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 joined by Owen Riegler of Midwest Whitetail
Speaker 2: to discuss the little details that help him consistently kill
Speaker 2: big bucks, including his biggest ever just this month. All right,
Speaker 2: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
Speaker 2: by First Light and our Camel for Conservation program, in
Speaker 2: which a sale of every piece of First Light camouflage
Speaker 2: in the Specter Camel pattern, a portion of those proceeds
Speaker 2: goes back to the National Deer Association to help them
Speaker 2: on their mission to make things better for deer and
Speaker 2: deer hunters all across the country. Actually just spent the
Speaker 2: weekend with some folks from the National Deer Association down
Speaker 2: in Kentucky. It was the final event of our Working
Speaker 2: for Wildlife tour. We had a whole bunch of hunters
Speaker 2: come out and volunteer on public land on Saturday collecting
Speaker 2: white oak acorns. And we were actually collecting these white
Speaker 2: oak acorns so that they can be used to be
Speaker 2: planted at a nursery, get these oak seedlings out of
Speaker 2: the ground and then replanted to help with a reforestation
Speaker 2: effort on the Daniel Boone National Forest. Incredible stuff. We
Speaker 2: picked up more than seven hundred pounds of acorns, which
Speaker 2: I believe they said will equate to something like fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand new oak trees. They're gonna be planted out there
Speaker 2: on public land. How cool is that? So that's it today,
Speaker 2: speaking of cool things, we are talking deer hunting, and
Speaker 2: I'm joined by Owenriegler of Midwest Whitetail. Hopefully you've seen
Speaker 2: some of Owen's stuff over the years. He's been a
Speaker 2: major contributor over there to Chasing November and their daily
Speaker 2: blogs and all the different things that Midwest White Tail's
Speaker 2: got going on. He has been consistently killing, you know,
Speaker 2: really impressive deer over the years there in his home
Speaker 2: state of Iowa. Interestingly, he's also from Michigan, so we've
Speaker 2: got a shared backstory there. And today in the show,
Speaker 2: I want to have Owen on to talk about something
Speaker 2: I've noticed in a lot of videos and a lot
Speaker 2: of the things that come up into conversations with him
Speaker 2: on those videos in which he's talking about these little
Speaker 2: things that he focuses on, these little details, these minute
Speaker 2: parts of his strategy that actually matter a lot.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: There's all these things that have gone into Owen's kind
Speaker 2: of process to hunting big deer over the years that
Speaker 2: maybe now he doesn't even think about that much, but
Speaker 2: I think for the rest of us they're very interesting.
Speaker 2: It's those small things in many cases that will allow
Speaker 2: you to close the distance, to close the gap when
Speaker 2: trying to kill an old deer, a big old deer.
Speaker 2: Now there's a happy medium, right. I think last week's
Speaker 2: episode with Brad was a great reminder that sometimes we
Speaker 2: over complicate things, and today with Owen, it's going to
Speaker 2: be a great reminder that sometimes we do need to
Speaker 2: be paying attention to the little things though too. So
Speaker 2: there's something we can take from both of these guys.
Speaker 2: And today Owen's going to help us kind of understand
Speaker 2: his strategy and his approach, and we're going to use
Speaker 2: the story of a deer he just recently killed. And
Speaker 2: this story, I think will be a great framework and
Speaker 2: a great illustration of how he does things, and it
Speaker 2: just so happens to be the biggest year of his
Speaker 2: entire life, which is saying something, this is a giant deer.
Speaker 2: It's a great story. It's pretty darn cool to get
Speaker 2: to have this kind of example to work with and
Speaker 2: have a video to be able to look back and
Speaker 2: actually watch it too. So as we have this discussion,
Speaker 2: remember that you can go over to the U Tube
Speaker 2: channel and then watch the hunt that we're discussing to
Speaker 2: kind of see both sides of the equation. Now, in
Speaker 2: addition to Owen being on the show, we've also got
Speaker 2: Josh Sparks who also is over there at Midwest Whitetail,
Speaker 2: and he has been kind of a I don't want
Speaker 2: to call him a fly on the wall, but he's
Speaker 2: been like a participant and an observer of Owen over
Speaker 2: the years as he's hunted in specifically, as he's been
Speaker 2: chasing this specific buck. Josh has got to be out
Speaker 2: there doing some of this work with him, observing some
Speaker 2: of it, been in conversations with him, and we thought
Speaker 2: it'd be fun to have Josh join the podcast too,
Speaker 2: because he's got this very interesting perspective of watching Owen
Speaker 2: do all this stuff. So Josh knows some things that
Speaker 2: I just don't know that he can ask about. So
Speaker 2: Josh helps us out here today with throwing in some
Speaker 2: new questions, some color commentary on the hunt, and really
Speaker 2: helps us round out this conversation. So Owen and Josh
Speaker 2: are joining me here today. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: We're going to learn from one of the best big
Speaker 2: deer hunters out there, and I couldn't be more excited
Speaker 2: for it. So with that said, let's get to my
Speaker 2: chat with Owen Regler and Josh Sparks. All right here
Speaker 2: with me now I've got Owen Wrigler and Josh Sparks.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, guys.
Speaker 3: Thank you sir.
Speaker 4: It's good to be here. Can't be talking about big
Speaker 4: deer with the big Man, as we like to prefer
Speaker 4: to him around here.
Speaker 2: So well, you couldn't get any couldn't get any better
Speaker 2: circumstances either, because oh and you're you're coming off quite
Speaker 2: the successful hunt.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, when people see this it will be a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, but I know here it's it's relatively
Speaker 2: fresh on your mind. So congratulations on that buck owing.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, you know, it's like winning the genetic lottery,
Speaker 3: I think, is what that comes down to. Having done
Speaker 3: this all these years, it's just so rare to get
Speaker 3: a deer to that size. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, like we were saying before we start recording,
Speaker 2: both of us having been from Michigan, you know, you
Speaker 2: can just see not only the genetic differences, but then
Speaker 2: the nutritional differences and the hunting pressure difference. There's big,
Speaker 2: big differences between you know, what might be possible in
Speaker 2: a place like where you and I grew up versus
Speaker 2: what you have there in Iowa now and to your point,
Speaker 2: like you're enjoying the benefits of that. But all that
Speaker 2: brings me to one of the first things I want
Speaker 2: to talk to you about, which is Michigan, where we
Speaker 2: both grew up, where I still am. I'm curious what
Speaker 2: those early years are like when you were learning to
Speaker 2: deer hunt in Michigan, because I went through that thing,
Speaker 2: and I first hunted on the upper so it'd be
Speaker 2: the northwest part of the state Lower Peninsula, but northwest
Speaker 2: part of the Lower Peninsula was where I kind of
Speaker 2: cut my teeth, and we hardly saw any deer. If
Speaker 2: we saw a deer, it was you know, a little
Speaker 2: year and a half buck, Like a year and a
Speaker 2: half old buck was an absolute trophy for anyone in
Speaker 2: my family. And if you got a two year old
Speaker 2: eight pointer, that was you know, talk of the t
Speaker 2: So that's what I had for the first like eighteen
Speaker 2: years of my life. What was What was that like
Speaker 2: for you? And how did that either help you become
Speaker 2: the deer hunter you are or hurts you or slow
Speaker 2: you down in your hunting process as you were trying
Speaker 2: to learn to hunt in that kind of place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was very similar to what you
Speaker 3: described it. It was the same kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 3: it was so difficult. You would see tracks, you would
Speaker 3: see rubs, you'd see scrapes, but you'd never see the deer.
Speaker 3: And so it became just more and more intriguing all
Speaker 3: the time. That's, you know, so bad. When somebody would
Speaker 3: shoot a deer, I'd have to go see it. I'd
Speaker 3: be like, hey, we got to go see this buck
Speaker 3: because I was so intrigued that you know, they actually
Speaker 3: do exist. You see the sign, but you never see
Speaker 3: the deer. And I would look at them. I would
Speaker 3: look at their hoofs, just every little thing that just
Speaker 3: I really think that's what made me love deer hunting
Speaker 3: because it was so difficult there. You know, you could
Speaker 3: see videos and stuff other guys shooting nice bucks, and
Speaker 3: it was so difficult to do it. Just I feel
Speaker 3: like it really just drew me in. If it was
Speaker 3: easy from the start, or you've seen a lot of
Speaker 3: nice deer, I don't know if I would love it
Speaker 3: like I do now.
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that, because Josh, before we were recording,
Speaker 2: you were asking us about this, like and how you
Speaker 2: grew up in Iowa surrounded by, you know, the shang
Speaker 2: RelA of deer hunting, and I've got a lot of
Speaker 2: friends who are in the same situation, and I've always
Speaker 2: thought the opposite of what you were thinking, which is
Speaker 2: I'm surprised people in Iowa like as much they do,
Speaker 2: because it's like you started on third base. But me
Speaker 2: and Owen we started, you know, at home, far far
Speaker 2: far away from ever hitting that grand Slam, and so
Speaker 2: we had to fall in love with deer hunting despite
Speaker 2: the fact we never saw bucks, despite the fact that
Speaker 2: we never saw a big deer, and knew the opportunities
Speaker 2: that could be possible. And I think you know, whatever
Speaker 2: downsides that came with it certainly did build in, like
Speaker 2: an appreciation for those older deer as being like so
Speaker 2: rare and special. I remember growing up, we had this
Speaker 2: hunting camp up in no Other Michigan, our family deer
Speaker 2: camp and old log cabin. And there's this door, this
Speaker 2: wooden door that my grandpa posted pictures on for years,
Speaker 2: for decades, and there was all these pictures of like
Speaker 2: the old hunts, you know, uh, a seven pointer over
Speaker 2: top of an old buick hood of like the sedan,
Speaker 2: like that kind of stuff, a buck poll, like all
Speaker 2: these great pictures. But there was one picture on there,
Speaker 2: and it was like a news clip, like a newspaper
Speaker 2: clipping of a ten point buck, you know, looking back
Speaker 2: on it now in my memory, there was probably like
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five inch type ten pointer. And
Speaker 2: I remember, for most of my childhood into well into
Speaker 2: my teenage years, I thought that was fake. I thought
Speaker 2: that was not a real deer. I thought that that
Speaker 2: was impossible for deer to get that big, and that
Speaker 2: this must have been like something that my grandpa had
Speaker 2: like had like I thought it was maybe like a
Speaker 2: painting or something. It was actually a photograph but I
Speaker 2: just couldn't believe deer actually got that big. And then,
Speaker 2: you know, eventually I started seeing magazines or TV shows
Speaker 2: or whatever when I was, you know, my younger years,
Speaker 2: and eventually you realize, like, oh wow, it's not like
Speaker 2: where I am now everywhere else. But in addition to
Speaker 2: that appreciation, I think that having to learn to deer
Speaker 2: hunt in a place like that forced me to pay
Speaker 2: attention to a lot of little things. It forced me
Speaker 2: to get really good at certain things, because you know,
Speaker 2: when I started trying to kill a three year old buck,
Speaker 2: that was like incredibly hard because there might be one
Speaker 2: three year old buck in a square mile and that
Speaker 2: was the best deer around, And so I had to
Speaker 2: do things to kill a deer like that. That made
Speaker 2: me have to really focus on the little things and
Speaker 2: the details. And in watching a lot of your stuff
Speaker 2: Owen listening to you talk over the years on Midwest
Speaker 2: White Tail, I've heard a lot of the same things.
Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of those same ideas come from you,
Speaker 2: And I'm just curious if that came from just who
Speaker 2: you are, or if that stemmed from your learning to
Speaker 2: hunt in Michigan where that was necessary to ever see
Speaker 2: a half decent deer, Like, what what do you think
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 3: You know, I'd say probably a combination of both of
Speaker 3: those things. I think the grit and determination probably came
Speaker 3: from Michigan, where like you alluded to. I mean, you
Speaker 3: really had to go the extra mile to get a
Speaker 3: decent buck there, you know, so I think to really
Speaker 3: hunt hard and all that kind of thing I think
Speaker 3: did come from Michigan. You know, what, are you a
Speaker 3: friend of thought?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's all right. I was going to also ask
Speaker 2: you what you think if it wasn't that, what do
Speaker 2: you think the greatest thing you took away from your
Speaker 2: Michigan hunting experience was, like the greatest lesson you learned
Speaker 2: from those years that has in some way made you
Speaker 2: the deer hunter you right now.
Speaker 3: I think it really is just that grit and determination
Speaker 3: and just not giving up and just being out there.
Speaker 3: You know. I always say there's no substitute for tree time,
Speaker 3: and I really believe that. I Mean, you can do
Speaker 3: all the things you want, and you know, be a
Speaker 3: great hunter and all the do all the things right,
Speaker 3: but you just got to be out there. You know,
Speaker 3: so many times I've proven that to myself off that
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't going right. You're hunting one big
Speaker 3: deer and you're just struggling. You can't see, and you
Speaker 3: just keep going and you keep going, you keep grinding,
Speaker 3: and then boom, two minutes of time just changed everything,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I think that's a that's a
Speaker 3: lesson to be learned, right there, is you just got
Speaker 3: to stay determined.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you spent when was it that you moved
Speaker 2: from Michigan to Iowa.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and two, I was twenty seven, about Josh's.
Speaker 2: Age, okay six? Yeah, so you leave Michigan, you go
Speaker 2: to Iowa. It's the Promised Land. Did you right away
Speaker 2: did you feel like you could take what you had
Speaker 2: learned in Michigan and apply it to what was happening
Speaker 2: in Iowa and right it would get on deer or
Speaker 2: did you have to change some of your process or
Speaker 2: your your strategy in this new area.
Speaker 3: Now I felt like what I'd learned in Michigan. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's just about as tough as it gets. At the time,
Speaker 3: there was I think we had about eight one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand gun hunters, and if you took that philosophy into Iowa,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, you could kill deer. I think I'd
Speaker 3: hunted two days in Iowa when I shot at like
Speaker 3: a one sixty seven.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, yeah, you know, And so wasn't your
Speaker 4: first trip. It wasn't Iowa, if I remember, it was Missouri.
Speaker 4: It was it was with your dad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well the trip of my dad was in Iowa.
Speaker 3: But I went to Missouri by myself.
Speaker 4: Okay, because that was like the I think that when
Speaker 4: we talk about what inspired you to really just jump
Speaker 4: and go for it, it was actually hunting, not here.
Speaker 4: It was you know, your first out of state trip.
Speaker 4: You got to see more big deer and you're driving
Speaker 4: around scouting, I think is what you talked about, right
Speaker 4: than you really had ever seen in Michigan. I think.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I just the thing that I've always
Speaker 4: admired about your journey was like you just went for it,
Speaker 4: you know. And so obviously today with the episodes Keyboard
Speaker 4: Warriors or YouTube, always liked to if I had owned
Speaker 4: situation or if I and I just I always feel
Speaker 4: the need to go into the defense mode of like,
Speaker 4: well you don't because you never took the risks that
Speaker 4: he did. And I think a lot of inspiration and
Speaker 4: you know, you made the comment about, you know, Michigan
Speaker 4: hunting versus Iowa hunting, like when we're growing up. And
Speaker 4: I think that's the beautiful thing about boat hunting in specificity,
Speaker 4: is that everybody starts somewhere different. For me, I got
Speaker 4: to see a lot of big deer, but man, did
Speaker 4: I screw it up over and over and over. And
Speaker 4: I feel like I would have had some success. Granted
Speaker 4: I got to see bigger deer, and that was a privilege,
Speaker 4: no doubt. I didn't know there wasn't a big deer
Speaker 4: anywhere else, you know what I mean. I just thought
Speaker 4: your deer hunt and whatever. But it's the failures, for
Speaker 4: lack of a better term. You can always grow in
Speaker 4: some way, you know. And I think now we're atting
Speaker 4: this story of making the jump from Michigan to Missouri
Speaker 4: or Iowa. It was just the next chapter, you know,
Speaker 4: the next challenge, and most people don't don't make the jump.
Speaker 4: And I think that that's what, you know, I think
Speaker 4: that's where it all starts.
Speaker 2: Ollen Was that an easy decision for you or was
Speaker 2: that something that we were really torn on.
Speaker 3: I was torn on it because all my family's in Michigan,
Speaker 3: you know, and so I'd never been away from my family.
Speaker 3: It was real close to my parents. So it was
Speaker 3: tough when it really came down to it, But it
Speaker 3: was something that I just wanted so bad, you know.
Speaker 3: I just love to hunt. My dad loved to hunt
Speaker 3: so much. It's like, you know, part of me probably
Speaker 3: wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to come
Speaker 3: out and build. Actually what I've done here, you know,
Speaker 3: it was inspirational, I think, just from the standpoint of
Speaker 3: making my dad proud, you know, And a lot of
Speaker 3: people probably don't see the sacrifices that go into it.
Speaker 3: I've spent a lot of time away from my kids,
Speaker 3: a lot of time away from my parents, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, people don't see that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: When they watch this, They're like, I must be nice
Speaker 3: kind of mentality. And when you come from humble beginnings
Speaker 3: like I did, you know, basically none I got free
Speaker 3: lunches in school, we didn't have anything, you know, very
Speaker 3: loving parents. I couldn't ask for better ones. But to
Speaker 3: go from nothing to you know, what I've built here,
Speaker 3: you really, it would be nice if everybody knew the
Speaker 3: story of what that took you know, you had to
Speaker 3: be a workaholic the whole time, and of course you
Speaker 3: didn't get to hunt as much as you wanted. But
Speaker 3: I just kept building my life around the hunting lifestyle,
Speaker 3: the whitetail lifestyle I like to call it, and just
Speaker 3: I kept making decisions of you know, switching jobs or
Speaker 3: starting my own company, all this kind of stuff to
Speaker 3: just keep building more and more to where you could
Speaker 3: hunt more and work less. And so finally where I've
Speaker 3: got to today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know you mentioned some of those intangibles, some
Speaker 2: of that stuff around just being a hard worker or
Speaker 2: being willing to make sacrifices. From where you are now
Speaker 2: looking back on your twenty whatever almost twenty years or
Speaker 2: whatever has been since you made that move, and as
Speaker 2: you've grown as a hunter, what do you think some
Speaker 2: of those most intangibles have in that have led to
Speaker 2: you being successful? Because to your point, this wasn't handed
Speaker 2: to you on a silver platter. It took not just
Speaker 2: hard work, but a whole bunch of other things, I'm sure,
Speaker 2: and a lot of folks, you know, we all have
Speaker 2: different situations, We're all hunting different places, we all have
Speaker 2: different levels of access or resources or time but there
Speaker 2: is something to be said about like personal characteristics and
Speaker 2: tangibles that every one of us can put into action.
Speaker 2: We could all work harder, we could all be more perseverant,
Speaker 2: we could all whatever it might be. What do you
Speaker 2: think some of those very most important character parts and
Speaker 2: pieces have been for you to be successful, because that's
Speaker 2: something that translates everywhere. Anyone can do that kind of thing, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I was given the tools,
Speaker 3: and maybe God given tools or maybe I learned a
Speaker 3: lot of them just to be a hard work and
Speaker 3: my work ethic was probably off to charge for you know,
Speaker 3: twenty five thirty years, which you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: exactly where that comes from. Maybe it was just my
Speaker 3: personality or maybe you know, my dad teaching me to
Speaker 3: work when I was just a kid. If you know,
Speaker 3: go out there, if you want to do this, you
Speaker 3: can have the money, and being that we were poor,
Speaker 3: I think that it put more emphasis on wanting to
Speaker 3: do that. Like I want to buy a bow, right,
Speaker 3: we don't have money to buy a bow. So if
Speaker 3: you want a bow and you're going to go out
Speaker 3: there and take tires off from rims for you know,
Speaker 3: ten twelve hours to take these rims in and scrap
Speaker 3: steel and stuff like that. I think you just learn
Speaker 3: along the way and eventually it just leads to you
Speaker 3: know where I'm at today. I guess I would say
Speaker 3: just work ethic. I don't know if it was learned
Speaker 3: or God given, but either way, I'm thankful for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that work ethic led you just recently to killing
Speaker 2: the biggest deer ever. Has that been confirmed? Is that is?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 2: Is he as big as he thought he was?
Speaker 3: He is every bit is big, if not better. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So what I kind of thought we could do is
Speaker 2: that story, which is kind of like the culmination of
Speaker 2: all of your years of hunting and personal growth. This
Speaker 2: led you to this moment. It seems like I want
Speaker 2: to use this specific story to hopefully uncover all of
Speaker 2: the parts of your process that led to this success,
Speaker 2: not just the success, but the many, many, many other
Speaker 2: year that you've killed over the years. So where I
Speaker 2: kind of want to start is towards the end of
Speaker 2: the story, and you can jump back into history to
Speaker 2: tell me about whatever you think is most important from
Speaker 2: the past. But if I could have us pick up
Speaker 2: the story of this buck you call Lockness in the spring,
Speaker 2: after you picked up both of his sheds, you found one,
Speaker 2: and then I don't know how much longer it was.
Speaker 2: Later in the spring you had some buddies come out
Speaker 2: and they continue to search with you, and now you've
Speaker 2: got the match set, both antlers from this buck Lockness
Speaker 2: that you think has the potential to be the buck
Speaker 2: of a lifetime, and you decide, all right, this is
Speaker 2: the deer I'm going to try to kill this year.
Speaker 2: What do the following weeks and months look like for you? Ohwen,
Speaker 2: when you have one specific buck that is of this
Speaker 2: nature that your year is going to revolve around. You've
Speaker 2: got habitat work, You've got stand prep work. Maybe there's
Speaker 2: scouting work, maybe there's just sitting up late at night
Speaker 2: looking at maps or photos or something. Can you walk
Speaker 2: me through some of those most important things you did
Speaker 2: in the few months after that as you start building
Speaker 2: this whole mousetrap.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah. I mean it was basically the same
Speaker 3: for Lockness as it had been for a lot of
Speaker 3: other deer. You know, I had learned that if you
Speaker 3: would manipulate the landscape and the food and all that
Speaker 3: and keep it the same a lot of times the
Speaker 3: bucks would do the same thing, and so that was
Speaker 3: my goal, you know, going into the year. I wanted
Speaker 3: everything to be just the same and hoping he would
Speaker 3: do the same thing, live in the same area. And
Speaker 3: it did come to fruition. He did do that, he
Speaker 3: obliged and it worked out.
Speaker 4: So how many years have you owned this piece?
Speaker 3: I've been here six, I think six or seven, Okay.
Speaker 4: So not too much longer than how long I've known you,
Speaker 4: because I think you know. Part of what you're trying
Speaker 4: to say there is is like Lockness was just the buck,
Speaker 4: the newest tenant, for lack of a better term, And
Speaker 4: I remember when I met Owen back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: he wasn't improving his farm based on the buck that
Speaker 4: was there, right, if that makes sense. Like I look
Speaker 4: at you and it's like the process of when you
Speaker 4: first got here. Maybe that's what where it really starts.
Speaker 4: Lockness is just six years later the buck that happens
Speaker 4: to live there. But one thing that's so different. And
Speaker 4: maybe there's factors that you think that influences, but your
Speaker 4: piece of property. If a buck is in a certain
Speaker 4: zip code, the chances are he's going to do with
Speaker 4: the five and a half six and a half year
Speaker 4: old that was there three years ago, is what that
Speaker 4: one did. And I've never seen a lot of properties
Speaker 4: like that. And it's almost like you've maximized your acreage, right,
Speaker 4: you know, whether that's the food you know, whether that's
Speaker 4: your food pot architecture from the standpoint of bow hunting them.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe it's you bought this farm, you had
Speaker 4: all these years of developing your strategies and fine tuning. Okay,
Speaker 4: you got the piece of dirt when you first closed
Speaker 4: on it. What was your steps then, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the same on all these farms. So,
Speaker 3: like Josh alluded to, it doesn't just happen when I
Speaker 3: have a buck that I want to go after. So
Speaker 3: this is every year, I'm doing all the same kind
Speaker 3: of things. I'm out there trying to improve you know,
Speaker 3: TSI and just really thinking about what does the farm need.
Speaker 3: In any given farm, you know, what does it need?
Speaker 3: What can I do work? And I put food working,
Speaker 3: I put water and so all this is going into
Speaker 3: every farm every year, and so you know, when a
Speaker 3: certain buck comes along, it's just a continuation of what
Speaker 3: you've always done. So you know, really not a lot
Speaker 3: of new stuff. It's just what I've always done.
Speaker 2: Really, So what makes this zone such a great I know,
Speaker 2: we'll call it a buck hotel?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: It seems like if you're sanely every year, you know,
Speaker 2: if a big buck's around, this is where he wants
Speaker 2: to be. And when the top dog is knocked off
Speaker 2: the pedestal because you got him, the next buck fills
Speaker 2: in that vacancy. What have you made here or what
Speaker 2: have you set aside to make them safe? Or what
Speaker 2: makes this hold a top tier deer like this consistently?
Speaker 3: The secluded timber, I would say, is that is the
Speaker 3: number one factor that this There is a secluded timber
Speaker 3: that's kind of in the middle. I would say it's
Speaker 3: a sanctuary for lack of better terms. It's not like
Speaker 3: I never go into it, but if I do hunt
Speaker 3: around it, it's usually with the wind blowing away from
Speaker 3: that timber, and so they just feel secure in that.
Speaker 3: It's a big thicket and you know they live in there,
Speaker 3: and you know, I try to hunt them on the fringes.
Speaker 3: I'd rarely ever hunt inside that timber. So I wait
Speaker 3: for him to come out of that and just you know,
Speaker 3: leave that to them, and a lot of times you'll
Speaker 3: see it to be interesting. You know, a buck will
Speaker 3: be in an area that you know, like the crabs
Speaker 3: fly you guys may have heard of before that there's
Speaker 3: always a big buck down there, and you know, once
Speaker 3: he gets removed or maybe another dominant buck moves in,
Speaker 3: they'll displace a little bit and they'll they'll find their place.
Speaker 3: I see that a lot with these big dominant bucks
Speaker 3: is you know, they'll find their ten acres if that's
Speaker 3: what they call home, and that's you know, they kind
Speaker 3: of own that area. So that's always interesting to see.
Speaker 3: But but I would say, you know, the thicket in
Speaker 3: the habitat work has been probably the number one factor.
Speaker 4: Well, like, okay, I'm I just bought my first farm.
Speaker 4: What's what's habitat work mean?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 4: Like I know TSI timber stand improvement. But you know,
Speaker 4: maybe somebody listening or even me, like, well, what's the
Speaker 4: next layer of tears about a farm? I achieved the
Speaker 4: dream helped me make the most of it.
Speaker 3: Right, And I think every farm is a little bit different.
Speaker 3: It's just a matter of seeing what you have, what
Speaker 3: it needs. You know, is it wide open timber with
Speaker 3: no undergrowth. I mean, so is that what you need?
Speaker 3: You know, do you need undergrowth? I mean it's looking
Speaker 3: at all the variables and deciding what it needs, you know.
Speaker 4: So one thing I think is interesting here as you do,
Speaker 4: maybe I feel like I always grow up thinking deer season,
Speaker 4: food plots, green plots, ag your brain is three sixty five.
Speaker 4: I want that buck to live right there. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: you know, and.
Speaker 3: You learn a lot of things along the way. I
Speaker 3: think one of the differences market coming from Michigan is
Speaker 3: you don't have to have all timber. I know, when
Speaker 3: I moved out here, I wanted to hunt all the
Speaker 3: timbered stuff. Well, out here, a lot of the deer
Speaker 3: are in more open areas. If you've got you know,
Speaker 3: some cover, brushy cover that's more open. A lot of
Speaker 3: times that's where your big bucks will bed. And so
Speaker 3: that's always interesting to take note. You don't need to
Speaker 3: always make it the thickest on rabbit hole. Rabbit can't
Speaker 3: crawl through a kind of thing. It's interesting to see
Speaker 3: how they're a little bit different out here. And I
Speaker 3: suppose as you go farther west, it's even more so
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned, you know, these big old bucks will
Speaker 2: have their little ten acre pocket or something that they claim.
Speaker 2: Something we've been talking to a lot of folks about
Speaker 2: recently is just how buck behavior changes as they get
Speaker 2: older and when you get that five, six, seven or
Speaker 2: eight year old deer whatever. A lot of folks talk
Speaker 2: about how they see a deer's core area shrink, tighten
Speaker 2: up the older they get. Is that something you've seen too,
Speaker 2: with those old old deer that you've got to observe
Speaker 2: and hunt.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, it's been so much fun to watch more
Speaker 3: over the years. But you see them, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: as a three year old, and they're all over the
Speaker 3: whole farm, and they're sporadic. You know, that's why a
Speaker 3: lot of them get killed because they move so much.
Speaker 3: And as they get older in that dominance hierarchy, they
Speaker 3: start gaining ground there. They start going into these pockets
Speaker 3: where they want to be. You know, now they're no
Speaker 3: longer pushed out by another a crabs or a wide
Speaker 3: nine or whatever, so they start to claim these prime
Speaker 3: areas and those are usually the areas that have the
Speaker 3: betting they want to be in. It's got the food,
Speaker 3: the water's got everything they want, and especially to those
Speaker 3: in every year they just start condensing down smaller and smaller.
Speaker 3: And it was no different with this lockness buck. I mean,
Speaker 3: looking back now, I think he was living in an
Speaker 3: area that was less than ten acres well just a time,
Speaker 3: you know, that's why I couldn't catch him on a
Speaker 3: lot of cameras, didn't know where he was because he
Speaker 3: was living in such a small pocket.
Speaker 2: Do you find with a deer like that where the
Speaker 2: core gets so tight you know, there's a certain predictability
Speaker 2: to it that should help you as a hunter. But
Speaker 2: on the flip side, it seems like there's this high
Speaker 2: risk of you know, if you mess up in that bedroom,
Speaker 2: you know you're right on top of him. It's not
Speaker 2: like he's all over the place. There's like one spot
Speaker 2: and if you're going to make a mistake, it's going
Speaker 2: to be right in his bedroom, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: seemingly usually a high risk spot. How is that? How
Speaker 2: did that impact the way you thought about hunting this
Speaker 2: deer or any other old buck that's done something similar?
Speaker 2: Do you worry about that or do you not? Because
Speaker 2: they're so dead set on wanting to be in their
Speaker 2: little pocket, that's hard to push him out of there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I still worry about it. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's why I usually hunt the fringes, Like, if I
Speaker 3: have an idea where he's betting, where he's living, I
Speaker 3: want to hunt the outside fringes of that and not
Speaker 3: just go busting right into where he's living, because I'm
Speaker 3: sure you could change that up or at the very
Speaker 3: least make him completely nocturnal. So you know, that's what
Speaker 3: I'm trying to avoid.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it goes back to where you kind
Speaker 4: of steer this conversation mark of you found those antlers first.
Speaker 4: I think for the folks that might have no idea
Speaker 4: about lockedness, you know it really wasn't you were like, Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm hunting the buck of a lifetime. I'll never forget
Speaker 4: we found those antlers. I'm like, oh, and you got
Speaker 4: to talk about it just in case he's alive, because
Speaker 4: he was not in the best of spirits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had that big hematoma. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you're familiar with that, but he had a great, big
Speaker 3: hemotoone on his right side, and after he shed, he's
Speaker 3: shed pretty early. I'm looking at all my trail photos
Speaker 3: and looking for a buck with a hematoma, you know,
Speaker 3: a shed buck and I can never find one, and
Speaker 3: so I'm just thinking, well, he died, I mean, he
Speaker 3: didn't make it through. And of course so disappointed if
Speaker 3: that's the case, you know, because you spend all this
Speaker 3: time and resources trying to make sure this is the
Speaker 3: one buck that you wanted to hunt your you know,
Speaker 3: your whole life. You look like you had the genetics
Speaker 3: for it, and so yeah, I was pretty disappointed. They
Speaker 3: get under your skin, you know, almost like kids or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just you know, you're super attached to him. Really,
Speaker 3: it's kind of wild.
Speaker 2: But yeah, So another thing I'm thinking about with these
Speaker 2: you know, tight home ranges or when you have like
Speaker 2: a we'll call it a buck hotel that always holds
Speaker 2: a good deer in there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I've started thinking I've had
Speaker 2: the luxury of starting to think about, is I've got
Speaker 2: a few places that I've hunted year after year after
Speaker 2: year now where I'm getting to the point now where
Speaker 2: bucks can reach maturity. We were talking about this before
Speaker 2: we start recording, Like I've got a spot now where
Speaker 2: like I can get a five year old buck in Michigan.
Speaker 2: But it's not always you know, a big antler deer.
Speaker 2: I get a lot of you know, solid mature bucks now,
Speaker 2: but only ever once in a while do I get
Speaker 2: a deer that comes around that might break that one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty inch mark here. That's pretty rare. It's
Speaker 2: like once every five to ten years, I'll get a
Speaker 2: deer maybe that could get over one forty. So something
Speaker 2: I've started thinking out more now. I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people talk about this kind of stuff in places
Speaker 2: where this is commonplace, but for me, it's relatively rare.
Speaker 2: I've started thinking, like, man, do I need to start
Speaker 2: shooting some of these deer that are four that are
Speaker 2: you know, just a big, solid bully eight pointer because
Speaker 2: he's claiming the best buck hotel. And now I've got
Speaker 2: this really nice up and coming three year old who
Speaker 2: never could claim that because this gnarly old four or
Speaker 2: five year old deer has been here forever. And then
Speaker 2: that freewheel in three year old that has the possibility
Speaker 2: to be a one fifty one sixty some day he's
Speaker 2: relegated to third or fourth place in the general area
Speaker 2: and he gets killed by the neighbors because of that
Speaker 2: something like that. Have you ever had to go to
Speaker 2: this level like buck management where you are taking out
Speaker 2: a deer out of the buck hotel because you want
Speaker 2: that to open up for some good three or four
Speaker 2: year old that you know might be in the area.
Speaker 3: Man, did you hit the nail on the head with that?
Speaker 3: You'll see me a lot of times it always talk about,
Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't matter the antler sized buck if
Speaker 3: he's an old aggressive buck. Always talk about managing the farm.
Speaker 3: And you were so spot on with that. You know,
Speaker 3: that's the probably the number one factor of why these
Speaker 3: bigger bucks have been there is because I continue to
Speaker 3: shoot these bully bucks, these apes or whatever they are,
Speaker 3: you know, and that makes room for that buck that
Speaker 3: like we talk about that dominance hierarchy, you know, if
Speaker 3: that a big bully buck is in there, I mean
Speaker 3: I had two years ago my girlfriend shot one of
Speaker 3: the bucks. It was just super dominant in the very
Speaker 3: area the lackness was in. So I think that was key.
Speaker 3: I mean, you got to continue to do that. I
Speaker 3: think you're spot on.
Speaker 2: Is there anything when you're trying to do that? The
Speaker 2: first thing I think about when I'm imagining this scenario
Speaker 2: is I want to try to hunt and kill this
Speaker 2: bully buck at the same time, I don't want to
Speaker 2: put so much pressure to educate the up and coming
Speaker 2: buck that I want to kill next year or two
Speaker 2: years from now. Do you hunt for these I don't
Speaker 2: want to call them call bucks, but we'll call them
Speaker 2: a management buck. Do you ever hunt a management buck
Speaker 2: in a different kind of way because you're trying to
Speaker 2: preserve the best spot for that young buck? Or does
Speaker 2: that not matter because it's going to be a year
Speaker 2: or two later anyways, and that's not going to translate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I pretty much hunt them the same
Speaker 3: as all of them, because I am hunting the fringes.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not really diving into their bedroom so
Speaker 3: much anyway, So I'm on the fringe either way. So
Speaker 3: I pretty much hunt them the same way. You know,
Speaker 3: I might just hunt them a little more aggressive as
Speaker 3: far as the time I put in trying to get them,
Speaker 3: you know, Okay, details.
Speaker 4: You know, he guys talked about that, having to pay
Speaker 4: attention to the details. Coming from Michigan. You say, you
Speaker 4: hunt them the same way, but it's like the way
Speaker 4: you set up your farm. You're deer don't even know
Speaker 4: you're there, right, I mean, like, and that might be
Speaker 4: something we talk about because yeah, you hunt almost every
Speaker 4: day you can. Yeah, but it's in a way that,
Speaker 4: like people might think of the word pressure, just because
Speaker 4: you're there, it doesn't mean that you're leaving an impact.
Speaker 2: I guess, right, Yeah, how do you pull that off?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, you know, going back to even like
Speaker 3: the trails I make to these stands so you don't
Speaker 3: have to make a big rockets getting in there. You're
Speaker 3: minimizing your scent. You know, almost everything's got some type
Speaker 3: of trail to it, either a mode path or we
Speaker 3: go in and clear out the brush. You know. Now
Speaker 3: I've been able to get to a point where I've
Speaker 3: got equipment, so if I want to go in pull
Speaker 3: out some small trees so we can slip through an
Speaker 3: area quietly, I'll do that, you know. So, like Josh said,
Speaker 3: it's just it's keeping the pressure down even though you're
Speaker 3: in there hunting quite a bit. You know, you don't
Speaker 3: hunt it on the wrong wind direction and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I've seen you in some videos when you're talking about
Speaker 2: your habitat improvements. You've mentioned a few different times that
Speaker 2: you look at access first, so before figuring out where
Speaker 2: you want to put a food plot, you're looking at
Speaker 2: access first, and then you pick a tree and then
Speaker 2: you design the plot around the access in the tree.
Speaker 2: Can you elaborate on that a little bit and how
Speaker 2: you think about access to these farms when you're setting
Speaker 2: up an ambush location, Like what are the really important
Speaker 2: factors and what are some of the tricks that you
Speaker 2: found for accessing and exiting these places that are still
Speaker 2: good to hunt, but you know you can slip it
Speaker 2: and out without this deer knowing it, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right. I mean I think it's so critical
Speaker 3: to be able to get in and get out of
Speaker 3: there without them knowing you're hunting them, especially if you're
Speaker 3: going to hunt, you know, day after day or multiple
Speaker 3: days in a row. And so usually I'll start with waterways,
Speaker 3: I mean, great places to access is you know down
Speaker 3: creek drainages or washouts, that kind of thing. And anytime
Speaker 3: you can walk those down and pop up out of
Speaker 3: those right to a tree stand or blind or whatever
Speaker 3: you're hunting, I think it's great, great strategy, And I've
Speaker 3: got a lot of stuff like that. That's that's where
Speaker 3: I start. So I've got majority of my stuff. You'll see,
Speaker 3: even my tree stands are right off of drainage of
Speaker 3: some type. You can climb down the tree and into
Speaker 3: the drainage and walk it out.
Speaker 2: Yep. When it comes to your paths that you're making,
Speaker 2: you mentioned mowing it, doing some other work like that.
Speaker 2: Do you go to the point of clearing leaves in season,
Speaker 2: because I know some guys will actually in season try
Speaker 2: to clear leaves so that it's silent when you're walking.
Speaker 2: I've always worried about that, and like going in there
Speaker 2: and raking a trail or blowing a trail would just
Speaker 2: seem like too much human activity in season, but some
Speaker 2: people do it.
Speaker 4: Do you I have before?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've done some pretty crazy stuff. I remember one time,
Speaker 3: this was back probably fifteen years ago, we raked a trail,
Speaker 3: you know, regular rakes, no leaf blow or anything over
Speaker 3: a quarter of a mile because we bumped deer a
Speaker 3: couple of times going in there, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: that attention to detail. We can't have that if we're
Speaker 3: going to have a good hunt. And so we go
Speaker 3: in and rake a trail all the way down to
Speaker 3: Ravine up you know, up the hills, and it's a
Speaker 3: lot of work. But when you're just a lunatic about it.
Speaker 3: It just seems normal.
Speaker 4: That's what you do when you do that. Are you
Speaker 4: paying attention to the wind? Because I think about going in,
Speaker 4: it's like you just walk in and start raking just
Speaker 4: because you're scared some deer, and like, are you paying
Speaker 4: attention to those same details of like you're you're raking
Speaker 4: on the right wind?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: I mean, like, yeah, exactly. That's the thing about you.
Speaker 4: It doesn't just stop stop there, You're like, oh, you
Speaker 4: going to rake to be quiet, But it's like there's
Speaker 4: fifteen other factors that if you like poke and pry,
Speaker 4: you're like, well, yeah, I mean, uh, of course I'll
Speaker 4: do it this.
Speaker 3: Way right exactly. Yeah, I don't. I don't necessarily think
Speaker 3: of that stuff anymore because it's automatic. But yeah, when
Speaker 3: you're going in there raking your path, you're doing it
Speaker 3: on the right wind based on where you think the
Speaker 3: deer bed.
Speaker 2: Any other factor to when you would choose to do
Speaker 2: something like that. Would you also like, is there a
Speaker 2: certain time of the season you'd want to do that?
Speaker 2: Is there a certain I'm assuming you'd want to do
Speaker 2: it midday, but is that a thing like you would
Speaker 2: do just before the run or are you doing that
Speaker 2: mid October during the you know, quote unquote lull period,
Speaker 2: or do you do it when would you do something
Speaker 2: like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think early to mid October? Yeah, yeah, early
Speaker 3: to mid October for me, because you still got a
Speaker 3: lot of that foliage up, so you're a little more hidden.
Speaker 3: You know, you're you're not probably making as big a
Speaker 3: disturbance as you think you are, you know, in those leaves.
Speaker 3: Once you get them cleared out of there, I mean,
Speaker 3: it stays pretty clear. I mean you don't have to
Speaker 3: go back in there all the time and do that.
Speaker 3: I mean, just about last few season, you can still
Speaker 3: be pretty quiet.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Would you do it in night time because there
Speaker 4: aren't in that betting area any.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a good point. I haven't, but you
Speaker 3: certainly could. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what about the other things When it comes to
Speaker 2: your actual stand setups or blind setups, You've got path
Speaker 2: to every single one of them. Sometimes you will rake
Speaker 2: leaves to make sure that that path is safe and quiet.
Speaker 2: You've got if it's not a mode trail, it's an
Speaker 2: access route through a waterway or a creek or something
Speaker 2: like that. What are the other little things you're doing
Speaker 2: to make sure that a stand site is as good
Speaker 2: as possible, Like when you're sitting there on the day
Speaker 2: you're prepping it, whether it's in February or August or
Speaker 2: whatever it is that you're doing that. What are the
Speaker 2: little things that you're trying to line up to make
Speaker 2: it just right, whether it be picking the right tree
Speaker 2: and having cover in it, or whether it be you know,
Speaker 2: different things are adding to the location, Like I've seen
Speaker 2: you add some things to hunt locations. What are the
Speaker 2: most most important things in your mind?
Speaker 3: I think all the above, as you alluded to, a
Speaker 3: lot of times we're adding cover. You know, if it's
Speaker 3: a tree, I think the location is the most important.
Speaker 3: So I'll take a mediocre tree in a great location
Speaker 3: versus the other way around. I think that's the most important.
Speaker 3: So a lot of times I'll add cover to a
Speaker 3: tree because that's where I want to be, you know.
Speaker 3: And then the other just small details like trimming every
Speaker 3: limb that could pose a problem, you know, like there's
Speaker 3: that one limb, and I know guys that help me
Speaker 3: and stuff probably drives them nuts. I'm like, can you
Speaker 3: get that one limb right there that's thirty seven feet
Speaker 3: up in the air, you know, stuff like that. But
Speaker 3: sometimes it just makes the difference. I mean, how many
Speaker 3: times have you heard guys say, like, I had him
Speaker 3: at twenty yards and I just couldn't get a shot.
Speaker 3: There was one limb in the way. Well, if you
Speaker 3: had to trim that one limb, you'd be having your
Speaker 3: hero photos right now, you know. So just those tiny
Speaker 3: details I think are so important.
Speaker 4: It goes back to the Michigan mentality. I mean, I
Speaker 4: hate to keep interjecting, but one of the things about
Speaker 4: all this is you do all of these things and
Speaker 4: mark you're probably the same way and the deer aren't there,
Speaker 4: and it's like it's almost just you're trained to pay
Speaker 4: attention to every detail, improve every spot. Like I think
Speaker 4: about the new eighty you had this year. You didn't
Speaker 4: know what bucks are there. There was no care in
Speaker 4: the world if you were going to hunt something, but
Speaker 4: you prepped and visualized as if the buck of a
Speaker 4: lifetime was going to be there. Growing up in Iowa,
Speaker 4: if there was a big deer in the area. Now
Speaker 4: all of the sudden we paid attention. Now all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, we cared, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 4: so that I think is the approach where it's like,
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter what's residing on the piece of property,
Speaker 4: you're a steward of the land. Yeah, and maybe the
Speaker 4: beginning of this conversation, it's like, what is the benefit
Speaker 4: of that Michigan struggle. I mean, that seems to be
Speaker 4: the connection for me watching you know, big picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right. I set up all
Speaker 3: the stuff like you're hunting the buck of a lifetime
Speaker 3: because you never know when you might be, you know,
Speaker 3: And so we do it all the same on each
Speaker 3: one of them because eventually you're probably going to be
Speaker 3: hunting a buck there that you're really happy to be hunting.
Speaker 3: So it's just the way we go about it.
Speaker 2: Scrape trees, rubbing posts. I've seen you install those in
Speaker 2: some of your locations. What's the uh, what's the fine
Speaker 2: tune process there? I've seen you've got some specific types
Speaker 2: of limbs you prefer. I see you've got a very
Speaker 2: specific post style you're using a lot of the time.
Speaker 2: How do you do that in the best possible way?
Speaker 2: And why?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's all been trial and error. I may
Speaker 3: have been one of the first guys to ever start
Speaker 3: using the rubbing posts This goes back to the early
Speaker 3: two thousands, just after I got here, and it was
Speaker 3: just well, if he likes to scrape on this edge,
Speaker 3: what if he likes to scrape right here by my
Speaker 3: tree stand, you know. And so it was just a
Speaker 3: trial thing. I've got some old pictures going way back,
Speaker 3: and you know what worked was just trying to limbs,
Speaker 3: and I try hickory limb, I try an oak limb, cedar,
Speaker 3: you know, all this different stuff, just to see what
Speaker 3: if they preferred anything more than another. So that's just
Speaker 3: more so trial and error and working on all that.
Speaker 3: You know, probably the best thing would be in this
Speaker 3: area as a cedar post. If you had pine like
Speaker 3: you do in Michigan, you got quite a bit of pine.
Speaker 3: If you trim down a pine post or a cedar
Speaker 3: post and then planted, that would probably be better than
Speaker 3: these store bought and things. But just for ease of
Speaker 3: going and getting as many as you want, it's you know,
Speaker 3: easier to go to the lumberyard and just get a
Speaker 3: bunch of these posts and then drill your hole. But
Speaker 3: I've got just one seedar post that we trimmed out
Speaker 3: and planned it because I wanted to try it. Like
Speaker 3: everything else, you know, Just so I would say that's
Speaker 3: probably all of that has just been trial and error
Speaker 3: and what's worked and what hasn't.
Speaker 4: For somebody who hasn't seen you do it on video,
Speaker 4: what is your process? Because you mentioned the limb, but
Speaker 4: you know, walk somebody through that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So when I have a good spot, and a
Speaker 3: lot of times these are beyond food sources or openings,
Speaker 3: I'll put this rubbing post twenty yards from my tree.
Speaker 3: I want it to be a good shot. Obviously, you're
Speaker 3: not gonna put it out thirty or forty yards and
Speaker 3: give yourself a tougher shot than you need to. So
Speaker 3: twenty yards. You don't want him right under your tree,
Speaker 3: but you know, a good shot. That's a makable shot
Speaker 3: for you. And then I'm going to point the limb
Speaker 3: toward my tree because you want him either if he
Speaker 3: comes from the side or even quartered away, you know
Speaker 3: you want him to present that angle. If you put
Speaker 3: it on the opposite side of the your rubbing post
Speaker 3: or tree or whatever, then you know, possibly that's in
Speaker 3: the way. So all those little details and then you know,
Speaker 3: I'll drill a hole in that rubbing post and then
Speaker 3: usually an oak limb is what I'll use a red
Speaker 3: oak because they're pretty good limb. They don't break easily
Speaker 3: like a white oak or some of the others. You know.
Speaker 3: I've got a height that I really like, you know,
Speaker 3: five and a half feet five and a half to
Speaker 3: six feet. I like to have them up there and
Speaker 3: just seems to be the ticket. And of course it's
Speaker 3: great for inventory, I know, I talk about that a lot.
Speaker 3: There's no other way rather get inventory. I don't know
Speaker 3: if there's a better way.
Speaker 2: Really, do you see that limb staying effective throughout the
Speaker 2: entire season or do you ever replace it at some
Speaker 2: point in the year so you have fresh leaves and
Speaker 2: it's not all worn down yet.
Speaker 3: I usually leave it for the entire season. But that's
Speaker 3: just because the size of the scale I'm doing this
Speaker 3: on now. I mean, it's it's like two days of
Speaker 3: work to go around to every one of these and
Speaker 3: replace the limb, you know. And so if you had one,
Speaker 3: I've had to replace them several times because one had
Speaker 3: got broken, you know. So if you have that scenario,
Speaker 3: I'll go replace it right away. But most of the
Speaker 3: time throughout the season, I'll just leave it as long
Speaker 3: as that limbs still up.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about mock scrapes in general, So not creating
Speaker 2: a new tree in the middle of the field, but
Speaker 2: do you ever create mock scrapes under existing trees elsewhere
Speaker 2: to either enhance the stand site or you know some people,
Speaker 2: some people go really wild and mock scrapes and like
Speaker 2: to make tons of them all over the place to
Speaker 2: try to like keep deer on their property. I've seen
Speaker 2: other people remove licking branches so that deer won't scrape
Speaker 2: anywhere except for right next to their tree stand where
Speaker 2: they have one scrap. Do you do anything else like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, both of those. I mean I'll do that, especially
Speaker 3: around your stand location. Obviously, if it's a tree that's
Speaker 3: right there where you want them, I'll do that very thing.
Speaker 3: A lot of times, I'll just add a limb. I'll
Speaker 3: cut an oak limb. If you've got whatever limb overhanging
Speaker 3: it's not the right height, I'll go zip tie that
Speaker 3: limb on so it hangs straight down. And they really
Speaker 3: seem to like that. And like you said too, if
Speaker 3: you've got limbs on the other side of the opening,
Speaker 3: let's say that they really like to hit, and you'll
Speaker 3: cut those down and make this the best scrape right there?
Speaker 3: So yeah, I do that all the time.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about with the stand itself or the blind itself.
Speaker 2: Is there any fine tuning that you do to either
Speaker 2: make them more quiet or to better set them up
Speaker 2: for good shots? What are those final things? You pick
Speaker 2: the tree, you put the stand up, and now you're
Speaker 2: sitting there just before you leave, and you're thinking yourself, Okay,
Speaker 2: what are the last couple of things I need to
Speaker 2: do to make sure this is bulletproof, to make sure
Speaker 2: this is as good as possible? Does anything else stand
Speaker 2: out that you sometimes do?
Speaker 3: I mean, just looking at the tree from a deer's
Speaker 3: perspective is one thing I like to do, and seeing
Speaker 3: if you look skylined up there, if you need more cover,
Speaker 3: I mean, can you get your stand where there's a
Speaker 3: big limb breaking up your outline? I really like that.
Speaker 3: If you can get in a tree that's got big
Speaker 3: limbs coming off or multiple trunks that kind of breaks
Speaker 3: you up. You know, you don't always have that, but
Speaker 3: it's one of the things I look at. And then
Speaker 3: my stand angle I really like too, is trying to
Speaker 3: set that stand to where you can shoot off your
Speaker 3: left shoulder. You know, for me being right handed, you
Speaker 3: don't have to turn completely around on your stand to shoot.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you get surprised, you're ready to go.
Speaker 3: Just those little things.
Speaker 2: Okay, so your property is prepped, you know.
Speaker 4: The deer.
Speaker 2: He When was it that you got the confirmed first
Speaker 2: picture of him that he was alive this year?
Speaker 3: Man? Uh you saw it first? Yeah? Yeah, Actually I
Speaker 3: saw him early in the spring. I saw a bucket.
Speaker 3: I remember telling Josh this. I thought was lockness at
Speaker 3: the time, but it was so early in the year
Speaker 3: I couldn't be certain, you know. I was like, man,
Speaker 3: it might have been him. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, maybe he is alive. And then it
Speaker 3: was later on. I think it was in July, maybe
Speaker 3: late July. I had jumped the buck out of the
Speaker 3: CRP and I said, it can't be any other. Buck
Speaker 3: is huge, you know, super wide, kicker stickers, a little
Speaker 3: drop and huge masks, and I'm like, he's got to
Speaker 3: be alive. So then it's like just start dumping cameras
Speaker 3: in these areas, you know, trying to relocate him see
Speaker 3: if it is indeed him. So it was maybe middle
Speaker 3: of August, I think by the time I checked those
Speaker 3: cameras and confirmed that he was alive.
Speaker 2: Okay, So leading into opening day, you've got sightings from
Speaker 2: previous years, you have photos from that year and previous years,
Speaker 2: and then you know the history of how the property operates, right,
Speaker 2: how other deer have used it. What were the most
Speaker 2: important pieces of information in your mind that you had
Speaker 2: kind of figured out about this deer leading into that
Speaker 2: first day, whether it be like personality traits or how
Speaker 2: he used the landscape or anything else. What were those
Speaker 2: most important couple of things that you had learned up
Speaker 2: to that point that you thought were going to be
Speaker 2: critical to your success.
Speaker 3: Man, I really don't know. I think just having that
Speaker 3: area narrowed down to where he liked to live and
Speaker 3: seeing how he shifted once he shed his veil, but
Speaker 3: I think was probably the most critical because if you're
Speaker 3: hunting two hundred yards away from where he said, obviously
Speaker 3: you're in a disadvantage. So just know one where he
Speaker 3: wanted to be was super critical.
Speaker 2: So he knew basically where he went to bed. Did
Speaker 2: you have like a pattern as far as that man
Speaker 2: he usually will come out and feed in this area
Speaker 2: early or was there any kind of like annual pattern
Speaker 2: you were starting to see, or or window where you
Speaker 2: thought my best chance is going to be this window
Speaker 2: or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I really didn't from years past. That's why I was
Speaker 3: so surprised that to have him on a daylight pattern
Speaker 3: in that green plot were ended up getting him, you know,
Speaker 3: because I didn't have that years past. You just it
Speaker 3: was pretty nocturnal. You didn't see much of him, So
Speaker 3: it was a little surprising to have that this year.
Speaker 4: That's kind of what you talked about mark of You've
Speaker 4: noticed people make that trend of four or five and
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden at six, I remember you
Speaker 4: find those sheds. Yeah, I'm like, so you think you
Speaker 4: got a good chance if he's alive. You're like, no,
Speaker 4: not at all. And that's like I mean, seriously, when
Speaker 4: you talk about personality types of bucks, I know it
Speaker 4: sounds crazy to some people like you maybe like humanized
Speaker 4: this deer, but it's it's a thing like some of
Speaker 4: the bucks on this wall. They were all around daylight, lockness,
Speaker 4: and the approach you made for him and all the
Speaker 4: plans you know, when you found those sheds really had
Speaker 4: nothing to do with how you killed them, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's right. Maybe that'd be something like four and five.
Speaker 4: What kind of buck was he?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now, yeah, I totally agree with that. He
Speaker 3: was super nocturnal. I mean, I guess a little bit.
Speaker 3: At five. I had him at one place we called
Speaker 3: the Big Oak. I did have him daylight there several times.
Speaker 3: No real pattern to it, but he would daylight there.
Speaker 3: That's why I thought I might get my shot right there.
Speaker 3: So I guess, you know, going back to your point,
Speaker 3: that there was some historical data right there. But as
Speaker 3: it turned out, he did start the daylight in that
Speaker 3: green plot, which was surprising to me. So obviously having
Speaker 3: that information was critical.
Speaker 2: So I heard that you decided not to use cell
Speaker 2: cameras this year. You went back to standard trail cameras.
Speaker 2: Can you explain that decision a little bit, especially when
Speaker 2: you've got your chance at a buck of a lifetime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking there,
Speaker 3: But you know, when I used to check cameras, like
Speaker 3: we all did, you know before selling all that, I
Speaker 3: just loved doing that. It was something I really enjoyed.
Speaker 3: So I would be out there most of the day
Speaker 3: and I'm getting my exercise. Besides, plus I'm on the
Speaker 3: farm that I love. I'm just you know, So that
Speaker 3: was the allure to it. I want to get back
Speaker 3: to that because it's something I just love to do.
Speaker 3: And then the other thing in regards to the lockness
Speaker 3: Buck is I just wanted that shock value when he
Speaker 3: stepped out. I didn't really know he was there, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, You're like, well, there he is.
Speaker 3: And you know, the older guys you know that. You know,
Speaker 3: we never had that kind of information growing up, and
Speaker 3: so all of them were like that. You're like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, here he comes, you know, And so I
Speaker 3: wanted that again with this lockness Buck. But then you know,
Speaker 3: as we started into the season, I didn't know where
Speaker 3: he was. Yeah, I know, I know, Josh you talked
Speaker 3: about a little bit. It was driving me crazy. I'd
Speaker 3: be texting John, I have no idea where he's at.
Speaker 3: He left the state, and you know, in hindsight, he
Speaker 3: was living in such a small area that that's why
Speaker 3: I wasn't getting him anywhere else because he just wasn't moving.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just bed to food, food to bed.
Speaker 2: So what was the camera strategy then? As far as
Speaker 2: since you since you did not sell cameras. You were
Speaker 2: going back to the camera strategy that we were all using,
Speaker 2: you know, five ten years ago, where you had to
Speaker 2: actually go in there pull the cards yourself. So did
Speaker 2: you have more conservative camera placement because of that, or
Speaker 2: did you stick them where you always would and just
Speaker 2: had a certain way you could access them so that
Speaker 2: it was low impact. How often were you checking them?
Speaker 2: I'm curious about all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I put them in the traditional spots
Speaker 3: where they're easy to check. I'm usually on the fringes
Speaker 3: or on these paths like a mode path, you know,
Speaker 3: we're easy to get in and out sent free that
Speaker 3: kind of thing, or by a tree stand, you know,
Speaker 3: if you go in to hunt it, you can pull
Speaker 3: the card then. But you know, I was as we
Speaker 3: started getting into the season, I started checking them a
Speaker 3: little more and a little more because I'm like, what's
Speaker 3: going on? You know. Of course I would only check
Speaker 3: him with the correct win for where I thought he
Speaker 3: was betting. I'll tell you something that might be a
Speaker 3: little bit surprising. On that Green source, I had six
Speaker 3: cameras on one Green source, and it would blow your
Speaker 3: mind that I would only get him on one camera there.
Speaker 3: But consistent, and you know, so finally you started to
Speaker 3: piece it together. Actually where he's walking out of the timber.
Speaker 3: How you get him on one camera not on any
Speaker 3: of the others, you know, So that's very surprising that
Speaker 3: he would he would stay to the middle of that
Speaker 3: plot most of the time where he would walk out,
Speaker 3: And so I knew all that, and he might have
Speaker 3: seen in the main show. We put a tree stand
Speaker 3: up just trying to catch that movement. Yeah, it didn't
Speaker 3: work out that way. We didn't get the wind for it,
Speaker 3: but it was interesting. We had a good plan because
Speaker 3: he spent a lot of time in front of that
Speaker 3: tree stand. As you'll see in the two encounters, he
Speaker 3: was in front of that stand on both.
Speaker 2: How big is this grain food plot that he was
Speaker 2: checking out?
Speaker 3: It's about two acres, maybe just just a hair under
Speaker 3: two acres.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you've got six cameras on one two acre
Speaker 2: food plot. That's interesting. That's very interesting. Can I think
Speaker 2: I understand the why now because you just described right
Speaker 2: like and this is something I've seen too, Like one
Speaker 2: camera does not capture nearly a full picture of what's
Speaker 2: going on in an area like that. How do you
Speaker 2: decide where those six cameras go. And is that something
Speaker 2: you do on every food source? Do you fully cover
Speaker 2: food sources in that kind of way or was that
Speaker 2: unique just because you thought lockedness was here and so
Speaker 2: you're going to cover all major entries or exits.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, it was because I thought that deer
Speaker 3: was living there in that area, and so I was
Speaker 3: trying to pin down to what he might be doing
Speaker 3: because he is such a different deer. I mean, he
Speaker 3: did everything. He wasn't a very social buck, you know,
Speaker 3: he didn't seem to hang around many deer at all,
Speaker 3: and so I wanted to really pin down what he
Speaker 3: was doing specifically, you know, not really caring what any
Speaker 3: other deer were doing. And so that was unique to that.
Speaker 3: Usually I've got one camera on a food source, maybe
Speaker 3: two sometimes, and usually I'll put him on scrapes this
Speaker 3: time of year because you've got a real good chance
Speaker 3: of catching whatever buck that is.
Speaker 4: You know, how many did you start with, because that's
Speaker 4: one thing you didn't put six there day one, right,
Speaker 4: I mean I think you had the one on the scrape.
Speaker 3: Just well, the one it was just on the corner
Speaker 3: of that plot, so you can kind of catch him
Speaker 3: coming and going.
Speaker 4: So it was like once you knew he was there, yes,
Speaker 4: then it was put him.
Speaker 3: All in yep, on all the scrapes. Now I'm trying
Speaker 3: to trying to figure out a line of movement, is
Speaker 3: what I was trying to do. You know, I want
Speaker 3: to see him coming from one way going to another,
Speaker 3: and that's also going to help me figure out where
Speaker 3: he's betting. You know. But again, you're checking SD cards,
Speaker 3: so it's not like you're there every day. But I
Speaker 3: figured it was a long season, you know, hopefully I
Speaker 3: was going to have time on my side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is your process? You know, this doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be just lockedness. This could be larger than all
Speaker 2: the other bucks. But you're running cameras, you have all
Speaker 2: these photos. When you're trying to use those photos to
Speaker 2: inform your hunts, what level of detail do you drill
Speaker 2: down with those? Are you looking at a specific buck
Speaker 2: and what he did last year and what he did
Speaker 2: the year before and the year before and then trying
Speaker 2: to find that specific annual pattern and window, or are
Speaker 2: you looking and taking a look at Okay, these are
Speaker 2: the days he daylighted. What was the wind, what was
Speaker 2: the temperature, what was the barometric pressure? What was the moon?
Speaker 2: Do you get that nitty gritty into it or is
Speaker 2: it more just for recent Hey he's moving yesterday or
Speaker 2: he's moving last week, I should hunt.
Speaker 3: No, the prior year's data I think is very useful.
Speaker 3: They did the year before the year before that, especially
Speaker 3: as they get older, as you know we talked about
Speaker 3: before before you started recording. You know, as the's deer
Speaker 3: get older, they keep shrinking these cores down, and so
Speaker 3: you know, once they get to four and five and
Speaker 3: they're really showing you where they like to be, I
Speaker 3: think that's critical information. But you know, the real specific
Speaker 3: stuff of the wind direction in that pay really a
Speaker 3: lot of attention to to which I know a lot
Speaker 3: of guys do. But you know, I'm going to be
Speaker 3: out there either way, so I don't you know, if
Speaker 3: he walked in on a south wind, it's nice information
Speaker 3: to know, but you might walk it on a north
Speaker 3: wind too.
Speaker 4: So one thing I hear you talk about a lot
Speaker 4: is keeping the food the same. Yeah, that you know,
Speaker 4: I think that that would be what he puts the
Speaker 4: most stake in. That's right again, going back to find
Speaker 4: those sheds, I'm like, what's the plan. You're like, this
Speaker 4: is the plan. I don't want to change anything. A
Speaker 4: lot of people I've been around, like, well, how do
Speaker 4: I make this better?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: It's like, if he's here, don't touch it. But obviously
Speaker 4: you've changed a little bit with that mix. I mean
Speaker 4: that that might be something too, like why do you
Speaker 4: think was there, yes, the bedroom, but you gave him
Speaker 4: a schmorgasboard of like, no matter what palatability that mix
Speaker 4: had it early.
Speaker 3: Season exactly right. I wanted there to be something there
Speaker 3: that he really liked, and so it had everything in it.
Speaker 3: And I've done that several times. I think that was
Speaker 3: why That's what I wanted to do because I've done
Speaker 3: it several times before and it's always worked out, you know,
Speaker 3: and picket fans and Wide nine and Crabs Buck and
Speaker 3: so there was a lot of them that I'd hunted
Speaker 3: that way and kept it the same and it worked.
Speaker 3: They did the same thing from year to year. If
Speaker 3: you don't have another dominant buck that's moving them out
Speaker 3: of that area, I don't think they're going to go
Speaker 3: anywhere if you give them everything they need, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I get the idea of wanting to keep
Speaker 2: the bedroom and the food basically the same. So they
Speaker 2: stick to that usual pattern they've been on. But what
Speaker 2: about a situation where you don't have that control, So
Speaker 2: something like what I'm dealing with, and something many all
Speaker 2: the places they hunt, I guess is there's corn and
Speaker 2: bean rotations right every other year, the farmer's change and
Speaker 2: what's planted. And so one of the things that I
Speaker 2: frequently find myself debating is I'm trying to understand these
Speaker 2: annual patterns that a buck has and I'm thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what he did. Is a three year old,
Speaker 2: this is what he did is a four year old,
Speaker 2: and now he's a five year old and trying to
Speaker 2: hunt him, and I can look at well, I'll give
Speaker 2: you my exact scenario. This year, I'm after a buck.
Speaker 2: He's five. There's corn this year in the area. Now,
Speaker 2: I've got a whole lot of history and photos of
Speaker 2: him last year as a four year old, and you
Speaker 2: would think that would be the most useful because he
Speaker 2: was more mature, closer to what he is now. But
Speaker 2: the farm's different because last year the farm had soybeans
Speaker 2: all over it and it was wide open. This year
Speaker 2: has corn and there's all sorts of cover. So I'm
Speaker 2: thinking to myself, well, does his behavior last year is
Speaker 2: that the most helpful because he was four, or should
Speaker 2: I actually be looking at him when he was three
Speaker 2: because that was the time he had the same habitat
Speaker 2: there was corn, And so I'm trying to think, like,
Speaker 2: maybe I should be paying attention to what he did
Speaker 2: when it was last corn. What are your thoughts on
Speaker 2: that and the impact of that crop rotation and how
Speaker 2: that may or may not impact, you know, an annual
Speaker 2: pattern of some type.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say you look at both of those,
Speaker 3: you kind of weigh all that out together and see
Speaker 3: if there's anything that you see he did on both ears,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe that's maybe that's what you look at.
Speaker 3: But on yours that are corn, you're always going to
Speaker 3: have more deer in there. I shouldn't say always, but
Speaker 3: most of the time when you get to that cold weather,
Speaker 3: they gravitate toward corn. I used to tell my neighbors,
Speaker 3: you know, my friends and stuff, that they would have
Speaker 3: these great food plots and all these beans and stuff,
Speaker 3: and their neighbor had all this corn. I'd be like, dude,
Speaker 3: you've got to have corn. I'm telling you if you
Speaker 3: don't have corn on your farm, you're at a disadvantage
Speaker 3: because they will there's a time of year they will
Speaker 3: gravitate to corn and that's where they'll be. So I
Speaker 3: like your odds this year with corn on that farm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you've got corn that you can control, which
Speaker 2: I'm thinking you do have. I guess, hey, do you
Speaker 2: have plots that you planted in corn or own that
Speaker 2: you can mow or manipulate in some kind of way.
Speaker 2: And if so, is there anything you do to take
Speaker 2: advantage of that? Because I know a lot of folks
Speaker 2: will cut down corn in front of their blind at
Speaker 2: a certain time of year, or they will have a
Speaker 2: you know, access routes or a hub of a wheel
Speaker 2: type design and using standing corn in a strategic way.
Speaker 2: Have you ever done that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, quite a bit. Actually, the hub of the
Speaker 3: wheel thing is one that's pretty killer. You have all
Speaker 3: these paths coming into your blind set up or your
Speaker 3: tree stand. That's a lot of fun because they will
Speaker 3: actually use those. You know, they're not going to fight
Speaker 3: the corn, especially a buck like lockness. It's that wide.
Speaker 3: He can't even go down the rows corn rows, and
Speaker 3: so these paths like that, I mean, I didn't have
Speaker 3: any set up for him, but I've done that in
Speaker 3: the past and it works very good. You can even
Speaker 3: do that in soybeans, even though they can walk right
Speaker 3: through them. They just like walking down a wide open path.
Speaker 3: It just seems easiest for them. You know. Path of
Speaker 3: least resistance. That's one of those terms that you know,
Speaker 3: we've been using for I don't know, twenty five thirty years.
Speaker 3: You know when you read articles and all that they
Speaker 3: take the path at least resistance, just like when you're
Speaker 3: walking through the timber and you ser club around the
Speaker 3: head of a ditch path least resistance, that's the same
Speaker 3: thing they're going to do nine out of ten times.
Speaker 2: Are there any other examples of you making paths of
Speaker 2: least resistance where you want them?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, for sure. Crossings ditch crossings would be a
Speaker 3: big one. Where you know, maybe you've got a food
Speaker 3: plot in a ditch and erosion ditch and you need
Speaker 3: access to it a farm access. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 3: manipulate where I put that farm crossing just so happens
Speaker 3: to be by a really good tree, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's something you can do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, driving for your green plot yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, drove through the green plot to make tracks. So
Speaker 3: hopefully they'll walk down those you know again path to
Speaker 3: least resistance. Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they they'll take that little tire track just
Speaker 2: a little bit easier. Huh.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's surprising the things that they'll do that you
Speaker 3: would think, well, they can walk across the green just
Speaker 3: as easy. But they're just by nature, they're just lazy
Speaker 3: or conservative. I would say that they're just smart. They
Speaker 3: can serve energy, you know.
Speaker 2: All Right, So the next thing I'm curious about, I'm
Speaker 2: going to keep on taking you down the path of
Speaker 2: my hunt and using your hunt to help my hunt.
Speaker 2: I'm hunting a specific buck. Like I mentioned, I just
Speaker 2: told you one of the things I'm thinking about, and
Speaker 2: one of the constant struggles is that it's a fun struggle,
Speaker 2: but it's one of the things that I stay up
Speaker 2: late thinking about, is trying to make the decision of
Speaker 2: where to hunt this year, right, and so kind of
Speaker 2: similar to your hunt with Lockness, I have a pretty
Speaker 2: strong idea of you know where I think he's betted
Speaker 2: a lot of the time. He's got his pocket that
Speaker 2: he owns now, it seems like but then it's on
Speaker 2: any given day, where do I hunt around that pocket?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: You look at wind and you say, okay, these are
Speaker 2: the places I could safely hunt with the wind. But
Speaker 2: then you're trying to make the determination, well, is he
Speaker 2: going to go east on this day or west this day?
Speaker 2: Or is he going south this day? I'm curious when
Speaker 2: you were thinking about Lockness or some of your other deer.
Speaker 2: There's a better example. What does your decision making process
Speaker 2: look like when trying to make that call? Where do
Speaker 2: I hunt on this given day? I know his core,
Speaker 2: but now I'm trying to pick you know, the spot
Speaker 2: within that zone. Can you walk me through the criteria
Speaker 2: you're looking at and how you specifically zone in on
Speaker 2: the perfect place for today?
Speaker 3: As you alluded to, you know the wind direction and
Speaker 3: all that stuff's pretty standard. You know, I've got to
Speaker 3: hunt this on this wind direction. I think if you
Speaker 3: can pin down worries likely to be feeding, or if
Speaker 3: you're getting pictures of him feeding there, that sure helps
Speaker 3: an awful lot because now you can kind of put
Speaker 3: a line of travel together, even though maybe you don't
Speaker 3: know exactly where he's betting. Maybe you know the hub
Speaker 3: or the general woodlot where he's betting. So now you
Speaker 3: can start to pick. Okay, maybe he's using this path
Speaker 3: or this way to get to that food. And a
Speaker 3: lot of times if you can get closer to the
Speaker 3: betting area, all the better. I've seen some really big
Speaker 3: mature bucks that won't feed out into like an egg
Speaker 3: field with the rest of the deer. I'll see those
Speaker 3: come through, and maybe smaller bucks and stuff no feed
Speaker 3: out up into a field agfield, and they're all up
Speaker 3: there and the big mature buck is just standing down
Speaker 3: there wasting time making scrapes rub and he's just on
Speaker 3: the edge of the betting, you know, and he's waiting
Speaker 3: for dark and then he's going to walk out. You know.
Speaker 3: Of course that all changes during the rut. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's why so many big deer get killed. But closer
Speaker 3: you can be to that betting area with that scenario,
Speaker 3: I think the better off you are.
Speaker 2: What about this, What about a situation where there's not
Speaker 2: just that one food source that he's hitting, where it's
Speaker 2: not just a line of from A to B. What
Speaker 2: if it's like there's a B and a C and
Speaker 2: a D and an E and he's got like three
Speaker 2: or four different options how do you try to approach
Speaker 2: a hunt like that? Because I've sometimes found myself in
Speaker 2: a situation like that where I'll be like, Okay, well
Speaker 2: today I'll hunt B, and then tomorrow hunt C, and
Speaker 2: the next day I'll hunt D. Or I'll chase a
Speaker 2: picture or something else. See I had a dailight picture
Speaker 2: of him two days ago at A. So I go
Speaker 2: to A and then he's he's at C, and then
Speaker 2: I will go and hunt him at C, and then
Speaker 2: you know he's at D. Do you like do you
Speaker 2: bounce around like that too? If a buck has multiple
Speaker 2: lines he might be taking. I kind of have a
Speaker 2: lot of spots where it's like a hub of a
Speaker 2: wheel situation where the buck's bedroom is at that hub.
Speaker 2: But then on any given day, he's got an option
Speaker 2: to go north or south or east or west. Do
Speaker 2: you chase him around? Or are you the type that
Speaker 2: likes to pick one spot and give it three days
Speaker 2: in a row because eventually he'll cycle through.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't hunt three days in a row on
Speaker 3: a given spot very often. I mean, I think you
Speaker 3: can look at that historical data and see if you
Speaker 3: can find anything. Okay, he was here on this day
Speaker 3: and sometimes you can put steak in that that's a good,
Speaker 3: you know, good way to go about it. But I
Speaker 3: think more than anything in that scenario is you just
Speaker 3: got to put your time in. I really think there's
Speaker 3: no magic secret sauce to it. You just got to
Speaker 3: be there. I mean, there's so much of it, you know,
Speaker 3: goes about you can talk about, you know, what a
Speaker 3: great hunter you're on in all this, but so much
Speaker 3: of it goes back to just that great and determination
Speaker 3: of just being there when the opportunity presented itself.
Speaker 4: You know, for me going back to again the beginning
Speaker 4: of this conversation, for you, you can put that time
Speaker 4: in though that maybe other guys aren't going to see
Speaker 4: the same results because you paid attention to your entrants
Speaker 4: to your exit. I think that's why you're able to
Speaker 4: hunt so many different spots, whereas like a guy like me,
Speaker 4: it's like, well if I go in there, man, I'm
Speaker 4: worried about bumping them out. You know, you bounce around
Speaker 4: so much and have so much success though, because you're,
Speaker 4: like we talked about, the deer don't know you're.
Speaker 3: There, right, It's like you're never for there. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: agree with that, Yep.
Speaker 2: How many hunts did it take this season before you
Speaker 2: killed Lackness? Is it three?
Speaker 3: I think I want to say it was five hunts,
Speaker 3: maybe four days? In five hunts we hunted one morning
Speaker 3: for him.
Speaker 2: Okay, could you walk me through each of those five
Speaker 2: hunts and just tell me why you hunted each specific spot,
Speaker 2: like what your thought process was, why you thought that
Speaker 2: would be a place to kill, and how you were
Speaker 2: able to get in and out and pull off each
Speaker 2: of those hunts. I think that might be a useful example.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so, I think I've got a daylight
Speaker 3: pattern on him on that green source. You know, if
Speaker 3: you look back to a couple of weeks prior, I
Speaker 3: had a bunch of pictures of him in daylight on
Speaker 3: that green source. So of course I'm thinking, if he
Speaker 3: keeps doing that, I've got a really good shot to
Speaker 3: see him. You'll get a crack at him. And so
Speaker 3: the first time I hunted, I think was the third October.
Speaker 3: Third we had that real warm weather. It was high eighties.
Speaker 3: I didn't hunt the first two days, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to do more harm than good. And it
Speaker 3: finally cooled down about ten degrees. So we went into
Speaker 3: that green source on the south wind and hunted the
Speaker 3: tree stand that we set up on the main show,
Speaker 3: you know, when Josh was with me, and I thought
Speaker 3: that was the right spot to catch him where he'd
Speaker 3: been coming out, which he came out both times we've
Speaker 3: seen him, he came out of that side. He never
Speaker 3: did show up that day, so he was in there
Speaker 3: later after dark and maybe that just goes back to
Speaker 3: the temperature, you know, he was just moving nocturnal. So
Speaker 3: that was day one. Day two, I believe, we went
Speaker 3: and hunted. I actually set a different spot because I
Speaker 3: thought I knew where he was betting. So I went
Speaker 3: and hunted a spot where I could watch a big
Speaker 3: field if he moved. If he wasn't, I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 3: he's not moving through this green source in daylight right now.
Speaker 3: Maybe he just shed his velvet went nocturnal. I want
Speaker 3: to be able to watch an area where I think
Speaker 3: is close to where he's betting, and see if he's
Speaker 3: coming out a different direction.
Speaker 4: Maybe.
Speaker 3: You know, generally they're moving some during daylight, you know,
Speaker 3: even during this time of year, it's just not far.
Speaker 3: And so I set a spot where I could just
Speaker 3: watch quite a bit of area it's just open with
Speaker 3: a lot of honey locust and brush and stuff. And
Speaker 3: we sat there and had a real slow hunt. I
Speaker 3: remember saying, you know, when you're hunting a deer like this,
Speaker 3: it's just not social. He's not around a lot of
Speaker 3: other deer. Doesn't really bother me to get skunked. Even
Speaker 3: we've seen a couple deer, but you know, to see
Speaker 3: that one deer as all year after. And so that's
Speaker 3: why I set that. And he didn't work out, but
Speaker 3: I thought maybe we'd gained some valuable information, you know.
Speaker 3: Day three, we went into actually went into his bedroom
Speaker 3: where I thought he was bedding. We're going to be
Speaker 3: on the downwind edge of it. Got in there nice
Speaker 3: and early, and the weather just didn't turn out that day.
Speaker 3: It would start picking up, crazy wind, thunderstorm came in.
Speaker 3: So what happened thunderstart boom, and I said, we're out
Speaker 3: of here. I'm not setting in the tree in this
Speaker 3: gust and wind, you know. So we just got down
Speaker 3: and left that morning. And of course you worried did
Speaker 3: you do any harm that day? You know, anytime you're
Speaker 3: going in the dark, you don't want to bump into him,
Speaker 3: and so you know that was that was the concern
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yes, So before you go any further on, can you
Speaker 2: tell me why you were willing to swing that seems
Speaker 2: like a pretty big swing. You went in on a
Speaker 2: morning hunt in early October into his bedroom. Why were
Speaker 2: you willing What made you want to take that aggressive
Speaker 2: of a move at that point the season with those conditions.
Speaker 3: I just felt like, if he's living in that that's
Speaker 3: small of an area. I think you just have a
Speaker 3: chance to kill him. If you're going to go in
Speaker 3: right where he's moving, He's going to move some in
Speaker 3: daylight once he gets into that cover, I think you
Speaker 3: have a very good chance of seeing him. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'm just willing to take that risk. I've got, you know,
Speaker 3: high confidence that if we see him, we're going to
Speaker 3: get a crack at him in this small of an area.
Speaker 4: And that was the front end of that weather change too.
Speaker 3: That was yeah, yeah, yeah, you have the weather patterns,
Speaker 3: thought maybe it'd have him up on his feet a
Speaker 3: little more.
Speaker 2: What was your axis an exit to get into there
Speaker 2: before he did, hopefully, and then how'd you get out
Speaker 2: of there without possibly spooking him?
Speaker 3: Well, it's the same as most It just a an
Speaker 3: erosion ditch just dropped in and erosion ditch walked it
Speaker 3: up and there again the tree stand. Like I talked
Speaker 3: about before, there's a lot of times right on the
Speaker 3: edge of these ditches or creeks. So when you get
Speaker 3: down out of the tree, just dropped into this creek,
Speaker 3: walk the drainage all the way out. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 3: we did that matter of fact, we got down there.
Speaker 3: It was a little it was a little fore corn
Speaker 3: or something's better right by the tree, and we've got down,
Speaker 3: walked out and never even bumped him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's nice to have those dishes. I wish we
Speaker 2: had more of those by me. Okay, So that was
Speaker 2: day three or hunt three. Uh, what was next?
Speaker 3: So then we went back to the green source. I
Speaker 3: still didn't know where he was at this point. I
Speaker 3: remember this is when I was, you know, texting Josh,
Speaker 3: kind of freaking out where to go he disappeared. Can
Speaker 3: I turn my cell cams back? I didn't say that,
Speaker 3: but you know, you're you're kind of second guess your
Speaker 3: decision at that point. You're like, man, did I mess up?
Speaker 3: Because it's a deer of a lifetime and obviously you
Speaker 3: don't want anything bad to happen. Anything could happen, the
Speaker 3: HD gets caught in a fence or whatever. So we
Speaker 3: go back to the green source, but now we have
Speaker 3: instead of the southern winds we had, now it's out
Speaker 3: of the west northwest, so we've got a switch where
Speaker 3: we can set. We can't hunt the tree stand anymore
Speaker 3: because it cuts right across the green source, and so
Speaker 3: we go down and hunt the blind. I ended up
Speaker 3: getting him otto that we had an encounter. You know,
Speaker 3: that night we ended up seeing him. I didn't think
Speaker 3: he was going to show. I closed out the segment
Speaker 3: my blog, so you know, he's a no show today
Speaker 3: and there's there's ten minutes left probably in autipops.
Speaker 2: And so how was that blind positioned in relation to
Speaker 2: you know, where he thought he was a bad ed? Like?
Speaker 2: Why was that blind where it was?
Speaker 3: And that was there historically? I mean the reason it
Speaker 3: was where it was is because it's close to the creek.
Speaker 3: It sets you up kind of in the middle of
Speaker 3: that plot, so you can get movement coming from either direction.
Speaker 3: It's a kind of an L shaped or boomerang, and
Speaker 3: so it's in that little hub in the middle and
Speaker 3: then it's backed up to a creek, and so that
Speaker 3: had been there for several years. We didn't just set
Speaker 3: that up for him, you know, all of a sudden.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you see the buck, he's out there after dark.
Speaker 2: I saw the video where you waited a long time
Speaker 2: to make sure he was gone, and then you had
Speaker 2: you had a great exit route out of there, and
Speaker 2: I understand you have prepared a second vehicle to ensure
Speaker 2: you could get out of there. Smart. Can you talk
Speaker 2: about your two vehicle excess strategy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I just thought about it, you know,
Speaker 3: in advance, I said, and what if we get pinned
Speaker 3: down in that blind, We've got to have another place
Speaker 3: we can get out and walk this creek, which is
Speaker 3: why the blind is there to start with, is so
Speaker 3: you can exit on that creek. So I just, you know,
Speaker 3: did that in advance. I said, let's just play it, Smart,
Speaker 3: go park this other vehicle there. If we have to
Speaker 3: walk out that way, it's there, and then we'll just
Speaker 3: drive back to the main vehicle we used to get in.
Speaker 4: And so what struck me when we talked about that
Speaker 4: was your entrance is right across the plot, which some
Speaker 4: people might be like, you're walking across the area that
Speaker 4: these deer are going to go feed. You know, you
Speaker 4: talk about leaving scent trails and disturbing where your deer
Speaker 4: is going to be, you know, talk about that where
Speaker 4: the entrance is, because I think the geographic features influence
Speaker 4: that you walk in on the mode or just the
Speaker 4: driven path, right, paying attention the scent. I mean again,
Speaker 4: these are along those lines of like I feel like
Speaker 4: you're just like, that's what I do. It is me
Speaker 4: as a hunter. I' mike, why would you walk across
Speaker 4: the food? How'd you get away with that? Why they
Speaker 4: just walk right? And why'd you leave? Because the way
Speaker 4: you exit died was completely different? Right, And I talk
Speaker 4: about that too, I.
Speaker 3: Think, yeah, I mean it, just like you said, this
Speaker 3: is what we do all the time, is these paths,
Speaker 3: whether it's a path you just drive in on so
Speaker 3: you have you know, no vegetation or very little, and
Speaker 3: then just being meticulous about your sink control, I think
Speaker 3: is a big deal. I started when I got out here,
Speaker 3: I wasn't meticulous. You know, sprays were just starting to
Speaker 3: come out, and I would have deer track me to
Speaker 3: my tree stand. All the time. They cut your trail,
Speaker 3: you know, and then you have to start figuring out
Speaker 3: ways to get in or they're not going to cut
Speaker 3: your trail. You know, that was your entry route then
Speaker 3: is to go around, or they're not going to come
Speaker 3: across your trail. And so once we started being meticulous
Speaker 3: about the boots and the pant legs and all that
Speaker 3: and keeping the vegetation low, I found that we can
Speaker 3: get away with just cutting right across the plot if
Speaker 3: you do that, you know, and I watch them cut
Speaker 3: my trail all the time, and of course, poor Devin
Speaker 3: a lot of times, I'm like, dude, when I walk
Speaker 3: across this, you got to be in the same path
Speaker 3: as me, because I want one cent trail. If you
Speaker 3: overhear the wife need from me, I'm gonna be like, dude,
Speaker 3: what are you doing here? You know, that's just how
Speaker 3: ridiculous in the attention to detail it. You know we are.
Speaker 3: So it works though, that's the thing. We see it
Speaker 3: over and over. They just don't cut that. And then
Speaker 3: you know, getting in, like Josh alluded to, there's just
Speaker 3: topography there. They can't see you. And then when you
Speaker 3: get farther down the hill there's cedars in there. They
Speaker 3: really can't see it. On a on a west or
Speaker 3: northwest wind. You got a good wind for it too.
Speaker 3: Even though it's at your back, it's still blowing into
Speaker 3: an area that there shouldn't be any dear bedded and.
Speaker 4: So, okay, like that, seeh I hear that. I'm like,
Speaker 4: you walked in with the wind at your back. You
Speaker 4: never hear that, right.
Speaker 2: And you went that way just because you knew that
Speaker 2: was the only way to get in there without having
Speaker 2: to walk through the bedding, but also not have him
Speaker 2: wins you.
Speaker 3: Correct. Yeah, Now the way we exit through the creek,
Speaker 3: you do have to go through betting, you know, like
Speaker 3: you said, if you walk in that way, you probably
Speaker 3: bump deer and so, but when you walk out that way,
Speaker 3: the deer are gone by then, and so it's a great,
Speaker 3: great way to get out of there.
Speaker 2: So you see him, it's after dark, you slip out
Speaker 2: down to the creek. You're you're did you feel really
Speaker 2: confident you got out of there without without him spooking?
Speaker 2: Or were you kind of like, well, I sure hope
Speaker 2: he didn't see us climb out of the tree. How
Speaker 2: how confident were you with your exit?
Speaker 3: I felt great about it. We got out and climbed
Speaker 3: out and didn't hear a peep, and we knew he
Speaker 3: was still in the field, just up the hill farther,
Speaker 3: you know, because I was putting bay nose on him,
Speaker 3: and we never heard anything when we got out of there.
Speaker 3: And uh, of course when I when I seen that,
Speaker 3: and I felt we got out clean. I felt really
Speaker 3: good already about the next day's hunt. You'll probably see
Speaker 3: that in the interview, you know. I'm like, tomorrow sets
Speaker 3: up really good. It's still cool. He didn't know we
Speaker 3: were there. I think we got a real good shot
Speaker 3: at him.
Speaker 2: So here's the biggest question of the whole podcast. How
Speaker 2: do you get your cameramen not to take forty five
Speaker 2: minutes to get out of the tree and make tons
Speaker 2: of noise while they're trying to do it?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, you know, you just got to be patient.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're gonna make It's just the way it goes,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: All that camera gear.
Speaker 3: I'm probably all the time needling. I'm like, hey, could
Speaker 3: you make some more noise please?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Not not easy to have two people up there
Speaker 2: and all that gear and all that extra time, and
Speaker 2: it's constantly giving me a heart attack worrying about that.
Speaker 2: But okay, so you did you have like zero questions
Speaker 2: like we're going we're coming back to the same place tomorrow,
Speaker 2: or was there any part of you that thought, like, well,
Speaker 2: he doesn't usually do two things in the earth, He
Speaker 2: doesn't do the same thing day after day. Right, you
Speaker 2: hadn't been seeing anything that consistent from the past. So
Speaker 2: did any part of you think like, I should try
Speaker 2: to go somewhere else because he will do something different,
Speaker 2: or were you very confident he'll do the same thing tomorrow.
Speaker 3: I was pretty confident, or at least I thought we
Speaker 3: had a good shot do the same thing, you know,
Speaker 3: after we saw him and we had the same conditions
Speaker 3: the next day, I felt good about him doing the
Speaker 3: same thing. Okay, doesn't always work that way, as you know,
Speaker 3: but yeah, sometimes it does.
Speaker 2: Now I want I want before we talk about the
Speaker 2: good news, I want to imagine a bad news scenario.
Speaker 2: So imagine you went back in the next day, you
Speaker 2: hunted that spot, and you did not see him. What
Speaker 2: would your strategy have looked like over the next couple
Speaker 2: of weeks if you had not killed Lockness? How would
Speaker 2: you what? What were you thinking? Like, I'm sure I'm
Speaker 2: guessing you're like me in that during the hunt, I'm
Speaker 2: already planning, well, what do I have to do tomorrow
Speaker 2: or next week or the next time I can hunt
Speaker 2: if this doesn't work out? What was your game plan
Speaker 2: going to be moving forward if you didn't get him
Speaker 2: killed on that day?
Speaker 3: Well, if you go back to the day before, where
Speaker 3: I didn't even know if he still existed, my game
Speaker 3: plan was to go check some cameras right there on
Speaker 3: that plot and see if he had been on that
Speaker 3: scrape again where he was consistent. Now, I just wanted
Speaker 3: to know he was alive and in the area, and
Speaker 3: then you know, that particular day, if he doesn't show up,
Speaker 3: I think I just keep hunting him the same way.
Speaker 3: I think I know where he's betting, So you just
Speaker 3: keep hunting the fringes of that taking your shots at him.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, nothing's ever one hundred percent, so
Speaker 3: you just keep taking your highest odds. You know, That's
Speaker 3: always what I talk about, is picking the spot where
Speaker 3: you have the highest odds. And you know that's what
Speaker 3: I would have done.
Speaker 2: And how how do you balance And we've talked about this,
Speaker 2: I guess, but how aggressive would you continue to be
Speaker 2: through October. Would you literally hunt every night or every
Speaker 2: day throughout October because your access and exus is so good,
Speaker 2: or at any point do you back off for a
Speaker 2: while and wait for something better. A lot of people
Speaker 2: like will only take their shots when they've got like
Speaker 2: this perfect weather condition or something, so they'll take a
Speaker 2: handful couple few shots throughout the month or something. Are
Speaker 2: you literally day after day after day?
Speaker 3: Not terrible weather? In my mind? You know, like the
Speaker 3: first couple of days where it's ninety degrees, I mean,
Speaker 3: I feel like there's low chance that he's going to
Speaker 3: move in daylight, which you know, you never know. You
Speaker 3: could still kill him if you're out there, but at
Speaker 3: some point you know there's just too much risk not
Speaker 3: enough reward and that, you know. So I've got to
Speaker 3: have at least good weather conditions to go after him,
Speaker 3: And so that's usually what I go with. If I
Speaker 3: feel like I have a good day where he would move, now,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna hunt somewhere.
Speaker 2: What's good enough, Like what's that threshold where it's huntable?
Speaker 3: I think for this time of year, if you've got
Speaker 3: stuff in the sixties, you know, especially high pressure, a
Speaker 3: switch in wind direction, you know, all the things we
Speaker 3: talk about, some of the triggers, anything like that I
Speaker 3: think is good enough to give it a shot.
Speaker 2: Speaking of triggers, what are the most important things in
Speaker 2: your mind when it comes to that trigger that you
Speaker 2: think will really send him over the edge and maybe
Speaker 2: make you be more aggressive than usual. You mentioned changeing
Speaker 2: wind direction. Do you give much credit to pressure or
Speaker 2: cold fronts or any kind of moon thing or anything else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think number one for me is that cold front,
Speaker 3: that temperature differential and you go from ninety down to
Speaker 3: fifty or you know, anything like that. I think that
Speaker 3: is a trigger that gets almost all of them up
Speaker 3: on their feet. Even the most nocturnal bucks will usually
Speaker 3: be up and move it on those those cold fronts.
Speaker 3: I've killed several of them on cold front like that,
Speaker 3: so I'm a big believer in them. And then I
Speaker 3: do love the high pressure as well. When you start
Speaker 3: getting multiple things together, I think it just gets stronger
Speaker 3: and stronger. I like a rising moon in the evening.
Speaker 3: If you've got that too, then I just have to
Speaker 3: be out there at that point.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're going to keep hunting based on wind direction,
Speaker 2: based on you know, making sure we've got huntable conditions.
Speaker 2: What do those stand sites look like as the month progresses.
Speaker 2: Is there just a circle or a semi circle around
Speaker 2: his bed that you're just kind of cycling through based
Speaker 2: on things, or are you going to get to a
Speaker 2: point in late October or November where it dramatically changes
Speaker 2: in some kind of way because they're shifting from a
Speaker 2: you know, October bed tofeed pattern to a rut type pattern.
Speaker 3: I think in this particular case, it would probably look
Speaker 3: the same because there's a lot of does there and
Speaker 3: so there's no reason for him to leave in this case.
Speaker 3: But you know, to your point, there are cases where, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're hunting them where he's at, but he's not around
Speaker 3: a lot of doughs. So he's going to be somewhere
Speaker 3: where you want to start hunting the does, you know,
Speaker 3: And that's always my strategy as we get toward late October,
Speaker 3: is I want to be hunting somewhere where we're going
Speaker 3: to see does and somewhere where there's a little pinch,
Speaker 3: whether it be a farm access road, you know, some
Speaker 3: kind of crossing. I like to couple those two things together,
Speaker 3: you know, So if they're just out cruising and there
Speaker 3: are no doughs, you still got a chance to catch him.
Speaker 3: Or if there's dos out there and he comes out
Speaker 3: bumps them around, you got a chance to catch him.
Speaker 3: So it's just about upping your odds, I think, is
Speaker 3: the way I look at it. You know, what can
Speaker 3: you do or where can you hunt to just ups
Speaker 3: your odds that much more?
Speaker 2: Can you describe for me an example of us You
Speaker 2: gave me a loose example there, but could you discuss
Speaker 2: a specific stand site for that time of the year
Speaker 2: that has that kind of like multiple stacked features. There'd
Speaker 2: be a great one of your actual great spots for
Speaker 2: that rut time period. Let's say, like for Lockness, what
Speaker 2: would be your best spot to kill Lockness in November
Speaker 2: if you had still had to hunt him at that point.
Speaker 2: Could you describe what that might look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if I've got a great spot
Speaker 3: for lock just off the top of my head. But
Speaker 3: if you go back to like where I killed the
Speaker 3: Wide nine is a perfect example of where I would
Speaker 3: hunt for that time of year. We've got these access
Speaker 3: roads that cut through between field to field, and so
Speaker 3: they follow those around the edge of the creek. So
Speaker 3: you've got the access and you're on food sources, so
Speaker 3: you've got the dose. So you have that's a perfect example,
Speaker 3: and I have that on either end of that field,
Speaker 3: there's the same kind of setup, which those are my
Speaker 3: favorites of that time of year. You get into the
Speaker 3: rut or late October love of.
Speaker 4: Those and all those cross things they're in bow range.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty dynamite. Now, what about if we were
Speaker 2: to take that same question, but I asked you, you
Speaker 2: know where that would be, where like a deal spot
Speaker 2: to kill them would be. Let me look here at
Speaker 2: the calendar. So if this podcast is going to come
Speaker 2: out October nineteenth, so this podcast will come out October nineteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. If someone's listening to this the day
Speaker 2: it comes out, and they're going to hunt this coming weekend,
Speaker 2: which would be Friday the twentieth, or Saturday the twenty first,
Speaker 2: or Sunday the twenty second, so they're listening to this
Speaker 2: before they're heading out for their weekend hunt, described to
Speaker 2: me the ideal setup you would have tried for that
Speaker 2: date range. And if there's a standsite you can think
Speaker 2: of that you could describe in detail, that would be
Speaker 2: perfect for those dates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know where I ended up killing
Speaker 3: him from. Just south of that or north of that
Speaker 3: actually is a south wind setup. It's right there, kind
Speaker 3: of like what we talked. It's a go between. It's
Speaker 3: on a food source, but there's a nice trail that
Speaker 3: goes into some bedding, you know, a good, good entry
Speaker 3: and exit. Again, I mean, I'm still gonna be hunting
Speaker 3: around food that time of year. It's not you know,
Speaker 3: November seventh, where I want the best funnel there is
Speaker 3: on the farm. I still want to be around the
Speaker 3: food source because again, he just want to up my odds.
Speaker 3: So if he comes out to feed and he's not
Speaker 3: fired up on you know, because a lot of times
Speaker 3: a six year old buck he knows when the time's
Speaker 3: right as far as the dose are concerned, where the
Speaker 3: two and the three year olds are going berserk, you know,
Speaker 3: So he might just come out and feed and doesn't
Speaker 3: care about the dose yet. So I want to be
Speaker 3: on that food source so you can catch that. But
Speaker 3: I also want the dose around. So if that particular
Speaker 3: food source maybe you're hunting an oak flat or something
Speaker 3: and there's no doze in there, I don't like that
Speaker 3: scenario either, because you can't cash in on the dough scenario,
Speaker 3: so I want both of those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm stuck on something you mentioned a little while ago,
Speaker 2: which was that you wouldn't hunt a spot three times
Speaker 2: in a row, but you did have an example where
Speaker 2: you would set a spot two days in a row.
Speaker 2: And you also have talked about how you've got this
Speaker 2: great access and exit routes where you can hunt generally
Speaker 2: over and over and over again in this area because
Speaker 2: you've designed it and you've planned it in a good way.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious to better understand when you will hunt
Speaker 2: someplace again, because like, imagine I'm not hunting October twenty first,
Speaker 2: and I'm hunting a spot like you've described. Let's say
Speaker 2: I do see some doze and I see some young bucks,
Speaker 2: but I don't see the buck theme after and conditions
Speaker 2: are consistent in the next couple of days, and I
Speaker 2: can sneak out of there and I feel like I
Speaker 2: got out. The question is like, Okay, do I try
Speaker 2: somewhere brand new or do I just stick it out
Speaker 2: here for another day? Because like he didn't come today,
Speaker 2: but he very well could come tomorrow. Like, how when
Speaker 2: do you ever stick it out in a spot for
Speaker 2: more than that one day, And how do you think
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's there. Again, you're just weigh in
Speaker 3: your odds. In a lot of times, it's dependent on
Speaker 3: the wind. If the wind stays the same, maybe you're
Speaker 3: limited to just a couple of options, you know. And
Speaker 3: so I like to bounce around to keep areas fresh.
Speaker 3: Even though we have the great access and all that.
Speaker 3: Maybe you could hunt it five days in a row
Speaker 3: without burning it out, But you know, that's the biggest
Speaker 3: concern is you know, maybe you do get dose to
Speaker 3: get down window specific spot or whatever. You know, So
Speaker 3: if you can bounce around and keep them fresh, that's
Speaker 3: ideal to me. But like in this case, you said,
Speaker 3: you know, I hunted to two days in a row
Speaker 3: just because I thought the odds were so good that
Speaker 3: he'd step out again. And so there are times where
Speaker 3: you're just weigh in the odds that's the best place
Speaker 3: to be. And then so I'm just going to go
Speaker 3: hunt it again.
Speaker 2: Okay, I heard you say, and I'm going to get
Speaker 2: the exact wording wrong, so you're gonna have to correct
Speaker 2: me in the exact wording. But you've said something like
Speaker 2: all these these old bucks they put on their pants
Speaker 2: all the same way or something like that. Before I
Speaker 2: say anymore, can you tell me the right way? What's
Speaker 2: the saying exactly?
Speaker 3: They put on their fur one leg at a time
Speaker 3: like all the other six year old bucks.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. So why do you say that? Like,
Speaker 2: what do you mean by that? What's the message? Like
Speaker 2: you're trying to remind yourself of when you say that?
Speaker 2: And then secondly, how did that help you when it
Speaker 2: came to hunting this lockness buck?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, I guess what I mean by that
Speaker 3: is they probably don't behave any different than a different
Speaker 3: six year old buck. We know, we get so intimidated
Speaker 3: because a deer has two hundred inch or bigger antlers.
Speaker 3: You know that we're scared to death to do anything.
Speaker 3: But another six and a half year old buck that's
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty inches might act the same way.
Speaker 3: You know, we all know. Yeah, you're not as intimidated
Speaker 3: and you can kill him. But when it comes to
Speaker 3: this great big buck, can you kill him? You know,
Speaker 3: and you feel all the pressure, you're more nervous, and
Speaker 3: rightfully so, because it's such a rare thing. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think that that thinking just lets you know that
Speaker 3: he's still just a six year old buck. There's nothing
Speaker 3: special about the way he thinks. Even though you know
Speaker 3: a lot of bucks are individuals, they might do things
Speaker 3: different than others, but as a general to put them
Speaker 3: in a general class, you know, they're basically all six
Speaker 3: year old bucks. And I think that helped just keep
Speaker 3: me calm in the moment too. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: he's just a normal deer. You know, I can hit
Speaker 3: him just like I hit Wide nine and all these others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I understand you did you do a lot
Speaker 2: of work to make sure you can handle moments like that.
Speaker 2: Can you describe some of the things that you did
Speaker 2: this year or in past years to make sure that
Speaker 2: your moment of truth ability is as high as possible?
Speaker 2: Because a lot of people shoot in their backyard a bunch.
Speaker 2: But is that enough? What else do you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I don't think it's enough. Of course, you can't
Speaker 3: overestimate experience being there, you know, time and time again
Speaker 3: obviously helps you a lot. But there's things I think
Speaker 3: you can do to prepare for that, And it's what
Speaker 3: I call pressure practice. You try to put yourself under
Speaker 3: the most pressure you can. Granted you can't always have
Speaker 3: a two hundred inch deer in front of you that
Speaker 3: kind of pressure, but you know, shooting a lot of
Speaker 3: three d's, I would go to the ASA shoots and
Speaker 3: you know that's I love to come in better than
Speaker 3: I did the previous time. So it's pressure to me
Speaker 3: because you know, I want to score the best possible.
Speaker 3: I'd like to win. I mean, I'm competitive guy. You know,
Speaker 3: I played sports and all that, So just the most
Speaker 3: pressure possible. I remember shooting the course out here and
Speaker 3: had devon film and I said, Devin, I just I
Speaker 3: want you to come up and try to create the
Speaker 3: most pressure possible. You get right in my face with
Speaker 3: the camera. I know everybody's watching me. You can't act
Speaker 3: like you know, well, I don't know if this is
Speaker 3: getting filmed or whatever. You know, you're right in your
Speaker 3: eyeball and so well, it's just a little bit more pressure.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of times that's the difference
Speaker 3: between freaking out when he comes out and saying, heah,
Speaker 3: I've been here a hundred times and it's just another shot.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It astounded me with how long the encounter was usually
Speaker 4: you always hear people say it's easier to hold that
Speaker 4: cool and he pops out kill him. Yeah, that dude
Speaker 4: was out front of you for how long?
Speaker 3: It's about half an hour.
Speaker 2: There's no way I would have been able to keep
Speaker 2: that What was going through your mind during that half hour?
Speaker 3: On Oh just I was just excited to be there, really.
Speaker 3: I mean, like we talked about it, been forty years
Speaker 3: into making, just being a diehard, you know, bow hunter,
Speaker 3: just fall in love with deer hunting and dreaming of
Speaker 3: this time, and there he stands right in front of me,
Speaker 3: and I'm glassing him, smiling and just just happy to
Speaker 3: be there. You know, it just feels so so fortunate.
Speaker 2: Really in that moment, did it any time you have
Speaker 2: some self talk where you had to say, don't screw
Speaker 2: this up owen or anything like that, or relocked in
Speaker 2: confident you were in it?
Speaker 3: I was super confident, and I know I said on
Speaker 3: another podcast, I didn't want that to come across arrogant,
Speaker 3: you know, like, yeah, you know, I'm the best shot
Speaker 3: in the world, whatever. I don't feel like that. But
Speaker 3: you know, you know, when you put so much work
Speaker 3: into it, you have a certain level of confidence and
Speaker 3: that's how I felt. I kept kept thinking like, if
Speaker 3: he gives me an opportunity, I don't think he's getting
Speaker 3: out of here. Is how I felt about it. You know, soul, Yeah,
Speaker 3: anything can go wrong, see, I mean, you never know,
Speaker 3: But of course I think you always have a little
Speaker 3: bit of doubt creeps in the back of your mind, right,
Speaker 3: I really hope something doesn't go wrong here, I mean,
Speaker 3: because anything can happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how many times have you had like the field
Speaker 2: filling up just perfect, and you know the buck you're
Speaker 2: after is gonna come out, and then that coyote comes
Speaker 2: running out or something.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly right, or that one dough starts out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, there's that one dough usually, so you got them,
Speaker 2: you got the buck. I'll save any more details for
Speaker 2: the episode that that I think will be out on
Speaker 2: YouTube by the time this podcast airs.
Speaker 4: Right, Josh, Yes, on Monday.
Speaker 2: So if anyone hasn't seen the video yet, you absolutely
Speaker 2: should go to the Midwest White Tail YouTube channel and
Speaker 2: check that out. But tell me this, Owen, you've had
Speaker 2: a little bit of time now to look back on
Speaker 2: it and kind of marinate in this whole experience. What's
Speaker 2: the greatest lesson you learned from this buck in this hunt.
Speaker 3: Man, I don't know. I might have to give that
Speaker 3: some thought. Really, I don't know that I have a
Speaker 3: quick answer for that. I mean, i'd say one that
Speaker 3: might throw you off a little bit is how much
Speaker 3: I appreciate people and friends now. So it's a little
Speaker 3: off topic from the deer, but it just it's been
Speaker 3: so awesome having all the people reach out and having
Speaker 3: the friends with me on the recovery, you know, losing
Speaker 3: my parents a couple of years back. Is just it
Speaker 3: changed me in a way that it just made me
Speaker 3: appreciate people more. And I think that's been the big
Speaker 3: takeaway this whole thing for me is just I've appreciated
Speaker 3: people in the whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great reminder and a great reminder put
Speaker 2: things in perspective too. As much as these big deer
Speaker 2: get us excited and obsessed, there are bigger things in
Speaker 2: the world that matter a whole lot, those relationships being
Speaker 2: right there at the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, So with that said, the though, and I
Speaker 2: want to bring us back to deer though with one
Speaker 2: last question, which I think will tie a bow on
Speaker 2: all this really nicely I think what this conversation I
Speaker 2: think has done for me is giving me a lot
Speaker 2: of good ideas to think about when you're chasing that
Speaker 2: one special deer, and how your whole history as a
Speaker 2: hunter has led you to be in a position where
Speaker 2: all the work over the decades, and all the work
Speaker 2: over the last six years in this property, and all
Speaker 2: the work this year to get prepared for this single deer,
Speaker 2: it all culminated to this moment. I imagine there's a
Speaker 2: lot of folks listening who have their own version of
Speaker 2: that story. The specifics are different, but they've got their
Speaker 2: own version. They've got their own lockness. You know, my
Speaker 2: lockness is one hundred and forty inch ten year old
Speaker 2: ten pointer. Someone else's lockness might be one hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy inch twelve pointer. And there might be someone else
Speaker 2: listening who their lockedness is one hundred and ten inch
Speaker 2: three year old to be their biggest buck ever, and
Speaker 2: they are so excited to get after that deer to
Speaker 2: someone who's after that one special buck for themselves this year,
Speaker 2: what would be the three pieces of advice or the
Speaker 2: three rules you could write down if you guys were
Speaker 2: sitting at the dinner table together talking to this person,
Speaker 2: and you had a napkin in front of you, and
Speaker 2: you could write three things on that napkin and hand
Speaker 2: it to him and say, hey, just do not forget
Speaker 2: these three things. What would those three things be.
Speaker 3: Well, I know what one of them would be for sure,
Speaker 3: and I know Josh and I we've talked about this before.
Speaker 3: But it's definitely attention to detail. If you can be
Speaker 3: meticulous and pay attention to everything, I think you're way
Speaker 3: ahead of the game with any buck, really, and it's
Speaker 3: especially the buck of a lifetime. I think that resonates
Speaker 3: with me. The other thing, like we just talked about,
Speaker 3: is he puts on his for one leg at a time,
Speaker 3: like every six year old buck, you know. Just you
Speaker 3: got to think about him like another deer. Even though
Speaker 3: he's your buck of a lifetime and maybe you'll never
Speaker 3: top it or whatever, he's still killable like other deers.
Speaker 3: So I mean, you hunt him like you would another
Speaker 3: six year old buck, you know. And then the other
Speaker 3: thing maybe is just the determination and the grit, because
Speaker 3: I've been in that situation a lot of times before.
Speaker 3: You're hunting a great, big buck fuck and he's not cooperating.
Speaker 3: And just keep going every day out there, just keep
Speaker 3: after him and don't give up on it would be
Speaker 3: my other words of.
Speaker 2: Advice, wise words, wise words. I am so happy for you, Owen,
Speaker 2: that this hunt came together for you, and I'm appreciative
Speaker 2: that you were willing to talk about it here with
Speaker 2: me and the folks listening and to kind of humor
Speaker 2: me with all my crazy questions about it. I've definitely
Speaker 2: enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: Humbled by it, man, I sure appreciate it. And Josh,
Speaker 3: thank you to be hearing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that's a perfect segue to you, Josh,
Speaker 2: can you give folks the rundown of where he is?
Speaker 2: Said at once? But where can folks see the film
Speaker 2: the video about this hunt? And where are all the
Speaker 2: many other places and things that folks can be looking
Speaker 2: for from Midwest White Tail?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, this particular episode will come out on Monday.
Speaker 4: What would that be for the sixteenth? That can be
Speaker 4: found on the middlest White Tell YouTube channel. That'll also
Speaker 4: be available on Carbon TV, Waypoint TV, so pretty much
Speaker 4: different places you can stream Real Tree three sixty five.
Speaker 4: But another thing to know would be, you know, Owen's
Speaker 4: got another tag and my favorite thing personally to fall
Speaker 4: along with is his daily blog. You can find that
Speaker 4: on the Middlest White Till Daily channel. That's where you're
Speaker 4: a little bit more of a goofball and.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, he's always so serious on camera, you know,
Speaker 5: and so humble but man like one thing on the
Speaker 5: Napkin discussion that I think you emulate more than most
Speaker 5: folks that I've got the chance to work with.
Speaker 4: Youually have so much fun doing it. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: like that. There's very few times that, no matter the circumstance,
Speaker 4: I haven't seen you just intrinsically enjoy doing it, being
Speaker 4: out there hunting.
Speaker 3: Truly love being out there. Yeah, there's no way to
Speaker 3: hide it.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I've never letched. I've never seen you
Speaker 4: let adversity or something going wrong getting the way of that.
Speaker 4: But that daily chain is a great place to follow
Speaker 4: along if you want to number one, see what he's
Speaker 4: doing every day. But number two, you're pretty engaging with
Speaker 4: questions there, and I think that that's very very cool
Speaker 4: that you take the time to respond to different folks.
Speaker 4: And obviously Milviles Whitel website and we're trying to do
Speaker 4: a good job on the social channels bringing things a
Speaker 4: little bit more real time or being more accessible. So
Speaker 4: those are the spots I really appreciate you guys, love
Speaker 4: me be here. I'm in it. I didn't really bring
Speaker 4: much to the table. I mean, I just got to
Speaker 4: sit and listen to two guys that got a lot
Speaker 4: of respect for and you know, it's it's pretty cool
Speaker 4: to see two different paths, both coming from Michigan living
Speaker 4: the dream you set out to live. I mean, obviously
Speaker 4: you're a little bit further into the journey, but you
Speaker 4: know it, this is an inspiring one. If somebody wanted
Speaker 4: to put that scope on for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well thanks for that, Josh, and thank you Owen.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to watch the video when it comes out.
Speaker 2: And sure it's only a matter of time till tag
Speaker 2: number two gets filled on. I would not want to
Speaker 2: be a deer on any of the farms that you hunt,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: That's so.
Speaker 2: All right, and that's gonna do it. Thank you for
Speaker 2: joining me. Hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope you've
Speaker 2: been out there enjoying this great cool weather that at
Speaker 2: least a lot of us across the country have been
Speaker 2: having this fall so far, it's looking good heading into
Speaker 2: the pre rut here the end of October. Get out there,
Speaker 2: hunt hard. The rut is just ahead of us, so
Speaker 2: get ready for it. That best time of year is
Speaker 2: almost here. Until then, stay wired to hunt