, 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.479 I'll drop color coded pins for that entire process, but 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.560 there were so many deer I just didn't have and 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.960 have the time I needed to dough buck, dough buck, 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:35.920 dough buck, and if it was anything that was over 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:37.440 three and a half, then I would say, good buck, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.279 and then I would just keep going. And that guy's 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.239 sitting there next to me and he's just tally marking 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.440 its the thing that I did, and we were I 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.279 think it took two days to do two different properties 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:47.880 in this one place and then the other one. I 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.360 did it for a full day and it was actually 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.039 cloudy and a little rainy for that process, but I 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:53.600 walked away with I mean, there was no way I 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.160 wasn't within the ninety plus percent i'll of accuracy in 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.680 terms of how many deer were there. There were some 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.599 areas is where maybe it was a little thicker and 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.679 I may have glassed it over a little bit too easy. 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.160 But that kind of gets down to the point where 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.200 in the video I'd said, maybe I kind of skimmed 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.000 the edges of a section of habitat that you know, 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.159 that right Parian habitat, that little bit thicker density habitat, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.280 and I would decide there's got to be something in there, 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:20.760 so I'd kind of go back and recomb over it. 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:22.279 Even though most of the year late in the evening, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.440 early in the morning they're out in the open, still 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.360 felt like there had to be something just tucked away 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:28.480 back in there. And oftentimes whenever I would do that, 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.680 it'd be a mature buck. And really that kind of 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:32.960 leads to the probably the coolest finding, and I just 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.599 I can't, you know, it's impossible to say for certain 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:37.680 that this is a common trend, but it was so 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:41.279 consistent where you would fly up, you'd locate a handful 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.280 of mature box across one of these agriculture properties, and 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.039 then you would just pull up on X and look 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.279 for the areas that you hadn't flown yet, these sections 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.360 of habitat that look like there should be betting there, 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:54.000 and it's like, okay, I'm going to go check out 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.000 this section, this section, this section, and they're all, you know, 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.200 around one hundred acre blocks away from one another. You'd 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.200 go check out each section and there'd be another mature 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:03.800 buck in that in that little spot, and it's like, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.520 oh my goodness, that's just it was just always fascinating. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.919 Rarely did they overlap, though there were. There was a 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.600 portion I think it was November fifth, whenever I was there. 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.400 They think this was in Indiana as well, November fifth, 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.880 and whenever I was flying, mature bucks were overlapping. And 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.040 that's because there were like three dos in estris in 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.440 this one kind of core spot and they were all competing. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.040 But even in that setting, there was one buck that 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.840 was beyond dominant over all the other ones he had, 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.240 and he was missing his entire right side. He was 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.640 like three hundred and twenty pounds, just a freak of 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.280 nature and looked like he wanted to murder everybody, and 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.280 I think all the other deer recognized that. They just 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.600 kind of they stayed back and observed him. But he 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:46.960 was he was highly aggressive. And there were mature bucks 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.520 overlapping in that within one hundred acre blocks, of course, 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:52.600 But for the most part though, whenever they were all 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.200 bedded down, it was really interesting. They were they were 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.600 very evenly spaced. I mean, you could just draw lines 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.480 and connect through habitat and it's like, yeah, there should 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.880 be a mature buck there, there, there there, and if 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.200 you flew and checked it, there almost always was. So 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.600 that's interesting. So it was it was fully stocked, fully stocked. Yes, 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.720 there were no gaps whereas you know habitat in this area. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.880 You could attempt to do the same exact thing and 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.320 say you have a thousand acres, but I mean there's 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.640 only four mature bucks across one thousand acres, So in 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.280 that setting you're you're not going to be able to 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.400 do one one mature buck per one hundred acres because 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.400 they're just it's not fully stocked, as you just said. 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:27.720 So, m. 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.120 Another thing that I found interesting was, you know, I 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.040 think a lot of hunters assume you know and base 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:34.600 off what you're saying here as well as you know 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.120 mature bucks. But a lot of hunters, I feel, assume 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:41.760 that ad country just automatically equates to giant, very high 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.240 end deer. What did you find and how did the 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.800 match up to expectations or predictions before you did? 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:48.320 Did that? 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.240 Yeah, So I was finding deer with a lot of 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.160 abnormalities in comparison. So like I found one deer he 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.280 had a double main beam on the left side. We 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:58.480 found another deers main friend tany had a double main 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.320 beam on the right side, and he actually may have 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:02.680 been a gross over one hundred and seventy inches. But 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.640 in terms of just sitting down and saying you found it, 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:10.080 you know, a straight typical one seventy plus, I didn't 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.080 find one, not one that I could confirm. There was 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.080 one that was close, but even then I think he 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.760 was a little younger. If he survived, maybe he'll be 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.320 in that class next year. I definitely think that. You know, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.200 I someone had shown me trailcam pictures of a property 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.240 next door and there was this main frame eight and 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.000 he was like one hundred and sixty five hundred and 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.640 seventy inch main frame eight so it's like, obviously they 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.640 grow the big deer. But I think the biggest consensus 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.080 that I walked away with is that just the overall 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.199 average of total inches that these mature bucks are capping 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.800 out on is significantly higher than my area. My area, 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:44.880 you'll find one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:47.680 twenty inches is kind of common that area. It was 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.600 very uncommon to see anything under one hundred and thirty inches, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.480 and I'd say the average was in the one forties. 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:55.840 And with that, I mean even then, it's kind of 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.360 hard to discern inches off of a drone with that 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.559 type of person respective, it's really difficult to gain time 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.240 length in actual mass measurements throughout and I've I've played 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.600 around with guessing on stuff like that and relocated their 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.480 shed antlers, and I've had pretty good success with estimating. 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.720 But in agriculture it's different because those deer are so big, 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.160 their bodies are so massive, and their necks are so 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.200 much bigger and swaller than in my area that it's 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.240 a little bit more difficult to pin that down. Because 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.880 I remember there was one deer that I had I 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:28.480 had recorded him a couple weeks prior in early November, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.400 and I think three weeks later one of the guys 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.839 had killed this buck with a bow and it wasn't 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:35.600 a mega target buck. I mean, they had a lot 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.040 of bucks to choose from, but he ended up scoring 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:39.599 a little over one hundred and fifty inches and I 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:41.800 never would have thought he went over one hundred and 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.040 forty five. So he was like one fifty four or 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.000 something like that, So scored significantly higher than I had 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:49.400 estimated just off of the drone. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.800 But yeah, no, I mean just the general. 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.480 Consensus though, is that they're they're just bigger. Everything's just 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.199 a little bit bigger. And I think that a lot 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.360 of that measurement actually comes from the mass just in general. No, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.520 obviously they'll have longer time length potentially and maybe longer 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.160 main beams, but they definitely have a lot more mass 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.079 in that area for sure. I Mean you can tell 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:09.839 if you ever, if you ever pick up sheds from 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.280 somebody that has like an Iowa property, you pick. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:13.720 Up that Iowa shows ways. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.679 Yeah, it's so heavy in comparison to something in my area, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:18.200 and the density is just not there. 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.880 Were you shocked to not find as many you know, 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.520 quote unquote high end deer. Was that shocking to you 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:26.840 or was it about what you expected? 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:27.800 Yeah? 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.480 No, I felt like I would have found at least 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.439 one true just undoubtedly whenever you've seen him. He was 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.520 a Boon and Crocket deer, and the only deer that 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.840 I think going into it. They had one other on 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.640 trail camera that they thought potentially would have been, but 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.400 I never found him, and that was on a smaller property. 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.080 And then that the other buck that could have been, 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.040 you know, an actual, true, typical Boon and Crockett. Was 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.680 that that buck with the broken side that was just 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.280 dominant as all get out in three hundred and twenty pounds, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.400 but he was missing one side and he was six 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.120 by six, so you could look at his other side 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.439 and kind of gauge tine length and mass and he 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.640 would have came close. But ultimately, yeah, I thought that 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.720 I would have found one at least one and walked 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.480 away with the fact that just an undeniable Boon and Crockett. 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.240 And the crazy thing is, you know, I was looking 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.079 at deer like that in this area, in their area 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.480 for agriculture, and then I'm looking back at my deer 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.079 that I researched in southern Missouri, and I don't have 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.640 the numbers that they do in terms of total deer, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.559 but every once in a while, we always get that anomaly, 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.160 like one or two anomalies every single year within a 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.640 three thousand acre block in southern Missouri. And I've seen 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.480 this across multiple areas. I've done tracking jobs for guys 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.439 whenever I'm flying and we'll find this random five y 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.440 five or six by six and he's just absolutely anything 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.400 beyond a deer they've ever seen before. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:47.360 And it's like, well, where's that. 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.199 It's like, well, I'm not gonna tell you, but it's 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.040 a pretty big Deer's it's cool that you guys have 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.600 some genetics like that in this area. But like last year, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:59.280 I researched this mainframe ten five by five and he 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.040 was a four years old estimated, potentially even three and 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:05.199 a half. If if you had asked someone like Bill 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.760 wink or something on their property, they would automatically say, yeah, 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.480 that's three and a half year old. But from my area, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.679 I'm thinking that he's probably in the fours. And I 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:14.520 found one of his shed antlers. He's one hundred and 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.880 sixty inch deer all day long with an eighteen inch spread, 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.000 and he may have had a wider spread than that. 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:23.520 So we can produce deer at the same level in 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:24.320 these other areas. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:25.800 It's just they're. 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.960 Definitely more of an anomaly whenever it happens, whereas up 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.079 there it's pretty consistent to find. If you want to 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.840 find a deer over one hundred and fifty inches, then 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.120 if you have a thousand acres available to you're likely 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.080 going to have a deer over one hundred and fifty inches. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:38.880 We're down here, you might not have him. 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:40.680 He might fringe on you every once in a while 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:42.680 on that thousand acres, but you're not going to have 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:45.719 him as a quarter buck on your property for. 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.760 Someone that wants to tap into kind of the you 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.400 mentioned you looked at some spots on the map and say, hey, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.080 there should be a mature buck here, there should be 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:55.760 potentially a mature buck here. And when he flewed the 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.040 drone you found those I mean, were those on within 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.000 you mentioned you know, riparian areas, so you know river 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.000 or a large creek or something like that. Were they 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.800 just one hundred and fifty two hundred yards off the 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:08.720 creek or were they ten yards off the creek, or 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.199 were they on an ox bow, were they on different contours? 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.520 Like? What, what did you see that you're willing to share? Yeah? 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.640 Yeah, yeah, I mean most of them were on ox bos. 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.480 And I think that that's that's been pretty well understood 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.680 from a lot of guys. I mean, whenever you have 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.640 habitat like that that's so limited and you want to 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.920 go in and scout it, it's pretty simple to kind 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.120 of discern where deer betting down, just because the habitat 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.800 allows for it, and it's such such a fragmented segment 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.920 that you're actually scouting that it's pretty pretty easy to 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.400 discern where they're actually betting. But generally in oxpos, but 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:37.960 there's some areas where there's not an ox bow and 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.840 the river just kind of halfway wonders or a little 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.760 creek bed that's running through, and you know they're just 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.000 betting all along it. Oftentimes these areas the right parent 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.480 areas that I was flying around, they were anywhere from 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.360 thirty yards to one hundred and fifty yards wide, and 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.440 I mean they were packed with deer. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.080 Every single time. They're packed with deer. 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.640 And oftentimes you'll have a mature buck that was betted 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.840 down and he might have three domes off, you know, 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.160 pretty close by him, and then he's going to have 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.200 a handful of younger bucks that are all around him. 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.440 And there's some deer that are betted right up right 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:11.600 up against the creek, like they could almost lean their 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.400 head off of the bank and take a drink if 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.720 they wanted to, they're so close. And then sometimes they're 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.440 pulled a little bit further back fifteen twenty yards. And 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:20.440 there were a couple times where you'd find a mature 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.240 buck and he'd just be betted right out on the edge 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:24.600 of the woods, kind of right on that transition. So 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.520 it's kind of hard to say that, yeah, they always 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.320 bed the blank, but more often than not, whenever I 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.080 was finding mature buck, he was either in an ox 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.960 bow or he was in And this is probably the 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:41.240 more more frequented. If I could say, like if I 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.880 went and flew every ox bow on a property, there's 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:45.920 a chance you're going to find a mature buck across 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.960 you know, that habitat in the oxpos. But in an 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.320 agriculture setting, if there's a field that's left into native grasses, 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.960 that field will almost always whenever I was flying at 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.600 least and you know, I can't say always. It's sign science, 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.800 you can't say always, but very very likely there's a 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.600 mature buck betted out in that native grass field, whatever 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:08.280 it was left into, whether it was just burned and 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.760 allowed to grow up and it's waste to chest high. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.000 Very common mature bucks were out in those in comparison 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:15.880 to an ox bow, and you know, they're almost always 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:17.840 on the right parian habitat, but if you if you 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.960 intermix that with this native grass field, they really take 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.120 a preference to being out in that native grass field 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.720 versus kind of back near where all the other deer 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:27.760 at I was seeing. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.000 Did you notice, and I don't know how hard did 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:34.000 this to tell with the with the drone, but when 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.240 they were betted in the native grasses, were they typically 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.520 like on a slight knoll? Were they you know, like, 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.800 was there any sort of change within that terrain although 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.160 maya have been a little bit subtle, But did you 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:45.760 notice any sort of trend or was it just on 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:46.880 the edge of the native grasses? 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.240 Because yeah, so for the most part, what I was 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.440 seeing that a lot of that habitat is pretty flat. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.240 I would say if you had terrain changes that maybe 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.160 they'll take a preference to betting a little bit higher potentially, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.440 but I think more than more often than not, whenever 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.120 you get in a setting like that, it's so dense 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.119 and it's so thick that if you human decide to 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.119 ride anee bike or walk through it, and you're walking 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:10.600 through the edge of it, he's just he's not going 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:12.080 to get up, he's not going to move. You could 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:13.800 walk ten yards next to him in a lot of 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:15.719 those settings and you're never going to see him. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:17.760 You might hear him breathing before you see him, and 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:19.040 I've actually done that before. 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.000 But where you hear dear breathing before you actually see him, 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.240 then you start walking and inspecting what that is, and 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.760