Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the Whitetail woods presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm running Steve Shirk through our what would
Speaker 2: you Do gauntlet, getting us insight into exactly how we'd
Speaker 2: handle some of the most challenging deer hunting scenarios. I
Speaker 2: can throw them all right, and welcome to the Wired
Speaker 2: to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and
Speaker 2: our Camel for Conservation initiative. Every piece of First Light
Speaker 2: gear in our white tail Camel pattern that specter. A
Speaker 2: percent of each one of those sales is going to
Speaker 2: go back to the National Deer Association to help with
Speaker 2: their mission to fight for deer and deer hunters all
Speaker 2: across the country. Good stuff. So this week on the show,
Speaker 2: we are continuing are what would You Do series, in
Speaker 2: which we are running our guests during the month of
Speaker 2: August through a gauntlet of different situations, very specific hypothetical
Speaker 2: deer hunting scenarios to see how they would deal with them,
Speaker 2: what they would be thinking about, what their thought process
Speaker 2: would be, what they're going to consider, and how they
Speaker 2: would actually execute on that plan. And today our guest
Speaker 2: is Steve Shirk. Steve Hale's from the mountains of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: where he's made a name for himself chasing big woods,
Speaker 2: big mountain bucks across the state's vast public lands. And
Speaker 2: he's not just doing it successfully for himself, he's also
Speaker 2: leading dozens of other hunters to success through his outfitting business,
Speaker 2: Shirks Guide Service. So in addition to all that, he
Speaker 2: is also somehow finding time to share his insights through
Speaker 2: articles he writes for North American Whitetail, all sorts of
Speaker 2: YouTube videos and podcasts, and plenty of other things too.
Speaker 2: So in short, Steve is a wealth of information and
Speaker 2: a go to source for expert advice on hunting DIY
Speaker 2: public land bucks. Which is why I'm so excited to
Speaker 2: get to talk to him today and to run him
Speaker 2: through the gauntlet. So that's what we're gonna do today.
Speaker 2: I've got a lot of interesting questions and scenarios for him,
Speaker 2: but before we get into that, I do just want
Speaker 2: to pause briefly and thank all of you who came
Speaker 2: out to our Working for Wildlife tour this past weekend
Speaker 2: in Missouri. Man, it was awesome. We had a great
Speaker 2: show on showing. I think it's the word I'm looking
Speaker 2: for you a great showing or turnout. Maybe it would
Speaker 2: be the better choice of people who came out to
Speaker 2: volunteer on this piece of public land there in eastern Missouri.
Speaker 2: It was a really cool event. We did a kind
Speaker 2: of a diverse array of different things. We were cutting
Speaker 2: invasive woody trees out of wetland areas, so we'removing willows
Speaker 2: and different things are going to crowd out that important
Speaker 2: wetland habitat in this area. We installed owl purchase for
Speaker 2: short eared owls, which are an important species of conservation
Speaker 2: need I believe out there in Missouri, and these these
Speaker 2: owls are coming from across the continent and wintering here
Speaker 2: in this area. So we installed these different kind of
Speaker 2: wooden snag purchase. Out in the prairie habitat. We were
Speaker 2: collecting seeds from some of the native prairie in which
Speaker 2: they could use those seeds later for re replanting and
Speaker 2: restoration of prairie habitat. Elsewhere, we were building wood duck boxes,
Speaker 2: repairing blinds for they've got some pre installed blinds for
Speaker 2: handicap access on this piece of public land. So there's
Speaker 2: folks working on that. All sorts of really good things
Speaker 2: going on that we're going to improve wildlife habitat or
Speaker 2: improve you know, the situation for hunters or other recorators
Speaker 2: out there, which was just a really cool thing to
Speaker 2: be a part of. I think everyone had a really
Speaker 2: good time. And after the volunteer day there was a
Speaker 2: social event in which there was a number of different speakers,
Speaker 2: some from the Missouri Department of Conservation, and then myself
Speaker 2: I shared a story and talked a little bit about
Speaker 2: stewardship and some of my experiences there. So man, great time.
Speaker 2: Just wanted to again reiterate how much I appreciate everyone
Speaker 2: showing up for that being a part of it. I
Speaker 2: hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.
Speaker 2: We've got two more events coming up. There's gonna be
Speaker 2: one in Mississippi at the end of September, and then
Speaker 2: there's one in Kentucky in the middle of October, so
Speaker 2: if you're in those regions, stay tuned. More details to come.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to meeting plenty more of you having good
Speaker 2: time out there and doing something good for wildlife. So
Speaker 2: with out of the way, I do think we should
Speaker 2: get to our main event today. We've got Steve Shirk,
Speaker 2: We've got some really interesting hunting scenarios, we got some
Speaker 2: learning to do. Let's get to it all right here
Speaker 2: with me now I have got the one and only
Speaker 2: Steve Shirk. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Steve, Hey, thanks a lot for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we're making this happen. You've you've made a
Speaker 2: name for yourself in recent years across the whitetail web,
Speaker 2: and you've got what seems like a really interesting skill
Speaker 2: set in your region, and you're doing it at a
Speaker 2: really consistent rate with a high quantity of success. And
Speaker 2: the fact that you also, you know, run a guide
Speaker 2: service I think makes you even more interesting maybe than
Speaker 2: just a guy who hunts for himself, because you've got
Speaker 2: a whole different level of pressure and a whole different
Speaker 2: level of data points. I've always thought that outfitters have
Speaker 2: this really interesting, you know, view of the world because
Speaker 2: they aren't just observing what they see in the woods themselves.
Speaker 2: They talk to the different people that are hunting with
Speaker 2: them every day, every week and you get it must
Speaker 2: be a boatload of information you're getting in. So it's
Speaker 2: all that said, I'm counting on you to be like
Speaker 2: an absolute banger of a guest for our gauntlet we're
Speaker 2: gonna go through here today, because because you have the
Speaker 2: minds of like hundreds of hunters in your head, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna assume right.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, I know that you hit the nail on
Speaker 3: the head.
Speaker 2: So so the gist of what we're doing here is
Speaker 2: the what would you do? Gauntlet? So I'm gonna run
Speaker 2: you through a bunch of specific hypothetical hunting scenarios and
Speaker 2: then you know, I'm looking for you to walk me
Speaker 2: through how you would handle it, what you would do,
Speaker 2: why you would do it, and paint me as much
Speaker 2: of a picture of that as you can. So do
Speaker 2: you feel like you were up for that challenge?
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely ready.
Speaker 2: Okay, So in the interest of time, then we're not
Speaker 2: gonna beat around the bush. I do want to know
Speaker 2: if you've got a big giant buck you're excited about
Speaker 2: this season, but I'll just let you slip that in
Speaker 2: at some point through our conversation today, if and when
Speaker 2: you feel it's appropriate because I want to get us
Speaker 2: right into the meat and potatoes and stuff. So let
Speaker 2: me just throw you kind of a softball ish to start.
Speaker 2: I think it'll just warmed up. Given your experience a
Speaker 2: PA guy who's hunting all sorts of public land out there,
Speaker 2: it sounds like you've got a really a really in
Speaker 2: depth knowledge of your home turf, of your corner of
Speaker 2: the state. You're you're working a lot of land. But
Speaker 2: what if I did this. What if I picked you
Speaker 2: up right now and said you had to move out
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania and I'm going to drop you down in
Speaker 2: maybe like North Carolina or Tennessee, you know, still kind
Speaker 2: of that Appalachic kind of big timber mountain stuff, but
Speaker 2: brand new state, brand new area. And I said, all right,
Speaker 2: figure it out. It's late August. You've never stepped foot
Speaker 2: out here. Walk me through how you would approach your
Speaker 2: scouting and prep if you had to start from scratch
Speaker 2: in you know, the National Forest down in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Just one other question too, that is this like
Speaker 3: a pre scouting mission weeks ahead of the hunt? Are
Speaker 3: we talking like coming in five days before the hunt? Yep.
Speaker 2: So let's say you are moving end of August. So like,
Speaker 2: you know, right right about now when people are listening,
Speaker 2: Let's say that's when you show up, and I guess
Speaker 2: Tennessee's season though they opened pretty early.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're going to be, you know, pretty if
Speaker 2: not season's on, it's coming up very quickly. And so
Speaker 2: so walk me through the prep, the scouting, the prep
Speaker 2: or anything that might happen before you actually get out
Speaker 2: there with a bow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's you know, even though I'm kind of
Speaker 3: stuck to my home area, there's so much ground here
Speaker 3: that I'm always learning anyways, and you know, I'm a
Speaker 3: big boots on the ground type of scouter. I've learned
Speaker 3: on public land you kind of have to look for
Speaker 3: different things that a lot of people are, you know,
Speaker 3: not really willing to put the foot work and the
Speaker 3: sweat and equity into to try to stay away from
Speaker 3: other hunters and try to find gear and individual bucks
Speaker 3: that aren't getting pressured. I also think that a lot
Speaker 3: of these bucks are catching on to the trends and
Speaker 3: the patterns and what everyone else is doing. There's so
Speaker 3: many of these podcasts out there and so much information
Speaker 3: that it's like there's always something new every year that
Speaker 3: someone like me or another well experienced hunter starts mentioning
Speaker 3: that's working for them, and then everyone catches on to that.
Speaker 3: So I'm always trying to evolve and do things differently.
Speaker 3: So I'd be going into that area looking for overlooked areas,
Speaker 3: maybe some more remote stuff hard to access, but I'd
Speaker 3: be doing a lot of boots on the ground. Probably
Speaker 3: the first thing I'd be looking for is trying to
Speaker 3: see what food sources are in the area, is their
Speaker 3: mass crops. I tend to stay away from clearcuts more
Speaker 3: than what I used so I used to love hunting clearcuts,
Speaker 3: but everybody's hunting them because they're so easy to from
Speaker 3: the scouting that you know, once again, it's just another
Speaker 3: thing you kind of have to adjust to. So I'd
Speaker 3: be really spending a lot of time and like you know,
Speaker 3: these more remote heart accessed areas, uh, looking also for
Speaker 3: like you know, high stem count areas. We spend a
Speaker 3: lot of time in higher elevations trying to figure out,
Speaker 3: you know, some betting areas and just covering ground very thoroughly.
Speaker 3: If it's late August early September, we're probably gonna start
Speaker 3: to see a little bit of buck sign. I think
Speaker 3: at that time too, you can catch your buck on
Speaker 3: a decent daytime feeding pattern. So I'd probably be trying
Speaker 3: to find somewhere where you know, food and betting was
Speaker 3: kind of close. Maybe find some hot sign in those areas,
Speaker 3: but overall, you know, more than anything, I would be
Speaker 3: looking for those more remote hard to access that way, especially,
Speaker 3: you know, when you throw hunting pressure in the mix,
Speaker 3: that completely changes up you know, bucks, his patterns and
Speaker 3: the way he's going to act. So it's so much
Speaker 3: easier when you can find a buck that no one
Speaker 3: knows about, you know, no one's, no one's bothering, and
Speaker 3: you can catch him doing his usual thing. You know,
Speaker 3: it's much easier to read his mind and what his
Speaker 3: next step is going to be. So I think if
Speaker 3: that answers that question decent enough, or if you want
Speaker 3: to add on to it, I think That's where I'm at.
Speaker 2: Yes, So so I'm curious, you know, a day of
Speaker 2: boots on the ground like that, Let's say, does that
Speaker 2: look like you pick in a chunk and like grid
Speaker 2: searching everything in that area, or do you go into
Speaker 2: it with like some high led places on a map
Speaker 2: and you're just walking from this place that looks good
Speaker 2: to this place that looks good to this place. You
Speaker 2: know what, like how does that actual day usually play out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the first thing, I'm really only looking
Speaker 3: at a map, like the first time picking out an area,
Speaker 3: and all I really look for anymore is hard to
Speaker 3: access or areas that may not have a lot of
Speaker 3: hiking trails or especially a lot of roads, or you know,
Speaker 3: somewhere where there's pretty good stretch of ground that you
Speaker 3: really got to put you know, put the footwork in
Speaker 3: to get to. I used to not be that way,
Speaker 3: but like I said, that's what I've had to had
Speaker 3: to do over the years is you know, things started.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say that the hunting pressure in
Speaker 3: my area is getting worse. It's just hunters are getting
Speaker 3: smarter reading maps and figuring out, you know, where they
Speaker 3: want to be that you know, I've kind of just
Speaker 3: banked off of that change and you know, adjusted to it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, just that first time I'm going to look
Speaker 3: on a map and you know, I'm not looking for
Speaker 3: much for terrain features right off the bat, or you know,
Speaker 3: not doing any e scouting where where I can really
Speaker 3: see what the habitat looks like. I'm just looking for
Speaker 3: a really hard to get to area, difficult terrain, because
Speaker 3: almost always that's where you're going to find a really
Speaker 3: big deer, especially nowadays these you know, it may not
Speaker 3: be the best habitat or the most perfect ridge to
Speaker 3: bet on, but his number one need is security and
Speaker 3: getting away, you know from other hunters. So I'm looking
Speaker 3: for somewhere like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if I were to move your start date
Speaker 2: up from you know, end of August, and instead I
Speaker 2: said you're not showing up till October, and like it's
Speaker 2: hunting season, it's one would you still go and do
Speaker 2: this major boots on the ground cover everything and just
Speaker 2: like do a rip off the band Aid kind of thing,
Speaker 2: or would you approach your scouting and intel much more
Speaker 2: conservatively because you know it's hunting season.
Speaker 3: I think I'd be a little more cautious. It also
Speaker 3: depends on what stage of October we're talking about. I mean,
Speaker 3: if it's early October, that's when I'm even more cautious
Speaker 3: because it really seems like Bucks in my area they
Speaker 3: really shrink up their home range. Then you know they've
Speaker 3: just broke up from bachelor groups or solo. They're kind
Speaker 3: of just in a new world at that time, and
Speaker 3: they really seem to be really skittish, so I'd be
Speaker 3: a little bit more careful. Then I'd probably focus more
Speaker 3: on high elevation betting and see if I can find
Speaker 3: some hot sign around the edge of those you know,
Speaker 3: those betting areas and maybe try to catch that gear,
Speaker 3: you know, more out of evening feed pattern, you know,
Speaker 3: coming out of that betting area going to a food source.
Speaker 3: But if it's like mid to late October, I'll get
Speaker 3: a little more aggressive because that's when I start to
Speaker 3: see Bucks doing what I call the rut shift, where
Speaker 3: they're kind of breakout of that solo betting feed pattern
Speaker 3: and they start paying you know, more attention to what
Speaker 3: does are doing in their you know, in their home range,
Speaker 3: and they will you know, one day they might bed
Speaker 3: in one place, one day they might might another because
Speaker 3: you know they're starting to expand and you know, look around.
Speaker 3: So I don't think you're as intrusive that time of year. Plus, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of sign popping up in areas,
Speaker 3: and I think it's a really good time to hunt
Speaker 3: scrapes and rub lines then, so I think you can
Speaker 3: be a little more aggressive. At that time, you're just
Speaker 3: defined hot sign.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's let's play that a little further than So.
Speaker 2: Let's imagine you're in there in October doing your scouting,
Speaker 2: and let's say you stumble onto like a no Questions
Speaker 2: asked big Buck bedroom. You get in there, and all
Speaker 2: the alarm bells start flashing, like you're like, oh man, like,
Speaker 2: I'm in it, this is it? What do you do
Speaker 2: in like in the moments that follow and then leading
Speaker 2: up to whenever you might hunt it? And I guess
Speaker 2: I will preface that by saying, could you also describe
Speaker 2: for me what would you need to see for those
Speaker 2: kinds of alarm bells to go off? So what would
Speaker 2: it be that would make you think, oh wow, I'm
Speaker 2: in a big Buck bedroom in the kind of places hunt?
Speaker 2: And then what would you do you know? Following that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: either if I'm scouting or hunting perspective, Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: Most likely I'm probably not going to run into a bed,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to run into signs. The only reason
Speaker 3: why I'm probably not going to look for a bed
Speaker 3: is I don't really want to bump a deer out
Speaker 3: of his bed at that time. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 3: I do believe that you can bump and instill, you know,
Speaker 3: dump or whatever they call it, bump and dump, but
Speaker 3: I really don't want to bump that deer out of
Speaker 3: that area if I can, so usually what I'll do is,
Speaker 3: you know, I'll try to get on the fringes of
Speaker 3: what I think is a betting area, and that's where
Speaker 3: I tend to find quite a bit of sign I
Speaker 3: call it like a neutral zone where a buck might
Speaker 3: have a patch of cover that he's claiming, you know,
Speaker 3: he's got several beds in, but you'll get a lot
Speaker 3: of deer activity on that edge. It's kind of like
Speaker 3: almost like a transition area that you know, deer may
Speaker 3: not want to go in there and disturb him because
Speaker 3: they might get their butt kicked, especially a younger buck,
Speaker 3: but they will, they'll skirt those edges, and that's where
Speaker 3: that buck's going to throw a lot of that sign
Speaker 3: out because he's telling other deer, and he's communicating with
Speaker 3: other deer that that's his area. It's kind of like
Speaker 3: putting posted signs on the edge of your property, or
Speaker 3: you know, on your property boundary. That's kind of what
Speaker 3: that deer is doing. So that's what I'd be looking for,
Speaker 3: looking for some hot, big sign, you know, on the
Speaker 3: edges of thick cover high elevations, especially because I've at
Speaker 3: least in where I'm from, uh probably ninety percent of
Speaker 3: our buck betting is on the upper third, so that's
Speaker 3: you know, even though that'd be a new area to me,
Speaker 3: I would relate my past experiences here and find those
Speaker 3: high elevation covers. But then I'm also looking for an
Speaker 3: active scrape on that edge too. What I've found that
Speaker 3: inside of those betting areas is, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people associate betting is betting only. I find that
Speaker 3: bucks do a ton of feeding in those betting areas,
Speaker 3: and even though it might not be their primary food source,
Speaker 3: it seems like they they don't come out of there
Speaker 3: as hungry, is what some people think, and they love
Speaker 3: to work like an active scrape kind of in that
Speaker 3: neutral zone area. Even though he might be heading to
Speaker 3: a primary food source, he might also be going to
Speaker 3: that primary food source just for the fact that he
Speaker 3: wants to socialize with other deer in his area. See
Speaker 3: what you know, maybe what competition he has as well,
Speaker 3: but I've done really well trying to find scrapes on
Speaker 3: the edge of that betting, especially if it's on a
Speaker 3: trail and enter an exit trail right on the edge,
Speaker 3: like that's been a dynamite spot for me in the past.
Speaker 3: That's probably where I would set up. The biggest thing, though,
Speaker 3: it's going to be in the mountains, is you know,
Speaker 3: how close do I think I am to where that
Speaker 3: deer is actually betting? And is the wind going to
Speaker 3: be consistent or not? So hard in the mountains sometimes
Speaker 3: to find consistent wind, So that's going to be a
Speaker 3: big part into it also. But then also sometimes the
Speaker 3: way I look at it, you know, and even here,
Speaker 3: because I may get to hunt a few times in
Speaker 3: the early part of the season and that's it. I
Speaker 3: do landscaping, so I'm still a little bit busy. Then
Speaker 3: sometimes I'll just gamble like this is my time to hunt.
Speaker 3: I may have three days, and I might just especially
Speaker 3: if I was traveling on a hunt, maybe I only
Speaker 3: have five. If I didn't see the right wind and
Speaker 3: I felt there was, you know, maybe only one good
Speaker 3: spot to kill that gear, I may just go in
Speaker 3: there late, like the last hour when the winds die down.
Speaker 3: That's what I tend to find is right before right
Speaker 3: before sundown, you'll see a break in the wind and
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of the you know, the
Speaker 3: activity or air activity is more thermal based than anyways.
Speaker 3: So I might try to find somewhere where I'm on
Speaker 3: the downhill side of that bedroom and those thermals are
Speaker 3: starting to drop, but I'd probably be willing to gamble
Speaker 3: in a short period of time anyways, and you know,
Speaker 3: see what happens. But I'm looking for the hot sign
Speaker 3: on the edge of thick cover, especially an active scrape,
Speaker 3: because that's where that gear is gonna want to before
Speaker 3: he heads to that primary food source. He's gonna want
Speaker 3: to see who's been around the fringes of his area.
Speaker 2: So that situation, when you know you're scouting your way through,
Speaker 2: you come across this edge where it's like gets really thick,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, you's some good rubs, some
Speaker 2: big scrape. When you see that first good sign where
Speaker 2: you get the alarm bells and like, oh wow, here
Speaker 2: we are. Is that as far as you go because
Speaker 2: you don't want to spook them, so you don't want
Speaker 2: to go any further. Or do you say, oh wow,
Speaker 2: I think there's probably a buck bedded. You know, this
Speaker 2: seems like I'm entering a bedroom. Will you do it?
Speaker 2: Will you explore any more of the peripherary to try
Speaker 2: to figure out where his main entry and exits out,
Speaker 2: or to see if there is more signed anywhere else? Basically,
Speaker 2: are you looking for the perfect spot right away? Or
Speaker 2: do you say, all right, this is good enough. That's
Speaker 2: all I need to know. I'm stopping now and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna set up somewhere on here.
Speaker 3: You know, it would depend on if I was going
Speaker 3: to plan to hunt that area of that day. I say,
Speaker 3: if it was a day before, I'd probably scout the
Speaker 3: whole perimeter of the cover just to see. I mean,
Speaker 3: sometimes you think you found that magic spot, but sometimes
Speaker 3: the grass is greener, you know, a couple hundred yards
Speaker 3: away too. So But if I was you know, got
Speaker 3: in there late. You know, it's two o'clock and you
Speaker 3: know I found something pretty good and I wanted to
Speaker 3: hunt that evening, that I would set up right then,
Speaker 3: you know, if I felt everything was right as far
Speaker 3: as wind and thermals, and you know, depending also on
Speaker 3: how much time I had to hunt there but yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just going to depend on, you know, when I
Speaker 3: find that sign. But like I said day before, I'm
Speaker 3: going to scout a little bit thoroughly also too, because
Speaker 3: it's probably a place I've never scouted ever and I'm
Speaker 3: just just learning this area. I would then do a
Speaker 3: little bit of e scouting because I tend to find
Speaker 3: that bucks like to bed on the edge of elevation drops.
Speaker 3: So if I, you know, looked on my phone or
Speaker 3: a map and I was like, well, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a couple more good shelves up above me, I would
Speaker 3: prefer to set up within the cover, then on the edge.
Speaker 3: I tend to find a lot of these bucks don't
Speaker 3: come out of those thickets until after dark. But you'd
Speaker 3: be amazed how many kind of used that inside edge
Speaker 3: of like like a staging area. He'll kind of wait till,
Speaker 3: you know, he'll browse his way out to you know,
Speaker 3: maybe to where he can see the open woods. It
Speaker 3: doesn't quite pop out till dark. I would try to
Speaker 3: push it a little bit if I felt, you know,
Speaker 3: if you know, if there is a good flat there
Speaker 3: that I could cut in on and too close to
Speaker 3: an elevation drop. I thought that deer was going to
Speaker 3: bet on, I would prefer to set up in the cover.
Speaker 3: You also got to keep noise in mind too, Like
Speaker 3: you know that deer is also not going to come,
Speaker 3: you know, if it's like a real you know, thick
Speaker 3: clear cut or just to thicket, it's so hard to
Speaker 3: sneak into those spots quietly. Sometimes you have no choice
Speaker 3: to set up on the edge. But you know, there's
Speaker 3: so many different factors you've got to you know, you've
Speaker 3: got to think about and make decisions on that. You know,
Speaker 3: I think you are a little bit better to back
Speaker 3: off and maybe hopefully you're within one hundred yards where
Speaker 3: that deer is laying. But if you think you can
Speaker 3: sneak another twenty thirty forty yards further, I mean it
Speaker 3: doesn't sound like much, but telling you just getting in
Speaker 3: that cover a little bit could be the factor between
Speaker 3: ever seeing that year and you know, getting an opportunity.
Speaker 3: So if I can sneak in there quietly, I'm going
Speaker 3: to hunt in that cover. I like it.
Speaker 2: All right. Let's uh, let's take you back home. Let's
Speaker 2: say you're back on your home turf, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: guess let me clarify. One thing is it right that
Speaker 2: you've run more than one hundred and fifty trail cameras
Speaker 2: on any given year somewhere in that ballpark.
Speaker 3: Is it true, you mean? Or is it unethical? No?
Speaker 2: No, not that not an ethics question. I want to
Speaker 2: make sure you got my numbers right. You've got a
Speaker 2: lot of games though, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, last year I had one hundred and round one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy five out last year. And that's just
Speaker 3: also to get to clarify, that's in about a thirty
Speaker 3: mile stretch too. It's not like I got seventy cameras
Speaker 3: on a few square miles, so it's in a big area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So with that in mind, you've got one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five some trail cameras scattered across the
Speaker 2: mountains out there. You've got a plan in place, you've
Speaker 2: scouted all off season. You're going into the season with
Speaker 2: a specific set of target bucks maybe you're after. And
Speaker 2: let's say it's that early ish part of October, so
Speaker 2: you've got some stuff with regular work going on still,
Speaker 2: but you do have some spots to hunt, some opportunities.
Speaker 2: And let's say you're about to head in to hunt,
Speaker 2: and what you find out, though, is just before your
Speaker 2: big you know swipe you're gonna take it a couple
Speaker 2: of target bucks. You get a brand new deer showing up,
Speaker 2: brand new buck you've never seen before, a buck that
Speaker 2: kind of blows everything else out of the water. So
Speaker 2: we're going to another level of deer where all of
Speaker 2: a sudden and he consumes you, and you realize WHOA like,
Speaker 2: this is a deer that I have to drop everything
Speaker 2: else to try to get a crack at him, because
Speaker 2: this would be by far the biggest deer we've ever
Speaker 2: ever heard of out here. Yeah, how does your trail
Speaker 2: camera strategy or placement or checking of cameras change in
Speaker 2: this case where you had stuff everwhere, you had a
Speaker 2: plan in place, You had your places in specific spots
Speaker 2: for reasons, but all of a sudden, new buck in
Speaker 2: a place that maybe you don't have covered terribly Well,
Speaker 2: what do you do now in that situation to figure
Speaker 2: out this brain of deer in a new set of circumstances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you saying that maybe I just had a
Speaker 3: random camera in there and all of a sudden I
Speaker 3: got a picture of this mega deer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's say you've got one, yep, good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It would depend on the time of day or
Speaker 3: night when I got a picture of that, dear, and
Speaker 3: how I would approach you. I mean, if I fits
Speaker 3: early October and I get a daytime picture of that deer,
Speaker 3: I'm going to say, like, holy Colin, I'm close to
Speaker 3: where this geer is betting. If it's a night picture,
Speaker 3: that's the whole different ballgame. Even though I would say
Speaker 3: that time of year, you know, they're not covering a
Speaker 3: ton of ground. That year could be two or three
Speaker 3: miles away from where it's betting. You know, I'm a
Speaker 3: huge uh not as far as how trail cam data goes.
Speaker 3: And you know, I try to take every little piece
Speaker 3: of intel of any photo I get, you know, so
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, I'll make it. I'll make this the
Speaker 3: hard harder question and say that, you know, I got
Speaker 3: a picture this year at midnight and it looks like
Speaker 3: he's traveling, you know, east to west. I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 3: because I you know, if it's in my home range,
Speaker 3: even though you know, I don't know every square inch,
Speaker 3: but yet I know I know my woods really really well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna try to figure Okay, what was
Speaker 3: on this year's mind? Where was he coming from? Where
Speaker 3: was he going? You know, at midnight, he could be
Speaker 3: doing a lot of different things, but chances are he's
Speaker 3: thinking food more than anything, primary food source. So I'm watching,
Speaker 3: you know, is this gear possibly heading towards a primary
Speaker 3: food source? You know very likely? Or you know, was
Speaker 3: that dear heading towards water? But I'm trying to put
Speaker 3: where he's you know, what what was on that deer's mind?
Speaker 3: Where was he going? And especially the same thing, maybe
Speaker 3: where he was coming from the direction of travel, Uh
Speaker 3: is huge for me, and as well as too is
Speaker 3: maybe paying attention to the weather, the upcoming weather and
Speaker 3: what that was going to be. A lot of times,
Speaker 3: you know, in a wind shift or weather front, that
Speaker 3: gear may go on a little even a little excursion
Speaker 3: during a weather you know, big weather front that time
Speaker 3: of year too. But I'm just basically trying to get
Speaker 3: as much information out of that trail camp photo as
Speaker 3: I possibly can, and then I will start to make
Speaker 3: up a game plan from there. If you want to
Speaker 3: add to that question a little bit, you know, it
Speaker 3: might it might be better. But like I said, I
Speaker 3: take every photo. You know, I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: little Bucks and does. But anytime I get a big
Speaker 3: deer on camera, night day, it doesn't matter. I'm taking
Speaker 3: information from that and I'm trying to think what that
Speaker 3: deer was doing and where that deer was coming from.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you get this photo, you analyze that, You're
Speaker 2: asking yourself all those questions the next day or the
Speaker 2: next chance you get when you have the right circumstances
Speaker 2: to go in there, are you going to do anything
Speaker 2: to try to put more pieces of the puzzle together?
Speaker 2: Like will you go and add a bunch of new
Speaker 2: cameras into that zone to complete the picture, or will
Speaker 2: you go do some additional on the ground scouting in
Speaker 2: that zone to try to learn more? Like is there
Speaker 2: anything like that that you'll do next?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the you know, biggest individual deer that I've
Speaker 3: ever hunted, I've always clustered cameras in those areas. What
Speaker 3: I found is, you know, especially in the big woods,
Speaker 3: it's not like these deer on the same path every day. However,
Speaker 3: you know, there's these little little zones of movement that
Speaker 3: you you know that you're going to find and taken
Speaker 3: advantage of, especially closer to daytime hours and early October.
Speaker 3: You know, you might hear a lot of people talk
Speaker 3: about hotting food sources, but where I'm from, it's all,
Speaker 3: you know, basically betting, you know, getting as close to
Speaker 3: that bet as you possibly can. Like I don't find
Speaker 3: bucks in the daytime unless I'm close to betting, So
Speaker 3: I'd be clustering cameras, you know, around where I think
Speaker 3: that deer is betting. But I'd also be real careful
Speaker 3: on checking them too. When I cluster cameras, I'm usually
Speaker 3: also trying to bank off of you know, I said
Speaker 3: it like this and to other people other podcasts look
Speaker 3: at it like how a baseball defense or baseball field
Speaker 3: is set up. You got left right, center field, you
Speaker 3: got the infield, and then you got you know, home plate.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be using cameras and focusing more these
Speaker 3: camera checks, like in the outfield of the field versus
Speaker 3: home plate. I may sneak a camera into where I
Speaker 3: think I'm going to kill that deer, and that most
Speaker 3: of that data may be more for the fact that
Speaker 3: if I don't kill that deer this year, I'm going
Speaker 3: to learn a lot from that spot. But I try
Speaker 3: to back off on checking cameras and you know, in
Speaker 3: spots I don't want to put a lot of intrusion
Speaker 3: and that you know, want to have less impact on
Speaker 3: and I try to have more of you know, these
Speaker 3: these safer intel areas that maybe that deer's coming in
Speaker 3: at night, but yet I'm still not that far from
Speaker 3: where he's betting. You know, I would say, like left,
Speaker 3: right and center field, I'd be trying to play those
Speaker 3: outer cameras and then based off what I'm seeing on those,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to bank off of. Okay, can I get
Speaker 3: a better idea where this deer is coming from a
Speaker 3: direction to travel and those things, And a lot of
Speaker 3: times if I see what I want on the outside
Speaker 3: edge of cluster of cameras, I'll dive in towards home plate,
Speaker 3: you know, make a move on them.
Speaker 2: All right, So two follow ups. Number One, when you're
Speaker 2: going to go in season to add new cameras or
Speaker 2: to check cameras, are you waiting for any particular conditions?
Speaker 2: So what's what needs to be present, either weather wise
Speaker 2: or anything like that, time of day whatever to go
Speaker 2: in and actually do something like that, especially if you're
Speaker 2: going to push in tighter closer to home plate. And
Speaker 2: then part two would be for the folks who aren't
Speaker 2: familiar with your typical trail camera set up, we should
Speaker 2: probably just cover that off too, Like what are you
Speaker 2: usually putting these cameras on? Talk to me about how
Speaker 2: you're doing that and in a way that you think
Speaker 2: gets to the right intel without you know, spooking deer.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, most of my inventory comes from creek bottoms
Speaker 3: because there's hardly any buck betting here in creek bottoms.
Speaker 3: I mean that's the lowest elevation. Like I said, most
Speaker 3: of our bucks are bedding in high elevation, so mostly
Speaker 3: all that activity outside of the rut is at night.
Speaker 3: So that's where I get a lot of my inventory.
Speaker 3: Especially creek bottoms generally have the main water source. It's
Speaker 3: a big congregation socializing area. So you know, usually in
Speaker 3: a good creek bottom, you're gonna have some really good
Speaker 3: primary scrapes down there that you can get some really
Speaker 3: good inventory and pretty decent intel. Also, like you know, say,
Speaker 3: like it's early October, you know probably a lot of
Speaker 3: times too about you know, eight nine o'clock, mature buck
Speaker 3: will work its way down in that bottom and if
Speaker 3: you can find where you got trails coming off hillsides
Speaker 3: and mountains, and you can start to get an idea
Speaker 3: where that deer is coming from, you know, just off
Speaker 3: of the you know how he's entering that scrape or
Speaker 3: walking that trail. So that's where a lot of my
Speaker 3: my scouting is or checking cameras. Most of it's done
Speaker 3: in the creek bottoms because like I said, I have
Speaker 3: very little impact. But then I'm also I also got
Speaker 3: cameras further up towards betting, and that's going to be
Speaker 3: also based on what I'm seeing, you know, down in
Speaker 3: those creek bottoms. If I'm seeing you know, where this
Speaker 3: huge buck is, you know, hitting this primary scrape down
Speaker 3: in this particular spot in this creek bottom three four
Speaker 3: times a week, coming from this same trail every night.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to know what that ridge is like,
Speaker 3: you know that that he's coming on. I'm going to
Speaker 3: know you know where if there may be another secondary
Speaker 3: food source he's hitting, you know, that might be where
Speaker 3: I'm going to put a camera midway up. I may
Speaker 3: hunt that deer midway up or you know especially I'm
Speaker 3: going to very likely know where that deer's betting. But
Speaker 3: just because we're talking about you're talking about areas that
Speaker 3: I know like the back of my hand. But I
Speaker 3: would be, like I said, be putting a lot of
Speaker 3: cameras down in creek bottoms where i'd have less intrusion.
Speaker 3: But then when I start to see something consistent, then
Speaker 3: I start working my way up up towards betting further
Speaker 3: based off what I'm seeing on the cameras.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned that baseball diamond shape for the way
Speaker 2: you're spreading your cameras. I was kind of envisioning that
Speaker 2: as being like a horizontal baseball diamond and like you're
Speaker 2: working your way across mountains, But it kind of sounds
Speaker 2: like maybe it's an upside down? Is it actually that?
Speaker 2: Usually home plate is like high up the mountain where
Speaker 2: they're bedding, and then it's and then it widens out
Speaker 2: going down exactly.
Speaker 4: Yep, because I sometimes at backfires because home plate is
Speaker 4: more based on my prediction.
Speaker 3: However, sometimes too, I've got history with a deer where
Speaker 3: I really am confident I figured out where he's betting,
Speaker 3: but I keep that, you know, I'll keep one camera
Speaker 3: up in near betting anyways, but those other cameras further
Speaker 3: out towards heading down the ridge and you know, down
Speaker 3: towards the bottom. That's where I can really get a
Speaker 3: lot of inventory and intel and have less impact. I'm
Speaker 3: you know what that deer. Honestly, some people might disagree,
Speaker 3: but deer mature boxing I bet you would agree. They
Speaker 3: don't mind human scent and human activity in those nighttime
Speaker 3: areas because they know humans aren't in there at You know,
Speaker 3: they they have those areas where they want to feel
Speaker 3: more secure and that you know, further up into in
Speaker 3: their betting areas. Those are the areas you got to
Speaker 3: be more cautious about. But further away where I have
Speaker 3: these other cameras that I'm getting intel from. That it
Speaker 3: works out perfect that way, because I can, I can
Speaker 3: be a little bit more messy. And you know that
Speaker 3: deer doesn't doesn't even realize that I'm using all those
Speaker 3: cameras to zero in on them. But yet, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not going in those those core areas or those
Speaker 3: you know, those hot betting areas. I'm basing everything, you know,
Speaker 3: off of those cameras further back. If that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let's let's jump let's pivot a little bit here.
Speaker 2: I might come back to cameras because You've got a
Speaker 2: lot of interesting ideas on the camera front. But let's
Speaker 2: let's shift a little bit, keep you on your toes.
Speaker 2: Let's let's imagine you're hunting late October, not like the
Speaker 2: very end of it, but let's say somewhere between, like
Speaker 2: the twentieth and the twenty fifth, Okay, and you're hunting
Speaker 2: close to one of these buck bedrooms. You're you're pushing
Speaker 2: closer to home plate, and you go in for a hunt.
Speaker 2: You're all set up, things are looking great, conditions are good.
Speaker 2: Last fifteen minutes of daylight. The buck shows up, but
Speaker 2: he's downwind of view and you see him wind you
Speaker 2: and turn tail and take off the other direction.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: What do you do with that situation? From there? Are
Speaker 2: you going to try to keep hunting that buck? Do
Speaker 2: you give up on him and go somewhere else the
Speaker 2: next couple of days? You know, what's what's your thought
Speaker 2: process and plan for the coming days after that?
Speaker 3: No, I'd absolutely hunt that buck again, very likely in
Speaker 3: that general area. However, I would not hunt that deer
Speaker 3: from the same tree. That's any time I find that
Speaker 3: deer catching on to me, even if it's uh, you know,
Speaker 3: other deer that I spook. I'll generally make some slight adjustment,
Speaker 3: try not to hunt the same tree, just for the
Speaker 3: fact that, you know, deer start to recognize pretty quickly
Speaker 3: that they're being hunted, especially on public land. I've even
Speaker 3: you know, I've left tree stands and trees and you know,
Speaker 3: and you can just start to see how And even
Speaker 3: in the guiding business as well. We'll have a client,
Speaker 3: you know, hunt a spot two three days in a
Speaker 3: row and start to notice deer skirting around him. But
Speaker 3: I would definitely hunt that deer again, but I wouldn't
Speaker 3: hunt it from the same spot. That deer when he
Speaker 3: comes in next time, We'll probably take a chance and
Speaker 3: go further out around from where he smelled that human scent.
Speaker 3: You know, I may I'm set up. You know, you
Speaker 3: said how many yards away, like fifty or eighty yards
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, I didn't actually specify how far he was,
Speaker 2: but if it.
Speaker 3: Was out of range, I would probably set up closer
Speaker 3: to where that deer was, thinking that deer is gonna
Speaker 3: maybe skirt around a little bit further, especially that time
Speaker 3: of year two right before the rut, you know, it
Speaker 3: gets real crazy and they start ranging I'm willing to
Speaker 3: gamble a little bit more because that deer may not
Speaker 3: be patternable much longer. So you know, I would gamble,
Speaker 3: but I would probably hunt that deer from a different tree.
Speaker 2: How soon would you go back in there after? Would
Speaker 2: you go that very next day and make that move?
Speaker 3: I probably would go right back in the next day
Speaker 3: if everything seemed right. Usually that time of year as well. Uh,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm hunting somewhat of a pattern of a buck,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you know, an active scrape line or
Speaker 3: rub line. Then I'm getting a deer on pretty consistently,
Speaker 3: so it's probably most likely going to be some consistency
Speaker 3: of a pad where I'm like, I can't afford to
Speaker 3: miss out on this, because once again, it's it's not
Speaker 3: gonna last.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, speaking of you know, observing deer doing something
Speaker 2: and making adjustments, let's let's run you through one of
Speaker 2: my favorite things to beat myself up over the head with.
Speaker 2: And let's put you into November and you're setting in
Speaker 2: a spot that you don't know super well. Maybe this
Speaker 2: is one of the first times you've hunted in this
Speaker 2: little region, but you feel good about it, like you
Speaker 2: feel like you're in a spot for the right reason,
Speaker 2: and it's the rut. You're waiting for something to come
Speaker 2: cruising through or whatever. And you're sitting there in the morning,
Speaker 2: we'll say an hour or two into your morning sit
Speaker 2: and you see a shooter buck come moving through, but
Speaker 2: he's out of range. And then a half hour later
Speaker 2: you see another buck come through and do the same thing.
Speaker 2: Do you do anything with that intel or do you so?
Speaker 2: Do you do you move or do you stay where
Speaker 2: you're at?
Speaker 3: Absolutely if when you see in the rut two bucks
Speaker 3: on the same trail, probably nine out of ten times
Speaker 3: there was a dough that they were following. And I've
Speaker 3: made the mistake before, and I tell my clients that too.
Speaker 3: And that's especially why you know we love mobile setups.
Speaker 3: Is if there's very very unlikely chance you're gonna have
Speaker 3: two bucks take the same trail for no reason, there's
Speaker 3: a good chance there's either a hot dough or a
Speaker 3: dough that's getting pretty close to coming into heat that
Speaker 3: they were following that trail. Immediately set up and you
Speaker 3: know somewhere downwind or you know, on a safe spot too,
Speaker 3: you don't want to be set up, you know, ten
Speaker 3: yards off of it. Either, but you'd be amazed how
Speaker 3: many times we've had success doing that, especially that time
Speaker 3: of year. You don't have to see the dough. That
Speaker 3: dough could have came by at four am before you
Speaker 3: got there, but you see something consistent. I also tell
Speaker 3: my clients, and it's the same strategy myself, Like, if
Speaker 3: you see anything consistent, you know, eighty yards out, but
Speaker 3: every deer doing the same thing, multiple deer, I always
Speaker 3: move because generally there's it's not just random, there's a
Speaker 3: reason for that. You you know, you're hunting that spot
Speaker 3: for the first time. You may not realize that you're
Speaker 3: not quite in the zone of how deer use that area.
Speaker 3: You know, you're you're kind of observing that area off
Speaker 3: of that first sit. So any consistencies you see, move
Speaker 3: on to them as fast as you can. Because especially
Speaker 3: where I'm from in the big woods, I mean, a
Speaker 3: good stand here isn't a stand you see a deer
Speaker 3: from every day anyway. So I mean, if the action's good,
Speaker 3: get on it, well you can, because it may not
Speaker 3: be any good there the next day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so let's say, to be really specific, let's
Speaker 2: say this happened at you know, eight thirty in the
Speaker 2: morning when you saw that second buck come through, was say,
Speaker 2: would you literally move, like as soon as that buck
Speaker 2: gets out of site or would you wait till midday
Speaker 2: when stuff's slowing down and you feel like there shouldn't
Speaker 2: be as many deer on their feet and then tear
Speaker 2: down and reset up. How quickly do you want to
Speaker 2: make that change?
Speaker 3: As soon as that buck's out of sight is when
Speaker 3: I would move. I mean, I would be real careful, listen,
Speaker 3: watch really good. I might even glass, you know, all
Speaker 3: around me, just to make sure nothing's coming.
Speaker 4: But I mean, if you know, if it is a
Speaker 4: hot dough, it could be a minute or two or
Speaker 4: I mean, God knows when something is when it especially
Speaker 4: you know once again, and you know, because I relate
Speaker 4: to a lot to what we're talking about, big woods
Speaker 4: and you know, lower deer densities, less doughs.
Speaker 3: You know, you might have five or six dos in
Speaker 3: a square mile and one of those doughs comes into heat.
Speaker 3: Every buck in that area is most likely going to know.
Speaker 3: So you want to get on that hot route as
Speaker 3: soon as you can. You can't afford to wait till midday,
Speaker 3: and you know, hope nothing comes, especially in the rut too,
Speaker 3: Like there's just as good of a chance of killing
Speaker 3: buck get noon or two pm in the rout as
Speaker 3: there is, you know, any other time. So I'm going
Speaker 3: to jump on that, you know, that sequence and consistency
Speaker 3: and movement as fast as I can, especially based on
Speaker 3: my own experiences guiding and hunting, like we've had a
Speaker 3: lot of success doing that. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So then the next thing that might
Speaker 2: hypothetically happen is going to be another one of those
Speaker 2: head scratchers or get you stuck there spinning your wheels,
Speaker 2: which is you go, you tear down your set, you
Speaker 2: move to this new area, and you get to within
Speaker 2: the you know spot you think you want to be,
Speaker 2: and you're stuck trying to pick the right tree. And
Speaker 2: let's say there is a there's a tree that is
Speaker 2: in range, and it's gonna set up nicely for you
Speaker 2: as far as giving you a good easy shot to
Speaker 2: that trail that you saw those two bucks coming through.
Speaker 2: Problem with it, though, is that there's a there's two
Speaker 2: things wrong with this tree. There is a little bit
Speaker 2: of a trail downwind of it, so there's like a
Speaker 2: secondary trail kind of downwind. See, you've got like a
Speaker 2: chance that maybe you know, you're going to have deer
Speaker 2: come down win. The second thing wrong with it is
Speaker 2: that it is a bean pole, so it's like straight
Speaker 2: up there's almost no cover. You might be left out
Speaker 2: to dry up there. So you could pick the spot
Speaker 2: that's like the perfect location for the tree as far
Speaker 2: as being giving the easy shot, but you're not gonna
Speaker 2: have good cover and there's a chance that maybe there
Speaker 2: might be some other deer passing down wind. Or you
Speaker 2: can go and you can kind of move out from
Speaker 2: that spot, and now you're gonna be forty three forty
Speaker 2: two yards maybe forty four yards some of that ballpark
Speaker 2: away from that main trail you saw. But it's a
Speaker 2: big oak tree with a bunch of cover on it,
Speaker 2: and now you're downwind of any kind of trail that
Speaker 2: you saw when you were walking through there. So do
Speaker 2: you pick the spot that gives you the slam dunk
Speaker 2: twenty yard shot but it's a little bit riskier for
Speaker 2: those two reasons, or do you say, I want the
Speaker 2: safest tree possible and I'm gonna, you know, hope to
Speaker 2: make this shot work, or call the bucket an extra
Speaker 2: ten yards or or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and about forty yards are a little over. I
Speaker 3: would rather take the safer route just for the fact that,
Speaker 3: you know, I would say most archery hunters as well,
Speaker 3: Like I almost almost feel like, you know, ethical shooting
Speaker 3: is starting to reach out there more than ever. And
Speaker 3: I'm not you know, I'm not saying that that I
Speaker 3: think everyone should be shooting deer fifty sixty seventy yards.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's to each his own, but you know,
Speaker 3: a forty forty forty five yard shot is very makeable.
Speaker 3: I would set up taking the safer tree with a
Speaker 3: little more cover. I kind of like to stay back anyways,
Speaker 3: just especially for the fact that even even down wind,
Speaker 3: you know, or having the wind in your favor, but
Speaker 3: a deer coming in really close to you, a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't realize that you kind of have like
Speaker 3: a zone of scent scattered all around the base of
Speaker 3: your tree. Anyways, So I like to be thirty forty
Speaker 3: yards back. I just feel a lot safer. I feel
Speaker 3: like there's a lot more room, you know, for to
Speaker 3: make less mistakes or for a deer to catch on
Speaker 3: to your mistakes. I'm going to take that that that
Speaker 3: big oak that has to cover forty forty five yards off.
Speaker 3: I'd rather take a little bit further of a shot
Speaker 3: than gamble, you know, being too close and that deer
Speaker 3: catching on to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, that's a that's a fair choice to make.
Speaker 2: I think you pass the test.
Speaker 5: Okay, this one.
Speaker 2: You've got a spot you're heading into hunt and it's
Speaker 2: a slam dunk. You feel really strongly about it. You
Speaker 2: have trial camera intel that backs up your location, and
Speaker 2: you're heading in with high hopes. But as you head in,
Speaker 2: let's say it was kind of like a wet day
Speaker 2: before maybe, so there's a like soft grown. As you're
Speaker 2: heading in and you're nearing your location, you see fresh
Speaker 2: boot tracks and you find out someone else has been
Speaker 2: somewhere around here. Do you go through with your plan
Speaker 2: or do those fresh boot tracks in your zone make
Speaker 2: you pivot in any kind of way? What do you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it would depend if it was just fresh
Speaker 3: boot tracked. You know, in the mind, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 3: gamble and hope that maybe somebody's just passed them through.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Another thing where I come from, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: human activity that's even non hunting related, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of foresters who's biologists. I mean, you name it. So
Speaker 3: there's a chance that it's not even a hunter. And
Speaker 3: there's so much area anyways, that and I'm I feel
Speaker 3: very confident in a lot of my best spots or
Speaker 3: overlook spots that you know, not to brag, but I
Speaker 3: don't think a lot of hunters thinking the same things
Speaker 3: and the same setups as me. Anyways, Now, if Safer
Speaker 3: snow on the ground and I see boot tracks, I
Speaker 3: would literally follow those boot tracks aways. Heck, I might
Speaker 3: even try to catch up with the hunter just to
Speaker 3: see what they're doing in there, you know, are you
Speaker 3: are you setting up somewhere or whatever. I would literally
Speaker 3: do that. I would. I would rather, you know, lose
Speaker 3: a little bit of hunting time and just figure out
Speaker 3: what this this hunter is doing then you know, risk anything,
Speaker 3: But it would it would depend on different scenarios. But
Speaker 3: if I just see sign of you know, human activity,
Speaker 3: I'm still gonna hunt that area. It's very common situation.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about a slight variation of that. What if
Speaker 2: you're up in the tree waiting on your buck and
Speaker 2: here comes Jill hunter walking by you, and maybe he
Speaker 2: doesn't walk right into where you think the core core is,
Speaker 2: but he walks kind of past you. He waves, then
Speaker 2: he keeps on going and kind of is cruising along
Speaker 2: the side of where you were hoping a good deer
Speaker 2: might come from. Do you bail or do you stick
Speaker 2: it out?
Speaker 3: Usually I'll move, but I might not move real far right.
Speaker 3: I'm real careful about entering my spots with ground scent.
Speaker 3: A lot of times I'm jay hooking or doing something real,
Speaker 3: you know, real out of the ordinary, to make sure
Speaker 3: that if I think deer you know, or working on
Speaker 3: this particular scrape or whatever, you know, I try to
Speaker 3: keep my human send off of where the deer are traveling.
Speaker 3: So you know, if somebody's going through kind of the
Speaker 3: hot route that I'm hunting they just went through, I'm
Speaker 3: definitely gonna get down and adjust to it. But good
Speaker 3: chance I'm not gonna leave the area either. I may,
Speaker 3: you know, unless that person you know followed that trail
Speaker 3: and came from that route from to and from one
Speaker 3: hundred some yards this way hundred some yards that way.
Speaker 3: You know, I might then leave the whole situation. But
Speaker 3: chances are I should be able to find somewhere without
Speaker 3: that fresh ground set and you know, I'm pretty quick
Speaker 3: about you know, getting set up. I mean I can
Speaker 3: get out of my train up in another you know,
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes at the mouse or whatever. So uh, it's
Speaker 3: really not a huge deal as far as losing time,
Speaker 3: But it's going to be based on where exactly that
Speaker 3: hunter came from and where they went, if they left
Speaker 3: me any room they were adjust or not.
Speaker 2: Okay. So another thing that you've talked a lot about
Speaker 2: in the past that I've that I've really found interesting
Speaker 2: is your you know, really in depth trail camera analyzes
Speaker 2: you've done, where you've you've looked at trends across you know,
Speaker 2: your hundreds of cameras and seeing how different dates and
Speaker 2: different weather systems and things have impacted the dear activities
Speaker 2: sand camera. And one of the things I've heard you
Speaker 2: mention a lot is just the impact of those cold fronts,
Speaker 2: when those cold weather systems come through the trigger that
Speaker 2: seems to pull for deer. So I'm curious about what
Speaker 2: you would do when you have the opposite situation. For
Speaker 2: a lot of us. This past year, we had a
Speaker 2: hot rut that first, you know, depending where you are
Speaker 2: in the country for a lot of people's the end
Speaker 2: of October, first week of November. You know, I was
Speaker 2: stuck with seven straight days of seventy degrees or more.
Speaker 2: So let's say it's that you know, last couple of
Speaker 2: days of October or first you know week of November.
Speaker 2: And let's say this is your you know, let's say
Speaker 2: you're not guiding and you have time to hunt during
Speaker 2: that week and you're stuck with that weather forecast. Does
Speaker 2: that change your hunting strategy in any kind of way?
Speaker 2: If so, how If not?
Speaker 3: Why not? Yeah, it absolutely does it the whole rot.
Speaker 3: Like you know, people, some people assume that maybe the
Speaker 3: way I explained it is that these deer don't at all,
Speaker 3: and that's definitely not the case. Even you know, seventy
Speaker 3: or degree day or warmer, they're still rutting going on.
Speaker 3: You know, you can still have success. It's just you know,
Speaker 3: the chances are a little slimmer when a buck's moving
Speaker 3: a lot less. There's a couple of different, different, you know,
Speaker 3: scenarios that seem to work in warm weather. Here people
Speaker 3: would be surprised. But you know this is even based
Speaker 3: some off trail camera observations too. Is real hot days
Speaker 3: like we're finding creek bottoms or really good you know,
Speaker 3: cruising areas are creek bottoms are you know, usually prettyly
Speaker 3: heavily loaded with like a lot of evergreen and hemlocks,
Speaker 3: so it's generally cooler down there. Plus, got a fact
Speaker 3: you're in that you know, when bucks are are rutting
Speaker 3: hard and they got those winter coats on, you know,
Speaker 3: they're thirsty. I would you know, we're definitely focusing more
Speaker 3: around creek bottoms on those hot days for guiding myself.
Speaker 3: I'd be keeping that in mind. Another thing, too, is
Speaker 3: it still seems like there's activity close to betting, which
Speaker 3: is pretty normal. Seems like a lot of bucks like
Speaker 3: to you know, bed maybe just two three hundred yards
Speaker 3: at the most, or more like maybe one hundred yards
Speaker 3: downwind of dough is dough betting. I'd be focusing more
Speaker 3: around those dough betting areas. You know, on those warmer days,
Speaker 3: you just you can't expect it to be like that,
Speaker 3: that hot all day action. You know, it's a sluggish
Speaker 3: movement on those warm days. You gotta be a little
Speaker 3: bit more patient. But you can still have success. I
Speaker 3: mean we've I'm not going to say we have our
Speaker 3: best success those days and certainly don't get as excited.
Speaker 3: But you know, we got paying clients that come in
Speaker 3: and they can't predict what the weather is going to
Speaker 3: be a year in advance when they book their hunt.
Speaker 3: So we've had to come up with ways to still
Speaker 3: be successful. And like I said, you can still have success,
Speaker 3: you know, you just got to either set up around
Speaker 3: betting or like I said, those creek bottoms with a
Speaker 3: good water source. That's and we've really found to be
Speaker 3: really good in those hot days during the run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So speaking of those kind of sluggish movement days
Speaker 2: during the rut, like you kind of mentioned, even when
Speaker 2: conditions are pretty good, it seems like you can certainly
Speaker 2: have these like great periods of movement and then like
Speaker 2: really slow days during the run, even though you would think, like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's the rud it should be incredible. At least, my
Speaker 2: experience has often been that there'll be these periods of
Speaker 2: where it's dead, it's either hot, or it's not. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious if you are in a situation where it's
Speaker 2: you know, November seventh or eighth, one of those days
Speaker 2: that a lot of people say is like the best
Speaker 2: day of the whole hunting season for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: And you've sat in a location for three days in
Speaker 2: a row, and I've heard you talk about your three
Speaker 2: day rule. So if that's something you still do, I
Speaker 2: would be interested in you explaining that a little bit
Speaker 2: for folks. But let's say you've done your three day rule.
Speaker 2: You've sat for three days in the spot. That should
Speaker 2: be amazing. You feel really confident, but it's been dead.
Speaker 2: Do you you know, how do you piv it based
Speaker 2: on that? Or do you for some reason stick it
Speaker 2: out longer?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I would never you know, three days of
Speaker 3: dead movement. You know, I'm looking for something else. I'm
Speaker 3: probably also looking for a completely different type of setup.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe I was in a creek bottom. Now
Speaker 3: I'm gonna maybe set up closer to some bedding or
Speaker 3: a food source, just based on there's probably a good
Speaker 3: chance too that you know, something changed as well as
Speaker 3: you know, within their environment. A lot of times too,
Speaker 3: what I'll do is grid search for a hot dough too.
Speaker 3: It may not even be you know, trailcam picks that
Speaker 3: time of year, but if you can get on a
Speaker 3: hot dough you know around that and that's a pretty
Speaker 3: good period for those coming in to heat that's sixth, seventh,
Speaker 3: and eighth, just you know, just trying to be in
Speaker 3: that zone. That's That's another thing that happens that time
Speaker 3: of year is you might see a little bit las
Speaker 3: cruise and at least up my way around that time period.
Speaker 3: And it's all centralized based on you know, where that
Speaker 3: that do in that areas you know, coming into heat,
Speaker 3: that's where all the bucks are going to be. Like
Speaker 3: I said, but just at least do something different, you know, whatever,
Speaker 3: you know it may be. You know, you said, even
Speaker 3: if it was a prime you know, more of a
Speaker 3: prime weather day and you know, things weren't things still
Speaker 3: weren't working right. There's a good chance that you know,
Speaker 3: you just don't have have it figured out. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe uh, the deer were eating white oaks and they're
Speaker 3: starting to become pretty thin. Now they're switching the red oaks,
Speaker 3: or you know, just do something completely different. But definitely,
Speaker 3: after three days of nothing, I totally recommend it's not
Speaker 3: just you know, eventually maybe something's going to come through,
Speaker 3: but you know, you've put a lot of humans, do
Speaker 3: a lot of intrusion into that particular spot. It's time
Speaker 3: to to readjust and come up with a new game plan.
Speaker 2: Now, if it had been just one day or two days, though,
Speaker 2: would you do you do you still strictly follow that
Speaker 2: three day rule?
Speaker 3: No, not always three days. You know sometimes too, you know,
Speaker 3: I might hunt us plan to hunt a spot for
Speaker 3: two days because say it's like a travel corridor, cruising area,
Speaker 3: and I got two real good prime weather days. Like
Speaker 3: I love to hunt travel corridors, maybe a pinch point
Speaker 3: or you know, just a past a pack crew, a
Speaker 3: past cruising route I've had good experience on. But those
Speaker 3: routes only seem to be used on those prime days.
Speaker 3: You know, doesn't always matter whether it's November first or
Speaker 3: the fifteenth. But it just seems like our dearm based
Speaker 3: on a lot of my research, Like you know, you
Speaker 3: get what I call thirty thirty weather days when you
Speaker 3: got at least high tempts in the thirties or better
Speaker 3: or lower I should say, and low times thirty two
Speaker 3: or lower. You know, those those travel corridors really really
Speaker 3: light up. And you can even you know, you can
Speaker 3: have a camera on a you know, on a travel
Speaker 3: corridor that you know that has a scrape or maybe
Speaker 3: even a signpost Roub and it's been pretty dead this year,
Speaker 3: but most likely you haven't had those prime weather days
Speaker 3: when these bucks are making those big johnts. I hunt
Speaker 3: those spots based more on past experiences versus even fresh intel.
Speaker 3: But sometimes, if you know, if I'm seeing that we
Speaker 3: only got a couple good, you know, prime days of weather,
Speaker 3: I'm only gonna hunt that spot twice because we got
Speaker 3: that warm front coming up. These bucks are gonna get
Speaker 3: bogged down, and I'm gonna hunt more warmer weather setups,
Speaker 3: you know. So a lot of it's based on really
Speaker 3: a lot of our hunting is based on weather, especially
Speaker 3: temperature as well.
Speaker 2: That brings to mind another situation. I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of the weather conversation helps inform people like when
Speaker 2: they make their strikes or how aggressive they get with
Speaker 2: their strikes. Right, there's some folks that will play it
Speaker 2: really conservatively until you get that good cold weather, then
Speaker 2: you make a strike you know, deep into the kill zone,
Speaker 2: and then when it's hotter days, they're going to play
Speaker 2: it more conservatively. I'm curious though, one of the things
Speaker 2: that can shift someone's strategy or perspective would be if
Speaker 2: they knew they weren't the only ones hunting that buck.
Speaker 2: I think this can be a situation where, you know,
Speaker 2: folks share a private property to other guys, or if
Speaker 2: they hunt in a place where there's a lot of
Speaker 2: hunting pressure, or they hunting public land where it's fair
Speaker 2: game for everyone. What happens if you've got, you know,
Speaker 2: a target buck that you're really really interested in, it's
Speaker 2: on public land, and you've got a plan and you're
Speaker 2: after him, but then you bump into some other guys
Speaker 2: at the trailhead and they show you pictures and like, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: I'm after this deer. And you find out that there's
Speaker 2: like a guy or two in the zone that's kind
Speaker 2: of on the same deer. What do you do in
Speaker 2: that situation? Does that change your strategy? Does that change
Speaker 2: how aggressive you are or anything at all?
Speaker 3: I Mean, the good thing is, as I've ran into
Speaker 3: these guys and a lot of times I may not
Speaker 3: jump right out and tell them or I'm hunting, but
Speaker 3: I might. What I'll say is, you know, I just
Speaker 3: don't want to get your guy's way. I try to
Speaker 3: play dumb. Although if it's a local guy not bragging,
Speaker 3: but he probably knows. Steve shirt's hunting that deer too,
Speaker 3: But I try to play a little dumb and be like,
Speaker 3: you know, not real, you know, familiar with this area. Guys.
Speaker 3: I just want to make sure that you know I'm
Speaker 3: not hunting where you're at, and try to figure out
Speaker 3: what they're doing and you know where they're going, and
Speaker 3: as long as they're doing something different than me, I'm
Speaker 3: going to hunt that deer definitely. I mean, I'll say,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of the deer I have on camera,
Speaker 3: you know, they're not secrets. It's public land. A lot
Speaker 3: of other people have these deer on camera too. But
Speaker 3: I'm always trying to figure out, you know what, how
Speaker 3: these other people are hunting these deer and you know,
Speaker 3: and go from there. And that's why early on I
Speaker 3: was big about, you know, finding those harder to access
Speaker 3: areas a little bit more remote. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: these deer secrets, but you know, a lot of these
Speaker 3: people always or a lot of people say, you know, how, Steve,
Speaker 3: how do you get some a daytime? That's because I'm
Speaker 3: finding deer and I'm learning, dear, you know in these
Speaker 3: areas that nobody's really going. I mean, these bucks, you
Speaker 3: know in the middle of the night. They may go
Speaker 3: several miles from their core area. And a lot of
Speaker 3: these people are getting these bucks at midnight, one two
Speaker 3: in the morning, and then they're going in the woods,
Speaker 3: you know, five hundred yards thinking that bucks there and
Speaker 3: they have no clue. They're two to three miles off. So,
Speaker 3: you know, just trying to figure out what everyone else
Speaker 3: is doing, you know, and staying away from them, because
Speaker 3: if they have a pattern to what they're doing, the
Speaker 3: mature deer has already got them figured out. He'll go
Speaker 3: in that area at night and he's not going to
Speaker 3: be bothered at all, but he's going to stay back,
Speaker 3: you know, quite a way where nobody else has been going,
Speaker 3: and that's going to be the place where I plan
Speaker 3: to hunt.
Speaker 2: Okay, another camera situation, and this one just kind of
Speaker 2: popped in my mind. But it's a thing that you
Speaker 2: hear about every once in a while. I've I've kind
Speaker 2: of had this kind of thing happen where you've got
Speaker 2: to buck that you're kind of closing in on and
Speaker 2: you're getting daylight pictures of him, but every time you
Speaker 2: go in to hunt, you don't see him, and then
Speaker 2: the next day you're not in their hunting, and then
Speaker 2: he daylights and the daylights the next day, and then
Speaker 2: you check your camera four days later or you got
Speaker 2: to sell cameras or whatever it is, and you say, oh, shoot,
Speaker 2: he was daylighting, and then he go in and hunt
Speaker 2: him again, and then you don't see him. But then
Speaker 2: the next day, when you're not there, he's daylighting. So
Speaker 2: you get a buck that's day lighting when you're not there,
Speaker 2: but you can't seem to get on him when you're there.
Speaker 2: Do you what do you do in that situation? Do
Speaker 2: you think that it's you? Do you think it's just
Speaker 2: luck or happenstance that he happens to just not be
Speaker 2: shown up on the right days and you just need
Speaker 2: to be there more. How do you approach that?
Speaker 3: I would I would go into that thinking that deer
Speaker 3: was on to me. I wouldn't give up on the deer. I,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe set up a couple hundred yards differently.
Speaker 3: This is something too. I like the question because I've
Speaker 3: had it happened to me several times. It's it starts
Speaker 3: to make sense when every time you're not there, that
Speaker 3: deer's showing up or pretty consistently, And I think that
Speaker 3: happens a lot. You know, you think you might know
Speaker 3: where that deer's betting, and he might also know where
Speaker 3: your stand is, and he's just bedding down wind to
Speaker 3: that every time. He may adjust every time too, just
Speaker 3: to make sure he's down wind to that spot. You know,
Speaker 3: it could easily happen, especially if you've went in there
Speaker 3: pretty often and you know you're you're checking that camera
Speaker 3: quite often. He's got a pretty good idea that Okay,
Speaker 3: there's a hunter, there's there's someone coming in here fairly often,
Speaker 3: and I need to pay attention to this. But the
Speaker 3: good thing is that deer's sticking around. He hasn't disappeared,
Speaker 3: and you just got to go in there and surprise
Speaker 3: him once again. That's why you know I love mobile
Speaker 3: hunting and not so much of a fixed stand person.
Speaker 3: Is you want to keep these deer, especially in mature bucks.
Speaker 3: You want to keep them guessing to what you're doing
Speaker 3: as well. Like I said, I don't think you're going
Speaker 3: to have to leave that entire area one hundred two
Speaker 3: three hundred yards of an adjustment. I think that deer
Speaker 3: would be surprised, and I if I'm continuing to get
Speaker 3: pictures of that deer in fact that camera. If that
Speaker 3: deer keeps coming to that camera, I can keep checking
Speaker 3: it every few days too. But then I would bank
Speaker 3: off of what I'm seeing that deer do if he
Speaker 3: is coming from the same direction, or if there's like
Speaker 3: I said before, if there's any bit of consistent knowledge
Speaker 3: you're getting from a deer on your camera, keep using that,
Speaker 3: keep basing your next hunt off of those pictures. So
Speaker 3: I would use that camera as more of an inventory
Speaker 3: or an intel camera, and I'd keep basing my setups
Speaker 3: off of that and keep mixing up my setups too.
Speaker 3: Even if I went in there another time and I
Speaker 3: hunted that deer once or twice and didn't see him,
Speaker 3: I would just keep within that area. But I probably
Speaker 3: wouldn't keep hunting the same tree, just keep bouncing around.
Speaker 3: Sooner or later, I think you're going to get in
Speaker 3: front of him.
Speaker 2: What if I did this? What if I took all
Speaker 2: of your trail cameras away and you had zero cameras
Speaker 2: for this hunting season, how would you kill a buck
Speaker 2: in that situation? Like, how would your plan change?
Speaker 3: Well? Can I say that I had cameras in the past,
Speaker 3: or I've never had cameras.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I'd be more interested in if
Speaker 2: you never had camera information, because I kind of want
Speaker 2: to see, you know, for someone who I'm imagining there's
Speaker 2: somebody listening right now who maybe only has a couple cameras.
Speaker 2: They can't afford one hundred and fifty cameras, and so
Speaker 2: they're thinking, Man, how does Steve get it done in
Speaker 2: these places? You know, if he didn't have all that information.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of curious. Let's just go extreme here
Speaker 2: and say you don't have any and maybe this is
Speaker 2: a newer place, so you just don't have that historical
Speaker 2: information from them. Yeah, what would you do then?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it it wouldn't be I mean, I'd
Speaker 3: be depressed, don't get me wrong. I'd hate to not
Speaker 3: use cameras. But it would also be kind of exciting too,
Speaker 3: just for the fact that I always know what's in
Speaker 3: the area. So it would be like every time i'd
Speaker 3: be going into a hunt, it'd be like Christmas morning,
Speaker 3: but I'd use all the same things I'm still using now.
Speaker 3: Just you know, i'd be still you know if it
Speaker 3: was uh, you know, I guess it depends on what
Speaker 3: time of year. It would be you know, just similar
Speaker 3: to the answer I gave you before. If it's early October,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for you know, sign on the end edge
Speaker 3: of betting.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: If it was more in the rut, I probably focus
Speaker 3: more where I'm seeing dose and still keeping you know,
Speaker 3: out of out of the way other hunters trying to
Speaker 3: find more overlooked areas. Uh. You know, still a lot
Speaker 3: of boots on the ground scouting too. The only thing
Speaker 3: that you know, those cameras are really doing for me
Speaker 3: is really teaching me, you know, about individual bucks. But
Speaker 3: you know, I still have decent woodsman skills. I still
Speaker 3: do a lot of things similar to what a lot
Speaker 3: of other people are doing that you know, aren't running
Speaker 3: trail cameras. But a lot of it's just based on
Speaker 3: time of the year. But you know, I definitely scowed
Speaker 3: heavily and that's what I would do. A lot of
Speaker 3: boots on the ground stuff, and you know, you can
Speaker 3: have success without trail cameras for sure.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're the last phase of the gauntlet, which
Speaker 2: is the rapid fire questions. Okay, I've got I think
Speaker 2: five or six quick questions here. I just need like
Speaker 2: a one word answer. No, explanation allowed, and then I'll
Speaker 2: end it with one last doozy in which you can
Speaker 2: explain yourself. Okay, okay, okay, all right, rapid fire begins.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Would you take a fifty yard shot at a white
Speaker 2: tail with your bow?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Or no?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: If you can only have one of these tools for
Speaker 2: the rest of your hunts, for the rest of your life,
Speaker 2: would it be a set of rattling antlers or a
Speaker 2: grunt tube? Grunt tube expandable or fixed blade? Broadheads?
Speaker 3: Fixed blade?
Speaker 2: Should you stop a moving buck before shooting with a bow?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Does the moon matter to dear? Movement?
Speaker 3: Minimal?
Speaker 2: Okay? If you could only hunt mornings or evenings this
Speaker 2: coming season, which one would you take?
Speaker 3: Can I at least ask what time of year.
Speaker 2: It's for the whole season? The whole season?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Mornings? Okay, all right. So here's the doozy. Let's say
Speaker 2: that I rule the world and I have control over
Speaker 2: your hunting privileges. I'm going to take away your right
Speaker 2: to hunt for the rest of your life unless unless
Speaker 2: you kill a five and a half year old buck
Speaker 2: or older this coming season. The problem is, I'm only
Speaker 2: gonna let you hunt one day and from one location.
Speaker 2: So you have one day and one stand site in
Speaker 2: order to kill a five and a half year old
Speaker 2: buck this year. Tell me the date on the calendar
Speaker 2: you would pick, and then describe to me in as
Speaker 2: much detail as possible your best possible hypothetical stand site
Speaker 2: for this situation for that day.
Speaker 3: Well, does it have to be a specific date or
Speaker 3: could it be a time frame with a weather event,
Speaker 3: or does it just have to be a certain date.
Speaker 2: I would say pick a date, but I'll let you
Speaker 2: be a little loose with the facts. And if you
Speaker 2: want to say, but I want this weather, I'll give
Speaker 2: that to you because I don't want to be too mean, because.
Speaker 3: I do have I like to hunt individual deer, like
Speaker 3: from October fifteenth to close to Halloween before they really
Speaker 3: you know, break out and range. In fact, I have
Speaker 3: several deers several spots picked from that October fifteenth, you know,
Speaker 3: towards end of October period, like you know, but a
Speaker 3: lot of that's gonna be based on weather fronts. But
Speaker 3: the first first weather front we get around mid October,
Speaker 3: I'll explain a couple of these spots. Uh, they're they're
Speaker 3: pretty close to buck betting. They're they're all on active scrapes,
Speaker 3: like I mentioned before on the fringes of buck betting. Uh,
Speaker 3: it's that's a special time of year when I mean
Speaker 3: I call it like scrape season. I'd say that that
Speaker 3: mid to late October period. There's probably no other time
Speaker 3: throughout three hundred and sixty five days a year that
Speaker 3: bucks are working scrapes as much. And you can you
Speaker 3: can kind of pattern bucks on these scrapes. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying they're hitting the same scrape every day. That's when
Speaker 3: I love to use my three day strategy. The most
Speaker 3: you'll have. You know, you'll have scrapes that a buck's
Speaker 3: coming to maybe two to three times a week in
Speaker 3: the daylight, and those are the spots that I'm hunting,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe three afternoons in a row based on
Speaker 3: what I'm seeing on those cameras. If I'm seeing more
Speaker 3: consistency in the morning or evening, I'll base whether I'm
Speaker 3: gonna hunt morning or evening on that year, and I'll
Speaker 3: give it three sits in a row. Then I move
Speaker 3: on to a different gear. But most of my hunting,
Speaker 3: I will say, is based on weather fronts, you know,
Speaker 3: cold fronts especially. I have you know those I don't
Speaker 3: want to say magical spots, but some really good spots
Speaker 3: that I have a lot of confidence in. But instead
Speaker 3: of you know, getting excited and jumping the gun too quick,
Speaker 3: I wait till the time's right, and you know, in
Speaker 3: that I've had most of my success. A lot of
Speaker 3: people are surprised, But from like October eighteenth to Halloween
Speaker 3: is when I've killed most of my bucks. It and
Speaker 3: it's mainly using that strategy, incorporating prime weather, you know,
Speaker 3: on these scrapes and in these on the into these
Speaker 3: betting areas, like that's just been a deadly tactic for me.
Speaker 3: The biggest thing is some years you don't get those
Speaker 3: weather fronts, and you know, you that's what's tough being
Speaker 3: you know a fair weather hunter is you know, it's
Speaker 3: you just you never know. Every year is going to
Speaker 3: be different. You know, it's funny the year before last
Speaker 3: and you know, twenty twenty one, our best stretch of
Speaker 3: activity was November first to like the sixth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: That was the absolute worst time. So you just from
Speaker 3: one year to the next, you don't know. And that
Speaker 3: was mainly based on weathers. So but that's what I
Speaker 3: would be doing. I. In fact, I was just scouting
Speaker 3: the other day what I've been going in like this
Speaker 3: time of year July August, and because I leave cameras
Speaker 3: at these spots year round just for the most part,
Speaker 3: so these bucks are used to the camera as well.
Speaker 3: And I'll go in about this time of year and
Speaker 3: just clear some brush and just make sure everything's clear
Speaker 3: because about this time years when everything in the woods
Speaker 3: is reached like maximum growth, and you'd be surprised. I
Speaker 3: went to cameras the other day and they're just completely
Speaker 3: covered up with the brush and stuff. But I've already
Speaker 3: got all my spots pretty much set up for that
Speaker 3: time period and now it's just a waiting game and
Speaker 3: pray the weather gods are going to work with me
Speaker 3: this October. Man.
Speaker 2: Well, if that was the case and I had your
Speaker 2: hunting privileges on the line, I would be crossing all
Speaker 2: my fingers and toes for you. And with that, Steve,
Speaker 2: you made it through the gauntlet. Thanks for doing that.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. Before I let you go, though, can
Speaker 2: you give folks a quick rundown of where they can
Speaker 2: follow along with anything you've got going on how they
Speaker 2: can contact you? About the Guide Service anything else like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can find me on social media Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 3: You might be able to see on my shirt here
Speaker 3: it's Shirks Guide Service strk Apostrops. I don't have a
Speaker 3: website anymore. I just it was, you know, it's one
Speaker 3: of those things. I never thought it was going to
Speaker 3: be what it is, and I was getting so many
Speaker 3: phone calls that I just had to find a way
Speaker 3: to cut back. However, this year, I do still have
Speaker 3: some spots. I don't know when you're gonna air this,
Speaker 3: but we do have a few spots, a few openings
Speaker 3: this coming season. So if someone's interested in doing, you know,
Speaker 3: a mountain buck hunt here in northwestern Pa on public land,
Speaker 3: can definitely get a hold of me on Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 3: And honestly, thanks so much for having me. I was
Speaker 3: honored to get to chat with you. I've been following
Speaker 3: you for years, so this was one of my I
Speaker 3: would say, one a little more challenging podcasts, but probably
Speaker 3: the most fun and I'd be willing to do it
Speaker 3: any other time to say the least awesome.
Speaker 2: Man, Well, hey, right back at you. We'll definitely have
Speaker 2: to stay in touch and I'll be I'll be keeping
Speaker 2: tabs this fall. Hopefully you'll be putting another one or
Speaker 2: two in the truck, and I'm sure you will. So
Speaker 2: good luck and thank you, Steve.
Speaker 3: Thank you, good luck to you as well.
Speaker 2: All right, and that is a wrap. Thank you again
Speaker 2: for showing up for this, listening to this, enjoying this
Speaker 2: with me. I'm rare to go. I'm actually heading out
Speaker 2: right now to hang some trail cameras and do some
Speaker 2: scouting on a new piece. So exciting times all around.
Speaker 2: I will leave you with one more heads up. After
Speaker 2: I finished my conversation with Steve, he did mention that
Speaker 2: he has a couple more openings available with Shirk's Guide
Speaker 2: Service this coming fall in that mid November time period.
Speaker 2: That's the only slot that's open right now. Get a
Speaker 2: hold of him through Facebook, like he mentioned, and you
Speaker 2: might be able to get one of the last couple
Speaker 2: spots available with Shirk's Guide Service. As he heard today,
Speaker 2: Steve is a wealth of information. He's gonna teach you
Speaker 2: some great stuff. He's going to put you in a
Speaker 2: place where you'll have some great opportunities, and I imagine
Speaker 2: it can be a whole lot of fun too. So
Speaker 2: give Steve a shout, and in the meantime, best to
Speaker 2: luck out there. If you were doing some summer scouting,
Speaker 2: some summer preps and habitat work, whatever it is, get
Speaker 2: it done now because the season is just around the
Speaker 2: corner and I cannot wait. So until then, thank you
Speaker 2: and stay wired to hunt.