Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light 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, I'm joined by Steve Bartilla to break down
Speaker 2: his best advice for hunting the second half November and
Speaker 2: the late season. All right, welcome to the Wired to
Speaker 2: Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their
Speaker 2: CAMO for Conservation Initiative. Hopeing you're familiar with this, but
Speaker 2: if not, you should know that a portion of every
Speaker 2: sale of first Light spector Camo goes back to the
Speaker 2: National Deer Association to help with their to make things
Speaker 2: better for deer and deer hunters, which is pretty darn cool.
Speaker 2: And what else is pretty darn cool is the fact
Speaker 2: that today we have a terrific guest. We have one
Speaker 2: of my favorite guests that we've ever had on the show,
Speaker 2: and this is Steve Bartilla. He's someone who has been
Speaker 2: on over the years. He brings a wealth of knowledge
Speaker 2: to the table. He is a very very experienced deer hunter.
Speaker 2: Land manager and consultant and writer. He's appeared in the
Speaker 2: pages of many deer hunting magazines. I'm sure you've read
Speaker 2: his work, and he's a great communicator. He's fun to
Speaker 2: listen to, and he really knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: And today the topic we're tackling is how to find
Speaker 2: success in the second half of the season, because that's
Speaker 2: kind of where we're at. I always look at November
Speaker 2: fifteenth as that middle point, that's like the halftime of
Speaker 2: the season, and as me and Steve discuss, there's sometimes
Speaker 2: a certain amount of pressure that comes with them. I
Speaker 2: kind of feel like once November fifteen hits, man, it's
Speaker 2: different after that. And that's especially so here where I
Speaker 2: live in Michigan because opening they have gun season is
Speaker 2: November fifteenth. But I think even if you're in a
Speaker 2: different state without that gun season, things just feel different
Speaker 2: back half of November, back half of the fall. And
Speaker 2: so what I wanted to have Steve help us discuss
Speaker 2: is what exactly does that mean? Is it all downhill
Speaker 2: from here? Are our best chances all in the rear
Speaker 2: view mirror? Should we be as stressed as maybe we
Speaker 2: are right now or not? Are there still some good
Speaker 2: things coming. I believe there are still some good things coming,
Speaker 2: and that's what we talk about. We break down a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different, very specific ideas Steve has for
Speaker 2: hunting the two last weeks in November. So if you
Speaker 2: are listening to this right when it drops on November sixteenth,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk through specific things for the next week,
Speaker 2: some other ideas for the last week in November, and
Speaker 2: then a whole bunch about general late season hunting. What
Speaker 2: to do once December rolls around. How can we make
Speaker 2: the most of these final weeks and months of the season.
Speaker 2: It's a good one, lots to share. Steve brings a
Speaker 2: lot to the table, and I guess the one other
Speaker 2: thing I would say is the mental side of things.
Speaker 2: It might be the hardest at this point of the year,
Speaker 2: because if you're like me, you've been going at it
Speaker 2: pretty hard. Maybe your season started in September and maybe
Speaker 2: you're hunting all through October chasing that deer or trying
Speaker 2: to get any deer, and maybe you've pushed into November
Speaker 2: and you grind. You were grinding through the first week
Speaker 2: or two. You had some all day sits, maybe a
Speaker 2: lot of all day sits. Maybe you've had some opportunities,
Speaker 2: but maybe not. And even in my case where I've
Speaker 2: got a few deer on the ground, I still feel this.
Speaker 2: I don't know, this weight that comes with this time
Speaker 2: of the year, this telling me like, man, you're war out,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, you gotta keep trying, like
Speaker 2: there's still season ahead, there's still opportunity ahead, There's still
Speaker 2: the opportunity for redemption.
Speaker 3: I've had.
Speaker 2: A big missed opportunity, as we talked about a week
Speaker 2: or two ago, and that has been weighing on me hard.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to I'm trying to move past that,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to get back to the fun of
Speaker 2: it and having a certain lightness to my hunting. I
Speaker 2: think that's something that anyone who's listened over the years
Speaker 2: knows that I have a tendency to get too serious
Speaker 2: about this and trying to remember the fun side of things,
Speaker 2: trying to embrace the joy of it all and release
Speaker 2: the stress. I think that is a particularly important thing
Speaker 2: for a lot of us to think about at this
Speaker 2: time of year, because it's easy to get worried at
Speaker 2: this time of the year if you don't have a
Speaker 2: tag field, or if you had a miss or a
Speaker 2: wound or something go wrong. It's easy to feel when
Speaker 2: November fifteenth hits the sixteenth, or Thanksgiving, like, man, it's
Speaker 2: all done, I screwed it up, or my chances are gone,
Speaker 2: or now I'm go'n have to wait till next year.
Speaker 2: And that's just not true. But it's hard not to
Speaker 2: let that seep into the back of your mind. So
Speaker 2: my thoughts for you, in a very long winded way,
Speaker 2: as I tend to do, is try to keep that
Speaker 2: fun in it, try to keep the faith, try to
Speaker 2: keep going, and maybe take a few days off, maybe
Speaker 2: take a week off, whatever it is. Do whatever you
Speaker 2: need to do to get your head right, to physically
Speaker 2: feel right again, spend some time with family, get those
Speaker 2: important things in a good place, and then once you're
Speaker 2: feeling back at it as a normal person, then you
Speaker 2: can step back into the woods feeling refreshed, and I
Speaker 2: think it's easier to enjoy it again. It's easier to,
Speaker 2: you know, fully embrace everything, the good and the bad
Speaker 2: that happens in the woods. But if you're coming off
Speaker 2: of two weeks of hunting NonStop, or a weak ructation
Speaker 2: or whatever, it was that you were able to do
Speaker 2: this year. If you're coming off of all that, you
Speaker 2: are probably worn down. You are probably beaten down to
Speaker 2: a pulp. I know I am whooped right now. I'm
Speaker 2: physically and mentally whooped, and I needed today. So today
Speaker 2: I took the day off and I took my kids
Speaker 2: to school, and I'm gonna pick them up from school
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna spend some time with them. I'm taking
Speaker 2: a day here in the middle of November to reset,
Speaker 2: to regroup, and then I think once I get back
Speaker 2: after it here, I'm gonna feel better about things. And
Speaker 2: as Steve and I discussed, there's good reason to feel
Speaker 2: better because deer are still doing ruddy things in the
Speaker 2: back half of November. Even if you've got a gun
Speaker 2: season going on, you can still find those pockets where
Speaker 2: deer feels safe and where they're still breeding, where they're
Speaker 2: still chasing, seeking, desperately trying to find a doll. All
Speaker 2: that good stuff that you were excited about on November
Speaker 2: one or November seventh, it's still possible if you know
Speaker 2: the right way to approach it. So, without any further ado,
Speaker 2: I want to get to Steve Bartilla talking about second
Speaker 2: half of November, deer hunting strategies and how to keep
Speaker 2: the good times rolling in December and beyond. Here we go,
Speaker 2: all right here with me now on the line, a
Speaker 2: returning guest, a fan favorite. We've got Steve Bartilla. Steve,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for doing this it.
Speaker 3: Mark is absolutely always my pleasure these things I find,
Speaker 3: and frankly, anytime, anytime we can go ahead and try to,
Speaker 3: you know, help others get a little bit more out
Speaker 3: of our shared passion. Triple bonus points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. Well, you've been on the
Speaker 2: show probably three or four times in the past, I
Speaker 2: think now, and I know for sure that every single
Speaker 2: one of those you have done that you have helped
Speaker 2: a lot of people. Thank you in advance because I
Speaker 2: know that's going to happen again to day.
Speaker 3: Oh hey, and I since we're sitting there patting each
Speaker 3: other on backs like crazy for what it's worth, I
Speaker 3: appreciate what you do out there too. Now we actually
Speaker 3: one of the I get it. I get it. I
Speaker 3: made a career in this somehow, just like absolutely everybody else.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you what, when a person can actually
Speaker 3: honestly try to help those who threw on their shoulders
Speaker 3: and carry you to the dance. That's pretty special because
Speaker 3: neither of us are here without that. I know I'm
Speaker 3: preaching to the choir when I'm saying that to you
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very true. So with that being the case,
Speaker 2: then I guess, Steve, if we're trying to help folks today,
Speaker 2: which we are, I want to help you and not
Speaker 2: take up too much of your time because I know
Speaker 2: this is November when we're talking, and all of us
Speaker 2: are crazy busy right now, chasing deer conditions, chasing the wind,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. We're busy. So I want to jump
Speaker 2: right into today's topic. And today's topic, Steve, is the
Speaker 2: second half of the season, second half of November, and
Speaker 2: the second half of the year in general, because when
Speaker 2: this podcast comes out, it will be November sixteenth, I believe,
Speaker 2: And when that day hits I don't know how you feel, Steve,
Speaker 2: but when I see that calendar switch from the fifteenth
Speaker 2: to the sixteenth, it feels like something has changed. We've
Speaker 2: passed the halfway mark of November. It kind of feels
Speaker 2: like we've passed the halfway point of the hunting season.
Speaker 2: And usually when I get there, I start feeling a
Speaker 2: different kind of pressure. Maybe it feels like there's a
Speaker 2: lot behind us, and sometimes it kind of feels like
Speaker 2: the best is behind us, or at least a lot
Speaker 2: of folks feel that way. And my first question for you, Steve,
Speaker 2: is is that how you feel. How do you feel
Speaker 2: about the second half of the season. Does it feel
Speaker 2: like the best is behind us? Or are you still
Speaker 2: really excited about our chances move forward.
Speaker 3: I'll be bruly honest with you. Each phase of season,
Speaker 3: as I see as its own little unique package, always
Speaker 3: have early season's approached a certain way. If you if
Speaker 3: you're trash in your place, you're going to end up
Speaker 3: having that October lull, which is kind of a misnomer,
Speaker 3: but it has more to do with pressure than anything else.
Speaker 3: Leaves dropping, though, does tend to freak them out a
Speaker 3: little bit. Then you've got the scrape phase, then you've
Speaker 3: got the chase phase. Then you've got breeding. And when
Speaker 3: I hear October, when I hear November fifteen sixteenth, I'm thinking, Okay,
Speaker 3: we are right right at the very end of the
Speaker 3: breeding phase, and man, a whole bunch of these animals
Speaker 3: are going to be locked down. To me, November fifteenth
Speaker 3: means that we're pretty much right at that we're looking at.
Speaker 3: It's going to very unware you're hunting, of course, but
Speaker 3: we're in the Upper Midwest where I hunt. On November fifteenth,
Speaker 3: what I'm looking at is Okay, we're about at the
Speaker 3: end of lockdown, and that means that we actually have
Speaker 3: an exciting little period coming up here. And I know
Speaker 3: everybody in the world out there talks about the rock.
Speaker 3: I mean, geez, during breeding, you got all these bucks
Speaker 3: running around. They're showing up from anywhere. But I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I don't experience that much during the rut. Is there
Speaker 3: any shifting around and all that type of stuff, Sure,
Speaker 3: but I don't have all these It's very rare that
Speaker 3: on November eighth, I'm sitting in a tree stand on
Speaker 3: the grounds I manage for clients, that I'm sitting in
Speaker 3: a tree stand and oh, here comes a buck I've
Speaker 3: never seen before. No that small properties on your twenty
Speaker 3: acre property, on your forty heck a two forty. Stuff
Speaker 3: like that happens quite a bit on the stupid big grounds.
Speaker 3: You see shifting within that ground. But i'llthing, what these
Speaker 3: bucks every You can never say always and you can
Speaker 3: never say never when it comes to mature buck behavior.
Speaker 3: We are talking mere tendencies, but it is pretty dang
Speaker 3: unicornish rare for me to pick up a mature buck
Speaker 3: during the rut that I don't have pictures that I
Speaker 3: didn't know existed before. But you get to this window
Speaker 3: right after this airs, and man, the game just changed,
Speaker 3: and I don't I can't swear what I'm about to
Speaker 3: say is true, but based on my own antecdotal data
Speaker 3: and research, what I'm pretty sure ends up happening is
Speaker 3: that mature buck he knows this area here, He knows
Speaker 3: every day thing that's going on in this area, and
Speaker 3: he doesn't want to leave it until all of a
Speaker 3: sudden there are no more pretty girls that are interested
Speaker 3: in him at all within that area. But he knows
Speaker 3: that there's still going to be those fonts, those dolphonts
Speaker 3: that are coming into estras. Yet there may end up
Speaker 3: being a late faunt. I am sorry, I don't buy
Speaker 3: this hole. All these doughs skipped. No numbing buck can
Speaker 3: successfully breed a dough these. I don't care how whacked
Speaker 3: your sex ratios are, you don't have a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of these does not getting bred. What you do have
Speaker 3: those a few of them aren't going to take and
Speaker 3: you've got all those do fonts that once they reach
Speaker 3: certain physical and physiological thresholds, in other words, once they
Speaker 3: get this bag. Now now they come into Astris as well.
Speaker 3: You can't actually peg exactly when that's going to occur
Speaker 3: because it's based on the health of the dough. It's
Speaker 3: based on when that fawn was born. It was based
Speaker 3: on the quality of habitat that dough had access to
Speaker 3: for the amount of milk she was able to produce
Speaker 3: for that fawn. Trivial side note, quality of forge has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with quality of milk. The quality of
Speaker 3: milk is going to be the exact same no matter
Speaker 3: what they're eating, but the quantity, the quantity is impacted
Speaker 3: tremendously by the quality of forge that doze eating. So
Speaker 3: if that do is eating just primo stuff all summer long,
Speaker 3: she's pumping that milk to that fawn. That fawn was
Speaker 3: born perfect time though, massive, overwhelming majority of those fawns
Speaker 3: are going to come into Estris, But we don't know
Speaker 3: exactly when it's most likely going to happen. Sometime between
Speaker 3: November about fifteenth to early January. But those mature bucks
Speaker 3: understand that they're still breeding out opportunities out there to
Speaker 3: be had, there's none here. So that's when I tend
Speaker 3: to start picking up these roamas. And what I'll do,
Speaker 3: a very very effective, very effective tactic for myself, is
Speaker 3: go ahead and hunt those prime well defined, prime family
Speaker 3: group bedding areas in the mornings, those ones that have
Speaker 3: a surplus of healthy dose why because they tend to
Speaker 3: have a surplus of healthy funds. Then the afternoons. Quite honestly,
Speaker 3: I just hunt food. Your mature buck, after he gets
Speaker 3: through the rut, on average, is going to have dropped
Speaker 3: twenty five to thirty percent body weight, and now in
Speaker 3: the Midwest and points north, facing their most stressful period
Speaker 3: of the entire year, their food as far as food
Speaker 3: supply goes, this is their weak point. The overwhelming majority
Speaker 3: of these animals are actually running a negative energy balance
Speaker 3: over winter in the Midwestern points North, meaning they burn
Speaker 3: more calories and they're able to get out of their food. Okay,
Speaker 3: that makes prime food sources a heck of a draw
Speaker 3: come mid November all the way on through the end
Speaker 3: of the season and winter as well. Obviously, so when
Speaker 3: you really add all this stuff up together, when it
Speaker 3: comes to late season, you can't have the perfect storm.
Speaker 3: You have the most limited food sources of the entire
Speaker 3: year for your Midwestern and northern year. Side note for
Speaker 3: our southern friends, that happens to be in the middle
Speaker 3: of summer drows in the very dry and aired regions,
Speaker 3: and mister Begas went ahead and dropped that twenty five
Speaker 3: to thirty percent body weight, running that negative energy balance,
Speaker 3: and oh the temperature the snows, all that stuff is
Speaker 3: further sapping energy from it. You add all that type
Speaker 3: of stuff up, and I'll tell you what those food
Speaker 3: sources the best food sources in the area, especially if
Speaker 3: they're somewhat near thermal cover that these deer are attracted to,
Speaker 3: although a primo food source will knew it all by itself.
Speaker 3: Those are great places to hunt in the afternoons. They're
Speaker 3: not bad places to hunt in the mornings either, and
Speaker 3: they're not bad at all. The problem, though, is everything
Speaker 3: is a balancing act in the stuff you go in
Speaker 3: in the mornings. Do you have a chance to kill
Speaker 3: that buck you're after? Sure you do, But what dear
Speaker 3: doing during the middle of the nights More often than not,
Speaker 3: they're either feeding on their primary food sources or they're
Speaker 3: bedded around their primary food sources regurgitating their cut. So
Speaker 3: if you can get in, if you can get in
Speaker 3: hunt that food source in the morning, hey, as long
Speaker 3: as you can get in, hunt it, get out without
Speaker 3: those deer seeing, smelling, or hearing you perceptions every bit's
Speaker 3: reality for whitetails as it is for humans. It is
Speaker 3: if we were not even there. Okay, but those situations
Speaker 3: are pretty rare most often most people, especially unless they've
Speaker 3: done some habitat improvement work. That's where habitat improvement work
Speaker 3: can really help you. You manufacture the setups you want.
Speaker 3: But if you haven't done that, coming up with a
Speaker 3: way to hunt that food in the morning late season
Speaker 3: is pretty darn tough. We can get away with that
Speaker 3: type of stuff a lot more during the rut. Why
Speaker 3: simply because that buck has got breeding on his mind,
Speaker 3: does he throw away all rules? Heck no, he does not.
Speaker 3: But he is very, very focused on breeding activity. You
Speaker 3: get to this time of year I'm talking at talking
Speaker 3: later November, December, January, he is more than happy to
Speaker 3: take advantage of breeding opportunities, but he tends not to
Speaker 3: put anywhere near the effort into it, because he's already
Speaker 3: been ranged, ran through the ringer, and there's not that
Speaker 3: many more opportunities left. And always remember that mature buck,
Speaker 3: this is not his first rodeo. He's done this year
Speaker 3: after year he's had an opportunity to learn. So, hmmm,
Speaker 3: where are most of the estras douphons gonna be on
Speaker 3: December third? A half hour before dark? You know what?
Speaker 3: That's where I want to be too, and that happens
Speaker 3: to before. So that's that's generally how I see right now.
Speaker 3: I see it quite honestly as Okay, we're in the
Speaker 3: tail end of the peep breeding phase and then we
Speaker 3: get a nice little window in here where even the
Speaker 3: immature bucks are tending to do a little bit of
Speaker 3: running right after most of those doors have been bred. Okay,
Speaker 3: but your mature bucks are they running as hard? No?
Speaker 3: But now they, if anything, it seems like they get
Speaker 3: a little desperation to them. They want They know that
Speaker 3: there's a couple opportunities left, and gosh, Darren, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna score one of them. Yeah, So that's kind of
Speaker 3: more or less how I see this time year. If
Speaker 3: that is a long enough answer to a simple question.
Speaker 2: It was great, though, you cover my second question, which
Speaker 2: was going to be I was curious about your thoughts
Speaker 2: on deer behavior over that time period, and you cover
Speaker 2: that wonderfully. So that brings me though to the second part,
Speaker 2: which is, Okay, if what you're telling me is the case,
Speaker 2: which is like, hey, there are still great opportunities ahead,
Speaker 2: and there are absolutely things that we can key in on,
Speaker 2: and there are still vulnerabilities with these deer, the next
Speaker 2: question then has to be, well, okay, given all of that,
Speaker 2: you know, how should I as a hunter be taking
Speaker 2: advantage of those things? And I'm curious for this for
Speaker 2: the second part of November, Steve, if you will, if
Speaker 2: you will humor me on this, I'd like to break
Speaker 2: it down week by week because I think November is special, right,
Speaker 2: and there's still people that have some vacation or they
Speaker 2: can get out around the holidays or different things like that.
Speaker 2: So there's there's this rapid series of things that happen
Speaker 2: throughout the month of November. It seems like the changes
Speaker 2: are happening day by day. So for the time period
Speaker 2: from November fifteenth to November twenty second, like if we
Speaker 2: just look at that week, could you tell me what
Speaker 2: your approach would be during that week as we're kind of,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, we're coming off of that lockdown or
Speaker 2: we're in that lockdown period maybe and we've got you know,
Speaker 2: we're ramping into the end. But what would you say
Speaker 2: you are doing November fifteenth to twenty second, as far
Speaker 2: as you know, trying to get a tag on a
Speaker 2: deer at that time, and then after that then I
Speaker 2: will ask you about the week following that.
Speaker 3: Well, it's going to depend a lot on circumstances. Quite honestly,
Speaker 3: it's going to depend a heck of a lot on yeah, circumstances.
Speaker 3: If I happen, if there's a singular buck or a
Speaker 3: couple bucks and I'm after specifically, I'm gonna be hunting them.
Speaker 3: And that means that between sign between sightings and my
Speaker 3: Heaven's Trail cameras have gotten to the point where, jeez,
Speaker 3: these things are almost almost too good with the selicanes
Speaker 3: one way, shape or form. There's all this. There is
Speaker 3: a very very old and well known saying that you
Speaker 3: just can't pattern bucks during the rut. I'm sorry. That
Speaker 3: is pure and simple alone, and that The first thing
Speaker 3: you need to do, though, is understand what a pattern is.
Speaker 3: To me, a pattern, I mean, I don't buy I've
Speaker 3: heard all sorts of people go on about how they
Speaker 3: pattern this animal. I'm telling you, if they know as
Speaker 3: much as they pretend are saying they do about that
Speaker 3: animal and everything that animals do. Oh, they are so
Speaker 3: much better at patterning deer than I ever been in
Speaker 3: my life. And I spend a lot of time trying
Speaker 3: to pattern them. When I'm to me, a pattern is
Speaker 3: nothing more than knowing a minimum of one thing he
Speaker 3: pends to do during daylight. That doesn't mean he's gonna
Speaker 3: do it every day. It is very very rare that
Speaker 3: you have a buck that does the exact same things
Speaker 3: day after day after day after. What you're looking for
Speaker 3: is you're looking for a handful of tendencies. Okay, So
Speaker 3: if this buck has the tendency to be checking this
Speaker 3: dough betting area when he's not on a dough, guess
Speaker 3: what that is a pattern. And of course they're checking
Speaker 3: that dough betting area, why wouldn't they be. That's where
Speaker 3: what exactly what they're looking for is residing, and during
Speaker 3: those midday hours when it comes to the early morning,
Speaker 3: the nighttime hours, afternoon hours. You know, when these deer
Speaker 3: few where the oh it's gonna be he's looking for.
Speaker 3: They're gonna be on their primary food sources. Where's he
Speaker 3: gonna be. He's gonna be checking a primary food source
Speaker 3: to primary food source to primary food source, unless he
Speaker 3: happens to run into an extrass dole or gets his
Speaker 3: butt kicked by somebody who's bigger and stronger, or you mean,
Speaker 3: like early season, unless the farmer decides to go out
Speaker 3: and cut wood right by the bucks bedding area that
Speaker 3: day early season, that buck probably hasn't even going to
Speaker 3: the same isn't gonna be doing the exact same thing
Speaker 3: that my point. All sorts of things kick these deer
Speaker 3: off their patterns. But I'm telling you what my experience
Speaker 3: is just purely simply blooney. You sure can pattern bucks
Speaker 3: during the rut. Frankly, a whole bunch of the bucks
Speaker 3: off killed over the years have been way more patternable
Speaker 3: during the rut than they were early season. So that
Speaker 3: first week, if I'm after a specific buck, I'm hunting
Speaker 3: him no different than I would have at any other
Speaker 3: time during the entire year. This is what he's doing.
Speaker 3: Where can I get into there so that I can
Speaker 3: take advantage of this without him knowing. That's what I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do. If I'm just playing hunting mature box or
Speaker 3: any buck, I don't have one or two that I'm
Speaker 3: after now, I'm just hey, I'll take whatever comes through
Speaker 3: that meets whatever my criteria you are for that day,
Speaker 3: which I also do quite a bit when it comes
Speaker 3: to that type of stuff. I'm hunting the same during
Speaker 3: this one week we're talking about. I'm still hunting those
Speaker 3: exact same stands I was on November fourth and fifth. Now,
Speaker 3: those funnels between dough betting areas, the down one side
Speaker 3: of the down one side of those betting areas, that
Speaker 3: prime food source that every dough in the area is
Speaker 3: hitting at night in the afternoons. You know, I might
Speaker 3: be set back on a staging plot just fifteen to
Speaker 3: twenty yards fifty yards into the woods off of that.
Speaker 3: So for the moment, if I'm just generically hunting, I'm
Speaker 3: still hunting the rock just like I mean, go ahead
Speaker 3: and pick up any magazine out there, and we'll be
Speaker 3: an Ardle on the rut and it'll be a generic
Speaker 3: This is how you hunt or that's how I'm hunting
Speaker 3: the rock. Yeah, I'm hunting to the specific buck.
Speaker 2: So quick quick interjection here, what if at that time
Speaker 2: of the year, so in the fifteenth of the twenty second,
Speaker 2: what if you get the sense that lockdown is underway.
Speaker 2: So what if you get the sense like you're hunting
Speaker 2: downwind of dough betting airs or you're hunting funnels and
Speaker 2: these are historically good rut spots and you are seeing nothing.
Speaker 2: It's crickets. You're seeing a few loan dough fawns or
Speaker 2: a few loan fawns, and you know there's been no
Speaker 2: cruising bucks for the last two days. And you're hearing
Speaker 2: from all your buddies like a man, sure seems like
Speaker 2: there's there's gotta be some lockdown. And maybe you saw
Speaker 2: one buck lockdown with a dough off in the distance,
Speaker 2: and everything's telling you, like, man, it seems like that's happening.
Speaker 2: Is there anything unique that you do, Steve when you
Speaker 2: think that is the case, or is it still exactly
Speaker 2: the same game plan you just said and you're just
Speaker 2: waiting for them to break up.
Speaker 3: I'm grinding a note. If you look, if you look
Speaker 3: at study after study when it comes to when it
Speaker 3: comes to who's sired, who sired those fons from that
Speaker 3: dome something like, I don't know, fifty percent of all
Speaker 3: twins are sired by two different bucks. And then you
Speaker 3: look at radio telemetry studies on bucks during lockdown, they
Speaker 3: average spend about Now I'm not saying the dough is
Speaker 3: only an estress for this long time, but and in
Speaker 3: other bucks chasing them off other bucks, stealing the dough,
Speaker 3: all that good stuff, them not finding them right away. Averages,
Speaker 3: they're spending about eight hours with them, So that means
Speaker 3: for that eight hours, yeah, they're taking off the board,
Speaker 3: but I don't know when that eight hours is, and
Speaker 3: I don't know when he's going to break loose from
Speaker 3: there about the there's only two ways that I know
Speaker 3: that I've had any success at grinding this out, and
Speaker 3: that is first just grinding it out. Things that he's
Speaker 3: gonna break loose. He's gonna come through here again. He
Speaker 3: still wants to breathe no, but it's just not as
Speaker 3: fast and furious and as man this is awesome as
Speaker 3: it is that first week in November, for example, up here.
Speaker 3: The other thing, the other thing that I mean, this
Speaker 3: is kind of getting off a little bit of a tangent.
Speaker 3: But we have this belief that bucks are leading doze
Speaker 3: or doze are leading bucks around by the nose all
Speaker 3: over out in the deer woods during the ruck. I
Speaker 3: think that is true to an extent up until that,
Speaker 3: especially when you're talking to mature buck. Up until that
Speaker 3: mature buck. Okay, she's no longer on the cusp of estris.
Speaker 3: She's an estress, and he actually has her locked down.
Speaker 3: When he locks her down, I've seen it way too
Speaker 3: dang many times to believe any differently. She is no
Speaker 3: longer telling him where to go. He is actually taking
Speaker 3: his times and jamming them in her side when she
Speaker 3: goes the wrong way, and he is literally forcing her
Speaker 3: where he wants her. And where does he want her.
Speaker 3: He wants her out in the middle of that wide
Speaker 3: open alfalpha field. He wants her up on that huge
Speaker 3: point that deer have no reason to go all the
Speaker 3: way to the top of that. He wants her in
Speaker 3: places that he can protect her. He doesn't want her
Speaker 3: wandering around the woods like she normally does, because she
Speaker 3: is going to attract every single buck out there that
Speaker 3: smells her. That is not already on a dough. Okay,
Speaker 3: So if if and this is a huge if, I
Speaker 3: mean I've been able to pull it off three four
Speaker 3: times my entire hunting life. If you know where those
Speaker 3: bucks hand to drive those domes, that is a really
Speaker 3: good place to be during lockdown. But figuring out that
Speaker 3: is where that is is actually the whole key. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously hunting the middle of that wide open field that
Speaker 3: at noon you're driving down the highway. You look out there.
Speaker 3: Holy man, that's one hundred and sixty inch buck out
Speaker 3: in the middle. Oh, there's a no bed. Buy it now.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. If it's perfectly flat, good luck
Speaker 3: trying to kill that thing while he's on it. If
Speaker 3: there's some cover, maybe you can low crawl out there.
Speaker 3: When I'm actually really those specifically, is those things like
Speaker 3: hunting Buffalo County, Wisconsin, You've got some huge relief. And
Speaker 3: I can guarantee you that there are three spots even
Speaker 3: though I haven't been I haven't hunted grounds I'm going
Speaker 3: to talk about right now in ten plus years, I
Speaker 3: guarantee that I know three spots that breeding occur in
Speaker 3: this year in Buffalo County. If you can find I
Speaker 3: mean talking specific within this ten acre area right here,
Speaker 3: those were bred. If you can find a spot like that,
Speaker 3: that is a great place to be. The problem is,
Speaker 3: is I said, good luck. I don't know how you
Speaker 3: scout to find where they where they've drive deer except
Speaker 3: for through observation and scouting cameras and also thinking of Okay,
Speaker 3: where's the most ridiculous place a buck could be in
Speaker 3: the world right now? And that might not be a
Speaker 3: bad place to go check out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you see a buck in that situation, Steve,
Speaker 2: where you see a buck that's that's got a dough
Speaker 2: locked down, he's kind of pushing her around, you know,
Speaker 2: you can see the whole thing playing out, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's some satellite bucks kind of circling and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you see him go into a little brushy pothole
Speaker 2: or something and you can tell they're in there still,
Speaker 2: do you. I know you mentioned you could try to
Speaker 2: slip in on one if there was relief or something
Speaker 2: like that. But is there ever a situation where it
Speaker 2: could actually work to call a buck off of a
Speaker 2: dough if it's close. Is there ever any kind of
Speaker 2: other aggressive move you could take or any other tactic
Speaker 2: that is worth trying at this point, other than just
Speaker 2: getting as close as possible.
Speaker 3: The only thing I have ever got to work in
Speaker 3: that situation in my entire hunting life, is to take
Speaker 3: my lower lept, pinch it against my upper teeth, and
Speaker 3: spit all over myself three times once in a blue moon.
Speaker 3: That'll work. But here's the problem with that. He wants
Speaker 3: that dough. He wants that dough. I mean, go ahead
Speaker 3: and throw some dough calls at him. Okay, I have
Speaker 3: an estress dough, so why would I leave her for
Speaker 3: another estra. No, that doesn't make any sense, and I've
Speaker 3: never had that work once. Try grunting at him. He
Speaker 3: doesn't want to go interact with that other buck right now.
Speaker 3: He has what he wants. So if anything that buck,
Speaker 3: grunt tend stuff make him want to go the spit
Speaker 3: doll over yourself three times fast. What that does is
Speaker 3: it challenges him. Now he doesn't want to fight, but
Speaker 3: he may be tricked into believing that, man, I better
Speaker 3: throw down right now or this girl's gone. That said,
Speaker 3: the problem, and a lot of people have noticed when
Speaker 3: it comes to stuff like this, want to talk about
Speaker 3: the problems. The problem with that as I said, he
Speaker 3: already has exactly what he wants. And when you do
Speaker 3: that and she goes running that other way, guess who's
Speaker 3: gonna follow her. So I'll tell you what about the
Speaker 3: only when it comes to this is just a side
Speaker 3: tangent freedy. When it comes to hunting, heavily pressured you,
Speaker 3: whether that's public ground or public private ground. Heck, quite honestly,
Speaker 3: a lot of outfitters grounds are pressured way more than
Speaker 3: any public ground never will be but pressured situations. I'll
Speaker 3: tell you what. I barely do any calling a rattle andever,
Speaker 3: the only scenario I ever do is when I am
Speaker 3: thoroughly convinced that buck is headed that way and I'm
Speaker 3: never gonna see him again, and he is not coming
Speaker 3: back naturally under any circumstances, then I'll go ahead and
Speaker 3: try doing some calling, and you know what when he
Speaker 3: ends up heading the other way. Because I mean, so
Speaker 3: much of this is just common dark sense. Calling and
Speaker 3: rattling are so you cannot turn on a television show
Speaker 3: or hunting show, watch hunting channel for three hours and
Speaker 3: not see somebody doing some calling and rattling and going
Speaker 3: ahead and oh there's big slob and pretending the only
Speaker 3: reason they killed it was because of this fancy new
Speaker 3: call or these great rattling antlers here. Yeah, great, awesome.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that every time that's pure blooney,
Speaker 3: but a whole bunch of times. Is The thing of
Speaker 3: it is, though, is as I said, you do those
Speaker 3: types of aggressive tactics on a buck that happens to
Speaker 3: already have what he wants, or one that's really pressured,
Speaker 3: and you might as well just jump up and down
Speaker 3: and your standing the screen as you're waving your arms.
Speaker 3: Hey idiot, look at me. Don't come over here or
Speaker 3: I'll kill you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you do you find, Steve that calling works
Speaker 2: less in the second half of the month of the
Speaker 2: month because maybe there's been more hunt right, there's been
Speaker 2: more hunting pressure, that hunters have been trying the calls
Speaker 2: and rattling all that for two weeks of November already,
Speaker 2: plus deer have been kind of ran through the ringer
Speaker 2: already by the time they get to the second half
Speaker 2: of November. So is there any kind of reduction in
Speaker 2: the possibility of that working or is it just the
Speaker 2: same almost.
Speaker 3: I would I'll be brutally honest with you, I have
Speaker 3: not sat there and ran the numbers on what we're
Speaker 3: talking about. But what you're saying fits what I believe.
Speaker 3: That is the more times a buck here's a call,
Speaker 3: here's a way. And now I'm not saying that, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that bucks don't hear grunts. The deer what
Speaker 3: do they do all the daytime. I'm not pretending that
Speaker 3: just sitting there hitting a grunt is going to scare
Speaker 3: the heck. But the more they hear this type of stuff,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if you're using decoys, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: If we're talking scent, it doesn't matter if we're talking
Speaker 3: rattling and calling anything that is meant to attract deer.
Speaker 3: Every single time that it doesn't or it doesn't, it
Speaker 3: does not work out for the hunter. Theyns of what
Speaker 3: work and the next time just went down. I mean
Speaker 3: that to me as I said, that's just common sense. Okay.
Speaker 3: So the deeper if you're talking pressure ground, you darn right,
Speaker 3: the deeper you get in the season, the less I'm
Speaker 3: doing any of that type of stuff now on Utopia's
Speaker 3: and I am exceptionally lucky to be able to hunt
Speaker 3: the utopias that I manage on there that total we
Speaker 3: ate in Kansas no more. But that's a comple there's
Speaker 3: really well. And here's another side note. One of the
Speaker 3: best things hunters can do when going in to hunt
Speaker 3: a new situation simply ask themselves how much pressure does
Speaker 3: this area receive and gauge your tactics, not exclusively, but
Speaker 3: predominantly on the amount of pressure that area simply receives
Speaker 3: if it does not, if it does not receive much pressure,
Speaker 3: I can essentially take two arrows and go like this,
Speaker 3: And odds are I might odds are not horrible that
Speaker 3: I'll rattle in a deer. Non pressured animals are not
Speaker 3: the same as those that are run through the ringer.
Speaker 3: That they just aren't. And hunting both of them most
Speaker 3: every season, no one will convince me any differently. You
Speaker 3: can get away with so ridiculously much more on stupid
Speaker 3: deer than you can on deer that are hunted hard.
Speaker 3: That's just plain reality. And along those lines, anybody who's
Speaker 3: listening to this stuff that's hunting pummeled ground. If you're
Speaker 3: if you're being consistently successful, don't you dare feel inferior
Speaker 3: to any idiot like me, period Because you're earning any
Speaker 3: every darn bit of success you're getting, and most idiots,
Speaker 3: like me, we hunt. You don't be exclusively now I don't,
Speaker 3: but hopefully what I just got done, I just as
Speaker 3: we were talking before this, I just got done putting
Speaker 3: in a really super hard three hours of this season.
Speaker 3: I hunting one buck before I was able to kill it.
Speaker 3: And the first two hours and fifteen minutes we're a
Speaker 3: throwaway hunt that I was just trying to make sure
Speaker 3: that I had everything perfect in this situation. Really, I
Speaker 3: hunted him for forty five minutes. It doesn't I'm not
Speaker 3: pretending that on Utopia asn't work so like that very
Speaker 3: often it doesn't. But I'm telling you it is a
Speaker 3: completely different world that you're seeing on TV than most
Speaker 3: people are hunting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that is absolutely what I've seen too, Steve.
Speaker 2: We're definitely tracking here. Now that said, let's bump all
Speaker 2: this up one week further down the line. Now it's
Speaker 2: November twenty third through the thirtieth. Now is is the
Speaker 2: game plan the same or does something change? This last
Speaker 2: week of November now is.
Speaker 3: When I'm starting to switch more towards my late season
Speaker 3: tactics and As I mentioned earlier, that's morning hunting. I'm
Speaker 3: looking for the healthiest, most defining doe betting group I
Speaker 3: can possibly find out there. I want that there's dominance
Speaker 3: within the doe communities you've been as much as within
Speaker 3: the buck community. I want that dominant do community, especially
Speaker 3: if it has that nice defined betting area. A whole
Speaker 3: bunch of this is another one of the things that
Speaker 3: I'm guilty is anyone on this talking about hunting the
Speaker 3: down wind sides of the dough betting. Well, that works
Speaker 3: great when you happen to have a seedar thicket like this,
Speaker 3: you know that's going ahead and surrounded by mature woods,
Speaker 3: or happen to have a meadow like this that's surrounded
Speaker 3: by mature standupines, whatever. But a lot of times it's
Speaker 3: just they bed in this area. When that's the case,
Speaker 3: what I'm about to describe doesn't work very anywhere near
Speaker 3: as effectively. What I'm looking for late season in the
Speaker 3: mornings are the most dominant dough group I can find
Speaker 3: with the most well defined betting area. With a reasonably
Speaker 3: well defined betting area, I'm gonna hunt the downwind sides
Speaker 3: of those in the morning, and if I'm getting good action.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna sit there all day day. There's there's a
Speaker 3: handful of spots in the grounds I've managed over the
Speaker 3: years that I can bank, I mean literally bank on
Speaker 3: someday in either that last week in November or sometime
Speaker 3: during December, that every stink and mature buck in that
Speaker 3: entire area is going to show up on this camera
Speaker 3: right here, that's outside of that nobetting area. Why it
Speaker 3: happens to be an asteris dopon in there that day.
Speaker 3: And when you when you are in a stand like
Speaker 3: that in the morning, yeah, we're not talking peak rut
Speaker 3: no more. No one's doing all days since during late
Speaker 3: season unless it happened to be in a situation like that.
Speaker 3: If you're there and those bucks are active in the morning,
Speaker 3: you just keep the rule I try to use when
Speaker 3: morning hunting situations like this is the two hour rule.
Speaker 3: I ain't gonna leave unless I go at least two
Speaker 3: hours without seeing a single buck. If I go two
Speaker 3: hours without seeing a single buck after eight thirty in
Speaker 3: the morning, all right, ten thirty, I'm gonna bail. But
Speaker 3: a lot of when you hit it right to just
Speaker 3: I know I'm laboring this point but when you hit
Speaker 3: it right, when that dofon happens to be an estress,
Speaker 3: stick it out, because you are going to be in
Speaker 3: form even more fun hunt than you've had in the
Speaker 3: peak rupt because there's one, there's one dofont, maybe two
Speaker 3: in this entire area that happens to be an estress
Speaker 3: right now, instead of twenty thirty forty in this entire
Speaker 3: area that happens to be an estress. When you're dealing
Speaker 3: one or two, they get a lot of attention. So
Speaker 3: I'm starting in the mornings by if I'm morning hunting,
Speaker 3: headed to the down wind side of those dough betting
Speaker 3: areas during that last week in November, and quite frankly,
Speaker 3: almost all the way on through seasons. Then in the
Speaker 3: afternoons headed to the prime food sources because that's where
Speaker 3: a they need food. Now, they went through that that
Speaker 3: humongous weight drop, and guess where the dolphins are going
Speaker 3: to be half hour before dark? This really I I
Speaker 3: hate to say this because in some ways it is,
Speaker 3: but in so many ways the stuff ain't rocket science.
Speaker 3: Figure out what the heck the buck wants and put
Speaker 3: yourself there before he goes gets it.
Speaker 2: It's hard argue with that.
Speaker 3: That's that would be my that is my approach the
Speaker 3: last week in November in the Midwest and points north.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there's one curveball that could possibly interrupt this
Speaker 2: game plenty you've just discussed, which could be if you
Speaker 2: are hunting in the state where gun season comes in
Speaker 2: during that two week window. If I have a gun season,
Speaker 2: like here in my home state of Michigan, my gun
Speaker 2: season opens November fifteenth, yep, So I feel like that
Speaker 2: dramatically changes that.
Speaker 3: Wisconsin always opens the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Now most most
Speaker 3: gun seasons, I think I was one of the pitifully
Speaker 3: it doesn't have a gun season that messes up the rot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you had that gun season.
Speaker 3: Opening afterwards the exact because well, first off, hearkening back
Speaker 3: to my youth for a moment, I always believed growing
Speaker 3: up that man, once once firearm seasons done, you might
Speaker 3: as well hang it up. I mean, there's nothing left
Speaker 3: out there, and it's all been so pounded that it
Speaker 3: just I'm not pretending that it's not easier trying to
Speaker 3: shoot a deer when you have a potential pool of
Speaker 3: fifty of them to shoot versus a potential pool of
Speaker 3: five of them to shoot, of course, and I'm just
Speaker 3: throwing these numbers out for illustration purposes. Of Course, it's
Speaker 3: easier when there's fifty of them running around there. Well,
Speaker 3: at this point you don't have that full stock anymore.
Speaker 3: They've been taken down. Hard studies have shown, though, and
Speaker 3: radiotelemetry studies they have flaws that they do. I do
Speaker 3: think that I can come up with all sorts of
Speaker 3: flaws in aspects of deer research, because there's so ridiculously
Speaker 3: many variables, and the scientific equation, which is what should
Speaker 3: be used to figure this stuff out, demands that what
Speaker 3: you do is you eliminate every variable you possibly can,
Speaker 3: and you test it over and over and over and
Speaker 3: over and over again. Staying on this tangent for just
Speaker 3: a second, what we're doing is we're dealing with predominantly
Speaker 3: antidotal data. And to me, that's like staring out this
Speaker 3: much of a crack in your curtains while you're sitting
Speaker 3: on the couch and you see that cat fly by outside. Oh,
Speaker 3: I wonder what was chasing that cat? And then you
Speaker 3: see this dog flying by, Oh, obviously it's the dog,
Speaker 3: never realizing that a half mile down the road is
Speaker 3: a blazing inferno and they're all running from the fire.
Speaker 3: That's what antidodled without eliminating all of those variables. That's
Speaker 3: essentially antidotal data. We're looking through a window, like a
Speaker 3: crack in a window like this, trying to interpret this. Yes,
Speaker 3: oftentimes we're right, but a whole bunch of times we
Speaker 3: don't see that fire, and we really have we misinterpret
Speaker 3: our results so easily. But that said, I keep coming back.
Speaker 3: The telemetry studies show that what mature bucks tend to
Speaker 3: do again tendencies. There's meaning that we're talking fifty plus one.
Speaker 3: That's it, just one more than fifty percent, okay, is
Speaker 3: a tendency. Okay. The tendency for mature bucks during firearms
Speaker 3: is not to go ahead abandoningland areas they know and
Speaker 3: going running over to Gertrude's place a half mile away,
Speaker 3: because she doesn't allow any hunting that buck. If that's
Speaker 3: if Gertrudes is not part of that buck's home range,
Speaker 3: he has no idea whatsoever what's going on over a girt. Gertruths.
Speaker 3: What they do is they go to where they feel safest.
Speaker 3: They lay their butts down during the daylight hours, and
Speaker 3: they don't move. But what those same telemetry studies and
Speaker 3: they don't move unless they absolutely have But what those
Speaker 3: same telemetry studies show is, oh, after about four days,
Speaker 3: once the Orange army is gone, they pretty much go
Speaker 3: back to normal. So I'm a hunt and I'm just
Speaker 3: like I always need.
Speaker 2: I have a question asked about, a question about how
Speaker 2: we survey all of this, because I gotta believe there's
Speaker 2: a lot of hunters who, you know, throughout a lot
Speaker 2: of the season, they are depending on on observations or
Speaker 2: cameras to help confirm their hunches, to confirm their beliefs,
Speaker 2: or about these tendencies that you're referring to. They're looking
Speaker 2: for some kind of data to make them feel just
Speaker 2: a little bit better about choosing this dough betting area
Speaker 2: versus that dough betting area, or picking that funnel versus
Speaker 2: the other. All of this brings me to something you
Speaker 2: mentioned a while back, which is trail cameras, which are
Speaker 2: so insanely useful these days, and even like you said,
Speaker 2: maybe too useful when it comes to sell cameras. What
Speaker 2: I'm wondering is during this time period later November or December,
Speaker 2: are you changing how you use trail cameras at all,
Speaker 2: or changing where you place them at this time of year.
Speaker 2: Is it different than where I had my cameras on
Speaker 2: November first? Or do you kind of put them out
Speaker 2: there at some point the season and leave them in
Speaker 2: these standard areas the entire year, Steve.
Speaker 3: I shift them around to what I believe are the
Speaker 3: highest on spots and or the places I want until
Speaker 3: most throughout the entire season. The A couple of things
Speaker 3: to keep in mind here, though, is eight so many
Speaker 3: people when they're sitting there, especially when you got a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of chips to go through, you're just there
Speaker 3: wrapping away, trying to get through there. Oh there's a buck, Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, I'll save this one now. Wrapping away trying
Speaker 3: to get through. You're ignoring so much valuable information by
Speaker 3: taking that approach. It's not even funny. Every darn I
Speaker 3: know this sounds ridiculous, and I'm not saying I'm spending
Speaker 3: a half hour, right, No, it's but every darn picture
Speaker 3: you get, where's where are they coming from, where are
Speaker 3: they going to? What are they doing now? And just
Speaker 3: simply trying to analyze those individual pictures you end up
Speaker 3: getting so much more data than oh there's a buck,
Speaker 3: there's another one, and then also take it a step further.
Speaker 3: These things should be helping us, not hurt. To me,
Speaker 3: an unforgivable sin is when our trail cameras are actually
Speaker 3: harming our hunting efforts. That seems so pants on heads
Speaker 3: stupid to me. It's not even funny. Okay, So you
Speaker 3: know what, there's all sorts of places that I want
Speaker 3: INTEL on, and with cell cams, especially if you pick
Speaker 3: up a chart a solar panel with one. Now you
Speaker 3: can go ahead and get away with putting that cell
Speaker 3: cam in there and just leaveing it. You leave it
Speaker 3: run forever and it keeps it or rather than put
Speaker 3: it in there. Okay, I have a beautiful staging plot
Speaker 3: right here that I want INTEL on and a wide
Speaker 3: open field right here. Do I really need to go
Speaker 3: back to that staging plot to get INTEL. No, I
Speaker 3: can go ahead and place a camera right there where
Speaker 3: they're working that where they're working that scrape as they
Speaker 3: come out in the main field and when they're heading
Speaker 3: from this direction. You know what, I'm pretty darn confident
Speaker 3: that they just got done visiting my staging plot before
Speaker 3: they get there. Think about how you can get intel
Speaker 3: on the higher impact locations without ever going into most
Speaker 3: higher impact locations for your can, because unless you're using
Speaker 3: a cell can, not only do you have to go
Speaker 3: in there to place the darn thing, now, you got
Speaker 3: to go in there every darn time you want to
Speaker 3: swap chips too. And yeah, by putting it on that
Speaker 3: scrape rather than on that on that staging plot, I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna get every single buck that goes through that
Speaker 3: staging plot. But you know what, I'm gonna get enough
Speaker 3: of mo that scrape that it's going to give me
Speaker 3: enough intel to be like, oh hm, I'm getting this
Speaker 3: buck here every third day on that scrape, I bet
Speaker 3: she's actually back in that stage in Yerea. Even more
Speaker 3: than that, maybe now is a really good time to
Speaker 3: go back there and hunt it, as well as the
Speaker 3: fact that who knows what other bucks are going through
Speaker 3: there as well. It's everything to me is a balancing act.
Speaker 3: And when I'm talking in this specific case, I want
Speaker 3: my impact to weigh way heavier than the intel I
Speaker 3: get because so darn many times you can get intel
Speaker 3: by nipping at the edges, but I can't get that
Speaker 3: buck back once I went ahead and scooped him across
Speaker 3: the road in a neighbors shot. There's nothing I can
Speaker 3: do about that. So that's that's kind of I hopefully
Speaker 3: somewhere in there there's the answer. I know I rambled
Speaker 3: on about all sorts of stuff. I'm just not sure
Speaker 3: I ever really am.
Speaker 2: You covered it. You covered it, Steeve. So let's move
Speaker 2: then into December. Fully, we've talked about the edges of
Speaker 2: December a little bit, and one of the things you
Speaker 2: talked about was your approach to hunting those dominant dough
Speaker 2: bedding areas in late November and into early December, because
Speaker 2: you might be able to catch that, you know, that
Speaker 2: little fawn that's coming into estrus. How how long will
Speaker 2: you continue hunting mornings in December. I thought I heard
Speaker 2: you say you would hunt mornings to the entire season,
Speaker 2: but I want to make sure I heard that right.
Speaker 3: And if I'm not, if I want to go out
Speaker 3: and hunt a morning, I'm going to be from pretty
Speaker 3: much that last week in November on. I'm not again,
Speaker 3: we're talking generalities. There are all sorts of individual free
Speaker 3: cases out there where. Yeah, I'm going I mean, when
Speaker 3: a buck is telling you kill me at this time,
Speaker 3: at this location. Try to listen to him. Now, I
Speaker 3: am very, very very big on especially when it comes
Speaker 3: to habitat improven plans. Man, you go out there and
Speaker 3: you improve the habitat without having a plan, Good luck, buddy,
Speaker 3: because odds are really good that you're gonna mess up
Speaker 3: as much as you help. Now, I need a plan, Okay,
Speaker 3: do the same thing for hunting, whether I'm talking about us,
Speaker 3: I've got a plan for hunting season. I've got a
Speaker 3: plan for hunting each property. I have a plan for
Speaker 3: hunting just about each time I'm on that. But I'll
Speaker 3: tell you what, when there is a mature buck that's
Speaker 3: literally screaming at me, Hey idiot, all you have to
Speaker 3: do is come over here and we'll meet each other,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna listen to it. So I will go ahead,
Speaker 3: and I will go ahead and make deviations. I will.
Speaker 3: But the overwhelming majority of the time this time of year,
Speaker 3: it's just as simple as I'm describing. And I if
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go out morning hunting, I'm hunting that doe
Speaker 3: betting area, because you know what, are as many some
Speaker 3: of the seasons I hunt just barely trickle into January.
Speaker 3: Are there anywhere near as many dophons coming into estras
Speaker 3: on January third? Is there may be on December fourth?
Speaker 3: I'd say no, But every year a few of them pop.
Speaker 3: Then I don't know if one of them is gonna
Speaker 3: be popping on my ground, but if it is there,
Speaker 3: I can promise you there's no better place to be
Speaker 3: on that entire property than hunting where that dopphone, that
Speaker 3: estress dophon happens to be. But do you otherwise I'm
Speaker 3: otherwise No, I'm the one who kind of interrupted you there.
Speaker 3: I apologize, but otherwise otherwise I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 3: I don't do much more in hunting late season. That's
Speaker 3: about it. I will be more than happy during the
Speaker 3: rut in certain situations to go ahead and hunt more
Speaker 3: disruptive stands in the morning. But early season and late season,
Speaker 3: for me, I need to be able to get in.
Speaker 3: I need to be able to hunt, and I need
Speaker 3: to be able to get out. I do not want
Speaker 3: I think we booger, we us hunters do so much
Speaker 3: more damage to our hunting than we ever realize. And
Speaker 3: I will go off on a tangent on this just
Speaker 3: for a second. Always remember your odors can stay up
Speaker 3: and out in the woods till well over seventy two
Speaker 3: hours after you're gone. I have no doubt in my
Speaker 3: mind whatsoever that we educate so ridiculously many deer after
Speaker 3: we leave than we ever do well. We're in the
Speaker 3: deer woods simply from the odors that we are leaving behind.
Speaker 3: So when I'm talking about low impact, I'm saying I
Speaker 3: need to be able to get in, preferably slipping up
Speaker 3: a creek. Now you don't always have a situation like that,
Speaker 3: but heavens when you do, that's a beautiful thing to do.
Speaker 3: So you slip up a creek, you jump into that
Speaker 3: stand that happens to be just off the creek bank,
Speaker 3: You hunt it with your wind blown back over the creek.
Speaker 3: Then you get back down, slip out the creek. Situation
Speaker 3: like that, you can hunt this lot of stands. If
Speaker 3: they do not see you, if they do not hear you,
Speaker 3: if they do not smell, your perception is reality. You
Speaker 3: were not there to a white tail. But that's the
Speaker 3: key making sure I can get in, hunt and get
Speaker 3: out one of the pitifully few places that are good
Speaker 3: that time of year during morning Now if I happen
Speaker 3: to know this buck is feeding on this food source
Speaker 3: and he's better right here, and I can slip in between.
Speaker 3: Oh heck, yeah, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 3: But mind us some type of very specific intel like that. No,
Speaker 3: I'm sticking to those no bedding areas because I got
Speaker 3: those setups so I can't hunt them, and I can
Speaker 3: get in, I can get out, and that's what he's
Speaker 3: looking for.
Speaker 2: So the you mentioned that most of the time you're
Speaker 2: doing the evening hunts though in the late season, and
Speaker 2: we talked earlier about how once you get into late November,
Speaker 2: that's really when a buck's mindset most of the time
Speaker 2: has shifted down to recovering from the rut, packing on
Speaker 2: that food, and then that continues, you know, it increases
Speaker 2: as the month of December continues, as it it's colder.
Speaker 2: They got to just put on that weight again, they
Speaker 2: got to pack the energy in. So they're focusing on food.
Speaker 2: And if we're talking about making the choice of where
Speaker 2: to hunt on a particular evening, one of those things
Speaker 2: might be trying to determine what food source are the
Speaker 2: majority of deer going to key in on on a
Speaker 2: given night. And something I've thought a lot about, and
Speaker 2: I've heard different people talk about this, is that sometimes
Speaker 2: certain conditions might impact what food source is more attractive.
Speaker 3: Do you put?
Speaker 2: Is there truth to that, Steve? And if so, can
Speaker 2: you walk me through, Hey, when it's this kind of condition,
Speaker 2: focused on this kind of food, When it's this kind
Speaker 2: of condition, focus on this kind of food? Have you
Speaker 2: seen any trends like that?
Speaker 3: Generally speaking, I've found that when it's wet out, deer
Speaker 3: tend to prefer greens over greens. Not really true. I
Speaker 3: imagine it's because it's so jeez, you're talking water coated greens.
Speaker 3: I mean they probably are near dissolve in your mouth
Speaker 3: versus I mean, I don't know if this is accurate
Speaker 3: or not, But compared to eating soggy white bread that's
Speaker 3: been soaping in water, you know, those greens, Oh man,
Speaker 3: this a little bit of moisture on them make some taste.
Speaker 3: Every bit is good, if not better, Whereas that moisture
Speaker 3: on the greens tend to As I said, I don't
Speaker 3: know if what I'm saying is through at all in
Speaker 3: this case, that they taste like that essentially is toast
Speaker 3: soaked in water that they're eating. But for whatever reason
Speaker 3: you and what And here's here's something that a person
Speaker 3: really needs to qualify all this with, and that is,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter how desperately badly that buck may want
Speaker 3: white waite oak acorns today. If there ain't any white
Speaker 3: o't gat good white oak acorns around. He ain't no
Speaker 3: white oak acorns. So so often it's not, oh geez,
Speaker 3: this is the food he wants most of this day.
Speaker 3: So that's where I'll be. For most hunters out there,
Speaker 3: I'm talking most of them don't have Okay, let's see,
Speaker 3: do I want to hunt the alfalfa? Do I want
Speaker 3: to hunt the clover? Do I want to hunt the
Speaker 3: antler king the honey whole plot? Do I want to
Speaker 3: hunt their fall on our spring plot? Do I want
Speaker 3: to hunt the soybeans? Or do I want to hunt
Speaker 3: the corn tonight? Well? I mean, you know as well
Speaker 3: as I do. Most people don't have those options.
Speaker 2: It'd be nice, though, it is very nice.
Speaker 3: So always keep in mind that it's not what they
Speaker 3: want worse at that time. It's really what they want
Speaker 3: worse that's available at that time. Okay, generally, uh, just
Speaker 3: a couple notes about food in general. Elf Alfa something
Speaker 3: that I never realized growing up, because I grew up
Speaker 3: in northern Wisconsin. We have snow up there. Everybody knows
Speaker 3: alf alfa sours with those first few hard frosts. Everybody
Speaker 3: knows that. What a lot of people don't realize is
Speaker 3: it sweetens up again. And you see it. I manage
Speaker 3: ground in Missouri and Illinois and a handful of states
Speaker 3: like that. Okay, you see it so clearly. There they're
Speaker 3: hammering it, hammering it, hammering it, hammering, hammering it. You
Speaker 3: get those couple of frosts, it's it doesn't completely die.
Speaker 3: But keep in mind this scenario. They have them all,
Speaker 3: and they have virtually every food source that they would
Speaker 3: want in these scenarios. So there they are hammering that
Speaker 3: alf alfa, and then you get those first couple of frosts,
Speaker 3: and boom, that just plummets. There's still some out there,
Speaker 3: but nowhere near as much until about oh depending on
Speaker 3: the weather conditions. But two three four weeks later, all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, that alf alfa it's turned on. And
Speaker 3: if it's not every bit as hot and heavy as
Speaker 3: that is, that mode corn, it's pretty darn close so
Speaker 3: that is something that is I'm just sharing that because
Speaker 3: heck I didn't realize that until about fifteen twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: But in general, when it's wet, I tend to hunt green.
Speaker 3: When it's cold and dry, I tend to hunt grains.
Speaker 3: Then you get in this huge debate on which is
Speaker 3: better corn or soybeans? You know which one is better?
Speaker 3: The one the deer feed none more that day. That's
Speaker 3: about the only I have been able to come up with.
Speaker 3: I think, in general, deer like soybeans a little bit more,
Speaker 3: and I think they're a better thing to plant from
Speaker 3: a cost standpoint. The deer feed heavily on the green
Speaker 3: leaves all summer long, all that type of stuff. But
Speaker 3: on a given blisterly cold day, which of the two
Speaker 3: you tell me it's gonna be the one that most
Speaker 3: of the deer on. And I've seen it waffle plenty
Speaker 3: of times. And I'm not talking about I've got beans
Speaker 3: over here and I've got corn, No, I'm talking I
Speaker 3: got beans, I got corn. They're sitting side by side
Speaker 3: and getting off on a little bit of a tangent
Speaker 3: for management and getting deer to move the way you
Speaker 3: want them to. That type of stuff. What works out really,
Speaker 3: really good is if you can go ahead, soy beans, corn, Oh,
Speaker 3: and here's some green, and you're hunting those transition zones
Speaker 3: between the two because you know what I've found. Yeah,
Speaker 3: those deer really want that fall winter spring cereal rde today.
Speaker 3: They want that so and they are hammering it. And
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what, cereal right is a glorious planting
Speaker 3: for white tails. They are pounding the snot out of
Speaker 3: it today. They're eventually gonna want a little bit of green.
Speaker 3: And the overwhelming majority of those deer that they're feeding
Speaker 3: in that cereal ride are gonna go get some beans
Speaker 3: or some corn, most likely both tomorrow. Oh man, do
Speaker 3: they ever want that grain? They're just pound in the
Speaker 3: snot on it. But they're gonna want a couple of
Speaker 3: bites of green too, So they're gonna transition from that
Speaker 3: green to the green and from the green to the grain.
Speaker 3: It makes a nice little way to create a natural
Speaker 3: dear flow while also going ahead and providing them diversity
Speaker 3: that they want and need. And you know what, it
Speaker 3: makes it so much easier to figure out what they
Speaker 3: want to feed on today When you got it all
Speaker 3: on one plot I'm right every time.
Speaker 2: I can see that being mm hm.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: So one last question on that topic, Steve, So, cold
Speaker 2: weather we're going with grains more often than not. Wet weather,
Speaker 2: we're going with grains more often than not. Best case
Speaker 2: scenarios have all of them. What about the dreaded late
Speaker 2: season warm.
Speaker 3: Spell, warm, high tend hunt green.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've heard that too, so I wanted to confirm
Speaker 2: if that's what you saw too. Okay, So moving on
Speaker 2: from that real quick. We've covered some of the food
Speaker 2: things we've talked about. You know, what's available is the
Speaker 2: most important thing. One of the other main I guess
Speaker 2: pillars of late season.
Speaker 3: Just throw one more thing in there that's pretty important,
Speaker 3: and that is the most by fire, the most ignored
Speaker 3: food source there is, especially especially if you just get
Speaker 3: one state down from the northern pier of states in
Speaker 3: this country. I don't know why, what do you brows? So?
Speaker 3: I mean, so many of the people, especially in that Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri,
Speaker 3: that latitude belt right there, their woods are I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to offend anybody, but the woods in
Speaker 3: general and that belt are pathetic. The overwhelming majority have
Speaker 3: been grazed at one point with cattle, and they're so mature,
Speaker 3: and you get in there. Even in the richest farm
Speaker 3: country there is in this world, white tails are gonna
Speaker 3: eat more natural brows than they are gonna want would
Speaker 3: if given the option, or mean preface this, if given
Speaker 3: the option, white tails even in the richest farm country
Speaker 3: with every single crop you can possibly imagine, and throw
Speaker 3: every turn fruit tree you can think of on that,
Speaker 3: and they're still, if they haven't, are gonna eat more
Speaker 3: natural brows than they are going to have the stuff
Speaker 3: you planted. You get in there with with the chainsaw,
Speaker 3: and I'm not saying please don't if you don't feel
Speaker 3: skilled with it, and if you do, follow every darn
Speaker 3: chainsaw safety rule it is. And please remember we're talking
Speaker 3: about deer. For crying out loud, it is not worth
Speaker 3: getting seriously injured or hurt over your loved ones. Would
Speaker 3: never take that trade versus the biggest buck in the world. Okay,
Speaker 3: but it's a situation. You can actually often get loggers
Speaker 3: to come in, and if you do, please have a
Speaker 3: plan beforehand all that stuff and keep track of them
Speaker 3: daily if you can. But you can go ahead and
Speaker 3: literally Jack the food on that property, not putting money
Speaker 3: in your pocket. And you can have them go ahead
Speaker 3: and clear out areas for food plots if you want.
Speaker 3: You can have them make access roads for you, all
Speaker 3: sorts of things. But my only advice is first, figure
Speaker 3: out what exactly you want to achieve with this. Second,
Speaker 3: contact a forester and have a plan meet up. Third,
Speaker 3: stay on top of the loggers daily. Make sure not
Speaker 3: that they're trying to hose you. They're not, but you're
Speaker 3: trying to accomplish something very different than they're used to
Speaker 3: trying to accomplish. So stay on and make sure you're
Speaker 3: on the same page. And that will do more. Honestly,
Speaker 3: for so many done Midwestern properties. That and changing the
Speaker 3: way you're hunting it are the two things that can
Speaker 3: jack your success. Forr you up through the dim roof.
Speaker 2: Wise words you mentioned there at the end, then not
Speaker 2: only the habitat but also how you're hunting it makes
Speaker 2: a huge difference in the success that you have. And
Speaker 2: I think that you tell me if you think this
Speaker 2: is wrong, but probably one of the biggest things that
Speaker 2: can impact success in the late season, other than having
Speaker 2: that great high quality food source, is figuring out a
Speaker 2: way to hunt these deer without them feeling pressure because
Speaker 2: they're particularly you know, attuned to pressure. Now after being
Speaker 2: hunted all season, once you get to the late season,
Speaker 2: it seems like, hey, find that attractive food source and
Speaker 2: then hunt it smart. Only at the right time when
Speaker 2: you can get in, Yeah, when you can get in
Speaker 2: and out without spooking, and you know, strike on those
Speaker 2: right days when it's most likely that they'll be moving.
Speaker 2: A lot of people like to wait for big cold
Speaker 2: fronts or snow event or something. Is there Is there
Speaker 2: anything else or anything that you would like to add
Speaker 2: some more detail around when it comes to hunting these
Speaker 2: late food source type hunts the right way.
Speaker 3: When we have it's something else. I grew up, grew
Speaker 3: up hearing everybody as much as you can't pattern a
Speaker 3: buck during the rut man when it's windy, good dear,
Speaker 3: they just ain't moving. They just shut right down below
Speaker 3: when I'll tell you what some of the best days
Speaker 3: I've ever had hunting out on stands or twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five plus mile an hour wins. Now, the big issue
Speaker 3: is you better not be sitting up in some little
Speaker 3: popple tree that's going like this, whipping around in the wind,
Speaker 3: because geez, hopefully you're gonna be taking a shot, and
Speaker 3: it's pretty hard to shoot when you're whipping back and
Speaker 3: forth up there. It has to either be a really
Speaker 3: really really manly tree or redneck on stilts or a
Speaker 3: ground blind or something like that so that you can
Speaker 3: still shoot accurately. And the other thing you need you
Speaker 3: a person really needs to do it. I don't care
Speaker 3: if you're talking crossbow, I don't care if you're talking
Speaker 3: compound whatever. If you're gonna hunt and really stiff wins,
Speaker 3: you need to practice in really stiff wins so you
Speaker 3: know what that wind is gonna do to your airwre
Speaker 3: bowl before you ever step out in that situation. Now,
Speaker 3: one big things I know this is completely off topic,
Speaker 3: but one of the big things I think people most people,
Speaker 3: one of the things that have helped me personally the most.
Speaker 3: It is awesome for getting yourself in shape and figuring
Speaker 3: out getting yourself sighted in all that stuff. Standing in
Speaker 3: the backyard at thirty yards going like this at those
Speaker 3: at those targets. That's awesome, But it has virtually nothing
Speaker 3: to do with hunting in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3: Pit I can't speak for you but I can tell
Speaker 3: you I myself, my whole life, I've shot one deer,
Speaker 3: both feet on the ground, standing perfectly upright, going like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true.
Speaker 3: It's not hunting. Hunting is twisting your body, contorting, shooting
Speaker 3: in stiff winds, shooting in a shooting in a mist,
Speaker 3: shooting in low light, shooting from tree stands, shooting bouncing
Speaker 3: arrows off of the bottom of your window and ground blinds,
Speaker 3: all that. How do you not do that? You actually
Speaker 3: practice from those things before you hunt. Practice with all
Speaker 3: your equipment. Make practice as realistically realistic as you can, meaning,
Speaker 3: don't sit there for ten minutes. Get that pin one
Speaker 3: perfectly on that delton, dear target. No, go like this,
Speaker 3: put it on shoot because that's what you're going to
Speaker 3: be doing on the gear once. Make your practice mimic hunting.
Speaker 3: Practice with every stinking thing you're going to take out
Speaker 3: the deer's woods with you at least once and practice
Speaker 3: those less than ideal situations that we we hunt in.
Speaker 3: And finally, finally, whatever your mac shooting ranges, double it
Speaker 3: for practice, and do a heck of a lot more
Speaker 3: practice at that distance than you ever do at what
Speaker 3: your real shooting distance. Is not because if you're let's
Speaker 3: say it's thirty yards, you're practicing out to sixty. Is
Speaker 3: this because you want to be able to shoot you're
Speaker 3: at sixty yards for a first shot. Heck, no, you
Speaker 3: do not. You're gonna keep your limited at thirty yards.
Speaker 3: But by practicing at sixty it makes that thirty yard
Speaker 3: shot seems so ridiculously easy. And guess what you messed up.
Speaker 3: You accidentally shot him in the guts. Now he's standing
Speaker 3: out there at sixty yards. Shoot him again, and you
Speaker 3: can because you have been practicing out to sixty yards
Speaker 3: and now you throttle him at sixty and there he
Speaker 3: is laying in the field for you perfectly by going
Speaker 3: behind my head and me personally, I I'm willing to
Speaker 3: shoot out to fifty, but only I will not shoot
Speaker 3: over thirty unless everything's perfect. I have him ranged, he
Speaker 3: is calm as can be and almost always exclusively head
Speaker 3: down and eating if he's moving at all. No, I'm
Speaker 3: not shooting over thirty yards, even if I can stop him.
Speaker 3: But when everything is absolutely perfect, I'll shoot out to fifty.
Speaker 3: The overwhelming majority of my practice, I mean, I practice
Speaker 3: way more at one hundred yards than I ever do
Speaker 3: at fifty year lass once. Once you get sited in,
Speaker 3: there's really no reason to be shooting at twenty yards anymore.
Speaker 3: None shoot long distances. You automatically know any flaws you
Speaker 3: have in your form, any flaws you have in your equipment,
Speaker 3: and never forget. Every darn sport in this world is
Speaker 3: at least fifty percent played right up here. When I
Speaker 3: am drawing that bowl, if I believe that animal is dead,
Speaker 3: I do not want to be that animal. If I'm
Speaker 3: drawing that bow and I have any question if I'm
Speaker 3: gonna make that shot, I've learned to just let down
Speaker 3: because I know, I know the odds that shot turning
Speaker 3: out good are hitifully few are pitifully pathetic.
Speaker 2: Okay, great.
Speaker 3: Your mind is the most powerful weapon you got. Use
Speaker 3: it to its fullest extent, and that is even playing
Speaker 3: games with yourself such as there he is at twenty yards.
Speaker 3: I'm not worried about making that shot one durn bit.
Speaker 3: I make shots in one hundred all the darn time.
Speaker 3: The more you can trick yourself into believing that it's
Speaker 3: going to be successful, and heck, it's not a trick.
Speaker 3: The more you practice long distances, the more you practice
Speaker 3: weird situations that you're going to in toner hunting. You
Speaker 3: know what, higher you success on its right along with it,
Speaker 3: and so does this And when at least, speaking for myself,
Speaker 3: when my head is in the game, and when I
Speaker 3: believe I wouldn't want to be into here out there,
Speaker 3: when my heavy in the game, and I don't believe
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to be me out there because it's
Speaker 3: gonna end real poor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great advice, and I think it's an important reminder,
Speaker 2: and especially important reminder for this time of year, because
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people take their practice pretty
Speaker 2: serious in the summer and those weeks leading up to
Speaker 2: the season and maybe even through October. But when November hits,
Speaker 2: a lot of us are in the woods a lot,
Speaker 2: and especially when you gets to late season now it's
Speaker 2: cold and snowy, and I think for a lot of folks,
Speaker 2: practice drops off dramatically during this time period, and that
Speaker 2: is a it's a big mistake for all those things,
Speaker 2: all those reasons you just described, keeping yourself sharp, keeping
Speaker 2: yourself feeling confident. You know, that's just as important on
Speaker 2: November twenty fourth and December fifteenth as it is October one, and.
Speaker 3: I would just throw one last thing in there that
Speaker 3: I forgot to mention, for the love of God, practice
Speaker 3: with those layers, because the time to figure out that
Speaker 3: that's throwing your shot three inches to the right is
Speaker 3: not when you're shooting at a buck that has already
Speaker 3: got your nerves flattered frazzles to the point where you're
Speaker 3: going to accidentally shoot four inches to the right. Ready,
Speaker 3: and now you throw an extra three inches and now
Speaker 3: you got problems. Now you're going on a wild goose chase,
Speaker 3: and that is the least of your concerns. I'm sorry
Speaker 3: to get all preachy here, but and this is just
Speaker 3: my belief, but I believe it extremely strongly. God put
Speaker 3: us down on this earth as the number one predator.
Speaker 3: We have every right within reason tarve us whatever we
Speaker 3: will utilize, but a heck of a responsibility comes along
Speaker 3: with that too, and that means we don't waste these
Speaker 3: animals are essentially under our care. I know that's going
Speaker 3: to sound ridiculous to some people, but I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: nobody's gonna convince me any differently. When we are actually
Speaker 3: doing these types of things out in the deer ones.
Speaker 3: We are placing. There is a responsibility that comes along
Speaker 3: with our actions. And man, you forget about this selfishly.
Speaker 3: If this is what works for you, cling to it.
Speaker 3: If you actually do these things, your wild goose chases
Speaker 3: go way the heck down. And as they said, quite honestly,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. We owe it to those animals we do
Speaker 3: to make sure that our shots are as good and
Speaker 3: ethical as they as they reasonably can be. Murphy's law
Speaker 3: is going to apply playing now, even when you do
Speaker 3: everything right every single time. The only people that have
Speaker 3: never missed dear, are never wounded deer, are either liars
Speaker 3: or are really really really bad hunters because they didn't
Speaker 3: get a bunch of opportunities. No, yeah, that stuff is
Speaker 3: gonna happen when we do everything perfect. So don't sabotage
Speaker 3: it before you let that arrow fly by taking shots.
Speaker 3: He shouldn't and do those silly little practice things because
Speaker 3: they make such a difference it's not even fun. And
Speaker 3: with that, I'll jump off my soapbox.
Speaker 2: Now, well, I think that is that's a perfect place
Speaker 2: for us to wrap this up, Steve, because that's that's
Speaker 2: so important and it's such a great reminder at this
Speaker 2: time of year, when when so many of us are
Speaker 2: obsessed with just getting a deer in front of us,
Speaker 2: I can I can speak from experience. Unfortunately, this year
Speaker 2: it is a very, very well, it's as bad of
Speaker 2: a feeling as you could ask for when you get
Speaker 2: that deer in front of you've been after all year
Speaker 2: and the shot doesn't go the way you want. So
Speaker 2: thank you for bringing that to the forefront again for us, Steve,
Speaker 2: and thanks so much for taking the time to do this.
Speaker 2: I think we've all learned a lot and I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: I hope something worth while came of it. I can
Speaker 3: tell you it's followays my question always.
Speaker 2: All right, and that is going to do it for
Speaker 2: us today. Thank you for tuning in. Appreciate your support,
Speaker 2: Appreciate you listening. Keep the faith, keep on going. There
Speaker 2: are good times still ahead. The best does not necessarily
Speaker 2: have to be behind us. So I'm wishing you all
Speaker 2: the lack of the world, and until next time, stay
Speaker 2: wired to hunt.