Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods. Present it by First Light, creating
Speaker 1: proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your guest host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking to Andy May about
Speaker 2: scouting all summer long to set yourself up for success
Speaker 2: throughout the entire dear season. Welcome to the Wired to
Speaker 2: Hunt podcast, which is brought to you by First Light,
Speaker 2: which makes the Killer Trace lineup. If you haven't checked
Speaker 2: it out and you're thinking about summer scouting or hunting
Speaker 2: early season, you should probably check it out. It's pretty
Speaker 2: damn good stuff, super breathable, pretty tough, and it's just
Speaker 2: right for hot weather white tail work. Now you know
Speaker 2: this isn't the voice of the walking muppet man, Mark Kenyon,
Speaker 2: it's your old Sea Squad or Tony Mark, you know
Speaker 2: who takes more vacations than any adult I know who
Speaker 2: didn't start a company like Amazon. He's off on an
Speaker 2: emergency errand apparently the text he sent me went like this,
Speaker 2: Hey bro, I need you to cover this week because
Speaker 2: I need to go get fitted for my dream wizard
Speaker 2: costume in time for the Detroit Cosplay Festival. He even
Speaker 2: ended it with a wand E moji, because I don't
Speaker 2: that was necessary, I guess anyway, I'm kicking off a
Speaker 2: whole month of scouting podcasts. We are in the heart
Speaker 2: of it all, at least for a lot of folks,
Speaker 2: and it's time to take inventory. It's time to start
Speaker 2: building those plans for the fall. It's time to get
Speaker 2: our happy asses in gear and get some white tail
Speaker 2: work done. And who better to talk to about that
Speaker 2: than the man, the myth, and the deer hunting legend
Speaker 2: that is Andy May.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I know you've heard Andy talk a lot on different podcasts,
Speaker 2: but I don't know if he's ever gotten into this
Speaker 2: level of depth and detail on how he scouts in
Speaker 2: the summer. And that's good. But where he ties it
Speaker 2: in and really makes the whole thing hum is how
Speaker 2: he talks about how he sets himself up for success
Speaker 2: all fall along. I'm telling you I learned a lot
Speaker 2: in this conversation with Andy, and it fired me up
Speaker 2: to be better. And I bet if you listen all
Speaker 2: the way through, it'll do the same thing for you.
Speaker 3: Andy May. How you doing, buddy?
Speaker 4: Pretty good?
Speaker 3: You should be doing good.
Speaker 2: Why don't you tell everybody who's listening to this, they're
Speaker 2: going to be surprised what we've been doing all week.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been fun, a fun few days.
Speaker 5: I am up in Minnesota doing a little bass fishing
Speaker 5: with my buddy Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Meat Eater and their infinite wisdom decided to take
Speaker 2: me and Andy May and put us on a fishing
Speaker 2: show that we're filming. And by fishing show, I mean
Speaker 2: it's a one off episode. But we are out there
Speaker 2: trying to catch a bunch of smallies in large mouth
Speaker 2: and it has been interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker 5: I've been joking around, trying to poke fun at Tony,
Speaker 5: saying I'm a better fisherman out there, but he's kind
Speaker 5: of kicking my butt.
Speaker 4: But it's been tough conditions.
Speaker 5: It's been windy and choppy and cold and running into
Speaker 5: some some different pitfalls. But you know, we're making the
Speaker 5: most of it. We're out there fishing, catching a lot
Speaker 5: of northern pike, catching some large mouth. We got into
Speaker 5: some nice smallies. You caught two great fish today, big
Speaker 5: small mouth, big large mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been Uh, it's been weird. You know, cold
Speaker 2: fronts this time of year can really shut things down,
Speaker 2: especially for the smallies. But it's been it's been really fun. Uh,
Speaker 2: this is a weird like this like white tail community
Speaker 2: is weird because we're You and I were talking this morning,
Speaker 2: we were eating breakfast. We've known each other what probably
Speaker 2: six years, you know, five six years. We've never met
Speaker 2: each other, right, this is the first time we've been together,
Speaker 2: and it kind of it's kind of cool to get
Speaker 2: together in a non deer hunting situation and you know,
Speaker 2: because that's all we've been talking about in the boat,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean a lot of a lot of it.
Speaker 2: But it's been fun to just try to find some fish,
Speaker 2: work around the conditions a little bit, and just talk
Speaker 2: about just deer hunting in life. And man, I didn't
Speaker 2: there's there's some things I didn't know about you. Like
Speaker 2: I just assumed you came from like a big hunting
Speaker 2: family and had like a you know, the typical introduction
Speaker 2: where your dad's like, hell, yeah, let's go out and
Speaker 2: hunt all the time and fish all the time. And
Speaker 2: you just didn't have that. But it's something the more
Speaker 2: the more that I've gotten to know you, and I
Speaker 2: think people listening this will be like, well, yeah that
Speaker 2: makes sense with Andy, but you are literally wired for
Speaker 2: this stuff, like it's just something that spoke to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I kind of got into it. Well, I got
Speaker 5: some I had some cousins. I got into to bow
Speaker 5: hunting and archery and kind of dove into the archery
Speaker 5: thing first and fell in love with that and then
Speaker 5: transitioned into bow hunting. Never had a like a grandpa
Speaker 5: or or a father or anything that got me into it.
Speaker 5: Just had had some close cousins that did it, and
Speaker 5: I kind of watched from afar and it caught my interest.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I I uh.
Speaker 5: From the first from the first time I shot a
Speaker 5: compound beau, I was in love with it, you know,
Speaker 5: I was. I just loved the whole thing about it.
Speaker 5: And then the first time I went bow hunting and
Speaker 5: I saw my very first turn, I saw a deer
Speaker 5: I think a fawn or something walked under me, and
Speaker 5: I was just I just fell in love. And I
Speaker 5: mean I never let the foot off the gas pedal
Speaker 5: from that single day, you know, I just was I
Speaker 5: wanted to be out there and I wanted to learn,
Speaker 5: and I wanted to try new things. And yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean it was you know, you kind of hear that
Speaker 5: I was, you know more, you know, born to do
Speaker 5: this or meant to do this. And I think a
Speaker 5: lot of people who maybe don't find that, but I
Speaker 5: found it. It was a little later in life. I
Speaker 5: would have loved to have those memories with my dad
Speaker 5: or sure, you know, a sibling or a grandfather or something,
Speaker 5: but they weren't really you know, the outdoor type. So yeah,
Speaker 5: kind of got into it through a cousin, a couple
Speaker 5: of cousins, but kind of myself, like I you know,
Speaker 5: they kind of started the interest and then I kind
Speaker 5: of just took off in my own direction and pretty
Speaker 5: much was a solo thing. I had some buddies that hunted. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we'd occasional like you know, hey, come out here hunt
Speaker 5: with me, or you know, you guys come out here
Speaker 5: and hunt with me. And did some trips and whatnot
Speaker 5: with a couple of friends throughout the years. But it's
Speaker 5: it's mainly been a solo venture.
Speaker 2: But you still had people who started you in it
Speaker 2: or like you know, like lit the fire a little bit,
Speaker 2: or it just like showed you that, like this is
Speaker 2: a thing you can do. And you know, we've been
Speaker 2: You have a daughter who's like a couple of years
Speaker 2: older than my girls, and you know they're both you know,
Speaker 2: your kid, My kids they're at that stage in the
Speaker 2: school where there's so many freaking activities, like they can
Speaker 2: try anything, all the sports and the after school activities.
Speaker 2: And you know, you said something we were fishing the
Speaker 2: other day, and it's it's just rings true in my
Speaker 2: life too, is like you just give them the chance
Speaker 2: to try stuff, Like if they have an interest in
Speaker 2: dance or you know, basketball or whatever, You're like, they
Speaker 2: have the opportunity to and like you look at it
Speaker 2: as a good parent, you go, I'm gonna give them
Speaker 2: because maybe that's their thing. You know, Like your daughter's
Speaker 2: really good at basketball. If you hadn't introduced her to that,
Speaker 2: like that would change the arc of her life and
Speaker 2: probably not for the better, you know. Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: think about that, and we have this like anti recruitment
Speaker 2: movement going on in the hunting industry, you know, because
Speaker 2: people think it's too crowded and the same old arguments,
Speaker 2: and I look at it and go, those cousins are
Speaker 2: yours who who got you into shooting bow a little
Speaker 2: bit and you know, kind of encourage you to go hunting.
Speaker 2: That changed the the arc of your existence, Like your
Speaker 2: life is like undoubtedly better for it, and you've passed
Speaker 2: that on your daughter hunts. And I just look at
Speaker 2: that and I go, man, we shouldn't we should give
Speaker 2: people that opportunity, you know, because like not ever. You know, obviously,
Speaker 2: maybe one out of ten people takes too. You know,
Speaker 2: probably one out of a billion takes to it like
Speaker 2: you do, but most of them won't. But if somebody
Speaker 2: is there who would be like that appreciative and that
Speaker 2: into it, it's like a crime against humanity to not
Speaker 2: give them that shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I hate running into people out you know,
Speaker 5: in the woods just as much as I'm I'm kind
Speaker 5: of a loner and I like to be alone.
Speaker 4: I don't like to see people.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, we need people to get into hunting,
Speaker 5: so we have them on our side. And you're right,
Speaker 5: you never know if there's going to be some kid
Speaker 5: out there like me or like you that just takes
Speaker 5: to it and it's something they can focus on and
Speaker 5: kind of burns like a drive inside of them to
Speaker 5: pursue or to even like improve at. You know, for me,
Speaker 5: it gave me direction. I wasn't I mean, I was
Speaker 5: kind of an athlete, you know, I had interests. I
Speaker 5: always kind of liked fishing, but I wasn't really hardcore
Speaker 5: into that.
Speaker 4: But when I found.
Speaker 5: That, I immediately locked on and it gave me like
Speaker 5: a direction in life, something to kind of steer towards
Speaker 5: and keep me on more of the straight and narrow.
Speaker 4: And it was like a healthy thing, and it.
Speaker 5: It gave me something inside that like this desire to
Speaker 5: get better at it, improve at it. Where other things
Speaker 5: I've done, you know, I just did them because they're
Speaker 5: fun or you know, you might do this or that
Speaker 5: and it's just it's just fun hanging out with your buddies.
Speaker 5: Well this was this was something different. It was something
Speaker 5: that was difficult. It was challenging for me. I didn't
Speaker 5: know anything about it. But I liked being out there alone.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 5: I grew up an only child, so I was used
Speaker 5: to like time alone, playing you know alone, didn't have
Speaker 5: any brothers or sisters, So I liked that being out
Speaker 5: in the woods and not being around people and you know,
Speaker 5: looking for animals and looking for spots to set up
Speaker 5: and then being in a tree for a few hours alone.
Speaker 4: Like I just I just took to it because I
Speaker 4: enjoy that time.
Speaker 2: Were before you got into that, were you were there
Speaker 2: other things in your life that you were like kind
Speaker 2: of long game motivated to do like you are with
Speaker 2: bow hunting, or was that kind of the first thing
Speaker 2: where you're like, this is.
Speaker 4: That was the first?
Speaker 5: That was the first kind well maybe kind of golf.
Speaker 5: You know, my family was a big golfing family. I
Speaker 5: took to it naturally. I was a good golfer without
Speaker 5: putting a lot of time into it, probably could have
Speaker 5: been really good sports. I was you know, I wasn't
Speaker 5: a great athlete, but you know, I played quarterback.
Speaker 4: I was. I was pretty good, and I was a
Speaker 4: hard worker at it.
Speaker 5: I think initially like those like just like any young man,
Speaker 5: he probably like, I want to be a professional athlete
Speaker 5: of some sort, but I kind of knew that wasn't
Speaker 5: in the cards. But this was This was probably that
Speaker 5: first thing that I just like immediately locked onto and
Speaker 5: immediately fell in love with. And yeah, kind of like
Speaker 5: knew it was going to be like a lifelong deal.
Speaker 5: I didn't realize it was going to be my life's passion,
Speaker 5: but it certainly is. And I feel very fortunate to
Speaker 5: have found that, because I think a lot of people
Speaker 5: are lost out there. They don't really find that, and
Speaker 5: it can be I think when you do it at
Speaker 5: the level where you and I do it, that you
Speaker 5: know that commitment level. You know there's a lot of
Speaker 5: sacrifice there that takes place, you know, with your family
Speaker 5: and your work and and other things. It takes time
Speaker 5: to do things at such a high level. But I
Speaker 5: feel thankful for it because it is giving me something
Speaker 5: like a healthy direction to focus and and something to
Speaker 5: work towards. And I get just a lot of good satisfaction,
Speaker 5: like putting so much hard work into something and doing
Speaker 5: well at it and getting better at it. And I
Speaker 5: think it makes me a better person too, you know,
Speaker 5: And I'm when I'm home, I just feel more fulfilled
Speaker 5: and more positive and more light. I guess where if
Speaker 5: I didn't have that kind of outlet somehow.
Speaker 2: Do you So do you feel because you you scout
Speaker 2: at do you feel like that you know, kind of
Speaker 2: scratches the itch to where you're just like, because I'm
Speaker 2: the same way, I feel like there's always a certain
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's by a week or every
Speaker 2: other week or something where like there's a certain time
Speaker 2: period that can pass and if I hadn't done if
Speaker 2: I haven't done something, I start to feel like a
Speaker 2: little edgy, you know, a little bit like not in
Speaker 2: a great mood, like I should have done something and
Speaker 2: it doesn't you know, it doesn't have to be you know,
Speaker 2: every day. You don't have to be out in the
Speaker 2: woods pounding through the marshes and stuff, but like you
Speaker 2: gotta have something like you know, on the horizon a
Speaker 2: little bit like I'm you know, Thursday, I got some time.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go just check this out or do this.
Speaker 2: Like do you do you feel that way?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I feel that it's I'm drawn to it every day
Speaker 5: to do something to improve Like there's there's there's that
Speaker 5: desire to do something every day that's gonna improve my hunting.
Speaker 5: And I'm just like you, like, if I can't do something,
Speaker 5: there's like this little anxious, little anxiety inside of me, like,
Speaker 5: oh man, you know I missed a day or I
Speaker 5: missed something. It doesn't necessarily mean scouting, I think waking
Speaker 5: up early, forcing yourself to wake up early and go
Speaker 5: to the gym one for the mental discipline of getting
Speaker 5: up early and doing something maybe you don't always want
Speaker 5: to do. But then going there and you know, lifting
Speaker 5: some weights and working on your core strength and getting
Speaker 5: on the StairMaster with some weight and you know something
Speaker 5: that's going to maybe benefit you on a western bow hunt.
Speaker 5: I look at that as you know, when I work
Speaker 5: out now, it's a much different than like back in college.
Speaker 5: I just want to get big biceps and be able
Speaker 5: to bench three fifteen or something. But now I think,
Speaker 5: what's gonna what's gonna help me crush a mountain or
Speaker 5: you know, if I'm out in the prairie somewhere that
Speaker 5: I can get you know, I see a critter that's
Speaker 5: two three miles away or something that I know I
Speaker 5: can get there and get back and not be you know,
Speaker 5: broken up physically. So now it's it's all geared around
Speaker 5: hunting and longevity. My joints, my core, my back. You know,
Speaker 5: I have some some things physically that are kind of
Speaker 5: trying to work against me. So it's it's constantly, but
Speaker 5: you know it could be that it's it's shooting my bow.
Speaker 5: I told you since since January one. I bet you
Speaker 5: I've missed. I bet you I've missed less than five
Speaker 5: days of shooting my bow. It could be one arrow,
Speaker 5: it could be when it was windy and cold. It
Speaker 5: could be I put a bag target in my basement
Speaker 5: and I can get about fourteen yards and I'll just
Speaker 5: work on shot execution.
Speaker 4: But like I will.
Speaker 5: Literally, you know, go to work, come, you know, take
Speaker 5: my daughter to practice. There's something and it's like I'm
Speaker 5: rushing home to get that last still twenty minutes where
Speaker 5: I could just run outside, grab my bow and get
Speaker 5: five arrows off, you know, And it's just it gives
Speaker 5: me that all right, you know, I don't know, it's
Speaker 5: just part of my process.
Speaker 4: But I felt like I did something.
Speaker 5: But yeah, there is there's that feeling some somehow insiety
Speaker 5: that you'd need to be doing something every day, and
Speaker 5: it's hard for me to turn that off.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, it's just it's just there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I feel the same way.
Speaker 2: And you put it really well, there's just like an
Speaker 2: anxiety level that creeps in if you don't do something.
Speaker 2: And you know what you said there. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about it a little bit because you talked about,
Speaker 2: you know, waking up early in the morning to go
Speaker 2: to the gym, and I know, I know people are
Speaker 2: sick of hearing about this, but that little, that little
Speaker 2: discipline of just being like, I'm going to do that
Speaker 2: even though I don't want to. We think we look
Speaker 2: at you know, going to the gym and get on
Speaker 2: a stair climber with some kettlebells or going for a
Speaker 2: run or something is not fun. Most people look at
Speaker 2: that they go, that's not fun. But the people who
Speaker 2: get into it do it because it makes them feel
Speaker 2: better and it does it. It's they're not like always motivated,
Speaker 2: but they're disciplined and white tail work like scouting. Some
Speaker 2: some times scouting super fun, like man, getting out glass
Speaker 2: and deer is like one of my favorite things in
Speaker 2: the world to do. But going and just hiking through
Speaker 2: the bugs and stuff like, especially in the summertime, it's
Speaker 2: not that much fun. A lot of times you learn something.
Speaker 2: But you know, if I go do this, even though
Speaker 2: in the moment it's going to kind of suck wading
Speaker 2: through the stinging nettles and I might not find anything,
Speaker 2: The bugs are gonna be bad.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 3: At the end of it.
Speaker 2: You feel like you did something and you take that
Speaker 2: edge off and it means something to you, like it's
Speaker 2: going to make you feel better. And I think, I
Speaker 2: think when you're living a life like you are, where
Speaker 2: you've you've crossed that threshold, you understand those tasks that
Speaker 2: you don't want to do, they're going to do something
Speaker 2: for you that you need. It feeds everything and you
Speaker 2: feel that in the white tail space.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a I describe it too, like you know,
Speaker 5: like waking up better early to go to the gym
Speaker 5: when you really don't have to. I could go to
Speaker 5: the gym after work, you know, I could do that
Speaker 5: or at night or whatever, but I purposely do it
Speaker 5: because it's hard and it's it does it's it's I
Speaker 5: feel like I get a little mental win when I
Speaker 5: do that, and then you get your workout in and
Speaker 5: you feel good.
Speaker 4: It's like a win, you know.
Speaker 5: And then just throughout the day, uh, you know, or
Speaker 5: throughout this summer, like I've went out scouting just like
Speaker 5: you said, and it's been so hot this summer, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of late May and in the beginning of June
Speaker 5: there was so hot in the nineties and I was
Speaker 5: get out in there scouting, and it was miserable, Like
Speaker 5: I didn't want to do it, but I knew, you know,
Speaker 5: like if I do this, it's gonna help my success,
Speaker 5: you know in the fall, you know if I if
Speaker 5: I push myself, it's not fun. It was miserable and
Speaker 5: I couldn't wait to be done.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, it was a mosquito's horrendous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were bad. Just the heat.
Speaker 5: There's poison ivy everywhere. You know, you're sweating. But it's
Speaker 5: it's it's not only like the physical act of doing
Speaker 5: that and the information that you gather that can help you,
Speaker 5: but it's like it's like those little mental wins that
Speaker 5: you do for yourself.
Speaker 4: Constantly.
Speaker 5: You're doing things that maybe you don't want to do
Speaker 5: but you know you have to do to be successful,
Speaker 5: and your your brain gets kind of at least mine,
Speaker 5: it gets in tuned to making those decisions. It's like
Speaker 5: you come to a crossroad, right and you're like, well,
Speaker 5: I could just stay in and or I probably should
Speaker 5: do this, and you think about it for two seconds,
Speaker 5: it's like I'm gonna go do that because I know
Speaker 5: it's going to help me. And now my brain's in
Speaker 5: tuned to always picking that. Like if I have a
Speaker 5: legit choice, you know, like I could like I can
Speaker 5: stay home and do nothing and stay in the air conditioner, whatever,
Speaker 5: relax or go do this that's going to help me
Speaker 5: be a better hunter or increase my success.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna choose that. Now. My brain's just used to
Speaker 4: choosing that.
Speaker 5: So I'll in the fall sometimes, you know, I'll get
Speaker 5: a little kind of weak in the brain and I'll
Speaker 5: be sitting in a maybe I'm sitting in a stand
Speaker 5: or something, and it's eleven am and I haven't seen deer,
Speaker 5: and it's like everything's telling me to just get down
Speaker 5: and go home, or you know, get down early, get
Speaker 5: down thirty minutes earlier or whatever. And it's like I
Speaker 5: come to that crossroad again, and I'm so used to
Speaker 5: picking the hard route. I just I just it's my
Speaker 5: default now, so I don't ever go back.
Speaker 4: So but my my.
Speaker 5: Tendency, yeah, you want, you know what you want my
Speaker 5: tendency especially you know now it's like I'm getting a
Speaker 5: little older, things are getting a little tougher, and it's like, ah,
Speaker 5: you know, there's like I don't need to be not
Speaker 5: that I need to prove anything to anybody, but like
Speaker 5: even to myself, like it's it's okay if you miss
Speaker 5: that or whatever. And I always try to choose that
Speaker 5: that harder choice. I don't make it like miserable, and
Speaker 5: I'm a little more relaxed about things. But if I
Speaker 5: find myself with that at that crossroads where I have,
Speaker 5: you know, kind of the harder choice or the easier choice,
Speaker 5: I've just kind of trained myself to always go that way.
Speaker 2: If if whoever's listening to this right now, if you
Speaker 2: want to hunt, like Andy, listen to what he just said.
Speaker 2: It's not the secret to your success is not you know,
Speaker 2: being like a scrape hunting master or a bed hunting master,
Speaker 2: or like just being like a tactician with one thing.
Speaker 2: It's that it's choosing the difficult thing over the easy
Speaker 2: thing and training yourself to take that left as said
Speaker 2: that right to just be like I'm going to do
Speaker 2: the hard thing, because in white tail hunting, three thousand
Speaker 2: hard things, like three thousand decisions in a row put
Speaker 2: you on that buck in the fall. And it's not
Speaker 2: like everybody thinks it's in the moment, like oh, when
Speaker 2: you're in your saddle, and it's like then you're making
Speaker 2: the decisions or whatever. It's like the decisions you made
Speaker 2: for months and months and months leading to that, these
Speaker 2: hard decisions are the ones that put that buck there
Speaker 2: by you in that tree, not just like, oh today
Speaker 2: it's October seventeenth, and I picked this because it's a
Speaker 2: staging area. You got to go back in the way
Speaker 2: back machine and train yourself to just like choose the
Speaker 2: hard route over and over and over again. And I
Speaker 2: think that doesn't sell well. You know, like that's not
Speaker 2: a product, right, Like, it's not a new jacket, it's
Speaker 2: not a cent wick. It's just a way of thinking
Speaker 2: that puts you in a position to just get better
Speaker 2: at this stuff and always be learning and always feeling
Speaker 2: like you're doing something toward that goal, which is I
Speaker 2: think is like a huge thing.
Speaker 4: M h yeah.
Speaker 5: And you know it's it's it's working hard and it's
Speaker 5: being disciplined and putting in the required time and the
Speaker 5: amount of work. But it's also like like in my case,
Speaker 5: it took a lot of years. You know, it's that
Speaker 5: and the experience. You know, there's gonna be some young
Speaker 5: guys out there that are go getters. I see some
Speaker 5: of these young guys that are just killing it, you know,
Speaker 5: doing more work than I probably ever did. And maybe
Speaker 5: they're not as successful yet. But if they stick with
Speaker 5: it for like I need twenty five years, like you
Speaker 5: and I have done this, they're gonna be you know,
Speaker 5: they're gonna be phenomenal hunters.
Speaker 4: So it does.
Speaker 5: It takes some experience. It takes that willingness to learn
Speaker 5: and make mistakes, but it takes that consistent discipline and
Speaker 5: really focused drive to improve at your craft, you know,
Speaker 5: no matter what it is. And I have been very
Speaker 5: singular focused on this. I told you I used to
Speaker 5: have I used to fish all the time.
Speaker 4: I had a boat.
Speaker 5: I had a boat that I saved up for and
Speaker 5: uh it was a nice boat that could handle you know,
Speaker 5: any lake, and it was a lund.
Speaker 4: And I used to love bass fishing and walleye fishing.
Speaker 4: I still do. I still love it.
Speaker 5: But there came a point in my life where my
Speaker 5: daughter and my family was my top priority. Bow hunting
Speaker 5: was a very distant but second, and then behind behind
Speaker 5: that there was a big gap, and I found myself
Speaker 5: my time was very limited, so I was always choosing,
Speaker 5: you know, nine times out of ten choosing to do
Speaker 5: something hunting related. Like I could have the opportunity to
Speaker 5: go fishing, but I might choose to stay back and
Speaker 5: shoot my bow because I felt like I haven't practiced enough,
Speaker 5: or I don't feel quite confident going into the season,
Speaker 5: and I have a chance to go out fishing with
Speaker 5: some buddies, and I'm like, man, this is this is
Speaker 5: what I need to do. So I've been more singular
Speaker 5: focused on that, which I think has really helped me,
Speaker 5: you know, improve at a higher rate because I gave
Speaker 5: up some things that I really loved. I quit golfing,
Speaker 5: quit like playing basketball, quit fishing. For the most part,
Speaker 5: I get out maybe five times a year, five eight
Speaker 5: times a year, and.
Speaker 4: It's it certainly is.
Speaker 5: I don't regret it at all, but it certainly helped
Speaker 5: kind of propel my progress just because I was so singular,
Speaker 5: singularly dedicated to this. But you know, as I get older,
Speaker 5: I'm starting to appreciate more of this. My daughter takes
Speaker 5: more to fishing than the hunting. She likes both, so
Speaker 5: now it's like I'm trying to get a little more
Speaker 5: and spend a little more time doing that and take
Speaker 5: her out because I mean that might be her passion.
Speaker 5: I mean, right now, it sure seems like it. Maybe
Speaker 5: she'll quit when she's older, but she just loves bass fishing.
Speaker 5: So it's like I'm going to take her bass fishing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to get her out here. But I'm
Speaker 2: in the same boat, you know, like I I could
Speaker 2: never give up. There's certain things I couldn't give up.
Speaker 2: I couldn't give up some kinds of fishing. I couldn't
Speaker 2: give up pheasant hunting for anything. I just I just
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. But you do. You do give up
Speaker 2: a lot, like if you want to be if you
Speaker 2: want to kill a lot of big deer. There's a
Speaker 2: sacrifice there in life, Like there's just there's things you're
Speaker 2: just not going to be able to do anymore. And
Speaker 2: you know, for me, when you talk about that, like
Speaker 2: your daughter being into bass fishing and you being so
Speaker 2: singularly focused on deer, I mean, one of the reasons
Speaker 2: that I'm up here fishing a fair amount is because
Speaker 2: my little girls just love it, you know, Like I'd
Speaker 2: probably be scouting more, you know, I take you know,
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the summer, I'll take you know,
Speaker 2: one day a week or a half day or something,
Speaker 2: and I'm doing something deer wise, and then as the
Speaker 2: summer progresses, then it's like.
Speaker 3: You know, we're not going fishing as much. We're going
Speaker 3: to do the deer thing.
Speaker 2: But it's just like it's there's like a little push
Speaker 2: pull thing there where, like it's like, Okay, if they
Speaker 2: like to fish, you got to figure that out. You
Speaker 2: got to go with them, you know, because we we've
Speaker 2: been talking about this on the on the boat all week.
Speaker 2: It's like we we take it for granted. You know,
Speaker 2: the white tail is going to be here for us,
Speaker 2: the elk are going to be here for us, the
Speaker 2: meal or whatever, but these opportunities are going away. And
Speaker 2: I mean we've talked about this a lot, but you know,
Speaker 2: you we look at this world and go, well, the
Speaker 2: white tails should stay consistent, like we should always have
Speaker 2: them to hunt, but who knows, Like, who knows what's
Speaker 2: going to happen to these opportunities, and so we crave
Speaker 2: that like consistency, Like man, I always want September to
Speaker 2: roll around and have that opener or October or whatever.
Speaker 2: You don't know if that's going to be there. So
Speaker 2: you got to keep a few of those things, like
Speaker 2: the fishing thing with the kids, you know, and like
Speaker 2: we've talked about, you know, your daughter's into hunting, but
Speaker 2: not like she's into bass fishing. And so it's like
Speaker 2: if the hunting thing doesn't, if it doesn't burn in
Speaker 2: her the way it does in you, but the fishing
Speaker 2: thing is there, like you just got to figure it out,
Speaker 2: you know, like you got to you gotta do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, like some of my favorite times in the deer
Speaker 5: woods have been with her, you know, and she shot
Speaker 5: her first year and her first buck, and this last
Speaker 5: past year when she shot her first big buck, I mean,
Speaker 5: it was just it was it was the most fun
Speaker 5: I'd had. I think I made a post about it.
Speaker 5: It was just the most fun I had because we
Speaker 5: just we talked. We had this downtime at the beginning
Speaker 5: of the hunt, and she was telling me, you know,
Speaker 5: she's fourteen, so she's got interesting boys and you know,
Speaker 5: things like that drama at school. And she just opened
Speaker 5: up to me because we were there. There were no phones,
Speaker 5: there's nothing, and she just opened up and we had
Speaker 5: this great conversation and she was telling me about a
Speaker 5: boy that she had a crush on, and.
Speaker 4: It somewhat broke my heart.
Speaker 5: And then somehow I thought it was so cool that
Speaker 5: she felt comfortable telling me that, and I was like,
Speaker 5: oh wow, you know, and uh, it was just great.
Speaker 5: And then to top it all off, she shot, you know,
Speaker 5: a great book. But uh, yeah, I mean, shoot, if
Speaker 5: I have a lifelong fishing buddy and my daughter, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm just thankful that she wants to do
Speaker 5: anything with me. With her being a girl, you know,
Speaker 5: I was worried about that. You know, if she was
Speaker 5: into a lot of girly things, I would go to
Speaker 5: all her dances, all her ballet if that's what she
Speaker 5: was into, and support her. But she likes nature, and
Speaker 5: she likes outdoors and she likes athletics, all things that
Speaker 5: I'm interested in. So if I have a lifelong fishing partner, man,
Speaker 5: you can't ask for anything more than that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you're gonna have.
Speaker 3: To give up a little bit of that scouting and
Speaker 3: hunting time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I'm totally willing to. I totally, I am
Speaker 5: totally willing to do that. But yeah, I feel pretty lucky.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I you know, I have aspirations to bow
Speaker 5: hunt other things, some other species and whatnot. So I
Speaker 5: have no intention of slowing down, but she wants to fish,
Speaker 5: working to fish.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you do you ever get burned out on white
Speaker 2: tail hunting? Because I know we've been talking a lot
Speaker 2: about meal deer and western stuff and maybe putting together
Speaker 2: a few hunts that are non white tails related. Do
Speaker 2: you ever just kind of go because you I mean,
Speaker 2: Michigan functions a lot like Minnesota, where you're like, I
Speaker 2: don't have any options. I'm hunting white tails. Maybe maybe
Speaker 2: draw bear tag or something, but it's generally just just deer.
Speaker 2: It's not like being out West, and you know, I
Speaker 2: know you like that variety. I know you're big into
Speaker 2: meal deer. Are you ever just like, man, I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of burned out on these things.
Speaker 5: I you know, I'm known as like a white tail hunter,
Speaker 5: but I very much think of myself as a bow hunter. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Like I am excited to bow hunt all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 5: whether I will or won't. Like we were talking about,
Speaker 5: a lot of these opportunities are starting to cost money,
Speaker 5: real money. Yeah, you know, even even DIY stuff, you know,
Speaker 5: just even traveling or getting tags, and some tags are
Speaker 5: hard to get. Like, these opportunities are really hard and
Speaker 5: if some of the things I'd love to bowhunt are
Speaker 5: are really hard to come by, so I don't I
Speaker 5: don't know how much I'll get to do, but I
Speaker 5: very strongly want to bowhunt other species, specifically things that
Speaker 5: are difficult to bohunt. You know, I'm really interested in
Speaker 5: things that are a challenging bohunt, either physically challenging, mentally challenging,
Speaker 5: or the animal itself is like a really cagey, tough
Speaker 5: to get an arrow in type tritter. So I don't
Speaker 5: know that I'm burnt out with whitetail hunting, but I'm
Speaker 5: certainly excited about other species and other opportunities, and that
Speaker 5: has really been at least half of my focus the
Speaker 5: last few years, and even moving forward, I'm trying to
Speaker 5: plan more of that and less of the white tail stuff,
Speaker 5: and I think maybe if I get a few of
Speaker 5: those experiences under my belt, I'll come for full circle
Speaker 5: and come back to the white tail full thing.
Speaker 3: Do you do you plan?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like I sort of need reset moments
Speaker 2: throughout the season, and I love having like a you know,
Speaker 2: a late September like maybe an October meal deer hunt
Speaker 2: where I'm gonna go just spot in stock. I'm not
Speaker 2: sitting in a tree. I like, I need something different.
Speaker 2: I love I love looking forward to that, you know,
Speaker 2: because you start the season and you sit in the
Speaker 2: tree a lot, you know, and it's the typical white
Speaker 2: tail thing, and then you have that hunt that's just
Speaker 2: so different and you go, I feel like I kind
Speaker 2: of go, get it out of my system, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: that was so fun, and now I can't wait to
Speaker 2: go back to the white tail. It's like it, I
Speaker 2: feel like I just need that variety a little bit
Speaker 2: to keep super excited about white tail hunting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean you know that that makes a
Speaker 5: break a good point because I remember, if it was
Speaker 5: last year, maybe it was two years ago, I did
Speaker 5: less whitetail hunting. I actually traveled and did some Western
Speaker 5: stuff during kind of that late October timeframe, and I
Speaker 5: went and I went in September. Then I went in
Speaker 5: late October, and I came back, you know, came back
Speaker 5: to Michigan and started getting into the white tails and stuff.
Speaker 5: And I was completely out of touch with what was
Speaker 5: going on because I hadn't been I'm not I wasn't
Speaker 5: in tune with you know, the rhythm of the woods
Speaker 5: and where the big bucks were and what the deer
Speaker 5: were doing, and because I hadn't really been there and
Speaker 5: I've been planning this Western stuff and I didn't like
Speaker 5: that feeling at all. And I felt like I missed
Speaker 5: out on some really good white tail stuff and I
Speaker 5: didn't like that. So that did tell me, like, Man,
Speaker 5: I really do still love white tails. I knew I did, but.
Speaker 2: But so hold on though, did you did you not
Speaker 2: like the feeling of coming back and not being in
Speaker 2: the rhythm or did you just not like knowing that
Speaker 2: you had probably missed out on good white tail stuff
Speaker 2: or both?
Speaker 5: I felt I felt I didn't like feeling like I
Speaker 5: missed out on some of some of the good white
Speaker 5: tail hunting that you know in the middle of the
Speaker 5: season there, I felt like I missed it and or
Speaker 5: missed some of it, and I was doing some other things,
Speaker 5: and I just felt like, God, that sucks, you know,
Speaker 5: because now I could, yes, I have white tail hunting
Speaker 5: ahead of me, but it's like the tough part of
Speaker 5: the season. My chances at this and that or are
Speaker 5: going to go way down, and I don't know, there's
Speaker 5: only so much time and I'm I have limited time, so.
Speaker 4: You gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 5: But it, you know, it kind of brought things back
Speaker 5: to me that you know, white tail. White Tail is
Speaker 5: my first love, probably my main love. But there are
Speaker 5: some things out there that I want to challenge myself
Speaker 5: to and I'd like to accomplish an experience, And I mean,
Speaker 5: when am I going to do it? Like we were
Speaker 5: talking about, probably mentally we're in our prime right now
Speaker 5: as far as like dear knowledge. You know, in ten
Speaker 5: years I might start getting Alzheimer's or something and forgetting
Speaker 5: some of the stuff. But like I feel like mentally
Speaker 5: right now, I'm in my prime. Physically, I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm coming out of my prime, but I'm trying to
Speaker 5: hold onto it. That's why it goes back to that
Speaker 5: working out. You know, if you saw me working out, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I lift weights and stuff and I'm pretty strong, but
Speaker 5: I'm doing a lot of stretching. I'm doing a lot
Speaker 5: of like things for my core and my hips and
Speaker 5: my knees so that I can continue to do this
Speaker 5: for a lot of years.
Speaker 3: So not as many glamour muscle.
Speaker 5: No lips, no, no, not as much of that and
Speaker 5: more just kind of the longevity stuff. I'm more into
Speaker 5: that now and endurance and durability. You know, I'm trying
Speaker 5: to kind of I have bad d's. I've had multiple surgeries,
Speaker 5: and I'm trying to like push my knees, kind of
Speaker 5: beat on them a little bit, not abuse them, but
Speaker 5: kind of get them used to like pounding and pounding
Speaker 5: that stair stepper and going on runs and stuff so
Speaker 5: that they're more conditioned. Because I wasn't doing that before.
Speaker 5: And then I'd go to like an OTC hunt in
Speaker 5: Colorado and try to crush those mountains. In like day two,
Speaker 5: my knees are swelling up and I could barely bend
Speaker 5: them because they weren't used to it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's a good point. I mean we think,
Speaker 2: you know, we see camera campaigns and like some of
Speaker 2: these guys, the David Goggins type fellas, and there's like
Speaker 2: this this idea that you have to get in shape
Speaker 2: to hunt the mountains and kill big elk and whatever,
Speaker 2: which is like it's just not true. It is super beneficial.
Speaker 2: But the other thing, like when you when you think, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't need to be in shape to
Speaker 2: be a white tail hunter that a lot, which is true, right,
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of situations where you don't need
Speaker 2: to be very physically fit to white tail hunt, but
Speaker 2: if you don't take care of yourself, you might have
Speaker 2: something happen where you can't hunt at all, Like you
Speaker 2: can't get into that tree, or you can't go walk
Speaker 2: the four hundred yards into your stand or whatever. So
Speaker 2: there is a there is an issue there of like
Speaker 2: taking care of yourself so this thing will be there
Speaker 2: for you, you know, Like, sure it could get taken away,
Speaker 2: Like a lot of these non resident opportunities are going away,
Speaker 2: you know, urban sprawl, lands getting leased up, all the
Speaker 2: usual suspects for people losing opportunities, but it could be
Speaker 2: as simple as you not taking care of yourself and
Speaker 2: finding that you get to that point in your life,
Speaker 2: like you said, where you've got some real good deer knowledge.
Speaker 2: You might have enough money to hunt and everything, but
Speaker 2: if your body isn't there for you, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you're out of the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I look at a lot of the guys, you know,
Speaker 5: some of the guys that I went to school with
Speaker 5: at are my age. I'm forty five and it's like
Speaker 5: it's kind of shocking, you know how in poor health.
Speaker 5: Some of these guys are a lot of my a
Speaker 5: lot of my close friends. We have similar interests, so
Speaker 5: they're you know, pretty fit. But yeah, it's it's all,
Speaker 5: you know, And now I look at things now more
Speaker 5: less about you know, having the beach body six pack
Speaker 5: and biceps and more of kind of that the longevity
Speaker 5: and being able to do what I love, you know,
Speaker 5: for as long as possible.
Speaker 4: We were talking about John Eberhart.
Speaker 5: You know, he just turned seventy three or seventy four,
Speaker 5: like yesterday, and he was out trimming you know, a
Speaker 5: quarter mile through some cat tails and access to you know,
Speaker 5: one of his tree stands. He was, you know, sweating,
Speaker 5: breathing hard. I was talking to him on the phone
Speaker 5: and I was like, holy crap, man, you are in
Speaker 5: your seventies and you're doing this. I mean, he's still
Speaker 5: out there just just killing it and putting that work
Speaker 5: and he just hasn't slowed down. And I mean that's
Speaker 5: a you know, if I could be like that at
Speaker 5: that age, that's that's a win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, huge impressive, that's a huge win.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But that's you know, there's a guy that just has
Speaker 2: the fire burning man and it's not going out apparently, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that doesn't that's that's kind of a rare thing,
Speaker 2: but it does. It does seem to to feed it,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I think that a commitment to year
Speaker 2: round scouting just it keeps you like just motivated for
Speaker 2: the whole game. You know, Like if you're just I
Speaker 2: think it's easier to give up. If you're like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I go up north one week a year
Speaker 2: and I rifle hunt with my relatives or whatever. It's
Speaker 2: like eventually something's gonna come up, and you're like, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna make it, not big deal, do it next year.
Speaker 2: It's easier to get up give up the less committed
Speaker 2: you are. But if you kind of force yourself to
Speaker 2: be like, I got to get something done every week.
Speaker 2: It's got to put in a little bit of effort.
Speaker 2: You're not You're just not as likely to just give
Speaker 2: it up like you're just it's like a snowball thing.
Speaker 2: It's going to feed it and makes it more like
Speaker 2: you like, more important to you, Like now I've got
Speaker 2: something invested in it. It's not just like showing up
Speaker 2: and having somebody take you hunting or something, or walk
Speaker 2: you into the stand.
Speaker 3: It's like you did that, Like you did that work.
Speaker 4: Don't you feel? Don't you feel though? Like to you know,
Speaker 4: like the people that are.
Speaker 5: The best at what they do, you know, like a
Speaker 5: Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan the Tiger Woods, like you know,
Speaker 5: if if you never reached that level, or if you
Speaker 5: don't even reach a high level, like people look at
Speaker 5: you and they're like, God, you're obsessed and this is
Speaker 5: unhealthy or whatever, but it's it's inside you, Like it's
Speaker 5: almost not a choice, Like you're there's something inside you
Speaker 5: that is driving you to be to work your hardest
Speaker 5: at this, to be the best that you can be,
Speaker 5: even if you don't ever become great. Like I don't
Speaker 5: think that I'm a fantas as to hunter, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't really see that. I know people think I am,
Speaker 5: but I don't really. I think that I've done it.
Speaker 4: A long time.
Speaker 5: I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot from my mistakes,
Speaker 5: and I dedicate myself.
Speaker 4: That's it. I don't. I don't think that I do
Speaker 4: anything special.
Speaker 5: I couldn't tell you, like, you know, strengths that I
Speaker 5: have or you know, or anything that I just I
Speaker 5: just think that I've put some things together that helped
Speaker 5: me be successful that anybody could do. There's no talent there,
Speaker 5: you know. It's just hard work and dedication. But I've
Speaker 5: never had to really force myself to do this. It
Speaker 5: was more of like a I need to do it,
Speaker 5: you know, And I feel like, yeah, some people might
Speaker 5: look at a guy like that and call them, you know, obsessed,
Speaker 5: and it's unhealthy, but that's how you get the people.
Speaker 4: That are great. They were obsessed.
Speaker 5: And if you know, if it's like if if they
Speaker 5: make it to a super high level and they're making
Speaker 5: money at it, then it's cool.
Speaker 4: You know, well I'm not doing that.
Speaker 3: Then it's an admirable quality, that's right.
Speaker 5: But if it's you know, but if it's somebody else
Speaker 5: that they're obsessed with it and they're they're driven, it's
Speaker 5: keeping them out of trouble and it's a healthy passion,
Speaker 5: you know, hopefully not giving up their family for it,
Speaker 5: but like something that drives them to improve and they
Speaker 5: become the best that they can be. Like I see that,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, that guy is a lucky guy. You know,
Speaker 5: he's living a good life.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: So I for me, I haven't really had to like
Speaker 5: force myself, like you said, you know once it, you know,
Speaker 5: once a week to work at this or anything. It's
Speaker 5: more like more a lot of times I have to
Speaker 5: almost turn it off, you know, I almost have to
Speaker 5: do the opposite. But there are times, especially as I
Speaker 5: get older, where it's I have the knowledge I have
Speaker 5: spots that I I don't really need to go and
Speaker 5: build on spots anymore. I do, but I could take
Speaker 5: a year off, you know, not add new scouting and
Speaker 5: just kind of go back with my previous areas that
Speaker 5: I know and probably have a good But as I
Speaker 5: get older, there's there's more of that. Like occasionally I
Speaker 5: come to those those crossroads where it's like, okay, you
Speaker 5: know you need to get out there and work at it.
Speaker 5: But I don't know, when I was coming up, it
Speaker 5: was the opposite. I never had to like make that choice.
Speaker 5: That choice was made every time I opened my eyes
Speaker 5: in the morning. It's like this is what I'm doing
Speaker 5: after work, and I'm going scouting. I would scout five
Speaker 5: to six days a week. Literally, I'd go right from
Speaker 5: work and I would scout tell dark and it was
Speaker 5: just all I wanted to do, you know, that was
Speaker 5: like you know twenty you know, I couldn't really do
Speaker 5: it in college, but like as soon as I got
Speaker 5: like a regular job, so probably like twenty two through,
Speaker 5: you know, till when my daughter was born, that's what
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 4: And I think.
Speaker 5: That that that level of obsessiveness and that focus and
Speaker 5: devoting all that time, that's where that that's where the
Speaker 5: I fell in love, and that's where I laid a
Speaker 5: lot of that groundwork of screwing up but learning a
Speaker 5: lot because I just devoted so much time to it,
Speaker 5: you know, just so much time, and then that knowledge
Speaker 5: builds and you could taper time, taper the time back
Speaker 5: a little bit, but you're much more keen and tuned
Speaker 5: in with your decision making and your instincts as a hunter,
Speaker 5: or more tuned in. And then not to mention all
Speaker 5: the benefit of all those areas you've scouted and hunted
Speaker 5: and all those experiences that you can pull from now
Speaker 5: and now it's starting to become like a thing right
Speaker 5: where you are a very effective hunter. So it's like
Speaker 5: it's kind of like a combination of all that. But
Speaker 5: I think if a guy's like forcing him, like he
Speaker 5: wants to be a good hunter. He thinks he wants to,
Speaker 5: but he's forcing himself, like, all right, you know, once
Speaker 5: a week, I'm gonna do this. I sometimes I question
Speaker 5: if that guy really wants that, or if he just,
Speaker 5: you know, he wants to shoot a big buck or
Speaker 5: two or whatever, because I feel like if it's if
Speaker 5: it's in you, you won't need to fight yourself on
Speaker 5: it too much. I talk about my daughter a little bit.
Speaker 5: She's a very talented basketball player. Okay, she has all
Speaker 5: the potential in the world. I worry about her work
Speaker 5: ethic in basketball. I've you know, she when she was younger,
Speaker 5: she had an incredible work ethic. She was wanting to
Speaker 5: work all the time, you know, outside of practice, and
Speaker 5: her and I would just work and work and work,
Speaker 5: and she just skyrocketed. She was head and shoulders above everybody.
Speaker 5: And then she hit a certain age where it kind
Speaker 5: of slowed down and it became more of a more
Speaker 5: of a hassle of trying to get her to put
Speaker 5: in the work. And I found myself me trying to,
Speaker 5: you know, get her to do work rather than her
Speaker 5: asking me to. So then I started to question, does
Speaker 5: she really love this? You know she does she like
Speaker 5: the competition, but does she or does she really want
Speaker 5: to be like the best basketball player that she can be,
Speaker 5: you know, and maybe play at college at some level
Speaker 5: or some thing. And I'm kind of in that zone
Speaker 5: right now where I don't know, she's fourteen, She's still
Speaker 5: got the potential, but she's kind of tapered off a
Speaker 5: little bit. She had an injury, but like, that desire
Speaker 5: and that work ethic is kind of slowing down, and
Speaker 5: I find myself trying to drag her out to work
Speaker 5: on her game more than she's wanting to do it.
Speaker 5: So then I question that because I think if if
Speaker 5: it's inside you and you really want that, you really
Speaker 5: have that love and it's that desire to be, like, dude,
Speaker 5: I want to be the best that I can be
Speaker 5: at this because I love it so much. I'm so
Speaker 5: passionate about it. I want to do this NonStop. It's
Speaker 5: there and you don't have to fight it too much.
Speaker 2: Do you think with her because she broke her ankle, right,
Speaker 2: she did, so, do you think that she had a
Speaker 2: moment because she's still coming back from that where she
Speaker 2: realized this stuff could just go away and it's harder
Speaker 2: I mean she's fourteen, right, like you might just you know, like,
Speaker 2: I don't think a lot of people would be surprised
Speaker 2: if you were like, hey, my fourteen year old doesn't
Speaker 2: have a strong work ethic.
Speaker 3: People will be like, yeah, no, shit, man.
Speaker 2: But do you think there was a moment for her
Speaker 2: where she was working hard, doing everything right, loving the game,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden it's just taken away.
Speaker 2: You have that volleyball injury, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you're a sideline for months. Like I wonder if that's
Speaker 2: like contributing to it.
Speaker 5: That's been a huge part of it. But she's always
Speaker 5: been a hot and cold player. Like she's like a
Speaker 5: coach's nightmare because and I coached her for a lot
Speaker 5: of years, so I know she's the coach's dream because
Speaker 5: she has this super competitive spirit and she gets at
Speaker 5: a game and a big game and she rises up,
Speaker 5: you know, and she wants to win, and when if
Speaker 5: she doesn't win, it kills her. And she can go
Speaker 5: to through these periods where she is the hardest worker
Speaker 5: in the gym, hands down, and she gets us like
Speaker 5: chip on her shoulder and she'll just take over games.
Speaker 5: But then she might show up and give you sixty
Speaker 5: percent and you're like, what in the hell. You know,
Speaker 5: but you got this other kid over here that gives
Speaker 5: one hundred percent every time in the gym, and she
Speaker 5: slowly climbing the ladder but doesn't have the potential. So
Speaker 5: she's kind of always had that hot and cold and
Speaker 5: it's extremely frustrating as a coach. But yeah, after that injury,
Speaker 5: you know, she's lost a lot of confidence.
Speaker 4: She said to me multiple times.
Speaker 5: She goes, I don't ever think I'll get back to
Speaker 5: where I was, you know, and she's like, why why
Speaker 5: am I even doing this' she said that.
Speaker 4: So I try to help her work.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, trying to help her work through that, and
Speaker 5: she is behind, but she's you know, she's climbing back.
Speaker 4: She's still a good ballplayer.
Speaker 5: She's not where she was, but she's she's climbing back,
Speaker 5: and you know, I tell her, you know what, You've
Speaker 5: had a pretty easy life. You're fortunate. You know, you
Speaker 5: have two parents that love you, You got everything you need.
Speaker 5: You've never really faced any type of hardship like this is.
Speaker 5: This is hard, This is adversity, and this is going
Speaker 5: to make you tougher, even if it even if you
Speaker 5: don't end up playing basketball in college, like, you're gonna
Speaker 5: remember going through this because she kept such a positive
Speaker 5: mindset through it all. I was like, this is going
Speaker 5: to help you through life. So yeah, that's a big factor.
Speaker 5: And we're still working through that, but she's she's coming along.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just slow, but I don't know how
Speaker 5: it'll all pan out.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Getting a hold of your mental side of things is
Speaker 2: a is a real benefit, man. I mean, just think
Speaker 2: about I've had so many times in my hunting life.
Speaker 2: Oh here's the best example. Yeah, I know you're an anomaly.
Speaker 2: You went out and killed a giant Michigan buck seven
Speaker 2: seconds after you started bow hunting. But most people don't
Speaker 2: quickly kill big ones. Doing hunting the way that you do,
Speaker 2: and even doing hunting not the way you do with
Speaker 2: having better properties and stuff.
Speaker 3: It's still hard.
Speaker 2: But there's you know how it is where people struggle, struggle, struggle,
Speaker 2: and they killed that first good one, you know, that
Speaker 2: first big one whatever it is, one twenty five, one forty,
Speaker 2: whatever that buck is.
Speaker 3: That's like that. I'm in the big leagues now.
Speaker 2: It seems like people get over that hurdle and they're
Speaker 2: gonna get over it a lot more. And I think
Speaker 2: a huge component of that is just you now know
Speaker 2: that can happen, Like mentally, you go that is a
Speaker 2: reality for me at some point, Like your daughter saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think I'll ever get back there again.
Speaker 2: That's holding her back. But she's thinking about that like
Speaker 2: that's way on her shoulders because she's never gone through
Speaker 2: this and come back. And when she does come back fully,
Speaker 2: she's gonna be like, holy shit, like what I was
Speaker 2: thinking was wrong or like I did I read this
Speaker 2: situation wrong. And it's a long thing, but the same
Speaker 2: thing happens to us hunters where man, when you're on
Speaker 2: the struggle bus and you can't kill a good one
Speaker 2: or whatever it is you're trying to do your first
Speaker 2: year or your first big buck, when you cross that,
Speaker 2: like when that happens to you, you just go, oh, now,
Speaker 2: I know, like you start to believe in yourself like
Speaker 2: this can happen again, and yeah, like it doesn't get easy,
Speaker 2: but it gets easier.
Speaker 5: M Yeah, I was really lucky and fortunate, like really
Speaker 5: early on in my bow hunting journey, I killed a
Speaker 5: nice buck in Michigan and one that caught a lot
Speaker 5: of attention. I mean, it wasn't a giant, but it
Speaker 5: was bigger than any buck all my acquaintances I had
Speaker 5: ever seen or shot. And it was complete luck. There
Speaker 5: was a zero skill involved. It was just me being
Speaker 5: out there and this buck comes walking by, like I
Speaker 5: didn't know.
Speaker 4: He was there.
Speaker 5: But after I shot that deer I did, I felt like, wow,
Speaker 5: you know, I can do this, And then I saw
Speaker 5: everyone's reaction to it and like, holy crap, you know,
Speaker 5: like that is a big buck. So then from that
Speaker 5: point on, early on, I wanted that. I wanted that
Speaker 5: feeling of being successful on a rare animal, you know,
Speaker 5: or on an older animal. And I was different than
Speaker 5: a lot of guys coming up because a lot of
Speaker 5: guys will shoot, you know, five, six, ten, fifteen little
Speaker 5: bucks and kind of climb that ladder.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 5: I shot a spike for my first buck, and it's
Speaker 5: so small I could I could fit the whole wreck
Speaker 5: of the pump in my hand. And uh, you know,
Speaker 5: this was my first buck, but my second buck was
Speaker 5: like a nice one, you know, And then I never
Speaker 5: went backwards.
Speaker 3: Hey, how did you keep your shit together? When that
Speaker 3: buck was walking in.
Speaker 4: I don't know. You know, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, were you did your eyes pop out of
Speaker 3: your head when you saw him?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean I was completely nervous, but you know I was.
Speaker 5: I I've told this before, but I took to archery
Speaker 5: as strong or stronger than I took to bow hunting first.
Speaker 5: I became completely obsessed with archery. So I was quite
Speaker 5: good with a bow, even though I had only been
Speaker 5: shooting it for a couple of years. I mean I
Speaker 5: was quite good. And you know, it was an easy shot,
Speaker 5: you know, an easy, easy shot. It wasn't a difficult shot.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I was completely nervous and my heart was
Speaker 5: pounding on my chest, but I made the shot somehow.
Speaker 5: And uh, from that point on, I became a little
Speaker 5: more selective than a typical guy starting out.
Speaker 4: I mean I wasn't a kid. I wasn't a I
Speaker 4: was a young adult.
Speaker 2: But when you say when you killed that buck and
Speaker 2: you didn't know he was there and it was total
Speaker 2: luck when it when it happened for you, did that
Speaker 2: sort of set you on a course to like think, okay,
Speaker 2: you knew that was luck, right, Like, no matter what
Speaker 2: you knew, there was like a component of that, But
Speaker 2: were you like I got to figure out why?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 2: Like why did that happen there? I mean, like did
Speaker 2: it force you to like sort of reverse engineer the
Speaker 2: situation and go like, how can I get this again?
Speaker 2: Like he wasn't an accident.
Speaker 3: He was there.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was an accident. You were there to intercept
Speaker 2: him to some extent, But did it just like cause
Speaker 2: you to go, Okay, that feeling I'm chasing that again,
Speaker 2: like I gotta, I gotta figure out how to make
Speaker 2: this happen more.
Speaker 5: I think that came later. Okay, yeah, I think you
Speaker 5: know at that point on what it did. What it
Speaker 5: did do is it made me more selective. I was
Speaker 5: past I started passing Bucks, which I probably never would
Speaker 5: have done had I not shot that buck, probably would
Speaker 5: have shot the next, you know, a four point and
Speaker 5: then a six point, then a little basket eight.
Speaker 4: But I never did that.
Speaker 5: I started passing you know, decent like two year old
Speaker 5: Bucks and stuff. And I was still of the mindset that,
Speaker 5: you know, you killed big Bucks by just being out
Speaker 5: there and working hard and putting in your time and
Speaker 5: being persistent. And that's kind of how I hunted for
Speaker 5: the next five years. I mean, yes, I started learning,
Speaker 5: but I was a persistent hunter and just stubborn, you know,
Speaker 5: putting time out there. But I always, you know, I
Speaker 5: never I never learned those bad habits from call them bad,
Speaker 5: They're not bad. But I never learned habits from like
Speaker 5: a dad or a grandpa, Like you know, you hang
Speaker 5: your stand here and you put your your corn pile there,
Speaker 5: or you know, you hang your stand in this corner
Speaker 5: of this field and you hunted every day on you know,
Speaker 5: I never did that.
Speaker 4: I was. I hung a few stands as I.
Speaker 5: Could afford them, but I always had a stand with me.
Speaker 5: And I started doing the mobile thing like really early,
Speaker 5: you know, really early. So I started, probably I don't know,
Speaker 5: five six years later, It's like, okay, you know, I've
Speaker 5: been hunting day near every day of the season. I'm
Speaker 5: seeing a lot, I'm learning a lot. I'm moving towards
Speaker 5: deer when I observe them, you know, I'm blowing them out. Okay,
Speaker 5: that was too close, you know, next time, I'm being
Speaker 5: a little more cautious. Then I noticed my my stand,
Speaker 5: my steel stand as noisy as hell. So I'm starting
Speaker 5: to tape things up on it, try to make it
Speaker 5: quiet because so I can hang it quietly. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm starting to piece these things together on my own,
Speaker 5: and you know, you start to learn that, Okay, you know,
Speaker 5: just because I'm sitting here and I see a deer,
Speaker 5: move over there. I don't have to sit here and
Speaker 5: hope he comes by tomorrow. Like no, I'm going to
Speaker 5: move over there and try and try to make a
Speaker 5: move on him. So that became my my style immediately.
Speaker 5: I didn't have anybody teaching me otherwise.
Speaker 3: Dude.
Speaker 2: That's I've talked about this too, but that's exactly how
Speaker 2: I started. I had one stand, one big steel stand
Speaker 2: with a chain on it, and I'd go out find
Speaker 2: a place that looked like it should I should be
Speaker 2: able to see a deer. So I was hunting like
Speaker 2: the beautiful woods you know are the field edge, and
Speaker 2: then I'd see one like pull it every night, move
Speaker 2: it like so like accidental mobile hunting. And you just realize,
Speaker 2: I think when you do that versus like you said,
Speaker 2: like a lot of people they're like, I have my stand,
Speaker 2: Like I went to my stand and it's like the
Speaker 2: ladders stand on the edge of the field or whatever,
Speaker 2: and that's great, but you don't experience necessarily what you
Speaker 2: need to to get good at figuring out deer. That way,
Speaker 2: like you're just like I'm gonna cross my fingers and
Speaker 2: hope they come by, you know. And sometimes it's like
Speaker 2: if you're on a really small property or something like it,
Speaker 2: there's there's only so much you can do, but you
Speaker 2: also should probably find some other place to hunt, like
Speaker 2: you know. But anyway, when you when you start doing that,
Speaker 2: you do just it starts to feed itself. It's like, man,
Speaker 2: I like having a new view. I like, no, if
Speaker 2: I sit here today and it sucks, I'm not here tomorrow,
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm gonna go find something else. Or
Speaker 2: like you said, you see a buck walking somewhere, you
Speaker 2: just go there, like the next time you can go there,
Speaker 2: when you can hunt and the conditions are right, you
Speaker 2: just move there and maybe he comes by, maybe he doesn't.
Speaker 2: But man, the game changes when you're like in that
Speaker 2: mindset and you just give into it and do it
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: And then if you have that mindset too, of like
Speaker 5: when you're trying all these things and you're really you know,
Speaker 5: you fail and you're making these mistakes, you're really like
Speaker 5: breaking it down, like not just like oh shoot, you know,
Speaker 5: I blow them out and you'll leave and you never
Speaker 5: think about it again. You're thinking about why it failed,
Speaker 5: What could I have done differently to make it not fail?
Speaker 5: Like could I have been quieter setting up the stand?
Speaker 5: Or what if I had hunted from the ground here
Speaker 5: and didn't even get up in the stand, he would
Speaker 5: never would have known I was here, Or I needed
Speaker 5: to be in that tree instead of this one, or
Speaker 5: you know, he was using the wind in a certain
Speaker 5: way and it didn't work for our I was sitting
Speaker 5: because it was swirling here. Whatever it is. You start
Speaker 5: to least those things together, but you have to have
Speaker 5: that that mindset of like I've heard you and Mark
Speaker 5: talk about it, like asking yourself why and really trying
Speaker 5: to figure this out, like really trying to learn and
Speaker 5: dig into this. And it's a long game. It's a
Speaker 5: it's a it's a journey. It's a marathon of just
Speaker 5: building that information. You're slowly piecing these things together, and
Speaker 5: then you get that count, you get more confidence to
Speaker 5: you know, to try these things because you've you've you've
Speaker 5: messed up on them, and you've screwed up on things.
Speaker 5: So you have a little more confidence to try do
Speaker 5: things and continue to learn.
Speaker 2: So, man, when you you said something there that made
Speaker 2: me think of this sort of there's like an intangible
Speaker 2: skill that some people have who've done a lot of
Speaker 2: mobile hunting, which is and it ties the scouting too,
Speaker 2: like it it eventually gets there. But reading trees, like
Speaker 2: reading your setups. I mean I go out there and
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've done this too, Like I've gone out
Speaker 2: with people who aren't just not very experienced, and they're like,
Speaker 2: where's my perfectly straight tree, you know, with no limbs
Speaker 2: that I can get into super easy. And then they're
Speaker 2: up fourteen feet facing right where they expect the deer
Speaker 2: to come from. And then you watch somebody who's done
Speaker 2: a lot of the mobile hunting and grew up doing
Speaker 2: it like you're talking about, and the way that they
Speaker 2: view their setups.
Speaker 3: Is like an art.
Speaker 2: It's like I'm going to get there's a you know,
Speaker 2: I can see up in that tree and it it's
Speaker 2: crooked this way, but all of a sudden, there's six
Speaker 2: feet where it's you know, flat and straight up, and
Speaker 2: that's facing away from the deer going to be passing
Speaker 2: by here at twenty three yards and like you get
Speaker 2: tucked in there, and it's really that's probably one of
Speaker 2: the biggest benefits if you're kind of new to this
Speaker 2: or you're struggling a little bit, if you can get
Speaker 2: with somebody who knows how that game and watch them
Speaker 2: go out, have them read trees, like have them read
Speaker 2: a situation. Cause you know, we talk about scouting and
Speaker 2: it's like, go find the spot where the buck's like
Speaker 2: to walk right, Like where's the community scrape or whatever,
Speaker 2: Like that's a component you got to be around deer.
Speaker 2: But if you don't know how to do that set
Speaker 2: up correctly, if you're hunting really pressure, dear, you're you're
Speaker 2: at a big disadvantage. And the more you do it,
Speaker 2: the better you get it, because, like you said, if
Speaker 2: that wind's swirling in there, or you get busted, you know,
Speaker 2: grabbing your bow or however it shakes out, every one
Speaker 2: of those is a learning experience. And you know, like
Speaker 2: you probably do this, you know, every season, and I
Speaker 2: know I do. Where I look at a tree, I'm like,
Speaker 2: that's the one, and then I get all the way
Speaker 2: up there and get set up and I look around,
Speaker 2: I go nope, and it all comes down and now
Speaker 2: I'm ten yards over this way, or I just can't
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 3: To work for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: But there's an art to that that starts probably winter scouting,
Speaker 2: I would think, and just like, Okay, this spot covered
Speaker 2: in rubs, looks like he's coming from this swamp or
Speaker 2: he's using this bench.
Speaker 3: How how do I take advantage of that? Like where's
Speaker 3: the setup?
Speaker 2: And it's not just like Okay, there's a straight tree
Speaker 2: over there, that's good enough. It's like you got to
Speaker 2: get over there, get the base of that, walk around it,
Speaker 2: like take a real look, and then you got to
Speaker 2: figure out how do I get in there? Like can
Speaker 2: I get here? This might be the greatest spot in
Speaker 2: the world, doesn't do any good if you can't access it.
Speaker 3: There's so much to it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny you say that, because you know that's
Speaker 5: just being you know, a good woodsman, and it comes
Speaker 5: from experience, you know, getting busted and whatnot. And you know,
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm pretty good at that. You know,
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm pretty good at you know, picking
Speaker 5: those trees and picking where I can you know, stay
Speaker 5: hidden up in the tree where I won't get detected.
Speaker 5: But the last couple of years, I have kind of
Speaker 5: regressed in some of the basic woodsmanship of like tree
Speaker 5: selection and set up selection. And I've talked about this before,
Speaker 5: like I've made so many mistakes the last couple of years.
Speaker 4: It's insane.
Speaker 5: But that's what I love about bon hunting is because
Speaker 5: it's so it could be so humbling, and I am humbled.
Speaker 5: Like I had a great ear last year, but believe me.
Speaker 4: I am humbled.
Speaker 5: I have no elevated sense of self trust me. But dude,
Speaker 5: I got busted so many times because I started getting
Speaker 5: I don't even want to cocky or arrogant, because I
Speaker 5: never felt cocky or arrogant, but I felt like I
Speaker 5: could pull off things because I had had done it successfully.
Speaker 5: I started to get a little careless with my setups
Speaker 5: and in setting up exactly like you said, you know
Speaker 5: this tree, you know it's not perfect, but I'll pull
Speaker 5: it off. You know, I'll just hold still and I'll
Speaker 5: pull it off, or I'll hide behind the tree until
Speaker 5: the deer comes through. Well, it's it's all these other
Speaker 5: deer that are coming through first and get behind you,
Speaker 5: and you're fifteen foot up in a saddle with no
Speaker 5: cover and it's like they're right here looking up.
Speaker 4: At you, like what in the heck?
Speaker 5: Or you're in the tree stand like you said, facing
Speaker 5: and you know that deer picks you off from eighty
Speaker 5: yards away as you're like, you know, you pick your
Speaker 5: nose or something.
Speaker 4: You're like Jesus.
Speaker 5: So, you know, I started to get away from some
Speaker 5: of the basics, like the stuff you learn in those
Speaker 5: first five years of hunting when you're really kind of
Speaker 5: in tune. I started getting away from some of that.
Speaker 3: And it bites in the ass, man.
Speaker 4: It does. I mean, that's what I love.
Speaker 5: I just love that about bow hunting because you I
Speaker 5: feel like I never I never reach a pinnacle, right
Speaker 5: like you you do well, you have some good seasons,
Speaker 5: and it just knocks you right back down.
Speaker 4: You know, I wounded.
Speaker 5: I wounded a deer this year, an easy bow shot,
Speaker 5: like a shot that someone with my experience should never make.
Speaker 5: I made up for it and got him later in
Speaker 5: the season. I hit another buck, didn't recover him, recovered
Speaker 5: them after the season, lost the meat.
Speaker 4: You know. It's a terrible feeling.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 5: Mistakes, you know, mistakes, and it's just it just humbles me.
Speaker 5: And if anything, it just it realigns my focus that,
Speaker 5: you know what, you're not that good at this. There
Speaker 5: is a lot of room for growth and you can
Speaker 5: do better. And it kind of reinvigorates that that drive
Speaker 5: a little bit, that like there's still there's still a
Speaker 5: lot of work to do, there's still a lot of
Speaker 5: improvements to be made. If that's your goal, if you're
Speaker 5: still want to be the best ball hunter you could be,
Speaker 5: You're not there yet. So it's it's it's it's cool.
Speaker 5: Is as painful as that is. It can knock you
Speaker 5: down several pegs, and you know, maybe I needed it,
Speaker 5: maybe I didn't, but just just some of that basic stuff,
Speaker 5: basic setting up in a tree and staying in the
Speaker 5: shadows and things that we know, you know, just staying undetected.
Speaker 5: And I was getting a little careless with my setups,
Speaker 5: and I was getting busted left and right. I felt like,
Speaker 5: out of out of every ten hunts, nine hunts, I
Speaker 5: was alerting the whole woods that I'm of my presence,
Speaker 5: like here I am, I'm hunting you guys now, like run,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: It's like it's just every time I was accessing.
Speaker 5: Like deer, we're fine everywhere, and I'm like, what's going on,
Speaker 5: Like I just you know.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you were? Because I know for me,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm pretty type A with that stuff. But I
Speaker 2: can do the same thing I get. I can just
Speaker 2: like I can get a little lazy, or I can think,
Speaker 2: I can think like I'm good enough to get around this.
Speaker 2: And then if I set up or you know, not
Speaker 2: only set up, but access like you're talking or whatever,
Speaker 2: if I have that like nagging feeling in my head
Speaker 2: that I settled, like you settled for something, like you
Speaker 2: settled for this tree, or you settled for this spot,
Speaker 2: or you know, like you settled for walking in the
Speaker 2: easy way instead of the way you you knew you should.
Speaker 2: I I always regret it like it's a it's it
Speaker 2: not only is it a mental thing, but like you said,
Speaker 2: it actually becomes something that costs me, dear, And I
Speaker 2: know I'm doing it like you know you're doing it sometimes,
Speaker 2: Like we were talking on the when we were on
Speaker 2: the boat one day about the difference between sitting in
Speaker 2: a tree stand and sitting in a saddle, And it's
Speaker 2: easier to move in a saddle sometimes because you're hanging
Speaker 2: off the so you have to you know, if you're
Speaker 2: sitting down in a stand, you don't have to think
Speaker 2: about not moving as much, but when you're hanging from
Speaker 2: a saddle, you have to be more conscious of that.
Speaker 2: You have to be more cognizant of the fact that
Speaker 2: you can swing around a little or you know, your
Speaker 2: kind of hands free and doing your thing. And it's
Speaker 2: just it's like it's not a knock on them, but
Speaker 2: it's like something that you have to actively acknowledge and
Speaker 2: work at otherwise it costs your dear.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, for sure, just staying still and that that's
Speaker 5: something that is getting harder for me as I age,
Speaker 5: is sitting still, and it has to do with a
Speaker 5: lot of to do with like my hips in my back,
Speaker 5: because when I sit or stand or just stay stationary
Speaker 5: and don't move for a period of time, I became
Speaker 5: I become real antsy and my back will actually start
Speaker 5: to like cinch up and I'll get pain in my
Speaker 5: hips and I kind of need to I kind of
Speaker 5: need to like rotate and stretch my back out. So
Speaker 5: I'm I'm doing that a lot in the tree and
Speaker 5: it's costing me. You know, I'm getting detected a little bit,
Speaker 5: and it's yeah, you like sometimes I could just like
Speaker 5: tough it out and be like don't move, don't move,
Speaker 5: but then it's like you just lose focused. And I
Speaker 5: just I'm so used to doing that throughout the day.
Speaker 5: Like you see me on the boat, like I'm stretching
Speaker 5: and I'm you know, turning and stretching my back it
Speaker 5: cinches up. So it's something I have to be really
Speaker 5: cognizan of cognizant of up in the tree because I
Speaker 5: have been getting picked off more as I age. But
Speaker 5: you know, it's all it's all fun. It's just as
Speaker 5: you get older and you experience more things change, new
Speaker 5: challenges come, and uh, I don't know it's fun.
Speaker 2: But I mean I think I think you're right though,
Speaker 2: when you keep doing this stuff. You know, we've kind
Speaker 2: of in the hunting industry, we've sold this message that
Speaker 2: you know, you buy this clothes or you buy these
Speaker 2: calls or you do whatever, and you listen to whoever
Speaker 2: talk and you emulate them. Eventually you're going to get
Speaker 2: this thing mastered. And you just don't like you every
Speaker 2: season and you know, you've had some just banger seasons
Speaker 2: and I've had a couple that were is freaking awesome,
Speaker 2: but you're never that far away from that clunker where
Speaker 2: that just like sets you back into reality where you
Speaker 2: go like you can't you can't win this game. Like
Speaker 2: you can keep playing and you can have some success,
Speaker 2: but overall, it's gonna kick your ass most of the time,
Speaker 2: and I don't care. You might string together four or
Speaker 2: five really good seasons with White Tails a Western game
Speaker 2: in a row, and you're gonna have one where you're like,
Speaker 2: I'm just making huge mistakes, like I just can't get
Speaker 2: it together, and that's just the way it goes. But
Speaker 2: that's I think that's why it's so addicting.
Speaker 4: Mm hm, Like.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we kind of need to be
Speaker 2: knocked on our ass a little bit and try something
Speaker 2: really hard and still fail and still go like have
Speaker 2: to get up and make that decision like you were
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, like am I gonna keep doing this
Speaker 2: this thing that's not being very much fun for me
Speaker 2: right now but I know what it'll give me when
Speaker 2: it works out? Or am I gonna just not do it?
Speaker 2: Or am I gonna just go settle for that easy?
Speaker 2: And it's it's a weird. It's weird that we choose
Speaker 2: to do this, like it's weird that you know, all
Speaker 2: the people listening is love da whitetail hunt when it
Speaker 2: it's guaranteed to do that to you and make you
Speaker 2: feel so small and so humbled and so bad at it.
Speaker 2: But it's like there's something to that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that does. It's what
Speaker 5: keeps you coming back, right, It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 5: it's kind of like golf.
Speaker 4: You can't master it.
Speaker 5: You know you're gonna hit bad shots and you're gonna
Speaker 5: have bad scores, but it like you get those few good,
Speaker 5: clean hits, it keeps you coming back. And you know,
Speaker 5: hunting is the same way, like you you get knocked
Speaker 5: on your butt and it kind of like in my case,
Speaker 5: it reinvigorates the drive, like I don't want that to
Speaker 5: happen again. I got to button that up, and you
Speaker 5: do and then something else happens, you know, and it's
Speaker 5: just it's just constant, and you just you start to realize,
Speaker 5: like you're never like a master hunter. You know, you're
Speaker 5: out there with wild animals and you're gonna make mistakes
Speaker 5: because you're huge.
Speaker 4: Man. It's hard, and you're up against.
Speaker 5: Something that is doesn't want to be killed and is
Speaker 5: extremely you know, the instincts are the survival instincts are
Speaker 5: just really hard to overcome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you ever have anybody out there tell
Speaker 2: you that they're a master hunter, maybe throat punch them
Speaker 2: and run away because you don't need that shit in
Speaker 2: your life. It's kind of like, you know, giving yourself
Speaker 2: a nickname, like just don't do it. Just don't do it,
Speaker 2: like that's that's not cool. If somebody else wants to
Speaker 2: give you a nickname, great, Uh, don't give yourself one.
Speaker 3: Animet. We have to go catch some fish here. We can't.
Speaker 2: We can't talk about deer forever. Let's wrap this sucker up.
Speaker 2: Because we were going to talk about scouting. We mostly didn't,
Speaker 2: which which is okay. We cover We covered a lot
Speaker 2: of good stuff. First off. How like, any given week
Speaker 2: throughout the summer right now, how many days are you
Speaker 2: giving a little bit of your time to scouting?
Speaker 4: I would say I probably am averaging like scouting.
Speaker 5: I'm talking like you're going out to a piece of
Speaker 5: ground and you're scouting some new ground or a piece
Speaker 5: of permission property or whatever. You're setting stands, are actually
Speaker 5: looking for sign two to three days per week. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I would say probably, but there might be a week
Speaker 5: where I don't do any And if I don't do
Speaker 5: any I'm going to be doing way more shooting my bow.
Speaker 5: I'm going to be doing something else that I think
Speaker 5: is going to help me get better. But as far
Speaker 5: as like, yeah, boots on the ground scouting, you know,
Speaker 5: it really peaks in that kind of like March April timeframe.
Speaker 5: I try to get a lot done as soon as
Speaker 5: that snow melts. Yep, That's when I like to get
Speaker 5: a lot of it done. And then kind of turkey
Speaker 5: rolls in. I'm still scouting, but I'm trying to get
Speaker 5: some turkey hunting. In May, I'm still doing quite a
Speaker 5: bit of scouting. And then you're starting to get to
Speaker 5: that June in July, and it slows down for me.
Speaker 5: If I feel like I haven't gotten to a lot
Speaker 5: of stuff, I'll continue kind of sprinkling it throughout the summer.
Speaker 5: If I feel like I've done a great job, you know,
Speaker 5: in that early spring and spring, you know, maybe I
Speaker 5: focus more on some other things. It just kind of
Speaker 5: depends that June and July tends to slow down a
Speaker 5: little bit. I don't feel like I need to be
Speaker 5: out pound in the woods a lot. I try to
Speaker 5: do that earlier, but if I can't, I'll sprinkle it
Speaker 5: through maybe once a week, maybe twice a week, maybe
Speaker 5: three times a week, just depending on the time. And
Speaker 5: as you get closer to season, that's when I start
Speaker 5: to ramp it up a little bit. I might get
Speaker 5: some cameras out. I'm starting to do a little more glassing.
Speaker 5: I'm really starting to prepare for an early season hunt,
Speaker 5: you know, whether that's out of state or in state.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to locate maybe a specific deer, narrow down
Speaker 5: one or two specific dear to chase in my home
Speaker 5: state or Ohio or wherever I'm at. So there's a
Speaker 5: gap in there where it kind of slows down, and
Speaker 5: we're kind of approaching that gap right now. I didn't
Speaker 5: get as much spring scouting in done as I wanted to.
Speaker 4: I got quite a.
Speaker 5: Bit, So I'll probably continue the one to three days
Speaker 5: a week yep, throughout the summer.
Speaker 2: Do do you feel because I you know, we've talked
Speaker 2: about there's a ton with winter scouting, and I'm the
Speaker 2: same way, Like the value there is way high, and
Speaker 2: then you get into midsummer, and to me, like winter
Speaker 2: scouting is, I'm I'm sort of building just a database
Speaker 2: of spots that I'm like, this place could be, you know,
Speaker 2: an October spot or you know whatever, This could be
Speaker 2: a rut funnel blah blah blah, like just kind of
Speaker 2: like backfill in some of those spots. But you're also
Speaker 2: just building knowledge of an area, like I know, I
Speaker 2: want to be around this area because of the sign
Speaker 2: or whatever. But there's not like a lot of specific
Speaker 2: plans built around spring scouting. It's just like generally good
Speaker 2: for me, you know, Like I know, it's generally gonna
Speaker 2: help me out. And then you get into the summer,
Speaker 2: and like you said, you might start glass and you
Speaker 2: might start you know, running some cameras, and then the
Speaker 2: summer starts to get closer to the end and you
Speaker 2: start to put together like real pieces of a plan,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Likeuse now you're kinda maybe
Speaker 2: drawn from some of that spring scouting and going, man,
Speaker 2: you know, that place was covered in rubs and then
Speaker 2: I saw this big buck out in the field and
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, is he gonna be here on October
Speaker 2: one open or whatever? And then you start to make
Speaker 2: like specific plans for deer.
Speaker 5: Do you do that, Yeah, a lot of my One
Speaker 5: of the reasons I like to scout in the spring
Speaker 5: before green up is specifically for like rut hunting, like
Speaker 5: you said, more of like a general area I'm looking
Speaker 5: for rut sign maybe some good rout funnels in between,
Speaker 5: like some bedding areas or whatever. I might be just
Speaker 5: using that time to tackle a whole new area that
Speaker 5: I've never been in, or an area that I want
Speaker 5: to learn more because I can just see everything so clearly,
Speaker 5: and you're just kind of, like you said, generally learning
Speaker 5: the area, maybe some spots to key in on for
Speaker 5: the next season or seasons down the road, kind of
Speaker 5: like the beginning of that process. But a lot of
Speaker 5: times too, I love that time for actually being a
Speaker 5: little more specific. Like if I know that a big
Speaker 5: buck survived in this area and I think I maybe
Speaker 5: have access or you know, he's betted on this piece
Speaker 5: of public or on this piece of ground that I
Speaker 5: can access, or he might be betted some of the time,
Speaker 5: and I don't know that. I'm diving in and I'm
Speaker 5: really trying to find that and I'm trying to figure
Speaker 5: out maybe through what I see in sign and like
Speaker 5: the age of it, the timing of it, trying to
Speaker 5: maybe estimate a timeframe of when he's using this area,
Speaker 5: going back with what are some of my observations of
Speaker 5: the deer? When did I see him coming through? Did
Speaker 5: he kind of start showing up here more in that
Speaker 5: late October timeframe? So that kind of keys me in
Speaker 5: on maybe when I'm going to target this dear, maybe
Speaker 5: look at some pictures that you have. If you have
Speaker 5: some trail cam pictures, but you're trying to piece together
Speaker 5: more of like a specific animal, I think that's a
Speaker 5: really key time to do that, especially if you could
Speaker 5: find like some of where you think he's actually betting,
Speaker 5: you know, maybe on some specific wind directions or whatever.
Speaker 5: So I think that could be I think that time
Speaker 5: frame can be really valuable for like specific deers, specific situations,
Speaker 5: but it all go also is great for just general knowledge,
Speaker 5: especially if you're going to like a new area, like
Speaker 5: when I draw, or like when I'm trying to prepare
Speaker 5: for like a hunt in Iowa or something. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm going out there in March before green up and
Speaker 5: I'm pounding lots of ground. I'm not really trying to
Speaker 5: target necessarily like a loan buckbed. You know, I'm trying
Speaker 5: to find good deer sign. I'm trying to find some
Speaker 5: good mature buck sign, maybe a higher deer density, or
Speaker 5: maybe a concentration of really big bucks, like in the
Speaker 5: back corner of this piece of public or something. And
Speaker 5: I'm starting to piece together really good areas and I
Speaker 5: know I'm going to come back at that timeframe that
Speaker 5: will be valuable, but that might be different somewhere back home,
Speaker 5: or I can maybe build history with a certain animal
Speaker 5: and I know he made it, and it's like, man,
Speaker 5: this is going to be a good deer next year.
Speaker 5: I want to devote some time to this. I want
Speaker 5: to learn as much as I can about this deer now,
Speaker 5: and that's a great time to do it with, you know,
Speaker 5: like with most places, like broken up, fragmented property, even
Speaker 5: pieces of public, A lot of times that deer isn't
Speaker 5: living his whole life, you know, on that piece. So
Speaker 5: you're trying to figure out is he you know, is
Speaker 5: this a deer I can hunt all year long and
Speaker 5: you're trying to figure out different strategies for different times
Speaker 5: of the year, or is it a case where man
Speaker 5: he's only here early season, and I got to try
Speaker 5: to get a crack at this deer. First thing, you know,
Speaker 5: where's he bedded, where's the food going to be? You know,
Speaker 5: is this a nag type thing? Or are the are
Speaker 5: the crop field swapping, you know, changing crop rotation? You know,
Speaker 5: these are all things I'm trying to plan out for
Speaker 5: an early season kill. If that's when that deer is
Speaker 5: using that area, or it might be like in most cases,
Speaker 5: where this deer is betting somewhere else and he kind
Speaker 5: of shows up in an area where I'd like to
Speaker 5: hunt or where I hunt where there's decent dome numbers,
Speaker 5: and it becomes more of like, ah, like a pre
Speaker 5: rut type rut situation. So then I'm just trying to
Speaker 5: piece all that together and trying to find like where's that,
Speaker 5: where's that key ambush point where I can target this animal?
Speaker 5: Or if it's not a specific animal, maybe it's a
Speaker 5: good area where there's a number of deer that you
Speaker 5: would shoot, you know, a handful of nice bucks in
Speaker 5: this in this large area. You know, where's that, where's
Speaker 5: that area? Where are those key funnels that at this
Speaker 5: time of year, it's likely for some of these to
Speaker 5: come through. So it really depends on the situation and
Speaker 5: the hunt and what I'm trying to do. But once
Speaker 5: you start dialing in a piece of ground, it becomes
Speaker 5: more of like when is the timing right? Like when
Speaker 5: can I really dial in this timing so that I
Speaker 5: can hunt this piece of ground or this spot at
Speaker 5: the optimal time, or when is this animal most vulnerable?
Speaker 5: And I'm trying to learn, you know, if it's a
Speaker 5: specific deer, trying to learn as much as possible. And
Speaker 5: that's much different than if I'm going out of state
Speaker 5: and doing a quick spring scout and trying to find
Speaker 5: a general area where I think it's going to be
Speaker 5: good deer hunting into some ambush locations. So it really
Speaker 5: depends on the goal where you're hunting, the how familiar
Speaker 5: are with that area, and then if you're familiar with
Speaker 5: certain bucks or a certain certain caliber of buck in
Speaker 5: that area that you're trying to capitalize on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what you said there about the timing, like scouting
Speaker 2: for timing, this comes up a lot with people who
Speaker 2: really know what they're doing. We think scouting is just
Speaker 2: go find that spot that the big buck made a
Speaker 2: bunch of rubs and you're good, and it's like, well when,
Speaker 2: like when can you cross paths with him? And that's
Speaker 2: something you know when you mentioned you know, like I
Speaker 2: might have a forty acre chunk to hunt or something,
Speaker 2: or an eighty acre and that's one sixth or one
Speaker 2: eighth or one tenth of that bucks home range. It's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: when's he there or when are the bucks? Like I've
Speaker 2: got a little property in northern Wisconsin. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I don't know why this happens. Maybe it's a mass
Speaker 2: thing or something. But usually the end of September beginning
Speaker 2: of October, I'll have the biggest bucks of the season
Speaker 2: show up on camera there, and not only them, but
Speaker 2: like more bucks than usually any other time. And there's
Speaker 2: like a one or two week window where they're there,
Speaker 2: and then it's back to their normal, like they might
Speaker 2: randomly pass to in the middle of the night. And
Speaker 2: I don't know why it is, but that's the way
Speaker 2: it is, you know. And I do think over there,
Speaker 2: maybe it's tied to you know, because there's baiting's allowed there,
Speaker 2: So if you're not baiting and it's opener, all your
Speaker 2: dear are gone. And then people kind of get sick
Speaker 2: of it, and they don't run those bait sites as much.
Speaker 2: So I think those deer are like I got to
Speaker 2: go find some food. Think that might be the answer
Speaker 2: to it. I don't know, but what I do know
Speaker 2: is if I want to encounter one, that's when I go,
Speaker 2: you know. And so when you think about scouting, think
Speaker 2: about it at what you find, how does it relate
Speaker 2: to when you should hunt, not just rut Like is
Speaker 2: this more of like a Halloween staging area type thing,
Speaker 2: or is this like that bang in funnel?
Speaker 3: Or like what are you working with there? Because the
Speaker 3: more you find tune that through scouting, the more you
Speaker 3: just cross paths with them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and think about this.
Speaker 5: So, just like you said, I have a spot that
Speaker 5: I multiple spots, but one spot in particular that it's
Speaker 5: a for whatever reason, early season down in Ohio. I'm
Speaker 5: talking like the first couple of days of the season,
Speaker 5: there's a bachelor group of bucks in there. And after
Speaker 5: it could be it could be the day after the
Speaker 5: season starts, or it could be a week after, but
Speaker 5: at some sometime in that timeframe, they're they're just gone
Speaker 5: and they don't come back. And I found that spot
Speaker 5: through glassing, and it's a spot where nobody looks, nobody hunts,
Speaker 5: and nobody expects dear to be there, but they're there.
Speaker 5: They're there every year, and it gives me a little
Speaker 5: window to target an opener Ohio book. Now there's not
Speaker 5: always a buck I want to shoot in there, but
Speaker 5: if there is, I got to play at them. And then,
Speaker 5: you know, because I've been focused on, you know, optimizing
Speaker 5: that timing and really analyzing that. When you're reading sign
Speaker 5: or observing or going through your trul Can pictures, picture
Speaker 5: a whole season of a library of spots that you've
Speaker 5: hunted for the last twenty twenty five years, where you
Speaker 5: know that these spots heat up during these timeframes. Like
Speaker 5: I can look back and go through an entire season
Speaker 5: of time frame where historically these small pieces if we're
Speaker 5: talking about kind of small corners of public land, because
Speaker 5: usually it's like you know, the back part of the
Speaker 5: public land or a little corner where it's the best
Speaker 5: or whatever, or these small permission spots or whatever, you
Speaker 5: can literally like tentatively plan out a whole season where
Speaker 5: things should be good.
Speaker 4: Now, masks can change things.
Speaker 5: If there's not an a corn drop and the does
Speaker 5: aren't in there, or crop rotation or hunting pressure, things
Speaker 5: get thrown. Wrenches get thrown it all the time. That
Speaker 5: throw things off. But that's how a big reason why,
Speaker 5: at least on my home turf, you know, four counties
Speaker 5: in Michigan and three counties in Ohio where I can
Speaker 5: be pretty efficient because I'm I'm really thorough with my scouting,
Speaker 5: but I also have that knowledge of timing, like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I don't have anything going on, I'm gonna go look here,
Speaker 5: because usually some bucks start to show up here right
Speaker 5: around that mid October timeframe, and I start glassing out there,
Speaker 5: pop a few.
Speaker 4: Cameras and boom, mym on one.
Speaker 5: You know, And that's from history, and it's from it's
Speaker 5: from it's from building that over a lot of years.
Speaker 5: And I can go from one to the next, and it,
Speaker 5: like I said, I might fall flat on my face
Speaker 5: on one that should be hot, but it's not hot
Speaker 5: now because there's a hunter set up there, a new guy.
Speaker 5: Then you go to the next one. It's it's finding
Speaker 5: that optimal timing. And then a lot of times you
Speaker 5: can have that library and that kind of that tentative plan.
Speaker 5: But while you're searching, and while you're scouting for all
Speaker 5: this other stuff, like a new pattern shows up, you
Speaker 5: run into this new buck and or you get a
Speaker 5: picture of them, or you get a glimpse of them.
Speaker 5: It's like boom, you got that little window. So what
Speaker 5: I found is like, yeah, those short little timing things
Speaker 5: can be extremely deady, deadly, especially when you dial them
Speaker 5: in and you're hunting them. You know, perfect conditions, perfect
Speaker 5: timeframe with the right wind, and you're slipping in there
Speaker 5: and a lot of times you can get one killed.
Speaker 5: But then also throughout the season, just by being out
Speaker 5: there and scouting, like more than actually hunting, you come
Speaker 5: up ross these little these bucks and these opportunities that
Speaker 5: you didn't plan for, but there they are, and they're
Speaker 5: in there now for you know, two days, three days,
Speaker 5: five days, six days, and you got to kill and
Speaker 5: get him killed now or he's gone and maybe you
Speaker 5: take a stab at it and he's gone. Well like
Speaker 5: now you got another pattern. Now next year is like
Speaker 5: is he gonna be back at this time? And you're
Speaker 5: running a camera, you're glassing boonies back again, So now
Speaker 5: you have another pattern moving forward.
Speaker 2: You've scouted in a way to keep yourself hunting or
Speaker 2: in the game all season long season, and that's so
Speaker 2: important instead of just being like I gotta save this
Speaker 2: for the rut or I gotta save my time and
Speaker 2: not go do this. Instead, you just get yourself into
Speaker 2: a position where you're like, I believe every time I go,
Speaker 2: I can get on something, I can be into it
Speaker 2: in a way.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: That's that's a Maybe the best way to end this
Speaker 2: is if you're out there and you're like, I want
Speaker 2: to scout more like Animey scout, so you feel confident
Speaker 2: every day this season that you have at least a
Speaker 2: plan to start with. And like you said, man, just
Speaker 2: even even if you're like, ah, this this area should
Speaker 2: be good now because it's October tenth, maybe they'll be
Speaker 2: on scrapes or whatever.
Speaker 3: So much of it.
Speaker 2: Is just being out there because like mother nature is
Speaker 2: gonna give you something. So even if your plan fails
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the time, which it probably does, something
Speaker 2: else shows itself. Some other thing comes in and you go.
Speaker 2: It's like East scouting. You go, I'm gonna set there.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna set there. I'm gonna set there, and you know,
Speaker 2: or scout and you like, I'm gonna walk into this marsh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna look at it, and I'm gonna go up
Speaker 2: on this ridge and you have this whole plan laid out.
Speaker 2: You pull out your on X and you're like, I
Speaker 2: got it dialed. And then you get out there and
Speaker 2: you're like, whoh, look at the little island in the swamp,
Speaker 2: or look at that bench up there, or why are
Speaker 2: these rubs facing this way? And it's like half of
Speaker 2: it is just getting your ass out there to like
Speaker 2: figure that stuff out. And it's not necessarily such a terminator,
Speaker 2: like I know exactly how to do this and this
Speaker 2: is the plan and this always works. It's like, no, well,
Speaker 2: it's just enough to get you there and you're in
Speaker 2: the game when you're there, and that that's so important.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of uh, you know, a lot
Speaker 5: of my and I'm not always efficient, but a lot
Speaker 5: of my efficiency, because I sometimes I am quite efficient,
Speaker 5: is the fact that I'm I'm not going out there
Speaker 5: and just sitting every hunt. Every time I have a
Speaker 5: chance to hunt, a lot of the time I am
Speaker 5: scouting or searching or checking to see if it's worth
Speaker 5: a hunt. And that's kind of my process. And like
Speaker 5: like as far as like an opening day hunt, like
Speaker 5: I'm putting the work in prior to the opening day,
Speaker 5: searching and glassing and checking cameras and stuff to find
Speaker 5: that target buck so I can go in and kill
Speaker 5: them that day or that first two or three days
Speaker 5: or whatever. But then once that season starts going, it's
Speaker 5: more of a scout scout scout find something that deserves
Speaker 5: a sit and deserves to dive in, and then you
Speaker 5: go try to make it happen. The only other thing
Speaker 5: that I will do where I will get up in
Speaker 5: a tree sometimes is I will get up where I
Speaker 5: can see a long ways and I can observe like
Speaker 5: overlooking a marsh or maybe an egg ground. You can
Speaker 5: overlook some like crp that's hidden from the road that
Speaker 5: dips down or whatever something like that. Like I've I've
Speaker 5: capitalized on that. But again you're trying to gather information
Speaker 5: so that you could dive in and make a quick hunt.
Speaker 5: I don't hunt like I used to, where I used
Speaker 5: to just be up in a tree and just pound
Speaker 5: the hours and eventually you get a crack. But that's
Speaker 5: that's the key to the efficiency. It's it's mastering that
Speaker 5: timing mastering the conference and confidence in all the different tactics.
Speaker 5: But but waiting until you get that information or that
Speaker 5: confidence that that you feel it's worth a sit, you know,
Speaker 5: and it's I won't just go sit without something.
Speaker 4: And it might be it might.
Speaker 5: Be your going in in season and you got a
Speaker 5: stay under a saddle on and you're just scouting for
Speaker 5: hot sign. It's like boom, you find that sign and
Speaker 5: it feels like it's red hot. It should be red hot,
Speaker 5: and you kind of the hole the way the land
Speaker 5: Escape lays out. You paint this picture of like, this
Speaker 5: is what's happening to me. That's worth the sit, you know,
Speaker 5: if you like the signs big buck, mature sign. It
Speaker 5: might be I go in that same scenario and I
Speaker 5: find old sign and it looks like it's cold and
Speaker 5: it's just not I don't get that feeling that it's
Speaker 5: worth the sit.
Speaker 4: I just keep going.
Speaker 5: I keep going until I find that and if it
Speaker 5: gets dark or whatever, I'm onto the next day and
Speaker 5: then maybe I'm glassing or I'm checking camera. I'm doing
Speaker 5: that same thing. But eventually I come across something that's
Speaker 5: like Okay, now now's the time I got to get
Speaker 5: in here and maybe I get something killed on the
Speaker 5: first day, or maybe it's the fifth day because I
Speaker 5: start playing a cat and mouse game with him and
Speaker 5: maybe I burn it out and it doesn't happen. But
Speaker 5: now I got that knowledge, like dude, he was in
Speaker 5: here at this time, and it just goes into the bank.
Speaker 5: You know, something to check on next year, because it
Speaker 5: might be that same buck, or it might be one
Speaker 5: of those spots where mature bucks just show up here
Speaker 5: at this time of year. So it's like accumulating that
Speaker 5: and it really pays off if you could really pay
Speaker 5: attention somehow document that or whatever, keep track of it.
Speaker 5: It can really save you when you get into a
Speaker 5: tough spot the season. You start falling back on these
Speaker 5: things that you've that you've that you've learned and experienced.
Speaker 3: Yeah, keeps you from settling. Man.
Speaker 2: I said it a half hour ago and I'm saying
Speaker 2: it now. We're gonna go do it. We got to
Speaker 2: go catch some small mouth Andy. Thanks for coming on, man,
Speaker 2: it's always it's always so fun to chat with you,
Speaker 2: and it's been a lot of fun to fish with you.
Speaker 2: And these people who are listening to this are gonna
Speaker 2: get to see this next year. It's gonna be a while,
Speaker 2: but they'll get to see probably who I would say
Speaker 2: is their favorite white tail hunter. I'm just guessing, Uh,
Speaker 2: go out catch some bass. So let's go do that, buddy.
Speaker 4: All right? Sounds good? Thanks Tony.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week, folks, be sure to tune
Speaker 2: in next week for some more white tail scouting goodness.
Speaker 2: This has been the Wire to Hunt podcast and I'm
Speaker 2: your guest host, Tony Peterson. As always, I want to
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening for your support. I
Speaker 2: really appreciate everyone here at media really appreciates that you
Speaker 2: guys are part of the audience and you support us,
Speaker 2: So thank you for that. If you want more white
Speaker 2: to content, head on over to the medeater dot com
Speaker 2: and you'll see you know, the new the new series
Speaker 2: by the Element Boys Buck Truck. It's called I Make
Speaker 2: an Appearance, Clay makes an Appearance, Mark Makes an Appearance.
Speaker 2: Just some good old boys killing a ton of public
Speaker 2: land bucks on that series. You can also read articles
Speaker 2: by myself and Mark in a whole bunch of white
Speaker 2: tail addicts over there. Go to the medeater dot com.
Speaker 3: Check it out. You'll find something you like.