Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast.
Speaker 3: This week on the show, we are running Justin Hollinsworth
Speaker 3: through our what would you Do gauntlet, in which I
Speaker 3: will be giving him a series of hypothetical hunting situations
Speaker 3: to see exactly how he'd handle them and why you'd
Speaker 3: do it. All right, Welcome back to the Wired Hunt podcast,
Speaker 3: brought to you by First Light and their brand new
Speaker 3: white tail hunting line. Today on the show, we are
Speaker 3: back with our what would you Do series. Two weeks
Speaker 3: ago we had Aaron Warpton from The Hunting Public, and
Speaker 3: today we have Justin Hollinsworth from Lone Wolf Custom Gear
Speaker 3: and the White Tail Addictions Show. He's one of those
Speaker 3: diehard deer hunters who just gets it done every single year.
Speaker 3: He hunts mostly across the Midwest with a pretty aggressive style.
Speaker 3: He's one of those andre Toquisto disciples who you know,
Speaker 3: has proven time and time again to know how to
Speaker 3: kill big old bucks. He does it in a very mobile,
Speaker 3: you know, very running gun kind of way, and he's
Speaker 3: he's one of those guys I really enjoyed chatting with
Speaker 3: over the years. So we've talked to him, I think
Speaker 3: twice before, once to get a deep dive into one
Speaker 3: of the bucks he killed a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: and then maybe three, four or five years ago we
Speaker 3: did kind of.
Speaker 2: An overall, you know, breakdown of how he hunts.
Speaker 3: So today, in this new episode, we're taking this quote
Speaker 3: unquote what would you do approach, So if you haven't
Speaker 3: heard the episode two weeks ago or in past years
Speaker 3: and we've done this, the basic idea is that I
Speaker 3: present justin very specific hypothetical hunting scenarios, so you know,
Speaker 3: something like, imagine you're in Ohio on October fifteenth with
Speaker 3: a west wind and this thing happens, right. The idea
Speaker 3: here is to get a look at how his mind works,
Speaker 3: how his decision making process works, how his style of
Speaker 3: hunting can be applied into all of these different places
Speaker 3: and scenarios and situations. It just gives us a different
Speaker 3: way to learn, you know, a great way to get
Speaker 3: kind of how to information in a very relatable, applicable way.
Speaker 3: So that's the plan, that's the hope. I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: this chat with Justin. I think you will too. I
Speaker 3: don't want to beat around the bush. Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Hunting season is either you know, here for you or
Speaker 3: very soon will be. So let's get to really focus
Speaker 3: in on how to come better deer hunters.
Speaker 2: Justin's gonna help us here we go.
Speaker 3: All right here with me on the show for a
Speaker 3: repeat appearance, is mister Justin Hollinsworth.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, Justin, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. I appreciate it as well.
Speaker 3: I was, you know, leading into this, went back and
Speaker 3: checked out a couple of your old videos from Lone
Speaker 3: Wolf's YouTube channel and was thinking back on our last conversation.
Speaker 3: I think it was the buck you killed Woody that
Speaker 3: we talked about last time, and just you know, I
Speaker 3: don't say this to everyone. Just listening back to that,
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, Man, Justin is one of the
Speaker 3: guys like number one, that I guarantee i'd enjoy like
Speaker 3: hanging out in deer camp with you and be just
Speaker 3: feel like you can teach something to every one of
Speaker 3: us every time we hear from you, like there's something
Speaker 3: to take away from conversations with you, just listening to
Speaker 3: your thought process. In some of these passive videos, there's
Speaker 3: always something that catches my attention, and it's a long
Speaker 3: way a way of saying, I'm glad that you're here
Speaker 3: for this, and I appreciate you making time to go
Speaker 3: through the what would you do?
Speaker 2: Gauntlet?
Speaker 3: Now, do you feel like you've got a good handle
Speaker 3: on what this is going to entail?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're I mean, it just sounds like
Speaker 2: you're gonna we're gonna walk into some situations and maybe
Speaker 2: a particular deer or maybe a certain setting and time
Speaker 2: a year or whatever. And because every single one of
Speaker 2: those there's so many variables to all this. Ye, it's
Speaker 2: so true.
Speaker 3: And that brings up a really good point, which is
Speaker 3: if I threw you a scenario and you can think
Speaker 3: of a real life example that was similar to this,
Speaker 3: those are always good things to share, Like it's I
Speaker 3: always enjoy like, hey, this reminds me of this specific thing,
Speaker 3: and here's how this went, this went, and this went again.
Speaker 3: Like those specifics always end up being super helpful. So
Speaker 3: I think without beating around the bush, we should just
Speaker 3: jump into it, maximize your time here.
Speaker 2: Yep, here's the first one.
Speaker 3: This is something that I wouldn't be surprised if it has
Speaker 3: happened to you before. It certainly happened to me before,
Speaker 3: probably most people, and it might be something happening to
Speaker 3: folks like right now.
Speaker 2: So imagine this.
Speaker 3: You have been out summer scouting throughout the last couple
Speaker 3: of months and you found a giant, You found the
Speaker 3: deer that your heart is set on, big old monster typical.
Speaker 3: Let's say like biggest typical you've ever been a hunt.
Speaker 3: Let's just throw that out there, okay. And he happens
Speaker 3: to be on a property you have permission on. You
Speaker 3: have pictures, pretty consistent pictures. You've gone out there glassing,
Speaker 3: You've got some velvet footage, you've been able to really
Speaker 3: dial them. In September arrives, It's around that time that
Speaker 3: velvet's going to peel off, and as bucks do, he disappears.
Speaker 3: What do you do in that situation? Are you going
Speaker 3: to seek him out? If so, how or in this
Speaker 3: kind of scenario do you feel like, ah, you know,
Speaker 3: I've seen him come back enough times, I'm going to
Speaker 3: hold out. What do you do in the short term
Speaker 3: and long term, if you really want to figure out
Speaker 3: this year.
Speaker 2: For me, in that situation, I would want to definitely,
Speaker 2: I was, I definitely want to seek him out, try
Speaker 2: to figure out exactly what he's doing. You know, when
Speaker 2: that stuff starts to happen to the first thing that
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm going to go to is you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to look at like, well, we were just
Speaker 2: talking earlier. It's been a very dry year here, so
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to start. I'm going to start,
Speaker 2: you know, just trying to figure out, Okay, where's the
Speaker 2: local water sources and maybe I need to get a
Speaker 2: camera over there, or maybe it's something that I you know,
Speaker 2: I can glass from afar, which is what I would
Speaker 2: probably prefer to do, you know, because maybe and that
Speaker 2: just kind of depends too on what's the pressure like
Speaker 2: in that area. I mean, is is there a lot
Speaker 2: of pressure then then if that's something I could glass,
Speaker 2: I'd much rather go that route than go over there
Speaker 2: and and stomp around and and and uh muddy up
Speaker 2: the water sort of speak. The other thing I want
Speaker 2: to be very aware of too. I want to I
Speaker 2: do I do want to get my boots on the
Speaker 2: ground because you know, beans are turning, so they're not
Speaker 2: hitting those beans as much. You know, I want to
Speaker 2: find I want to find those preferably white oaks, because
Speaker 2: that's what most of the year here prefer over anything.
Speaker 2: I think they prefer those over over reds or or
Speaker 2: or whatever. And just trying to understand where the shift
Speaker 2: has taking place. And the other part of that is, too,
Speaker 2: is what other deer are there, and what kind of
Speaker 2: personality does that buck that I'm interested? What kind of
Speaker 2: is he? Is he passive and not very aggressive because
Speaker 2: I've seen huge giant deer just very very just passive
Speaker 2: deer didn't like to be around other deer. And I've
Speaker 2: seen other deer that were not even close to the
Speaker 2: rack size, but they're built like a Brahma bull and
Speaker 2: they're just you know, looking for a fight all the time.
Speaker 2: And so I want to understand all all those situations
Speaker 2: and then try to pick the deer up in some
Speaker 2: way using that that information. But if I can't, then
Speaker 2: I think it's always a good idea too to maybe
Speaker 2: understand some of the other properties and stuff like that
Speaker 2: that are around there, maybe try to maybe gain some
Speaker 2: more access and maybe go throw a camera or or
Speaker 2: or just you know, spend some time, you know, glassing
Speaker 2: and kind of being discreet when you're doing that, because
Speaker 2: you can draw some attention to yourself real quick, you know,
Speaker 2: with a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope. That's
Speaker 2: how I would go about it.
Speaker 3: So a little bit more on that last part. Let's
Speaker 3: say you do the glassing. So I'm assuming driving around
Speaker 3: some evenings back roads doing perimeters.
Speaker 2: How wide of a like radius would you start searching?
Speaker 3: Like if you like, let's say this deer was on
Speaker 3: a ninety acre parcel, that's where you saw him all summer,
Speaker 3: and now he's gone. How wide are you going to
Speaker 3: start searching for him as you start driving and glassing
Speaker 3: surrounding properties?
Speaker 2: What's that zone of interest? I mean, I would say
Speaker 2: within a square mile, you know, I would keep it probably,
Speaker 2: you know, no more than that. I mean, I've definitely
Speaker 2: been fooled on that before and seen them you know,
Speaker 2: go much farther farther than that. But yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: so key to have history with a deer two, you know,
Speaker 2: and to have a little bit of historical data and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, whether or not they were a homebody
Speaker 2: and like that place, or maybe maybe they just summerred
Speaker 2: there and then you knew that information about where you know,
Speaker 2: maybe they didn't move that far, but maybe it's a
Speaker 2: couple of properties away from you know, that piece that
Speaker 2: you have that you have access to. But I mean
Speaker 2: I would start there and just probably keep expanding it.
Speaker 2: But you know, just the biggest thing is you could
Speaker 2: be on that ninety acre piece and that deer could
Speaker 2: be right there too, because if it's early season, I've
Speaker 2: seen this. I just seen this just recently. This just
Speaker 2: happened where I had cameras in a place and and
Speaker 2: he relied too much on those things, and and and
Speaker 2: I haven't The only place I ran cell cams on
Speaker 2: all year was just my my farm that I owned,
Speaker 2: just because it's an hour and twenty minutes away and
Speaker 2: i'd just been running. I just kind of went old
Speaker 2: school and went all, you know, I stee you know,
Speaker 2: cameras on video mode for the summer. And because I
Speaker 2: kind of like pulling cards again and just being surprised
Speaker 2: and not like sitting here looking at my phone all
Speaker 2: the time waiting for those I don't know. It does
Speaker 2: take something away from things at times, and and so
Speaker 2: I've seen this, and I go in check these cameras
Speaker 2: and I'm like, ah, there's really not that, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, there's nothing really great on this on this
Speaker 2: farm this year. And then I go and take a
Speaker 2: little drive and I'm glass and I see one deer
Speaker 2: out on a little island and a fence row in
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere, and you know, I take my
Speaker 2: vortex spotting scope and I you know, put it on
Speaker 2: the window, and you know, there's a a giant buck
Speaker 2: that you know, I got cameras all over the place.
Speaker 2: I never never have one picture of it. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's right there, and and I think sometimes that's that's
Speaker 2: a process too of elimination, is is sometimes putting no
Speaker 2: cameras out is an area that you can glass, you know,
Speaker 2: it all depends on the terrain, but if it's an
Speaker 2: area that you can glass and you can hit, being
Speaker 2: to do all that kind of stuff, sometimes just setting
Speaker 2: back and then seeing the animal and then moving a
Speaker 2: camera in there is the best route then just to
Speaker 2: you know, place all these cameras out, because I've seen that,
Speaker 2: you know, quite a few times before where I just
Speaker 2: had cameras on the wrong spot because they just don't
Speaker 2: move a lot. Uh, you know, early early season. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a really good point.
Speaker 3: You mentioned something a second ago about personalities of bucks,
Speaker 3: which which perfectly segues into a new scenario that I
Speaker 3: want to run by, one that I relatively recently have
Speaker 3: started like finding myself in this situation. I've been lucky.
Speaker 3: A couple spots that I've hunted over the years have
Speaker 3: slowly been getting better, and now I'm privileged enough, I
Speaker 3: guess to find myself in this scenario that ten years
Speaker 3: ago I would have been like, oh, lucky you.
Speaker 2: But here we are.
Speaker 3: So imagine this one. Imagine let's let's say, uh, let's
Speaker 3: say it's on the farm, young you. Is it like
Speaker 3: one to twenty something like that.
Speaker 2: No, I only have seventy five acres.
Speaker 3: Even better, okay, seventy five acres. So so imagine this scenario.
Speaker 3: You're on your farm and you've got super high potential
Speaker 3: buck that you've identified. But he's three and a half.
Speaker 3: He's young, but he's got world class potential. Everything you
Speaker 3: could possibly want in a young buck. He's the one.
Speaker 3: He could be the one if you give him a
Speaker 3: few more years. So I'm curious, and actually, you know,
Speaker 3: let's not do this on your farm you owng Let's
Speaker 3: say this is a permission farm. Sorry, because to make it,
Speaker 3: to make it makes sense, I think it should be
Speaker 3: a permission farm. So permission farm, super high potential deer,
Speaker 3: and you're trying to figure out what to do in
Speaker 3: this scenario because there is another buck. There's one other
Speaker 3: big deer on this farm, and he's one of those
Speaker 3: brahmable monster like sixty year old, heavy, one hundred and
Speaker 3: forty inch bully eight pointers. I'm sure you've seen one
Speaker 3: of these deer over your years who just is never
Speaker 3: going to be a big antler, but he is a
Speaker 3: horse and he's aggressive, and you've seen him in the past.
Speaker 3: Maybe you hunted there last year and you've seen him
Speaker 3: run off off the other deer. So your scenario is this,
Speaker 3: You've got this incredible, high potential young deer and you've
Speaker 3: got this bully, big old a pointer. In this scenario
Speaker 3: where you really are hoping that three and a half
Speaker 3: year old will make it through for a couple of years,
Speaker 3: what do you do to help ensure that?
Speaker 2: Do you?
Speaker 3: At least in my mind, there's two scenarios I consider
Speaker 3: in the situation. One scenario, One option would be, man,
Speaker 3: I should stay out of there and let that buck
Speaker 3: that three and a half yield never get pressured by me.
Speaker 2: I never want to push him out of there.
Speaker 3: I want to keep it hands off and leave that
Speaker 3: deer to feel as safe as possible. So that could
Speaker 3: be one option I would consider. But on the flip side,
Speaker 3: I'd be worried that the big heavy eight pointer would
Speaker 3: push him off, and so another side of me would say, hey,
Speaker 3: I should go in there and kill that big a pointer,
Speaker 3: and then that leaves us a safe place for him.
Speaker 3: But you risk pressuring of here and there trying to
Speaker 3: kill that big eight. What do you do in that situation?
Speaker 2: Well, it probably depends on what I have on other
Speaker 2: farms the hut. If it's if it's well, I had
Speaker 2: a I had a buck last year, like a big,
Speaker 2: huge eight older deer, had three years of pictures of him.
Speaker 2: Wasn't really interested in him, but I had Uh. I
Speaker 2: had a couple really young studs over there, and but
Speaker 2: he he was, you know, he he ran the show.
Speaker 2: I honestly I went over there and set maybe once
Speaker 2: or twice during early season, just just so I could
Speaker 2: see one of those those younger deer never did never
Speaker 2: seen him either. And and and there was one uh,
Speaker 2: there was one other older class deer over there too
Speaker 2: that friend of mine on another property about a mile
Speaker 2: away ended up killing, which kind of helped the whole
Speaker 2: situation over there too. And so a season went on,
Speaker 2: and then I got into late season. Yeah, I shifted
Speaker 2: gears and I was like, you know what, I could
Speaker 2: really make that farm good if I just went in
Speaker 2: there and and and just to see if I could
Speaker 2: get that dear, I prefer that year to be gone,
Speaker 2: because ah, and whether it's me or I've I've had
Speaker 2: friends that you know before where I'm like, hey, would
Speaker 2: you shoot this buck? They're like, oh yeah. I like, well,
Speaker 2: if I can let me talk to the land owner
Speaker 2: listen that I'll take you in there, like I think
Speaker 2: we can get it done. Like and I've taken friends
Speaker 2: and had that done before, and and you know, and
Speaker 2: helped out a buddy Philip buck Tag And that's fun.
Speaker 2: You know, that's that's always that's always awesome. You know,
Speaker 2: it's you know, I enjoyed that part of it just
Speaker 2: as much as you know myself anymore. But last year
Speaker 2: it just ended up you know, I had my tag
Speaker 2: and my pocket all the way until January thirty first,
Speaker 2: because I shot a big one and lost it, and
Speaker 2: and so I ended up going over there and ended
Speaker 2: up killing that deer. In January thirty first, we had
Speaker 2: like five days a season left, and I ended up
Speaker 2: shooting that deer. I mean, I would probably try to
Speaker 2: get that deer out of there and not risk those
Speaker 2: other deer, you know, just getting their assets kicked throughout
Speaker 2: the year and just completely relocating somewhere and then they
Speaker 2: just don't come back, because I've seen that happen. But
Speaker 2: I've also had this happen too. I've also had this
Speaker 2: years ago, probably twelve years ago. I had this steer
Speaker 2: and he was just he looked like a mature deer
Speaker 2: to me. I didn't have any passes through with him,
Speaker 2: and man, he was in there just beating the crap
Speaker 2: out of everything. Every time I would go in there
Speaker 2: to set that thing was all. I mean, I could
Speaker 2: have shot that deer two or three different times, and
Speaker 2: he was all over me. I'd bring a buddy of
Speaker 2: mine in there, and I'd tell him, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 2: we'll for sure see. I brought my buddy in there
Speaker 2: two or three times. We never laid eyes on him,
Speaker 2: and but if I was in there, I'd see this
Speaker 2: thing every time. Well, dear, that dear never got shot.
Speaker 2: And the next year he went from like one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty five inch what one hundred and thirty five
Speaker 2: inch bully buck is what I thought he was, And
Speaker 2: he blew up into a deer that was just shy
Speaker 2: one seventy the next year and I killed him. So
Speaker 2: and that's a tough thing too. You just don't know
Speaker 2: sometimes these deer, I mean, we all think we know
Speaker 2: what they're going to do from one year to the
Speaker 2: to the next. And I've had deer that I'm like,
Speaker 2: bad year's going to be a giant and never got it.
Speaker 2: Just never did. I've had other deer I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, that thing needs to go and then just
Speaker 2: blows up. But I heard this not too long ago.
Speaker 2: Ali Lakowski said this, and when he said it, it
Speaker 2: was like a light bulb went off. I was like, yep,
Speaker 2: I never thought of it. But no, he was one
Speaker 2: hundred percent right. It's it's like all I think all
Speaker 2: bucks have one year that they make just an exceptional jump,
Speaker 2: and you just don't You never know what it is,
Speaker 2: and so it's tricky, you know, I could go, I
Speaker 2: could go a lot of different ways on that I
Speaker 2: but on a big old bully buck with a couple
Speaker 2: of young studs around, I would either shoot shoot that
Speaker 2: deer myself or bring a friend.
Speaker 4: I think I think that would be the best way.
Speaker 3: Would you hunt in that situation any differently? So trying
Speaker 3: to kill the bullybuck, would you be more conservative because
Speaker 3: you're trying to have a light touch for the young studs,
Speaker 3: or would you be more aggressive because you want to
Speaker 3: get killed fast? Or do you just hunt him like
Speaker 3: you normally would hunt any other target buck.
Speaker 2: I would probably just be super aggressive with it, try
Speaker 2: to get it, try to get him either killed really
Speaker 2: quick or completely blow him out. I would try to
Speaker 2: do one of those two things, because the younger deer
Speaker 2: just put up with more. They they there's just way
Speaker 2: more pobable of things. And I mean, my gosh, I
Speaker 2: had a buck last year on a farm that I
Speaker 2: was hunting. That this the deer that I was hunting
Speaker 2: most of the season, and he was a three year old,
Speaker 2: and I I mean, I think, I I mean, I
Speaker 2: I think I saw him every single time I set
Speaker 2: that farm. I mean it was like every set here
Speaker 2: he came and and he and he cracked me a
Speaker 2: bunch of different times and never seemed to bothering's and
Speaker 2: he's he's still there.
Speaker 3: Have you ever found, like, do you believe that a
Speaker 3: buck has a long term memory. Do you think that
Speaker 3: three and a half year old, when he's four or five,
Speaker 3: he'll remember, Man, I got this guy here the time
Speaker 3: or two and like, well that linger. Because I've wondered
Speaker 3: about this myself. If the mistakes you make with a
Speaker 3: two year old or a three year old will bite
Speaker 3: me in the butt two years later when I really
Speaker 3: want to get him at five? Do you think it
Speaker 3: lasts or do you think at that point, like he's
Speaker 3: not had a negative there's been no negative consequence from
Speaker 3: being around you, from seeing you or smelling you over
Speaker 3: the last couple of years. So by the time he
Speaker 3: gets to five and he's still alive, does he just think, well,
Speaker 3: I actually I'm not worried about this dude.
Speaker 2: To some degree, I think you can almost condition him.
Speaker 2: I think that I think sometimes when people just like y' all,
Speaker 2: let's just completely stay out of there and never go
Speaker 2: in there and never then they never have any interaction
Speaker 2: at all, right with with with anyone, and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden season comes around and and you're you've
Speaker 2: tried to basically this is the sanctuary, and I'm never
Speaker 2: going to go in there. I'm never going to do this,
Speaker 2: and you know, this year is never going to have
Speaker 2: any interaction with me. I I think that's that's a
Speaker 2: I think that's a very foolish way of thinking about it.
Speaker 2: I think as they grow up over the years and
Speaker 2: the interactions that they have with humans, as long as
Speaker 2: they're not bad interactions, I think it kind of conditions them.
Speaker 2: And bucks get older, they just you know, they get
Speaker 2: more sketchy anyways. I mean, I think it's in more
Speaker 2: cagey because it's just it's more it's just how they're
Speaker 2: made up. But I think that you know, the more interaction, well,
Speaker 2: look at an urban buck, for example, there's a prime
Speaker 2: that there's a prime example, like I've hunted urban areas
Speaker 2: and and and there's a you know, there's a big
Speaker 2: you know, there's a big difference in those deer for sure,
Speaker 2: because all the interactions that they have with people all
Speaker 2: the time. I mean, as long as they're not you know,
Speaker 2: getting jumped in and and you know you're coming into
Speaker 2: their wheelhouse and you know, just kind of I mean,
Speaker 2: they're pretty tolerable of a lot more. I think then,
Speaker 2: say a deer that's in a pretty heavily pressured area
Speaker 2: that has gone through some you know, gun seasons and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, or just or maybe you got like
Speaker 2: a situation, well like a lot what you guys deal
Speaker 2: with in Michigan a lot. I mean huge amount of
Speaker 2: license hunters, you know, and everybody's hunting every five ten
Speaker 2: twenty acre piece around and they're having they're having a
Speaker 2: lot of arrows slung at them and and and maybe
Speaker 2: even getting you know injured, you know here and there.
Speaker 2: But those urban bucks, they you can definitely get away
Speaker 2: with a lot more So, I think the more interaction
Speaker 2: that they have, as long as it's not negative, I
Speaker 2: think it's uh, it's in your favor to kill kill
Speaker 2: them later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's there definitely seems to be some
Speaker 3: truth that even I've even seen a little bit of
Speaker 3: that myself in places where there is pressure, it does
Speaker 3: seem like they they can figure out what is normal
Speaker 3: in their area and what's not normal. And if you
Speaker 3: can make yourself normal. Most of the time, you can
Speaker 3: get away with a little more, at least then a
Speaker 3: little bit more than I previously thought was possible, and.
Speaker 2: Well, but you gotta be careful. So my farm was
Speaker 2: a prime example. Well, so the places that I hunt
Speaker 2: around my house, well, I'm in there more and I'm
Speaker 2: always in there, you know, a lot more doing things.
Speaker 2: And I told this to a buddy because my farm
Speaker 2: there was a couple bucks out there last year that
Speaker 2: I wasn't interested in because I was just interested in
Speaker 2: this big typical last year, and he was closer to
Speaker 2: my house. So I let a good friend of mine,
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, there's a couple of good books over there.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'd like to see somebody shoot a nice
Speaker 2: buck off my farm. You know, I'm like, go for it, man,
Speaker 2: you know. And the first thing that he told me
Speaker 2: he said, hey, your farm's touchy. And I said really,
Speaker 2: he said, oh yeah, He's like I can tell already
Speaker 2: from you know, of my first two sets versus my
Speaker 2: third and fourth, Like they're onto me quickly. And the
Speaker 2: first thing that I thought, I was like, because I
Speaker 2: don't go out there that much, so they have this
Speaker 2: whole place to themselves and they're you know, they're not
Speaker 2: used to running into people ever. And I purposely made
Speaker 2: it a point this year to spend more time going
Speaker 2: out there and and just so they're not having you know,
Speaker 2: like they're having interactions with me. They're seeing me, smelling me,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. But nothing happened. Nothing's happening. And and
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that it's kind of an experiment too. I'm
Speaker 2: just kind of seeing if this is going to like
Speaker 2: change that going you know, going into this year. Because
Speaker 2: he he said, you know, he's like, hey, he's like
Speaker 2: super touchy. He's like, I'm a back off farm because
Speaker 2: because they're they're that onto me. And and then he
Speaker 2: would start back up again and hunt and he was
Speaker 2: he was like, yep, everything's to normal. And he would
Speaker 2: have two three sets and then he's like, yeah, he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, last my last two sets, I got skunked.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything. He's like, I'm gonna lay back
Speaker 2: off of it again.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna have to let us know. We're gona
Speaker 3: have to check back in with you after the season.
Speaker 3: See uh see if the slightly higher impact conditioning strategy works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, and it's kind of worked. It's kind of
Speaker 2: worked well too, because we have a job site out
Speaker 2: that way this year, and so him and I worked.
Speaker 2: He's a project manager for me and I and I
Speaker 2: told him. I was like, hey, whenever you go out
Speaker 2: to that that job, I'm like, stop on the farm.
Speaker 2: I'm like, just you know, check a cup of cameras.
Speaker 2: Move camera. I was like, you know, and then even
Speaker 2: when I'm out there or if I'm out there doing
Speaker 2: work or whatever like that, way we're there more and
Speaker 2: to see if we can make a little bit of
Speaker 2: a difference this year. Interesting, all right, how about this one?
Speaker 2: You are after?
Speaker 3: Specific buck again, it's October, and this deer you've gotten
Speaker 3: to know over a couple of years, but he is
Speaker 3: notoriously hard to pattern. The extent of what you can
Speaker 3: really figure out is that he has one main betting
Speaker 3: area slash zone, like a We're gonna say there's maybe
Speaker 3: five to ten acres really really good area of cover.
Speaker 3: There's you know, some concentrations within that, but there's like
Speaker 3: a tight core here that man more often than not,
Speaker 3: he's betted somewhere in that zone. There are crop fields
Speaker 3: to the north west and south of it. Big timber
Speaker 3: to the east. There are oaks to the east and west.
Speaker 3: Then there's a couple of scattered you know, like I mentioned,
Speaker 3: crop fields, some openings, some diverse trained mixture of crops
Speaker 3: and timber. This deer, like I said, you can figure
Speaker 3: out like he's man. He's in that five to ten
Speaker 3: acres a lot of the time. But when you hunt
Speaker 3: around him, it's very hard to predict if he'll go
Speaker 3: north on this day, west this day, south this day.
Speaker 3: He's always you know, any sighting you have of him,
Speaker 3: any photo you have of him is on some spoke
Speaker 3: leading out from that core. But there does not seem
Speaker 3: to be any kind of pattern to like, on a
Speaker 3: westerly wind, he could go anywhay. On a north wind,
Speaker 3: he could go anywhere. There's no rhyme or reason. And
Speaker 3: there's not any major change in food source because there's
Speaker 3: there's beans and corn to the north, there's beans in
Speaker 3: corn to the west, there's beans and corn.
Speaker 2: To the south.
Speaker 3: So it's it's it's hard to put a real idea
Speaker 3: of like why he should go on any direction on
Speaker 3: any given night. In that situation when you're trying to
Speaker 3: pick how you're gonna hunt this deer down in that scenario,
Speaker 3: how would you do it? How would you try to
Speaker 3: kill a deer like that? That, at least in my telling,
Speaker 3: is very hard to pattern.
Speaker 2: So so let me ask you this, in this situation,
Speaker 2: do I know do I know? Is this deer? Is this?
Speaker 2: Is this deer like a real touchy deer or do
Speaker 2: I have any like like as far as his personality,
Speaker 2: what kind of deer is he?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say he is a homebody deer who he's
Speaker 3: stuck around for years and it's it's it's hard to
Speaker 3: push him out of there. He wants to be there.
Speaker 2: Okay, then I love these kind of deer because this
Speaker 2: because that kind of situation there and and something you
Speaker 2: got to learn. I think it's got to be you
Speaker 2: got to develop confidence over the years to do it.
Speaker 2: But I think those are the those are the time,
Speaker 2: Okay you got a general idea about where he's at,
Speaker 2: I think those are the moments where you have to
Speaker 2: go in and do a light bump on that deer
Speaker 2: just just to get a sighting. Because because if he's
Speaker 2: betting to say a five to ten acre, you know, peace,
Speaker 2: that's I mean, my gosh, that's still a lot of room.
Speaker 2: And if you're bow hunting that you're I mean, if
Speaker 2: you're if he's in five acres and you're one o
Speaker 2: one acre over, I mean you're million miles away. So
Speaker 2: to me, it makes a lot more sense to like
Speaker 2: take the chance go in there so you can fully
Speaker 2: understand the situation and just try to just do a
Speaker 2: light bump on the deer, you know, get the wind
Speaker 2: in your face and just kind of go creeping and
Speaker 2: then just you know, get a visual. Because once you
Speaker 2: got a visual, and you got an exact location, and
Speaker 2: then once you got an exact location, say with so.
Speaker 3: Exact location of bed is what you want to find
Speaker 3: right where he where he stands up from.
Speaker 2: Yes, so, and then once you've got that exact location,
Speaker 2: then you got a real good general area. Say it's
Speaker 2: a you know, say say it's a you know, twenty
Speaker 2: by twenty area where he could bounce right around there
Speaker 2: or whatever. I would probably go over and look exactly
Speaker 2: where he was at, just to see if there's other beds,
Speaker 2: and then and then from there I would probably you know,
Speaker 2: I would definitely have a stand with me because I
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to come back because that would be the
Speaker 2: last thing that you'd want to do. And I'd want
Speaker 2: to probably get get a stand hung based off of
Speaker 2: where what makes the most sense for his return and
Speaker 2: maybe you know, maybe it's maybe it's for an evening
Speaker 2: hunt because you bumped him during the middle of the day,
Speaker 2: and maybe Okay, what makes the most sense. Why would
Speaker 2: he come so I seen him run off this way?
Speaker 2: What makes the most sense he knows something? Jump him
Speaker 2: out of there. It's danger doubt that he's going to
Speaker 2: come walking in there with the wind at his butt.
Speaker 2: He's he's going to come in in a in a
Speaker 2: in a manner of being able to detect some kind
Speaker 2: of danger. So you want to be just off to
Speaker 2: the side of that. And you just got to take
Speaker 2: your best educated guests and go for it. And then
Speaker 2: in that situation too, I would want to be able
Speaker 2: to if I if I didn't kill him that evening
Speaker 2: coming back, like uh, you know, I would be you know, thinking,
Speaker 2: thinking the whole time while I was in there. You know,
Speaker 2: what's the wind going to do tomorrow? What's the weather
Speaker 2: going to do tomorrow? Like Okay, do I you know,
Speaker 2: want if I set this tonight, do I need to
Speaker 2: pull this when I'm done tonight, and if I do
Speaker 2: need to pull it, where on this knob or a
Speaker 2: section here do I need to be to do the
Speaker 2: same thing I'm doing currently, And and then I would try,
Speaker 2: but preferably I would rather be in that same tree
Speaker 2: and just leave all my stuff in there bow, everything
Speaker 2: all set up, so I could creep back in and
Speaker 2: and and try to get you know that that other
Speaker 2: that you know, the other cracketing. But even if I
Speaker 2: don't and say he doesn't come, you know that evening
Speaker 2: or the next morning, at least I have that. Now,
Speaker 2: Now I can start painting little pictures out of my
Speaker 2: head of like, okay, you know, I know that you
Speaker 2: know this this bean field over here is completely brown,
Speaker 2: and this was you know, this being field over here
Speaker 2: was winter wheat, and then they they ended up planning
Speaker 2: it late, so it's this is the green or hey,
Speaker 2: you know what, I guarantee you this fencer over here
Speaker 2: that always has those big white oaks. I guarantee all
Speaker 2: those white oaks over there are dropping. And paint some
Speaker 2: situations out in your head of where he might be,
Speaker 2: you know, going for an evening hunt, but as far
Speaker 2: as the morning hunt goes, and if you have that information.
Speaker 2: I mean, because I mean he beds there for a reason,
Speaker 2: you know, And you know, Andre taught me this years ago.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know, you bump him out of there,
Speaker 2: and like he basically shired up a spot, and you
Speaker 2: gave him confidence on why he beds there. He escaped,
Speaker 2: he did not get hurt, and and he's he's going
Speaker 2: to come back. Because that is the amazing thing about
Speaker 2: big white tails too. And it took me a long
Speaker 2: time to get past this is they sometimes you can't
Speaker 2: burn a model of a spot. I've had bucks that
Speaker 2: I've hunted before that I felt like I was going
Speaker 2: so hard after them, and I was having so many
Speaker 2: encounters with them, and there was times where I was
Speaker 2: getting busted and I'm like, oh, it's done. There's no way,
Speaker 2: you know, like this is the second time that he's
Speaker 2: cracked me, and no, he's still right there. I think
Speaker 2: I think there's a big mis misconception on that. I
Speaker 2: think that they they'll tolerate a lot more due to
Speaker 2: years of being able to stay safe in an area.
Speaker 3: You know, imagine you're a seven year old man who's
Speaker 3: lived in the same house for fifty years. You know,
Speaker 3: if that was me. You know, if that was me,
Speaker 3: you'd have to bug me a whole lot to convince
Speaker 3: me to move out of that house that I've been
Speaker 3: safe and happy and for decades, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I can see and see why they can be more
Speaker 3: kind of location consistent.
Speaker 2: Than we used to think. Yeah, I just yeah, I
Speaker 2: just I was always just so worried about that for
Speaker 2: a long time, and there was time. I mean there's
Speaker 2: times where I will there's times where I fall back
Speaker 2: into it, where I play this head game with myself
Speaker 2: and I should know better from past experience, but every
Speaker 2: once in a while, my old self kicks back in
Speaker 2: of being super conservative and not not taking the chance,
Speaker 2: and that turns into me either not getting the deer
Speaker 2: or or you know, the or somebody else getting the
Speaker 2: deer or something like that. You know, So it's there's
Speaker 2: a fine line in there. I also and I also
Speaker 2: think you got to know, you got to know the animal.
Speaker 2: Like when you said a homebody, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: now we're talking now ones that that do some roman
Speaker 2: that you know that you could see two miles down
Speaker 2: the road somewhere mm hmm. That that's a different situation
Speaker 2: for sure. I mean, I had a deer during the
Speaker 2: late season that I was hunting, and my gosh, I
Speaker 2: cannot believe, like even for late season, Like how far
Speaker 2: that deer would move. Like a buddy of mine that
Speaker 2: hunts a couple of miles down the road. He's like, hey, where. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I call this deer Lucky. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm in here hunting lucky. He's like, well, uh, you
Speaker 2: might as well get down because I just got a
Speaker 2: picture of him down a down at my main farm.
Speaker 2: I'm like, are you kidding me? It's crazy.
Speaker 3: So so you brought up kind of your your willingness
Speaker 3: to take risk with you know, pushing in and pushing
Speaker 3: on a betting air.
Speaker 2: That brings me to another one of the scenarios. I
Speaker 2: want to run by you.
Speaker 3: And this is a kind of a an adjacent idea,
Speaker 3: but this is riskiness when choosing a tree. So imagine this.
Speaker 3: Imagine you are slipping in for a hanging hunt and
Speaker 3: you are going to be a long side the edge
Speaker 3: of a dough betting are tight to a dough betting
Speaker 3: is your is your game plan?
Speaker 2: As you slip in there it's.
Speaker 3: The rut and you find this terrific looking betting era,
Speaker 3: and there are two trails paralleling the down wind side.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to assume tell me, if this sounds
Speaker 3: stupid to you and you wouldn't even do this scenario,
Speaker 3: then you can feel free to rewrite this how you want.
Speaker 3: But let's say you want to be downwindow this dough
Speaker 3: betting are as many of us like to be during
Speaker 3: the rut, and there's two trail paralleling that down one side.
Speaker 3: One trail is right on the edge of the thick
Speaker 3: it's like right on that edge, and there's two scrapes
Speaker 3: along it, right near where there's an intersection of trails.
Speaker 3: One of these trails is punching right into the bedding.
Speaker 3: Then there is a second trail that is about fifteen
Speaker 3: twenty yards farther back. Okay, you've got two trees that
Speaker 3: seem viable as options for you to be able to
Speaker 3: get your stand up in. One of these trees is
Speaker 3: twenty nine yards from that first trail, So it's downwindo
Speaker 3: that first trail, great shot to that scrape into the
Speaker 3: intersection of trails, But that second pretty well used parallel
Speaker 3: trail is going to be downwind of view. Okay, or
Speaker 3: the second tree is downwind of both trails, so you
Speaker 3: have none of this expected movement behind you. But it
Speaker 3: is forty six years yards from the edge of the
Speaker 3: thick so you're gonna be forty six yards away from
Speaker 3: the edge. But both trails up win of view or
Speaker 3: twenty nine yards from the edge, but one main trail
Speaker 3: is down one. Which of those options would you take?
Speaker 2: And why? Probably the first thing that I would want
Speaker 2: to do. You know, obviously I want to go and
Speaker 2: look at at those trails. I want to look at
Speaker 2: the tracks in those trails, and and just because there's
Speaker 2: a couple of scrapes over there doesn't mean, you know,
Speaker 2: that's going to be the particular trail that I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to cut some big tracks on
Speaker 2: one of those two trails, and then I'm just going
Speaker 2: to you know, play the game of you know, process
Speaker 2: of elimination and based off of based off of the tracks.
Speaker 2: If I'm seeing big tracks on both of them, you know,
Speaker 2: some of it's going to come down to gut feeling
Speaker 2: and and and just trying to make a more of
Speaker 2: a a you know, a gut feeling call on the spot.
Speaker 2: I had a situation very similar to this. Just a
Speaker 2: few years ago, on a big deer that I was hunting,
Speaker 2: I watched him take a dough into a betting area
Speaker 2: that that well, I actually picked up a shed from him.
Speaker 2: I watched him push her right into that area. I
Speaker 2: pulled my set, went over there, read the sign. This
Speaker 2: situation to a t two trails. One trails pounded, and
Speaker 2: it's got his tracks on it, and and it's also
Speaker 2: got two big rubs leading but right back to where
Speaker 2: I found one of his sheds, and there is like
Speaker 2: a perfect you know, pin oak right there with all
Speaker 2: kinds of branches and the whole nine and it and
Speaker 2: it favored I'm a left handed shooter, so it favored
Speaker 2: that trail was to my right side on that tree.
Speaker 2: The other tree or the other trail was more downwind
Speaker 2: to a point where they could come down the trail
Speaker 2: so far and then they wouldn't get my wind until
Speaker 2: they actually entered the field. Because I was tucked in
Speaker 2: the woods a little well a little ways but tight
Speaker 2: like right up against this fatting area, and there was
Speaker 2: more of a more of a faint trail, but there
Speaker 2: were some of us tracks on it, but there wasn't
Speaker 2: a big sign and stuff like that. So I kinda,
Speaker 2: you know, I went off of my gut feeling. And
Speaker 2: obviously from the looks of things, I'm like, I got
Speaker 2: to set up on this main trail where the other
Speaker 2: trail was going to be. It was I ranged it
Speaker 2: in his forty four yards and and I just thought,
Speaker 2: I don't I just didn't feel like in that situation
Speaker 2: he would come down that trail. Well he did go.
Speaker 2: He did come down the trail that night, and and
Speaker 2: and he was on my left hand side, and being
Speaker 2: a left handed shooter, you know that's not favorable. You know, like,
Speaker 2: you know, you got to turn your whole body to
Speaker 2: make that shot. And and that's a long shot. And
Speaker 2: I don't, you know, I practice you know, longer ranges.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm I'm I'm shooting a lot of fifty
Speaker 2: and sixty yards. And I knew that that trail was
Speaker 2: at forty four yards. And when he stood and I
Speaker 2: watched him stand up out of his bed at eighty
Speaker 2: yards and it's on one of our White Tail Addictions episodes.
Speaker 2: And he stands up with his dough and he's right
Speaker 2: there at eighty yards and he's working a tree over
Speaker 2: and the whole nine and he comes all the way
Speaker 2: down in that situation. In that situation, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: nine times out of ten, it's gut feeling, and it's
Speaker 2: also just you know what your eyes are telling you
Speaker 2: as far as the sign goes. And to me, the
Speaker 2: trail that I set up on, I felt like that
Speaker 2: was the right trail going into it, and it just
Speaker 2: didn't play out like that. And you know, I was
Speaker 2: fortunate enough to make a great shot on the deer
Speaker 2: at forty four yards and he only ran like fifty
Speaker 2: yards and piled up. Would I have changed anything today
Speaker 2: if I went into that same situation, No, I probably
Speaker 2: would have did the same exact thing. I think sometimes
Speaker 2: you can try to cover too too much. I think
Speaker 2: you're always better off to like favor one particular trail
Speaker 2: in that situation and just be as dialed as possible
Speaker 2: for that one specific scenario. Yeah, yeah, and again, and
Speaker 2: then it kind of all goes back to like, okay,
Speaker 2: and if you blow it, you blow it, you know,
Speaker 2: And and that's the game. Though, you know, if this
Speaker 2: was easy and they just rolled over all the time,
Speaker 2: it suck. Kind of you know, it's like we want
Speaker 2: to we kind of want to go at it with
Speaker 2: them a little bit.
Speaker 3: True, we wouldn't be sitting here recording like episode eight
Speaker 3: and fifty or whatever of this podcast that people have
Speaker 3: listened to thousands of hours and stuff, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And that's what's so fun about it to me, Like,
Speaker 2: I love I love that part of the unknown. I
Speaker 2: I don't want it to ever get to the point
Speaker 2: where it's you know, and I never will because a
Speaker 2: big white tail, you know, mature buck is KG and
Speaker 2: they're you know, they're always going to be you know,
Speaker 2: you know, so good at the game. But but I
Speaker 2: you know, I like that challenge, you know, I like that,
Speaker 2: you know, just trying to play the trying to paint
Speaker 2: these scenes in your head of what's happening and what
Speaker 2: you're trying to picture what's going to happen next, because
Speaker 2: that's you know, I've said this a lot to my
Speaker 2: my buddies before too, because I I did this for
Speaker 2: a long time where I used to chase trail cam
Speaker 2: pitchers and that's that's a really stupid game to get
Speaker 2: into because it's already happened. So I think trail cameras
Speaker 2: should just be used mostly just for inventory reasons.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I feel like it's become even more of a
Speaker 3: prominent thing now, just as cell cameras have just so
Speaker 3: dominated so much of our mind space. Now, a lot
Speaker 3: of people are doing that. And I, you know, I
Speaker 3: was guilty of this last year. And even though even
Speaker 3: though the year prior I was talking to you, I
Speaker 3: think you and I had a conversation about this in
Speaker 3: January of twenty twenty three when we were talking about
Speaker 3: Woody and we both sat here and talked about, man,
Speaker 3: you can't chase these camera pictures. And then in fall
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three, I'm again tempted into it, like,
Speaker 3: oh man, he was just there yesterday, same wind might happen,
Speaker 3: and then I'm there and he's over there, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it just continues. So yeah, it's tough, too tough to
Speaker 3: be suckered by that piece of intel.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is, it is. I think it's you know,
Speaker 2: but I love but I do love cameras. I love
Speaker 2: I love the picture, you know, getting the pictures and like,
Speaker 2: and I love you know, just I love keeping track
Speaker 2: of certain books and all that kind of stuff. It's
Speaker 2: kind of that's I think that's probably just a big
Speaker 2: of hobby is punting and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed that part of a lot, and it's fun.
Speaker 3: So let me get you one more tree question, one
Speaker 3: more kind of slight tweak on that scenario we just did. So,
Speaker 3: so imagine instead of there being two trails, okay, one
Speaker 3: of them's gone. So now you just have that one
Speaker 3: trail that's right right along that edge, just one major
Speaker 3: travel route along that edge. Again, you have two trees.
Speaker 3: The difference now is that one of these trees is nice,
Speaker 3: easy distance twenty yards away from that spot, but very
Speaker 3: minimal cover. It's like a bean pole tree with like
Speaker 3: one branch coming off at like twenty feet.
Speaker 2: That's really it.
Speaker 3: Okay, so easy shot, minimal cover. You've got another tree,
Speaker 3: but this one's at forty four yards, let's say. So
Speaker 3: it's a poke, or more of a poke at least
Speaker 3: than the other shot. But this is an oak tree,
Speaker 3: lots of branches, beautiful cover. Do you take that, you know,
Speaker 3: slam dunk shot but questionable cover, or do you take
Speaker 3: the longer shot but lots of cover.
Speaker 2: I would probably take the closer tree, and I would
Speaker 2: probably just set my stand up a little bit differently
Speaker 2: than I what I the way that I typically set up.
Speaker 2: I I typically be in a left handed shooter. I
Speaker 2: typically set up my stand to shoot the deer on
Speaker 2: my right hand side. And I and I prefer to
Speaker 2: I prefer to sit when I shoot. I think there's
Speaker 2: less movement because there's not the you know, grab the
Speaker 2: bow and stand up and draw. I mean, it just
Speaker 2: takes one you know, it's one less movement, you know,
Speaker 2: like to you know, have my boat close and just
Speaker 2: be able to draw on the animal. But in that situation,
Speaker 2: I might flip the stand to the backside of the tree.
Speaker 2: I'm more of a sitter than a stander. But in
Speaker 2: that situation, I would use the tree as cover to
Speaker 2: be able to to peek around. You know, that might
Speaker 2: be I know, you know, in that situation, some guys
Speaker 2: that saddle hunt and stuff like that, that that right
Speaker 2: there could be the the advantage to that where I
Speaker 2: would probably do it a little bit differently, where I
Speaker 2: would just you know, I just put my seat up on,
Speaker 2: you know, on my lone wolf and peek around the
Speaker 2: tree and stay tight to the tree because you know
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to beat some eyes on some other deer.
Speaker 2: That's because I there's just a lot that can happen
Speaker 2: at forty four yards. Yeah, the way the way that
Speaker 2: a white tail can react to a book going off
Speaker 2: is just is pretty unbelievable. So I would much rather
Speaker 2: have that close shot. And that's really what bow hunting
Speaker 2: should be, you know, you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: you know who is either Jean or very wintil It said,
Speaker 2: it's a aim of how close you can get, not
Speaker 2: how far you can get. So with the advancement of
Speaker 2: the you know, with archery equipment and people just being
Speaker 2: able to shoot farther and stuff like that more more accurate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had a target for sure, definitely think that's possible.
Speaker 2: But I don't like to shoot past forty yards. But
Speaker 2: I've done it because every once in a while, this
Speaker 2: thing's like comes back into my head, like, well, if
Speaker 2: you're not shooting, you're not killing. So I've taken some
Speaker 2: I've taken some longer, longer shots before, but I've taken
Speaker 2: some longer shots too, and I've missed animals and I've
Speaker 2: woundered animals as well.
Speaker 3: So that brings us to that You couldn't have more
Speaker 3: perfectly segued to the next scenario than justin which is
Speaker 3: I'd like to understand how you handle that scenario you
Speaker 3: just mentioned. So let's say your target buck the buck
Speaker 3: you're after. Let's say he comes out at forty four
Speaker 3: like we just described, and you're sitting there like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, that's a poke. A lot can happen, but
Speaker 3: you kind of feel the pressure. I got this in
Speaker 3: my one chance. And you take the shot and you
Speaker 3: hit him, but it's a non lethal wound. So maybe
Speaker 3: graze his back, or you hit the shoulder, or you
Speaker 3: underneath the brisket, whatever it is, you wound him, but
Speaker 3: you're pretty darn sure the deer survived. What's the next
Speaker 3: twenty four to forty eight hours look like? How do
Speaker 3: you how do you handle that mentally? How do you
Speaker 3: shake yourself out of it or get yourself right or
Speaker 3: figure out what was going on or what mistakes happened?
Speaker 2: Like, just how do you process and move on from
Speaker 2: that situation? It's it's a really hard thing for me
Speaker 2: to get past, to be quite honest with you, I
Speaker 2: probably still to this day with that. When the situation
Speaker 2: like that happens. Yeah, the best I mean, honestly, the
Speaker 2: best thing that you can do is it's not set
Speaker 2: around too long and lick your wounds. You have to
Speaker 2: get back out there. You have to start scouting again.
Speaker 2: You have to almost keep your mind busy and thinking
Speaker 2: about my next move and how I can get back
Speaker 2: on this deer and so on and so forth. Because
Speaker 2: last year I was hunting a big typical that that
Speaker 2: I was after, had had an encounter with him two
Speaker 2: three days later, came back, had the deer coming in
Speaker 2: on a string to you know, got to forty yards,
Speaker 2: hurt another deer, and went down into the creek. I
Speaker 2: ran out of daylight and I was stuck in the tree,
Speaker 2: and I could hear him sparring with this small buck
Speaker 2: down there. So I just I was like, okay, an
Speaker 2: hour of complete darkness and then I'm going to slip out. Well,
Speaker 2: when I was leaving after an hour of setting there
Speaker 2: and I never heard anything around me, I thought the
Speaker 2: coast was clear, something heavy footed bounded off, and I
Speaker 2: was just convinced, you know, you know, there's a bazillioneer
Speaker 2: in that area. But in my head, I was like,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent that was him. I screwed it all up,
Speaker 2: and man, that that that was to me that was
Speaker 2: no different than doing what you just were talking about,
Speaker 2: wounding in or missing him or whatever it might be,
Speaker 2: because you know, I gave up my location. He knows
Speaker 2: he's being hunted now, and it's just a completely different ballgame.
Speaker 2: And how I handled that situation then is in that
Speaker 2: particular area, it's pretty open, a lot of big farm fields,
Speaker 2: So I was spending a lot of time glassing observation
Speaker 2: sets and then even on times that you know, because
Speaker 2: I just I got to know, so I love just
Speaker 2: to do a perimeter search of like, you know, a
Speaker 2: field and just to try to cut you know, maybe
Speaker 2: cut his big tracks or you know, different stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So that way, you know, I'm you know, I'm still
Speaker 2: in the game, and I'm watching, you know, I'm watching
Speaker 2: my cameras seeing if he's going to show back up
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. In that particular situation, I mean
Speaker 2: that year went missing for a while, I mean, he
Speaker 2: went missing for a few weeks, and I really really
Speaker 2: thought I blew my chance there for you know, quite
Speaker 2: some time. And and then I got maybe a pitcher
Speaker 2: at night one after a couple of weeks, and and
Speaker 2: it's started to tick up a little bit and that situation.
Speaker 2: For me, the way I handled it, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got to get out of here for a while,
Speaker 2: but this is the deer that I wont but and
Speaker 2: he's he's here, he's just not here as much. So
Speaker 2: for me, I just I packed up my stuff and
Speaker 2: I went to Illinois and spent some time out there
Speaker 2: just hunting, you know, a different state and some new
Speaker 2: ground and kind of let things just develop and and
Speaker 2: then and it kind of worked out perfect because I
Speaker 2: shot my buck out there, and I came back home
Speaker 2: and and he was starting to get active on that
Speaker 2: farm again. And then it wasn't three or four days
Speaker 2: after I got back from Illinois is when I got
Speaker 2: my shot. So you know, I just kind of let
Speaker 2: it cool, you know, let it cool down, let him
Speaker 2: get you know, and we're also talking now it's the
Speaker 2: week of you know, it was November twentieth, so it
Speaker 2: was the week of Thanksgiving. So in my head I
Speaker 2: just thought, too, like he's going to he's a big, huge,
Speaker 2: mature dominant dear. He's done some breeding and now he
Speaker 2: knows this week is I mean, he's running out and
Speaker 2: goes to breed, and there's a good chance that I
Speaker 2: might be able to catch him trying to find that
Speaker 2: last one. And that's that's what happened on that particular morning.
Speaker 3: So speaking of November twenty, then one last scenario. On
Speaker 3: that date, November twentieth, you're out hunt and you our
Speaker 3: evening sit two hours left of daylight. You've just got
Speaker 3: that one buck y're after. He's the one year after again,
Speaker 3: and you spot him. You're up in a tree, you're
Speaker 3: posted up in a tree. You spot him on a dough,
Speaker 3: so he's already got the dough and she's walking him
Speaker 3: off straight away from you and out of sight in
Speaker 3: the direction where you know there's a food source. Two
Speaker 3: hours left, he's the only day you're to get hill.
Speaker 3: What do you do? Do you stay there and just
Speaker 3: hope it comes back? Or are you gonna do something wild?
Speaker 3: And I don't know, do something different?
Speaker 2: What are you doing? Then? I think it just depends
Speaker 2: on the terrain in that particular setup. I mean, if
Speaker 2: it's something where I would now I wouldn't have done
Speaker 2: this prior to killing Woody a few years ago, when
Speaker 2: I did that stock on him and killing him in
Speaker 2: that fence row. Now after doing that and just trying
Speaker 2: something out of the box and gaining some confidence with it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's I mean, if if if I feel if there
Speaker 2: was a fence row or if there was some way
Speaker 2: of our ditch where I could sneak down and try
Speaker 2: to you know, cut them off and have the wind
Speaker 2: in my favor, yeah, I would. I would definitely, I
Speaker 2: would definitely do that. But you know, also seeing you know,
Speaker 2: seeing that that would probably be a really good opportunity
Speaker 2: too to get down, tear my stand down, slide down,
Speaker 2: try to cut that track wherever they came out, and
Speaker 2: then to be able to get a situated you know,
Speaker 2: maybe get situated back in that same general area because
Speaker 2: maybe that's where that particular dough likes to.
Speaker 3: Be, and then hunt it that next morning. You're saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm then hunt it the next morning.
Speaker 2: You know, let them, you know, let them go off
Speaker 2: do their thing, and then you got the run of
Speaker 2: the place and you can go in there and and
Speaker 2: you know kind of kind of get a you know,
Speaker 2: based off of cutting and cutting that track and and
Speaker 2: seeing if they you know, come back in there, because
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the a lot of dose
Speaker 2: you know, they a lot of times they like their
Speaker 2: little they got their little spots just like a buck does.
Speaker 2: And I mean I've heard of guys. I've heard of
Speaker 2: guys doing this too before. Now I don't because I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I would be able to determine
Speaker 2: a particular dough over another dough unless it had like
Speaker 2: a double throat patch or a bob tail or you know,
Speaker 2: something that identified it. But I know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: know of some guys that wait for particular does. They
Speaker 2: know about roughly a timeframe of when particular does are
Speaker 2: going to come into heat, and they just go in
Speaker 2: and hunt that dough or you know those does in
Speaker 2: that area, knowing that you know, a big deer is
Speaker 2: going to come in that area. I've never done it,
Speaker 2: but I've heard of other people doing it. But pretty interesting,
Speaker 2: I do. Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: All right, justin you've made it through the worst of it.
Speaker 3: I've got just a handful of rapid fire questions for Okay,
Speaker 3: so there's going to be one word answer real quick.
Speaker 3: First thing that comes to your mind. Okay, yep, does
Speaker 3: the moon matter to deer movement?
Speaker 2: Yes or no? Yes? Yes? Would you take a fifty
Speaker 2: yard shot at a white tail with your bow? Yes?
Speaker 2: Or no, if he's in a wide open field. Maybe okay. Uh.
Speaker 3: If you could only have one of these tools for
Speaker 3: the rest of your hunts, which would it be rattling
Speaker 3: antlers or grunt tube, grunt tube expandable or fixed blade broadheads?
Speaker 2: Uh? I'm an expandable guy.
Speaker 3: Should you stop a buck with some kind of sound
Speaker 3: before shooting if he's moving?
Speaker 2: Yes or no? Yes? Okay?
Speaker 3: Last question, This one is not a one word answer.
Speaker 3: You can expand on this one. Imagine that I rule
Speaker 3: the world and I have control over your hunting privileges
Speaker 3: for the rest of your life, and I am going
Speaker 3: to take away your hunting privileges and your hunting license
Speaker 3: ability or the rest of your life if you don't
Speaker 3: kill a five year old buck this year. All right,
Speaker 3: So you got to kill a five year old this year. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: no more hunting for the rest of your days. The
Speaker 3: kind of kicker here, though, is that you'll have one
Speaker 3: day to get it done. So what I'd like you
Speaker 3: to do is pick the date on the calendar that
Speaker 3: you would like for this hunt. So you get to
Speaker 3: pick one day and then describe for me in as
Speaker 3: much detail as you can the exact type of location
Speaker 3: you would like to be for your setup, So you know,
Speaker 3: you can tell me what state you would want to
Speaker 3: be in. You could just describe a general kind of habitat,
Speaker 3: set up up a specific you know the details of
Speaker 3: what kind of tree you want and how you want
Speaker 3: it set up, and what kind of cover or what
Speaker 3: kind of sign you want around you. Paint the picture
Speaker 3: as best as you'd like to, as best as you can.
Speaker 2: But give me the.
Speaker 3: Date and this amazing picture, perfect setup that al Wollt
Speaker 3: s Garantee. You kill that five year old, what would
Speaker 3: you do?
Speaker 2: I would probably if I had the perfect hunt in
Speaker 2: that situation, it would be and this date, this particular
Speaker 2: date has been very good to me in Iowa. I'd
Speaker 2: be in Iowa. I would be on some just it
Speaker 2: would be a morning hunt on say November ninth, and
Speaker 2: it would be a big ah. It would be a
Speaker 2: big oak flat. But the thermals pushing up and you're
Speaker 2: just being invincible. Doesn't matter what your wind is because
Speaker 2: you got that lift going on, and it just doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: He's snuck in there never blew anything out, which is
Speaker 2: like almost impossible. But and I mean, and it would
Speaker 2: be about about twenty degrees frosty. That would be like
Speaker 2: the perfect that would be the perfect situation, Like I
Speaker 2: dream about those all I dream about that all year,
Speaker 2: so I know exactly what I can picture that whole thing,
Speaker 2: and it'd be even be it'd be And that day
Speaker 2: thing is tough because the ninth has been good to me.
Speaker 2: The twelfth has been good to me, and so has
Speaker 2: But I tell you what, the week of Thanksgiving has been.
Speaker 2: That week I've seen the biggest dear of my life
Speaker 2: during that week. And you don't see a lot of deer,
Speaker 2: but dang, you see some good ones.
Speaker 3: And you think that's just those old boys know that
Speaker 3: the last last bell of the ball is out there
Speaker 3: somewhere and he's got to get it real quick before
Speaker 3: the opportunity's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are still like you don't see
Speaker 2: all the crazy chaotic one in two three, you know,
Speaker 2: one to three year olds, you know, and when you do,
Speaker 2: like they're pretty they're pretty beat down. And and but man,
Speaker 2: when you I mean that, that particular week, you just
Speaker 2: see some slammers and and they're on their A game,
Speaker 2: you know, they are on their A game, and they
Speaker 2: are on the prow and they look in just the
Speaker 2: way that they look at that point too in the year.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, been to the Ringer, maybe got some
Speaker 2: battle scars on them, you know, the their necks are
Speaker 2: just swelled up like bodybuilders. I mean, yeah, I dream
Speaker 2: about that stuff.
Speaker 3: It's good stuff, man. I believe you would get it done.
Speaker 3: I think you get your five year old, you'll be
Speaker 3: able to keep on hunting. So I like the setup
Speaker 3: justin what if there's anything you want to pitch out
Speaker 3: the folks to check out from Lone Wolf or White
Speaker 3: Tail Addictions, your videos, anything particular you want to send
Speaker 3: folks to go check out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this year is This year is the Lone
Speaker 2: Wolf's fortieth anniversary. So started in eighty four, so they
Speaker 2: you know, we've been in business for forty years. Obviously
Speaker 2: I haven't been part of forty years. Have been probably
Speaker 2: part of it for half of that. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: would love for you know, people to go over to
Speaker 2: our YouTube page Low Wolf Custom Gear, and we just
Speaker 2: started dropping our White Tail Addictions episodes on there, and
Speaker 2: and you know, these guys are just uh, they're truly
Speaker 2: from all walks of life and they are just you know,
Speaker 2: a bunch of the best students that I know great friends,
Speaker 2: and these guys just know how to get it done.
Speaker 2: And and uh, we're not if you're looking for some
Speaker 2: high quality Heartland bow Hunter stuff, and trust me, I
Speaker 2: love Heartland bow Hunters. The quality of their stuff is
Speaker 2: just unbelievable. It's not that because we're all just do
Speaker 2: it yourself for self filmer and and it's it's pretty raw. No,
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: When I am thinking about future podcast guests, trying to
Speaker 3: find some new folks anything like that, your guys stuff
Speaker 3: is always one of the first places I go and start.
Speaker 3: You know, have I talked to this guy? Have I
Speaker 3: talked to this guy? I've reached out to you in
Speaker 3: the past, Like who on your team? Do I need
Speaker 3: to talk to you about this kind of thing? Because
Speaker 3: you guys just have legit quality deer hunters. Like I
Speaker 3: just know if there's someone that's hunting with you guys,
Speaker 3: they're doing it.
Speaker 2: They're doing it well. So I always enjoy watching, following
Speaker 2: along and learning. So keep it up. Yeah, we we
Speaker 2: have a really awesome group of guys. That's cool. We're
Speaker 2: all getting together this weekend for we have our annual
Speaker 2: White Tail Addictions get together this Friday, and and then
Speaker 2: we have and then on Saturday, this is all at
Speaker 2: Andre's farm, and then we have the Mobile Roads show
Speaker 2: that Cody puts on, and it's it's an awesome time.
Speaker 2: You need to come out. It's a blast, it really is. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've been seeing it all on social media and it
Speaker 3: looks it looks pretty great.
Speaker 2: So one of these days I'm gonna swing over there
Speaker 2: and make it happen. Yep, You're always invited. Much appreciate Justin. Well,
Speaker 2: thank you for this too.
Speaker 3: Good luck this season, and hopefully we'll be talking again
Speaker 3: soon about your latest big old Ohio buck or Illinois
Speaker 3: or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Yep, well, I look forward to look forward to seeing
Speaker 2: what you put down this year too.
Speaker 3: Piers crossed, all right, and that's gonna do it. Really
Speaker 3: appreciate Justin joining us. I appreciate you being here and listening.
Speaker 3: If your season has begun, I hope you are off
Speaker 3: to a great start. If it's coming up here pretty soon,
Speaker 3: keep on shooting your bow or your gun, keep on
Speaker 3: checking out those final last minute to do items, and
Speaker 3: get ready for a really fun season.
Speaker 2: Let's keep it fun, Let's be safe, let's work hard.
Speaker 3: Let's feel the freezer, and let's enjoy this whole deer
Speaker 3: hunting thing as much as we possibly can. So with
Speaker 3: that said, thank you and stay wired to hunt.