Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of white tail week here at
Speaker 1: me Eaither and we're going to dive deep into one
Speaker 1: of the most popular hunting topics in North America, hunting
Speaker 1: the white tail deer. Today I brought on a special
Speaker 1: guest from North Idaho who pretty much has these big
Speaker 1: white tails dialed, but it may be a little different
Speaker 1: than the Midwest tactics that you've heard of. Troy Pottinger.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Shoy.
Speaker 2: Troy, Hey, Jason, thanks for having me. I appreciate you
Speaker 2: guys bringing me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to talk about everything from the fundamentals
Speaker 1: to some of your advanced tactics if you're willing to
Speaker 1: share them. But how's your season been so far? I
Speaker 1: know you've been out chasing them, you you know, in
Speaker 1: our in our conversation last night, you showed a couple
Speaker 1: of pictures of some big ones you're after. So how's
Speaker 1: it been so far on this this what would be
Speaker 1: considered the early season.
Speaker 2: That's been tough. It's a grind always in the early
Speaker 2: season when you're hunting in true back country mountain white
Speaker 2: tails like these guys are the bucks I'm hunting, are
Speaker 2: twenty miles from any agriculture, and they're up at higher elevation,
Speaker 2: so they're true mountain deer. And I hunt northern Idaho
Speaker 2: in eastern Washington early, So I bounce back and forth
Speaker 2: depending upon I pick out a specific target buck in
Speaker 2: every in each state, and then I try to go
Speaker 2: kill that buck. So I would say that it has
Speaker 2: been a it's been it's been pretty tough with the
Speaker 2: heat and just getting the buck I want to kill,
Speaker 2: to get up and move in the daylight without him
Speaker 2: knowing I'm around, Like I got to be real close
Speaker 2: to his bed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and we'll jump into that more in the
Speaker 1: main discussion, because I'm really curious, you know, when we
Speaker 1: go to you know, to Kansas or wherever we white
Speaker 1: till hunt, you know that distance from bed to feed
Speaker 1: and if you can catch them on the ground, you know,
Speaker 1: in the daylight, versus like what your some of your
Speaker 1: strategy and how that plays out in the mountains and
Speaker 1: how close you have to be. So I'm gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna get to those in a little bit. We're gonna
Speaker 1: start every episode like we normally do with the Pendleton Whiskeys,
Speaker 1: Q and A. These are just listener questions that we
Speaker 1: get a lot that I feel are better answered by
Speaker 1: our expert guests. I'm gonna kind of throw three questions
Speaker 1: at you here, Troy, and see what you what you
Speaker 1: think of these and we can take these questions. You
Speaker 1: can email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can send them to them to
Speaker 1: us on social which is how we get the majority
Speaker 1: of these. So, in your opinion, how does moon phase
Speaker 1: impact white tailed deer movement and do you as a
Speaker 1: hunter adjust your strategy for it?
Speaker 2: Well, it does impact movement, but I don't think it's
Speaker 2: as impactful as say weather conditions are wind direction for movement.
Speaker 2: And again I'm hunting that old age structure out here,
Speaker 2: five six seven year old bucks, so they're kind of
Speaker 2: a different animal within themselves. Do I pay attention to
Speaker 2: the moon phase? Yeah? Do I think it trumps weather
Speaker 2: and fronts and pressure? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So, so you will pay attention to it? And what
Speaker 1: does what do you typically see what that moon phase?
Speaker 1: You Let's say we're we're going into a full moon,
Speaker 1: which seems you know from from the elk hunting side
Speaker 1: kind of limit movement pushes movement more into the night.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of the same with white tails? Are
Speaker 1: you just seeing later movement they're in their beds earlier?
Speaker 1: What does that typically do to a white tail negatively?
Speaker 1: How does it negatively impact the hunt?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, I grew up hunting elk my whole
Speaker 2: life too, embars and everything up here in North Idaho.
Speaker 2: The uh, the big moon at night, the big light
Speaker 2: at night always seems to get the deer more active
Speaker 2: at night. In my opinion, I like those dark, dark
Speaker 2: moon nights. I usually see a little more daylight movement,
Speaker 2: but it's usually in conjunction with the right weather conditions
Speaker 2: and pressures too.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay, the second question, what are the key differences
Speaker 1: in hunting strategies between like your early season, because I
Speaker 1: know you're hunting, you know, we're we're in early September now,
Speaker 1: and then i've you know, seen that you you know,
Speaker 1: you're killing some giant bucks, you know, into the middle
Speaker 1: of December. At times, it seems like, so how do
Speaker 1: you what are those difference in hunting strategies? How do
Speaker 1: you start to change? Are you hunting the same stands
Speaker 1: from start to finish? Or do you have multiple cams
Speaker 1: out and you're kind of moving down elevation with deer
Speaker 1: the rut. You know, kind of if you can, you know,
Speaker 1: give us your your your play on how those strategies change.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a huge topic and you know, just just
Speaker 2: to be you know, to kind of hit on the
Speaker 2: you know, the right now type white tael stuff. It's
Speaker 2: extremely difficult because they are at the top of their game.
Speaker 2: They have no distractions. The white tails that I'm hunting
Speaker 2: live in heavy predation. Had a big wolf on my
Speaker 2: trail camera last night after I checked it after I left,
Speaker 2: So right now and I've killed you know, I've killed
Speaker 2: five big white tails in the month of September August
Speaker 2: thirtieth through September. In my lifetime, I've killed five of
Speaker 2: my best white tails with a boat. But that's five
Speaker 2: out of over forty. So this time of the year,
Speaker 2: they're at the top of the game. They have no distractions.
Speaker 2: They do two things. They eat and drink and I'll
Speaker 2: put that together. They eat and drink and they survive
Speaker 2: predators and then they dodge. They dodge you know, the
Speaker 2: human intrusion from elk season and the guys that are
Speaker 2: hunting white tails two so this time of the year,
Speaker 2: I have to be very close to their betting zone.
Speaker 2: These mountain bucks don't bet in the same bed every
Speaker 2: day they'd be they turn into wolf shit if they were,
Speaker 2: so they move around. I have to stay really tight,
Speaker 2: but a really tight grip the best I can on
Speaker 2: them with some cameras and obviously any type of observation,
Speaker 2: and I put a ton of time into it. But
Speaker 2: if I don't have a tight grip and I don't
Speaker 2: set up close to them, and I have a mobiles,
Speaker 2: I have mobile set I have mobile gear setups, and
Speaker 2: people that don't know me, I work for Lone Wolf
Speaker 2: Custom Gear and White Tail Addictions and have for years,
Speaker 2: so I have some permanent setups over big scrapes. But
Speaker 2: I also have my mobile setups to move at any moment,
Speaker 2: so I'm always set up or I'm always prepared to
Speaker 2: move when I need to. And I have to move
Speaker 2: with those early season bucks where their preferred betting is.
Speaker 2: And if I'm not tight to their betting, I'll never
Speaker 2: find them because in the mountains they have feed in
Speaker 2: every direction and they have a lot of water, so
Speaker 2: it's not like they're traveling to a destination food source
Speaker 2: on an alfalfa field.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, and staying tight to their bed. How do
Speaker 1: you keep track of that, Troy? Are you using cams?
Speaker 1: Are you just making educated guests? Are assumptions like I
Speaker 1: haven't seen him here in a couple of days. I
Speaker 1: think he's moved here, Like, how are you making those?
Speaker 1: How are you determining when you think he's changed beds
Speaker 1: or where's bed maybe at that time?
Speaker 2: That's good question. I you know, I'm a huge proponent
Speaker 2: and I've done it for thirty plus years. White tail deer,
Speaker 2: all white tail deer, especially these mountain bucks, because there's
Speaker 2: a low deer density of bucks, and does they all
Speaker 2: adhere to social community scrapes year around, They check liking
Speaker 2: branches and they address scrapes year round. And most people
Speaker 2: that don't have an in depth knowledge of white tail
Speaker 2: behavior probably wouldn't believe that unless they looked at all
Speaker 2: my years and years of videos of them do it
Speaker 2: from year round. So everything that I do is based
Speaker 2: around big scrapes that are in the mountains and in
Speaker 2: the early season, it's all about the licking branch and
Speaker 2: them communicating. So I position myself in locations where those
Speaker 2: scrapes show me that a mature buck to say I
Speaker 2: want to kill that he's frequenting and if I can
Speaker 2: get him to frequent in in the daylight, I know
Speaker 2: in the early season he's not far from me. So
Speaker 2: then I take a look at the big picture I've walked,
Speaker 2: you know. I do a ton of scouting, a ton
Speaker 2: of walking. I know the country that he's living in,
Speaker 2: and I base his location and his bedding zone on
Speaker 2: the most preferred security cover habitat for him that's adjacent
Speaker 2: to these big community hubs that I get him on,
Speaker 2: and then the wind will always steer him daily in
Speaker 2: the thermals and put him in his bed. So I
Speaker 2: find these betting zones based on how the wind works
Speaker 2: in those drainages and how the thermals work with it,
Speaker 2: and it positions those bucks to help them survive all
Speaker 2: the predators and the hunters. You know, I elk do
Speaker 2: the same thing. Elk use those thermals and hubs and
Speaker 2: winds to position themselves to survive and be you know,
Speaker 2: and to exist into bed so they're never laying in
Speaker 2: the same exact bed. But I'll get a buck that
Speaker 2: will bed in a zone an area, and I'll target
Speaker 2: that area. And then in this early season, I worked
Speaker 2: really hard to get him to show up at my scrapes,
Speaker 2: and the buck I'm trying to kill right now is
Speaker 2: hitting my liking branches and scrapes. He has been since April, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So he's in been in that same area once the
Speaker 1: snow melt.
Speaker 2: He's in that draank. Yeah, he's in the drainage. The
Speaker 2: drainage is big. I've got multiple sites set up for him,
Speaker 2: and he moves around with predation. As soon as the
Speaker 2: predators show up, the lions and the wolves, as soon
Speaker 2: as they show up, he bounces. So it is a
Speaker 2: very difficult task at hand compared to when I hunt
Speaker 2: Oklahoma or Ohio or places where the destination food is there,
Speaker 2: the small wood lot is there, they're congregated. Mountain deer
Speaker 2: are not congregated. They can go one hundred miles in
Speaker 2: any direction they want and survive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that's awesome information. And I've always
Speaker 1: just been curious, you know, on such a big, vast landscape.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like you use you know, some licking
Speaker 1: branches and some stuff like that where you know he's
Speaker 1: been there and you know he's in the area. That's great.
Speaker 1: Tip Troy.
Speaker 2: Well, the the whitetails that I kill usually grow up
Speaker 2: on my scrapes for three to four years, and I
Speaker 2: just condition them there, meaning I watched them grow from
Speaker 2: two and a half and I don't hunt them till
Speaker 2: they're five or six. So I play a long game
Speaker 2: with big white tails, and if they can survive, then
Speaker 2: I jump into the game with them when they're five
Speaker 2: and six. But I've got years of history with them,
Speaker 2: if you will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've got them pattern before you ever really
Speaker 1: want to hunt them. Yes, it's to some degree, I mean,
Speaker 1: and their patterns made. I'm sure their patterns changes. They
Speaker 1: get a little smarter, but at least there's like a
Speaker 1: base pattern you can go off of.
Speaker 2: And absolutely they tighten everything up as they get older
Speaker 2: and smarter, they make less mistakes. The buck i'm hunt
Speaker 2: right now got shot through the hips last year by
Speaker 2: a rifle hunter. Had a hole in both hips. Can't
Speaker 2: believe he survived it, but he was a four and
Speaker 2: a half year old and I left him alone last
Speaker 2: year because I knew he'd be tremendous this year, and
Speaker 2: sure enough, he shows up in the spring with a
Speaker 2: hole in both hips, and I was thinking, I can't
Speaker 2: believe this deer survived that. But on the flip side
Speaker 2: of that, that deer acts five years older than he
Speaker 2: did last year at four and a half. He acts
Speaker 2: totally different now because of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, changed them around that. Yeah, that's interesting, interesting
Speaker 1: data point to you know, why is he probably have
Speaker 1: been smart as a five year old, but you know,
Speaker 1: he's acting like a seven to eight year old deer
Speaker 1: just you know WHI is the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's acting like he's a straight up crackhead in
Speaker 2: April May and juke, like he's on full alert when
Speaker 2: he walks around. On a ton of videos so that
Speaker 2: I can actually observe and watch these bucks. So on
Speaker 2: my trail cameras, I run long video on purpose at
Speaker 2: these scrapes and just watching his demeanor and how he
Speaker 2: searches for a trail camera and how he acts different
Speaker 2: walking in than all the other deer and all the
Speaker 2: other deer mountaineer too, and they're very careful. But he's
Speaker 2: going to be a tough nut to crack. But that's
Speaker 2: what I love. I mean, that's that's where I'm at
Speaker 2: in my in my life with white tails is I
Speaker 2: like hunting the most mature, smartest, best white tail I
Speaker 2: can find in the mountains because they teach me so much.
Speaker 2: And the challenge is it's hard for me to even
Speaker 2: explain unless you do it. No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like the video game
Speaker 1: you played as a kid. It was easy to beat
Speaker 1: it on like the beginner level, but you want to
Speaker 1: go beat the game one expert and you know, advance expert,
Speaker 1: Like you want to be able to play the game
Speaker 1: at the highest level and still win. And I respect
Speaker 1: the heck out of that. And you know, certain hunts
Speaker 1: we do that, and you know, certain hunts we're just
Speaker 1: out there trying to put meat in the freezer. But
Speaker 1: I I relate to it a little bit, like it's
Speaker 1: sometimes fun and I'm you know, as I'm getting older
Speaker 1: and less concerned about notching every tag, it's fun to
Speaker 1: play the game, you know, at that higher level for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I've been at this a long time.
Speaker 2: I'll be fifty five this year. I absolutely love for
Speaker 2: the young hunters to go get a ton of experience
Speaker 2: and a lot of reps. Get your reps, get your kills,
Speaker 2: don't be so darn picky, enjoy the heck out of it.
Speaker 2: I'm just at a place now where I cherish and
Speaker 2: love that challenge of an old mountain whitetail. And that's
Speaker 2: what that's what trips my trigger at my at where
Speaker 2: I'm at with white tails today.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Have you have you seen? I mean, we
Speaker 1: always talk about the decline and you know, the good
Speaker 1: old days. Have you have those mountain white tails had
Speaker 1: the nosedive that that, you know, all the other ungulates
Speaker 1: around here have have shown. Are you seeing less and
Speaker 1: less big ones? Is it tougher and tougher to dig
Speaker 1: an old krusty you know, buck out of the mountains
Speaker 1: than it was twenty years ago?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? You know. I cut my teeth on mountain white
Speaker 2: tails in the eighties. And if I you know, everybody
Speaker 2: can say this, but if I knew back then what
Speaker 2: I know now, I would have felt like I was
Speaker 2: in Iowa in the eighties. I mean, we had low
Speaker 2: human population up here in North Idaho. We had nobody
Speaker 2: bowl hunting mountain white tails and getting on them and
Speaker 2: pushing them. I just was young and learning about it.
Speaker 2: Nobody was doing it, and I when I dove into
Speaker 2: it when I was young. I actually got laughed at
Speaker 2: by the local boys in Saint Mary's, Idaho, behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: like you're crazy, You're gonna go hunt deer with a
Speaker 2: bow in the mountains or you kidding? And that was
Speaker 2: always my motivation. I always wanted to. I wanted to hunt.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to I didn't want to just kill
Speaker 2: and shoot stuff. I wanted to, like get intimate with
Speaker 2: proximity of killing an old whitetail, fooling him at say,
Speaker 2: under twenty yards with a bow and arrow. So I
Speaker 2: dove into that young And looking back now, the numbers
Speaker 2: of mature bucks back then compared to when they opened
Speaker 2: up a two bucks season in North Idaho and six
Speaker 2: or five and the population boom into Idaho and everybody's
Speaker 2: a hunter now and every here at the bottom line
Speaker 2: is it's a numbers game. All tons of young bucks
Speaker 2: get killed now we have we sell out all of
Speaker 2: our tags every year. People come from all over out
Speaker 2: of state to hunt. And it's fine, I mean, it
Speaker 2: is what it is. We're we're killing a lot more
Speaker 2: younger deer now than when I was growing up, because
Speaker 2: there just sherely wasn't the amount of hunters hunting the
Speaker 2: younger deer, if you will, so, so the age structure
Speaker 2: is totally changed. And yeah, i'd say I work compared
Speaker 2: to finding a mature buck, say in the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 2: I say I put in one hundred percent. I put
Speaker 2: in ten times more work and travel ten times the distance,
Speaker 2: says in the And I'm hunting public land for service
Speaker 2: minimum of multiple of ten times the distances and travel
Speaker 2: and effort to find an old mature buck.
Speaker 1: Yes, now that's you know, you'd almost I guess predators
Speaker 1: and hunting pressure and everything you just mentioned. You think
Speaker 1: there might be some that are somewhat immune to the
Speaker 1: changes because they are tough to find, tough to see.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like, you know, it's still still affecting them.
Speaker 1: And I bet you you wish you knew it. You
Speaker 1: you know, thirty years ago, you wish you knew what
Speaker 1: you know now when you were back there in those
Speaker 1: heydays and had that same knowledge base.
Speaker 2: I used to be able to go into any drainage
Speaker 2: in the late eighties, early nineties and find a mature buck,
Speaker 2: find a five year old. You can't do it now.
Speaker 2: And of course you know we're not talking. We haven't
Speaker 2: even talked about the predators, the wolves. I hunt Washington
Speaker 2: and Idaho, and I've lived through all the years of
Speaker 2: the wolf introduction in both states, seen it all. The
Speaker 2: impact on the white tails the most in the elk
Speaker 2: is as we all know, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: go down that rabbit hole and here has definitely added
Speaker 2: a ton of pressure and killing to the younger deer
Speaker 2: in the elk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's drastic, you know, everywhere. And
Speaker 1: you know, we've got a whole different issue over here.
Speaker 1: But wolves are starting to you know, on the east
Speaker 1: side of Washington for sure, and then now we've got
Speaker 1: like hoof raw on the west side, and it's just
Speaker 1: you know, these these uh you know, sun unmountable. Un
Speaker 1: there's just that the animals don't have a chance right
Speaker 1: now with the hoof rock, with wolves, with increased predators
Speaker 1: are taking away our bear seasons are cougar seasons, and
Speaker 1: like you said, you don't want to go down down
Speaker 1: those rabbit holes. But there's a lot working against us
Speaker 1: right now. It seems like, hey.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm right, I'm exact. I mean, couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2: We're saying the same thing. Yep.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my last question and then we'll jump into
Speaker 1: our conversation. You know, you're up in the high mountains,
Speaker 1: there are elk hunters running around, maybe other deer hunters.
Speaker 1: How does pressure from other hunters affect your deer behavior
Speaker 1: and how have you had to adapt or how do
Speaker 1: you deal with if your deer is in a pressured area?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Why tell him after if he gets pressured by
Speaker 2: a human, He's been in the game a long time,
Speaker 2: he understands it, he moves, he adjusts, and he has
Speaker 2: the freedom. He has the freedom to move in vast
Speaker 2: country to wherever he wants to. I've had multiple years
Speaker 2: where I've killed a buck five miles away on a map,
Speaker 2: three to five miles away on a map from where
Speaker 2: I was hunt even early season. It just happens a lot.
Speaker 2: And to counter that, I put a lot of work
Speaker 2: into finding those hard to find. But every now and
Speaker 2: then quiet pocket areas, if you will. That usually equates
Speaker 2: to two things or either right drive right by areas
Speaker 2: in the mountains or hard hard work to get to,
Speaker 2: and most guys won't expend the effort to get there
Speaker 2: to find those pockets and genetic pools of bucks that
Speaker 2: aren't getting disturbed quite as much by humans. They're still
Speaker 2: getting all the predator pressure and all the predators. No matter,
Speaker 2: I can't do anything about the predators. But as far
Speaker 2: as getting away from humans, I just try to go
Speaker 2: that extra mile all the time. And I'm willing to
Speaker 2: do what I don't think most people are willing to
Speaker 2: do for a white tail, to go try to hunt him,
Speaker 2: and you know, great distances, long drives, long hikes, just
Speaker 2: everything that I can do to find a little bit
Speaker 2: of peace and quiet. Yes in the mountains.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you'll you will move away from that heavily
Speaker 1: pressured areas. Or as you're setting your season up and
Speaker 1: you're coming up with your target deer, will you like, Man,
Speaker 1: that deer is great, I'm want to go hunt them.
Speaker 1: But then you start to think like, oh, it's also
Speaker 1: a popular elk hunting area or popular vacation area. Will
Speaker 1: you go away from him or will you try to
Speaker 1: hunt him? On those terms of this deer may be
Speaker 1: a little more difficult, but I'm gonna, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go give it a try, because it's a deer
Speaker 1: I want to kill.
Speaker 2: To dare I want to kill, and if he's daylight
Speaker 2: and I don't care where he's at, I'll go try
Speaker 2: to kill him. But I also have I also try
Speaker 2: to set myself up with multiple options, you know, two
Speaker 2: to five bucks a year that are great bucks, so
Speaker 2: that I can play the game of Okay, there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a ton of elk pressure here but over here,
Speaker 2: and I jump the border in both states, and I
Speaker 2: play the game with the open and closed season dates too,
Speaker 2: to try to find where an old buck can have
Speaker 2: a little bit of peace and quiet from humans. And
Speaker 2: I'll go target where I believe I'm in the game
Speaker 2: with a daylight buck that I want to kill more
Speaker 2: than just wasting my time in an area where yeah,
Speaker 2: my buck's on camera, but he's only at night and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of guys out cutting the ridges an area, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll bounce. But if that old buck's daylight and then
Speaker 2: showing me he's killable, I don't care where he's at,
Speaker 2: I'll hunting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So thanks Troy for answering those questions from our listeners.
Speaker 1: Once again, you have questions for me or my guests,
Speaker 1: email them to us at CTD at Phelpsgame Calls dot
Speaker 1: com or send us a message on social media and
Speaker 1: we'll do our best to get them on here. So
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna kind of jump into to our conversation
Speaker 1: some of the questions I maybe have for you, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're an open book Troy or
Speaker 1: some of these things you might want to keep close
Speaker 1: to your chest, but uh, let's kind of kick things
Speaker 1: off with the basics for those new to white tail hunting,
Speaker 1: which I'm fairly new to white to hunting, and don't
Speaker 1: hate me for this. I always joked with everybody, you know,
Speaker 1: when you see Midwest white till hunting, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do that when I'm seventy, when I can't meal
Speaker 1: your hunt, when I can't elk hunt anymore, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go white tail hunt. You're obviously doing it in the
Speaker 1: same dang places that I'm el cutting, So, uh, it's
Speaker 1: not as easy as I made it sound in my
Speaker 1: uh you know, white tail hunt when I'm old. But
Speaker 1: you know, understanding the behavior of white tail deer is
Speaker 1: is key. The deer year hunting are obviously different than
Speaker 1: the ones in the Midwest. You you probably have a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, contrasting but also probably a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities. You know, the old white tail bucks and
Speaker 1: what they do. But in the mountains, what if you're
Speaker 1: looking at an area and maybe you're just getting started,
Speaker 1: you don't even have an area. What are some things
Speaker 1: you look for when it comes to finding white tail?
Speaker 1: Is it just historically good areas? Is it certain mountain characteristics?
Speaker 1: Is it just areas that have white tails and you
Speaker 1: got to go up and find them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a lot, but yeah, to break that down, yep.
Speaker 2: The thing about a mountain white tail is if I
Speaker 2: took somebody, if somebody spent one week with me one week,
Speaker 2: that doesn't do it like I do it. I take
Speaker 2: any elk counter with me. I'll take anybody. I've had
Speaker 2: triathletes come with me, and they're shocked at the amount
Speaker 2: of work it takes to hunt a white tail and
Speaker 2: to kill to successfully get them killed in the mountains,
Speaker 2: because you're not hunting flat ground. It is. It is
Speaker 2: a It is an endeavor, just like when I go
Speaker 2: kill a bull elk, but it's a daily endeavor. And
Speaker 2: white tails don't talk like they don't give me the
Speaker 2: just or they don't give me the they don't give
Speaker 2: me that vocal. So it's like a ninja type game
Speaker 2: with them and the you know, I start everything biologically.
Speaker 2: I'm a science guy. Uh my background's kinesiology and biology.
Speaker 2: Everything I do is based on sound science. So I
Speaker 2: look at habitat. I look for the most conducive habitat
Speaker 2: out there for feed, security, cover, and the huge thing
Speaker 2: is is win and and thermals. You have you find.
Speaker 2: I find the best white tails in the mountains of
Speaker 2: the entire Pacific Northwest. We're talking western Montana to eastern Washington,
Speaker 2: all the above through Northido. You always find the best
Speaker 2: survivor and and the oldest bucks in places that give
Speaker 2: them everything they need to survive all their obstacles. And
Speaker 2: it starts with habitat quality, security cover, water, feed and
Speaker 2: wind advantage, thermal and wind mixing advantages to keep them
Speaker 2: alive from the mountain lions and the wolves. So I
Speaker 2: look at this big picture, this thirty thousand foot view,
Speaker 2: and I'll start with mapping, but I gotta put a
Speaker 2: ton of boots on the ground to see it in person.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it all, lay it all out, and
Speaker 2: when I get in that right habitat and those those
Speaker 2: slopes those slopes that protect a big buck based on
Speaker 2: the predominant prevailing winds and thermals. That's where you'll find
Speaker 2: you because the wind and the slopes and the security
Speaker 2: cover and the terrain and the difficulty they keep him
Speaker 2: alive and he knows it, and that's where he'll He'll
Speaker 2: gravitate to those places as he gets older, especially up
Speaker 2: in elevation, to stay alive. So it's this huge equation,
Speaker 2: if you will, that I put all together. I got
Speaker 2: to get all the pieces of the puzzle together, and
Speaker 2: then I break those areas down like you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll grid for days in area and just grid,
Speaker 2: you know, two miles this way, two miles back, all
Speaker 2: day long, every twenty yards. Now, who's going to do that?
Speaker 2: Not many people. But I break that sign down in
Speaker 2: the off season and that country down in the off season.
Speaker 2: And then I double back and hunt those big community
Speaker 2: scrapes that I find or build. I build incredible mock scrapes,
Speaker 2: and I don't I'm not trying to toot my horn,
Speaker 2: but I've been at this scrape game for thirty plus
Speaker 2: years and it's unbelievable where I can say I can
Speaker 2: pull a big buck two hundred yards from where I
Speaker 2: can't really hunt him. I can pull him over to
Speaker 2: a bench or ridge and kill him there. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot there. I don't know if I explain that
Speaker 2: well enough, but it all starts with habitat and win
Speaker 2: habitat and wind in security cover.
Speaker 1: No, that was that was exactly. I know I gave
Speaker 1: you a pretty loaded question, but that was exactly like
Speaker 1: how do you go in? And now I've got a
Speaker 1: question on that because you know we're out in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: You hear of some of the Midwest white tail, you know, professionals,
Speaker 1: the guys that do it and do it well. They
Speaker 1: talk about maybe never getting into their betting area. When
Speaker 1: you're going to explore an area, are you willing to
Speaker 1: put a little more cent on the ground, push a
Speaker 1: little bit more? Is like finding finding that sign worth
Speaker 1: maybe getting into his betting area and pushing through there
Speaker 1: at least once or twice, versus just staying out of
Speaker 1: there forever, Like how do you balance that? You know,
Speaker 1: not pushing the year, but you got to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out his home.
Speaker 2: Well outside of season up until about middle of July.
Speaker 2: I'll go anywhere anywhere, but because I open August thirtieth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to play it foolish either and pound
Speaker 2: his betting area that I believe I might kill him
Speaker 2: August thirtieth and no velvet. I'm going to tread lighter then,
Speaker 2: But I do all the homework ahead of time. If
Speaker 2: I'm struggling, and if it's in season and things just
Speaker 2: aren't working, I'll get aggressive sometimes and go for a
Speaker 2: midday walk and I don't care where I go. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you have to to least let you know, holy hell,
Speaker 2: he's not even around here. Or yep, your assumption was
Speaker 2: right up in the top of that drainage, and he
Speaker 2: is up here. So yes, it's a situational thing, Jason,
Speaker 2: to where you've got to make those calls, and it's
Speaker 2: an instinctual thing for me based on forty years a
Speaker 2: hunt white tails, that is. You know, I think I'm
Speaker 2: better at it now than I used to be. But
Speaker 2: I do a little bit of both. But outside of season, Jason,
Speaker 2: I will go anywhere anywhere to figure him out, and
Speaker 2: I'll look at signed from the rut, say in April,
Speaker 2: when the snow comes off and all that rut sign
Speaker 2: is still there. When I find those big sheds late
Speaker 2: or early. I see that a buck, say sheds in
Speaker 2: December or early January. That's a dead giveaway. So that's
Speaker 2: where he was hiding out. Now, if he packs his
Speaker 2: antlers into February March, it's not a dead giveaway because
Speaker 2: he's somewhere else due to the snow.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeap, gotcha. I was just always I'm always curious
Speaker 1: because I'm sti learning, like as I'm two years into
Speaker 1: whitetail and i'm very you know, scientific analytical, like you know,
Speaker 1: my engineering background doesn't let me do it any differently.
Speaker 1: But you know, you hear a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: say they'll go into the bedding area one time in February,
Speaker 1: change batteries and cameras, shed hunting, and they'll never go
Speaker 1: back in there again, almost like a sanctuary. And when
Speaker 1: you're in the mountains, you just don't have that liberty
Speaker 1: to just not ever go in there. You have to
Speaker 1: go in there figured it out to ever have a
Speaker 1: chance at killing him. It sounds like.
Speaker 2: Mountain whitetails move way too much. Predators bump them all
Speaker 2: the time. You're never going to be in the game
Speaker 2: with a mountain whitetail if you're not if you don't
Speaker 2: have a tight grip on him, and tight grip means
Speaker 2: you actually know where the hell he is that week,
Speaker 2: because he might be a mile or two away the
Speaker 2: next week. Now, that takes an exorbitant amount of effort
Speaker 2: on an old whitetail, and it is it's a game
Speaker 2: of getting your ass kicked all the time. All I
Speaker 2: have had happened to me this season so far is
Speaker 2: getting my ass kicked by weather, by predators, by wolves
Speaker 2: eleven days into the season or twelve thirteen days into
Speaker 2: the season. Right now, you know, my son. I text
Speaker 2: my son this morning driving down to work from where
Speaker 2: my hunting camp is, and he goes, you can't catch
Speaker 2: a break, you know, And then we both laugh because
Speaker 2: he knows mountain white tails. He's setting over in Bozeman
Speaker 2: playing college football and hunting alfalfa fields, and he just
Speaker 2: you know, we know, we get it. He's he's got
Speaker 2: beautiful bucks on camera daily in the daylight. His girlfriend
Speaker 2: already killed a big five by five. He put her
Speaker 2: on it her first day out. And he gets it though,
Speaker 2: because he spent his whole life hunting mountains with me.
Speaker 2: It's just a totally different game. Yep, yep, and just
Speaker 2: a different game.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you so are you being more mobile? Like
Speaker 1: are you using the tree saddles? Are you entries or
Speaker 1: are you doing it on the ground? Like what's your setup?
Speaker 1: And when you have to move a mile away? Like
Speaker 1: do you have to go tear a stand down or
Speaker 1: are you bringing a different stand up the mountain with you?
Speaker 2: Mon Wolf custom gear mobile tree stands. This thing weighs
Speaker 2: seven pounds.
Speaker 1: Gotcha? So you're just you're hiking to where you need
Speaker 1: to set up.
Speaker 2: I move, I move anywhere I need to. I have permanence.
Speaker 2: I have permanence over big community scrapes that produce annually.
Speaker 2: And then you jump in my mobile, set up my
Speaker 2: seven pounds, set up four sticks. I go anywhere I
Speaker 2: need to move if I need to. And then when
Speaker 2: I go when I go to the Midwest and hunt
Speaker 2: farm country and crop destination country, all I hunt out
Speaker 2: of is a mobile setup. So I'm not a saddle
Speaker 2: guy because I like a stand, but my stuff's so light.
Speaker 2: I can go anywhere and hunt. I can be in
Speaker 2: a tree anywhere in five minutes.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. Yeah, I was. I was kind of curious on
Speaker 1: that it was your scouting area. Let's say you've got
Speaker 1: a target buck. You know, mountain wind is maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit different than like the midwest prevailing wind when
Speaker 1: it comes to white How are you starting to think
Speaker 1: about that? Are you going, you know, up the mountain
Speaker 1: in the morning. Are you thinking about your thermal switching
Speaker 1: you know later in the day like you had mentioned already,
Speaker 1: you know ridges and passes, Like, how are you trying
Speaker 1: to make sure this scene doesn't wind you before you
Speaker 1: before you kill it? Like what's your typical setup, your
Speaker 1: daily you know in egress and you know in and out?
Speaker 1: What's that all look like?
Speaker 2: Well? I map all the wind and the thermals out
Speaker 2: in my head first based on looking at them at.
Speaker 2: But I can map the wind in thermals by looking
Speaker 2: at them at and kind of know how a west, south,
Speaker 2: or north or an east wind's gonna work, so that
Speaker 2: all gets mapped out first in my mind. I have
Speaker 2: a great in depth understanding the mountain thermals and how
Speaker 2: they like to move differently on a south slope versus
Speaker 2: a north slope, versus a n ees slope versus the
Speaker 2: west slope. Put all that into my mind when I
Speaker 2: go into a spot and then I let the wind.
Speaker 2: I make sure the wind walks me into places, so
Speaker 2: I have the wind walk me in and help protect me.
Speaker 2: And a lot of times in this country, Jason, what
Speaker 2: you end up doing is a lot of my really
Speaker 2: high quality setups where I kill from a lot of
Speaker 2: them have an east entrance, which anybody that understands the
Speaker 2: west and where we get most of our wins from.
Speaker 2: I'm usually coming from some sort of an east type
Speaker 2: direction because I get a lot of south and west
Speaker 2: winds and north winds. I don't get a lot of
Speaker 2: easterly winds. Now. I have some spots set up for
Speaker 2: an east wind too, But I'm very conscious of the
Speaker 2: morning and evening evening thermal switches. And that's all dictated
Speaker 2: by a temperature difference, by slope difference. You know, if
Speaker 2: you only have a ten degree temperature swing, you're not
Speaker 2: getting a huge thermal If you have a forty degree
Speaker 2: temperature swing, you're getting a huge thermal push that day.
Speaker 2: So all of that goes into the equation and that
Speaker 2: helps steer me into where I want to set up. Now,
Speaker 2: that could mean where I want to set up a
Speaker 2: permanent setup over a big scrape or a mock that
Speaker 2: I build, or if I'm being mobile and still just
Speaker 2: wanting to set up one hundred percent, everything's based on
Speaker 2: the wind everywhere I go. I will not hunt an
Speaker 2: old mature buck on a bad wind. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I will get out of my stand and
Speaker 2: pull it down and leave, or get out of a
Speaker 2: permanent and leave. If the wind starts to hurt me
Speaker 2: and is blowing in the direction that I believe he's betting,
Speaker 2: I leave. Yeah, And I'm very disciplined about that.
Speaker 1: So your approach is to the to the wind and
Speaker 1: your stands of the wind. You know, we've always talked
Speaker 1: about approaches like don't give him any wind, don't let
Speaker 1: them smell your trails where you think they're coming from,
Speaker 1: none of that. But how how much wind are you
Speaker 1: willing to give a big mature white tail? And when
Speaker 1: I say give him win, like don't let him smell you,
Speaker 1: but you will what you may give him ninety degrees,
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty degrees, Like how much you're willing
Speaker 1: to risk it? Because some people say those big mature
Speaker 1: deer aren't going to move unless they've got some advantage
Speaker 1: or some idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all my big bucks that I kill, they have
Speaker 2: almost they almost have ninety percent of the wind. Here's
Speaker 2: how I'm killing them. I'm usually killing them where my
Speaker 2: wind misses their entrance travel route to me by twenty
Speaker 2: yards at most, or fifteen yards. I rarely kill a
Speaker 2: big buck when the wind's blowing in my face. So
Speaker 2: the wind I'm always killing on an edge. Wind always
Speaker 2: just off the edge of what he thinks, he thinks
Speaker 2: he's safe. He doesn't pick me up because the wind
Speaker 2: is I mean, it's splitting hairs and you get beat
Speaker 2: because of it. But I also see him in the
Speaker 2: daylight more often because I am I am dissecting that
Speaker 2: wind and just getting off to the edge of that
Speaker 2: wind of his, yes, or.
Speaker 1: Or using maybe the little bit of the elevation of energy,
Speaker 1: got just to kind of blow over him for a second,
Speaker 1: or whatever you need to.
Speaker 2: But like you said, thermal a thermal rise, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's when I say wind for your listeners, I
Speaker 2: mean thermal wind prevailing mixes all the time, the mix
Speaker 2: of it. I'm always playing that mix.
Speaker 1: Yep. No, I'm with you and a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, they have el kind of with me think
Speaker 1: I'm crazy because I'll you know, blow my wind puffer
Speaker 1: and we'll go in a direction. I'm like, a big
Speaker 1: bull is not going to just They will at times,
Speaker 1: but the majority of bulls we kill and call in,
Speaker 1: I'm only giving them, you know, like you said, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty forty degrees of wind. Otherwise they've got me nailed.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're going to kill them. And you
Speaker 1: have to shoot them before they cross that imaginary line.
Speaker 2: Yep elk. Cunning for me has always been enjoyable because
Speaker 2: I can move on the ground on the wind. And
Speaker 2: if there's one thing that I feel like I have
Speaker 2: an exceptional understanding of is how the wind works in
Speaker 2: the mountains, because that's all you know, four decades of
Speaker 2: hunting it, and you do even then big then big
Speaker 2: bulls all day and all the all the smart mature
Speaker 2: animals don't care for a ball or a female. Uh
Speaker 2: you know, all the mature animals, they're alive because they've
Speaker 2: learned to use that wind, especially in the tight quarters
Speaker 2: we hunt out here. It's tight, we're not I'm not
Speaker 2: hardly glassing anything because I can't.
Speaker 1: It's so fair yep yep Okay, let's switch directions a
Speaker 1: little bit. We we touched on you know, these this
Speaker 1: early season, you know, betting the feeding routine, trying to
Speaker 1: get them out of their bed in time, on their
Speaker 1: feet in the daylight. Let's say we're moving into you know,
Speaker 1: late October into November, and we're starting to hunt these deer,
Speaker 1: you know, and there there's probably different in between, you
Speaker 1: know that that mid October. But let's say we're moving
Speaker 1: through the seasons. How does your strategy change as we
Speaker 1: start to get towards this rut and they may start to,
Speaker 1: you know, change their their mind is not just on
Speaker 1: food and security now it's food security, and you know
Speaker 1: the rut the doze.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing that people leave out and we left
Speaker 2: out there is they always socially communicate on linking branches
Speaker 2: and scrapes through the whole season, through the spring, through
Speaker 2: the summer, through the winter. When they migrate out and
Speaker 2: come back, they go straight to the scrapes right away.
Speaker 2: So I always have one common denominator always everywhere I go,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if I'm in Ohio, Idaho, Washington, Alberta, Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, North Dakota. I always have a scrape involved
Speaker 2: because that scent is like guys that are really good
Speaker 2: trappers will get this scent is incredibly powerful if you're
Speaker 2: a trapper and you know it. I trap big mountain
Speaker 2: white tails on a scrape. So my one common denominator
Speaker 2: is I always have a scrape working for me on
Speaker 2: that buck. And then as I progress into October and November,
Speaker 2: the biggest moves that I make on my specific dear
Speaker 2: I'm trying to kill are going to be in conjunction
Speaker 2: with the dough family groups that he wants to serve
Speaker 2: and that he's showed me in the past that he
Speaker 2: services before I decide to hunting. So a lot of
Speaker 2: times what I end up doing Jason is moving not
Speaker 2: a long ways away from his summer betting hermit hideout,
Speaker 2: but I usually end up moving a little bit down
Speaker 2: in elevation to where the dough family groups are spending
Speaker 2: more time, and then I hunt those big white tails
Speaker 2: all the way into December on those big community scrapes
Speaker 2: where there's more does to keep it simple?
Speaker 1: Gotcha? That makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's simple science, simple science, Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: So you're using that licking branch or that scrape is Basically,
Speaker 1: it's it's the it's the communal way of that deer
Speaker 1: knowing what other deer in the area. And you're pretty
Speaker 1: convinced that the majority, if not all, the deer in
Speaker 1: that area are going to go visit that to to
Speaker 1: you know, let other deer know they're there or they're
Speaker 1: in that that basin or in that drainage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not just convinced. I have decades of proof
Speaker 2: of it since I started running video. So those old
Speaker 2: bucks have spent so much time on those scrapes because
Speaker 2: it's like you and I being on social media, this
Speaker 2: is how we communicate. A scrape is where they leave
Speaker 2: their identity to let every deer in the mountains know.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter where you hunt white tails, white
Speaker 2: tails or white tails, they do it everywhere. That scrape
Speaker 2: is that common denominator that you can hunt a deer
Speaker 2: over any in any state legally, you can hunt a
Speaker 2: scrape always. And what ends up happening with our mountain
Speaker 2: white tails and with white tails everywhere I go is
Speaker 2: when that rut gets closer, the scrapes that are closer
Speaker 2: to the dough family groups, that the dough family groups
Speaker 2: adhere to more and that the doughs check more. Of course,
Speaker 2: the big bucks start checking those more frequently, so I
Speaker 2: might leave a scrape that he was checking, say in
Speaker 2: September more often because he's moved down onto three dough
Speaker 2: family groups on a big scrape that he's checked for
Speaker 2: five years or for four years ahead of me.
Speaker 1: Yes, gotcha, gotcha. That's the great information toy. Like I say,
Speaker 1: some of this stuff is over my head. But when
Speaker 1: you when you talk about it, it all makes sense. Just
Speaker 1: as a hunter, it's like, oh, that that makes sense,
Speaker 1: and that's your you know, whether it's you know, for elk,
Speaker 1: we really don't have that, you know, calm. You may
Speaker 1: have an idea, but like you know, we check wallows,
Speaker 1: we check you know, passes in the ridge lines, but
Speaker 1: we don't have that like scrape to go to. So
Speaker 1: it's there's a little bit more of the unknown when
Speaker 1: it comes to Elk versus it sounds like on white tail,
Speaker 1: it's like that is the key.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think early season because the elkcret's way
Speaker 2: earlier the white tails that wallow is the closest thing
Speaker 2: to a scrape because bulls piss all over at them,
Speaker 2: they leave a lot of sand and moose scrape. All
Speaker 2: of our ungulates scraped a wallow would be an elk scrape,
Speaker 2: and guys have had a lot of luck over the
Speaker 2: years if you're patients and think the thing about elk
Speaker 2: cut is patients over a wallow can be hard for
Speaker 2: a lot of guys. I'm a super patient hunter when
Speaker 2: it comes to putting the time in with a big buck,
Speaker 2: so that helps me because I'll be patient with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of patients, how many deer day do you
Speaker 1: see on a typical mountain hunt when you're targeting a
Speaker 1: specific big buck.
Speaker 2: This time of the year. Some this this time of
Speaker 2: the year, sometimes I don't see a deer because the
Speaker 2: only deer I'm going to see is either him or nothing.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I think during the Yeah, and
Speaker 2: like yesterday I saw three deer on a two hour set,
Speaker 2: which I saw three dose, but then I checked my camera.
Speaker 2: The wolves were in the night before. My buck's nowhere
Speaker 2: to be around that, so I'm gonna have to go
Speaker 2: find him in a different spot.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I have to ask you why I got you?
Speaker 1: Do you? You know, what's your approach to calling real
Speaker 1: quickly sent control and the decoying. I know you got
Speaker 1: to get out. You're going to look for some white
Speaker 1: tails up in Alberta. So I'm just curious calling sent control,
Speaker 1: decoying and how you use those or if you use
Speaker 1: them at all.
Speaker 2: Calling. I'll just work through your list very minimal because
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to tip off a five or six
Speaker 2: year old deer. Now. People that are getting into this
Speaker 2: and wanting to kill a deer and super happy with
Speaker 2: any buck, you know, grunting social or rattling, not overdoing it.
Speaker 2: That's what I did years ago. And you're going to
Speaker 2: get that age structure to younger. You're going to have
Speaker 2: more opportunities on younger age structure deer. I have nothing
Speaker 2: against it, but I have learned over the years of
Speaker 2: my old bucks they're pretty privy to what's going on now.
Speaker 2: The call my go to call is a snort wheeze.
Speaker 2: On any big buck, I'll snort wheeze him any time
Speaker 2: of the year, and he'll use he come to me,
Speaker 2: he'll useally check me out because he's such a dominant deer.
Speaker 2: So snort wheeze. I don't ever blindly snort wheeze. I
Speaker 2: don't ever blindly rattle, but I will use that stuff
Speaker 2: even early season a tickle if a buck gets by
Speaker 2: me and I want to try to bring him back
Speaker 2: during the rut. I'm not a blind hardly Ever, the
Speaker 2: safest call there is in the white tail rut that
Speaker 2: will pull a deer and never spooky, is a soft
Speaker 2: social dough grunt. You'll never hurt yourself with that hunting bucks,
Speaker 2: and it's not a threatening call to any deer. So
Speaker 2: my calling, I would say, is minimal, but it's tactical
Speaker 2: and strategic, okay. And then in SCNC control, I get
Speaker 2: as clean as I can. My clothes never come inside.
Speaker 2: They always hang outside. I believe the earth cleans your
Speaker 2: clothes better than anything. I try to stay away from
Speaker 2: toats and stuff with moisture, so I'll just throw my
Speaker 2: clothes in a open garbage bay has some air coming
Speaker 2: in and out of it, or it doesn't seal any
Speaker 2: moisture in. And then I always get dressed outside of
Speaker 2: my truck, go hunt, come back, Strip my clothes off
Speaker 2: real quick, throw them in that bag, take them back,
Speaker 2: hang them outside. They never come in a house. They're
Speaker 2: really never allowed. Even in the front of my pickup.
Speaker 2: They're in that garbage contractor's bag that's sent free, but
Speaker 2: it has some air breathing into it if you will.
Speaker 2: So that's and I use baking soda only to wash
Speaker 2: my clothes in I've done that for decades. It works
Speaker 2: amazing my personal scent control. I'm playing edge Winds, so
Speaker 2: I do use a vanishing a hunter from buck Fever
Speaker 2: synthetics that I've used for almost thirty years. And all
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do there is minimize my human odor
Speaker 2: because I want a whitetail buck. If he does pick
Speaker 2: me up and come in down wind to me, I
Speaker 2: want my scent molecular cone to seem to him like
Speaker 2: I was there a day earlier, or maybe I'm four
Speaker 2: or five hundred yards away. For example, you walk by
Speaker 2: a skunk at twenty yards versus walking by a skunk
Speaker 2: at four hundred yards, You're going to react different as
Speaker 2: a human based on the concentration of molecules of negative scent.
Speaker 2: So I do play that game a little, but I
Speaker 2: don't think you can ever be one hundred percent sent free.
Speaker 2: I want to be clear on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha, Okay, what was the third one? And decoys?
Speaker 1: And I think I know the answer high mountain stuff.
Speaker 1: You're not probably packing big giants in there, but I'm
Speaker 1: curious to see. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, the best decoy in the world is a live
Speaker 2: though the best decoy or a young buck that an
Speaker 2: old buck comes in and season is scrape and he
Speaker 2: runs off. So my goal is to have live decoys,
Speaker 2: live deer in my scrapes daily in the daylight.
Speaker 1: Yep, all right, Well, out of respect your time, Troy,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate you jumping on. I know you got
Speaker 1: to get up to Alberta to do some scouting for
Speaker 1: a later hunt, but how can people follow along with
Speaker 1: more of your adventures or find out more about you
Speaker 1: and what you got going on.
Speaker 2: First of all, Jason, thanks for having me. Glad we
Speaker 2: got to sneak this in the easiest way to get
Speaker 2: a hold of me, guys is my Instagram is where
Speaker 2: I talk hunting. I kind of use my Facebook for
Speaker 2: family stuff anyway. All that to say, my Instagram handle
Speaker 2: is m t and Underscore Man, so Mount Man thirty
Speaker 2: three and that's just a name that was kind of
Speaker 2: given to me my my buddies from the white Tail
Speaker 2: Dixters team because I hunt my mount white Tails and
Speaker 2: I have my whole.
Speaker 1: Life, gotcha? Well, uh no, I appreciate it. Hopefully you
Speaker 1: catch up to that big giant buck that you shared
Speaker 1: with me last night and the good luck scouting in Alberta,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll see a big buck on the ground.
Speaker 1: Like I say, you're obviously a wealth of knowledge. I
Speaker 1: wish we could have talked for hours, but you're you're busy,
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll u we'll bring you back around on
Speaker 1: the on the show for for episode two here coming up.
Speaker 2: Let's do it, Jason. It's a it's a pleasure to
Speaker 2: get a meet you. I've seen a lot of your
Speaker 2: stuff on social media. Good luck to you this season.
Speaker 1: Yep, you too, Troy.
Speaker 3: Take care, have a good one
Speaker 2: This