Speaker 1: Hey guys.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the show today, I want to
Speaker 2: give you a quick heads up on our latest Working
Speaker 2: for Wildlife Tour events that are coming up now. If
Speaker 2: you are listening to this on the day this new
Speaker 2: episode drops, which will be Thursday, July twenty seventh, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, I believe we've got a Working for Wildlife
Speaker 2: Tour event coming up this very weekend on Saturday, July
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, up in the Panhandle of Idaho. So if
Speaker 2: you are up there in the Northwest, if that's Montana, Idaho, Washington,
Speaker 2: anywhere in that neck of the woods, please come on
Speaker 2: out this Saturday from ten am to three pm. There's
Speaker 2: going to be an after party at a local brewery.
Speaker 2: But the main gist of this project is that we
Speaker 2: will be getting a bunch of volunteers, together with our
Speaker 2: partners at the National Deer Association and the United States
Speaker 2: Forest Service to do some aspen habitat restoration work. We're
Speaker 2: going to improve big game forage, increase forest health and resilience,
Speaker 2: and do some good stuff for the critters out there
Speaker 2: that we love to hunt. Come on out Saturday, July
Speaker 2: twenty ninth out there in Idaho. The Details and registration
Speaker 2: for the event can all be found over on the
Speaker 2: National Deer Association website.
Speaker 3: If you just.
Speaker 2: Google Working for Wildlife Tour NDA, that will show you
Speaker 2: a link to the registration page. Now, if you're not
Speaker 2: in the West, don't lose hope. We've got another one
Speaker 2: coming up in August in the Midwest. If you are
Speaker 2: anywhere near Missouri, we've got you covered. On August twelfth,
Speaker 2: that's a Saturday as well. We've got another Working for
Speaker 2: Wildlife Tour event in partnership with backcountry hunters and anglers.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be some work we're gonna do at
Speaker 1: the B. K.
Speaker 2: Leech Memorial Conservation Area, which is near Ellsbury, Missouri. I
Speaker 2: think this is kind of like North Northwest Dish outside
Speaker 2: of Saint Louis. It's gonna be a great time. We're
Speaker 2: gonna be doing some wet prairie improvement. That's gonna include
Speaker 2: some willow and cottonwood cutting, some seed harvesting, some invasive
Speaker 2: species removal, and a few other cool things like that too.
Speaker 2: So again doing good work for wildlife. We're going to
Speaker 2: get together a bunch of hunters and anglers who care
Speaker 2: about this stuff, have a good time and do something worthwhile.
Speaker 2: It should be noted first twenty five folks at each
Speaker 2: one of these events is going to get one of
Speaker 2: our very cool I Work for Wildlife t shirts. There's
Speaker 2: all sorts of other fun stuff going on this one.
Speaker 2: On August twelfth, there's actually going to be a kind
Speaker 2: of get together raffle storytelling event after the volunteer project
Speaker 2: as well, So going over to the BHA events page
Speaker 2: where you will be able to register for that event. Again,
Speaker 2: that's August twelfth. The actual working aspect of that is
Speaker 2: from eight to one and then the social get together,
Speaker 2: the storytelling all that kind of stuff is going to
Speaker 2: be from one to five. So hope to see you
Speaker 2: guys there again. Please sign up either in Idaho on
Speaker 2: July twenty ninth or August twelfth in Elsbury, Missouri. Looking
Speaker 2: forward to seeing you guys shaking some hands, taking some pictures,
Speaker 2: sharing some stories, and working for wildlife.
Speaker 1: Now to the show.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 4: the whitetail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 4: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 4: go farther, stay longer, and now your host.
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This
Speaker 2: week on the show, Tony and I are sharing our
Speaker 2: own strategies for scouting whitetails as we review and wrap
Speaker 2: up this month long scouting series. All right, welcome to
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by first Light.
Speaker 2: And first Light is the maker of the Spector Whitetail Camo.
Speaker 2: If you don't know, every purchase of Spector Whitetail Camo,
Speaker 2: a portion of that purchase goes to support the National
Speaker 2: Dear Association through our Camo for Conservation program.
Speaker 1: It's very cool.
Speaker 2: A few new things on the First Light side of things,
Speaker 2: the source vest, the Origin pant, and the trigger flip
Speaker 2: mitt have recently been released. Tony has recently been telling
Speaker 2: me about the Origin pant. I'll tell you that the
Speaker 2: source vest and the source jacket are something that I
Speaker 2: actually was personally involved in designing over the last five years.
Speaker 2: So I'm very biased, very happy with the outcome. So
Speaker 2: check all those out over at first light dot com.
Speaker 2: And yes, by now you can tell that your resident
Speaker 2: guest host, Tony Peterson is not running the show this
Speaker 2: week because I am Mark Kenyan, your host, and I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what I've gotten over the beating that Tony
Speaker 2: gave me immediate to trivia. I caught more trout over
Speaker 2: the last few weeks than Tony could shake an ugly
Speaker 2: stick at the Wizard Cosply competition is all wrapped up
Speaker 2: and I killed it as Gandalf the White And that's
Speaker 2: Gandalf after he fought the bell rog. That's for all
Speaker 2: you nerds who don't know your Lord of the Rings
Speaker 2: trivia and knows to anyone. Tony actually got called in
Speaker 2: to take over for me in the lead role in
Speaker 2: that kung fu film that Spencer's producing, because, as some
Speaker 2: of you have likely guessed by now, Tony is much
Speaker 2: better at faking competency than most, so ill seriousness. If
Speaker 2: you haven't listened to the last four episodes, probably none
Speaker 2: of that makes sense. We are here today to talk
Speaker 2: about Deer, and Tony is with me as well, guest
Speaker 2: hosting with me to wrap up the series on scouting
Speaker 2: that you, Tony led for the last month. So thank
Speaker 2: you for manning the ship and talking a whole lot
Speaker 2: of smack while I was gone too.
Speaker 3: Listen to people just want to know Mark. You're a
Speaker 3: busy guy.
Speaker 2: So we were driving home from a camping trip the
Speaker 2: other day, and I was listening to one of these
Speaker 2: episodes that you recorded while I was gone, and it
Speaker 2: was the one where you opened by talking about how
Speaker 2: me and Spencer were supposedly filming a kung fu film
Speaker 2: and kicking at each other in our pajamas.
Speaker 1: While saying hiya.
Speaker 2: And my boys were listening because they were in the
Speaker 2: car with me, and they just started cracking up. They
Speaker 2: thought it was really, really, really funny. And then Everett said,
Speaker 2: I think that's what you should do to Tony. You
Speaker 2: should get dressed in your pajamas and kick at him
Speaker 2: while saying hiya. So next time, next time we've got
Speaker 2: a Bozeman sleepover, that's the game plan.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: Look, I think I think three to seven year old
Speaker 3: boys or my target market for my humor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it killed with them. I'll give you that.
Speaker 3: Good good And I am glad that you're back to
Speaker 3: talking to me after that trivia situation. Mark that it
Speaker 3: feels good that we've got to mend these fences.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm over it. It was a beating Barren Square.
Speaker 2: I accept defeat graciously and I congratulate you.
Speaker 3: Hey, can we can we just talk about that for
Speaker 3: a second, because the trivia that trivia show is weird.
Speaker 3: Spencer does a really good job with it, but there's
Speaker 3: like a it's like a weird level of anxiety and
Speaker 3: stress when you're competing on there. I don't know if
Speaker 3: it comes through or not, but sometimes he asked a
Speaker 3: question and you're just like paralyzed, like I can't think
Speaker 3: of I mean, it's just weird, like the pressure that
Speaker 3: comes in there. So I know people listen to it,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm sure they do this to you too.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, I got seven right out of this
Speaker 3: one too, And I'm like, man, it's just different when
Speaker 3: you're in the hot seat and you're sitting there and
Speaker 3: you have to think in the moment. It's a weird experience.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well the worst ever was and I think this
Speaker 2: just I completely crumbled after I totally muffed on the
Speaker 2: softball throw my way, which was the question about the
Speaker 2: turty Point Buck, which is like this song I religiously
Speaker 2: listened to all Hunting Season.
Speaker 1: I grew up on it.
Speaker 2: And that thing you just said it happened exactly to me,
Speaker 2: Like it was remember this lyric from this song, so
Speaker 2: imagine like trying to remember a lyric from one of
Speaker 2: your favorite songs and that should be a piece of cake, right,
Speaker 2: and it just like my brain went to crap and nothing.
Speaker 2: There was no retrieval mechan anywhere, and uh, from there
Speaker 2: it was just all downhill.
Speaker 1: So it was not my day.
Speaker 3: But dude, it's tough. I mean it. And there's some categories,
Speaker 3: you know, when when I'm on there and they're like,
Speaker 3: here's fishing, I'm like, oh, thank god, because Spencer's questions
Speaker 3: on fishing, Like I feel usually pretty confident, but then
Speaker 3: sometimes like the conservation or the food category, I'm just
Speaker 3: like I if there's a if there's a question about
Speaker 3: a food named after a city, I'm gonna have the
Speaker 3: dumbest answer possible. Like I don't get those right, and
Speaker 3: it drives me crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it doesn't help that, Like you've got a
Speaker 2: lot of very competitive people. Like when you get like
Speaker 2: a group of folks where everyone likes to be the winner,
Speaker 2: you're inevitably a gonna get some fun, banter and good competition,
Speaker 2: but yeah, some high some high stress levels too.
Speaker 3: Well I did it. I did discover a new thing
Speaker 3: that I really really like, which is beating cal at
Speaker 3: something like that, because I've never competed against him before.
Speaker 1: Well, congrats relations on that, Tony.
Speaker 3: He doesn't like he doesn't like being wrong.
Speaker 1: No, probably not. It was good though. It was fun.
Speaker 1: I U.
Speaker 2: I enjoy getting the opportunity to get on there and
Speaker 2: talks and smack dispenser and uh yeah, no complaints about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, So trivia was fun.
Speaker 2: But I I gotta tell you that my little time
Speaker 2: away here, which has not been extravagant as you like
Speaker 2: to make it seem, but my little bit of time
Speaker 2: away over the you know, a week here, a little
Speaker 2: time here over the summer, has me so like bubbling
Speaker 2: over with white tail craziness that I could almost burst.
Speaker 2: I am high school Mark Kenyon that wants to buy
Speaker 2: every single hunting magazine on the Walmart shelf. I am
Speaker 2: the college Mark Kenyon that wants to wake up early
Speaker 2: in the morning to watch the cheesy hunting shows.
Speaker 1: Even I am I'm.
Speaker 2: That kid right now, So very very excited right discussion
Speaker 2: today and uh and kind of I think the game
Speaker 2: plans to kind of wrap up this series on scouting, right,
Speaker 2: what what do you have?
Speaker 3: What do you have?
Speaker 2: In mind here for how you want to kind of
Speaker 2: wrap up this month that you helped us.
Speaker 3: Lead man, just just talking about you know, some of
Speaker 3: the takeaways from the guests we had, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean obviously you know, started with Andy, and Andy May
Speaker 3: is just real consistent on you know, delivering you know,
Speaker 3: actionable ideas and strategies. And he's just he's the kind
Speaker 3: of person that you just want to emulate him. You're
Speaker 3: just like you talk to him and there's there's so
Speaker 3: much intention in his like his strategy. It's just I
Speaker 3: don't know, it's just fun, you know. And then had
Speaker 3: Clint Campbell in there too, and that dude's just a
Speaker 3: scouting machine out east and brings brings a pretty neat perspective.
Speaker 3: And then I really enjoyed talking to Adam Moore about,
Speaker 3: you know, just down south, like I'm in fact, I
Speaker 3: was texting with Andy today about you know, what are
Speaker 3: the odds we could just put together some kind of
Speaker 3: late season deep South hunt and just run down there
Speaker 3: in like January or February and just you know, hit
Speaker 3: up Mississippi or Louisiana or somewhere because I'm just I
Speaker 3: don't know about you, and I know you've hunted down
Speaker 3: I think you hunted in Alabama what two years ago? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of the southern white tail thing is is
Speaker 3: getting more and more appealing to me, and I don't
Speaker 3: really know why, and so I just like, maybe it's
Speaker 3: the big woods thing. But talking to Adam about that
Speaker 3: stuff was really cool. And then of course getting Ted on.
Speaker 3: You know, we hear from the THHP guys quite a bit,
Speaker 3: but Ted's kind of one of those under the radar
Speaker 3: guys you don't hear from very often. And what I
Speaker 3: loved about what he talked about was so much of
Speaker 3: it was, yeah, you know, we checked out this spot,
Speaker 3: we checked out that spot, but then when they show up,
Speaker 3: they use sort of that baseline and it's like we
Speaker 3: knew there were good bucks here, probably using this, probably
Speaker 3: doing this, probably doing that, but we had to adapt
Speaker 3: and it took us three days of observation of moving
Speaker 3: and then we killed this buck and it was really
Speaker 3: cool And here's why. And I love that kind of
Speaker 3: I love those kind of stories because it's like you
Speaker 3: take people from, you know, the idea that we're in
Speaker 3: right now, of like go find them, go watch them,
Speaker 3: go start to get pictures or camera or you know,
Speaker 3: some observation, but there's a lot of daylight between that
Speaker 3: and actually fill in a tag and hearing about how
Speaker 3: that works out for people. I think it's just I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's kind of a powerful motivator.
Speaker 2: So I think I know the answer to this question,
Speaker 2: or at least I have my own thoughts on it.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious for you because this we almost should
Speaker 2: have talked before the series two. Because what I'm curious
Speaker 2: about is when you were presented, you know, this idea, like, hey,
Speaker 2: you could you know, run with things in July. You
Speaker 2: could have tackled any kind of topic you wanted, You
Speaker 2: could have done a series on anything, and you chose
Speaker 2: to spend all of July focusing on scouting. That might
Speaker 2: not be the thing that's on most people's mind right now.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious why, I guess, in short, why why
Speaker 2: was scouting the thing that you thought we really as
Speaker 2: an audience, as a community, really need to like double
Speaker 2: and triple down on leading into the season. Because I
Speaker 2: think right now, like we are in full blown ramp
Speaker 2: up mode, we are less than you know, we're almost
Speaker 2: just a touch over a month out from a bunch
Speaker 2: of openers. So why why scouting in the dead nuts
Speaker 2: middle of the summer should we be thinking about.
Speaker 3: Because I think it's probably the most underrated aspect of
Speaker 3: fill in tags and I and I say that. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people think they scout enough and
Speaker 3: they don't. And I think part of that is because
Speaker 3: it's so easy to hang trail cameras and think that's enough.
Speaker 3: But to me, getting out there is so important, Like
Speaker 3: it's so important, and if you don't do it now,
Speaker 3: if you don't get some of that foundational stuff now,
Speaker 3: just the same thing, like if you don't do it
Speaker 3: in February or March, you missed a window that matters.
Speaker 3: I just firmly believe that, And so I just wanted
Speaker 3: to you know, I thought about doing something maybe on
Speaker 3: shooting or gear or whatever, but I think it's so
Speaker 3: beneficial to whitetail hunters to get into the mindset where
Speaker 3: you just don't scout enough, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like I kind of think I've been listening to you know,
Speaker 3: I listened to a lot of podcasts that are outside
Speaker 3: the hunting space, and you know, I hear a lot
Speaker 3: of people talk about fitness and a lot of people
Speaker 3: will say, you know, I found myself like not happy
Speaker 3: with you know, my physical shape, right, and so I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm two hundred and forty pounds and I want to
Speaker 3: get to two ten or whatever, pick some arbitrary number.
Speaker 3: And then they get there and they go, well, good enough,
Speaker 3: I did the goal, and then they slide right back
Speaker 3: into their old routine. And the thing about it is
Speaker 3: is it's not just getting there. It's the maintenance that matters.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's the lifestyle of like I'm going to
Speaker 3: stay in shape, So every week is a new challenge.
Speaker 3: I kind of look at scouting White Tails like pretty similarly,
Speaker 3: where it's like, you know, we have these different time
Speaker 3: frames throughout the year where we're like, well, it's pretty
Speaker 3: important to go out there and see last season's rubs
Speaker 3: in March or whatever, or it's pretty important to get
Speaker 3: those cameras out there now and get that inventory of
Speaker 3: the hit lister's going. But it's it's not enough for
Speaker 3: most of us, especially if if you're hunting pressure ground
Speaker 3: or you're kind of always on the hunt for new
Speaker 3: spots on public. I don't think you can scout enough.
Speaker 3: I mean I think the only situation where you can
Speaker 3: really overdo it, as if you're super sloppy or you
Speaker 3: do you like, are really restricted to small properties, then
Speaker 3: I think you got to play a little bit different game.
Speaker 3: But I think for a lot of us it's just
Speaker 3: easy to think you're doing enough and you're probably not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a great point and one thing
Speaker 2: that has happened. And I don't know if this is
Speaker 2: a relatively recent thing or if it's always been like this,
Speaker 2: but we have in many ways, you know, defined different
Speaker 2: parts of the season. Is like it's this season, it's
Speaker 2: this season. So like you know, when February, March, April
Speaker 2: comes around, scouting season, everyone's got to go out there
Speaker 2: do your off season scouting.
Speaker 1: So I mean, rightly, so a lot of folks.
Speaker 2: In our community have beaten the drum of off season scouting.
Speaker 2: When there's no greenery out there and the snow starting
Speaker 2: to melt off, like that is a great time to scout,
Speaker 2: no doubt about it. So everyone knows to palm the
Speaker 2: ground at that time of year. But to your point,
Speaker 2: you know, if someone's listening now and they haven't done
Speaker 2: that yet, it's really important to remember that it's not
Speaker 2: too late. And by that I mean like, of course
Speaker 2: you want to be doing all that, but like the
Speaker 2: scouting shouldn't just start an end at that one time
Speaker 2: which is the best time. It should continue all year round.
Speaker 2: It should be there's still stuff you can learn in
Speaker 2: the summer, and you should keep on scouting all through
Speaker 2: the season. If there's anything I've learned over the last
Speaker 2: decade plus of knowing Andy May, it's the value of
Speaker 2: in season scouting, like never stopping scouting.
Speaker 1: And I think that was really pounded home.
Speaker 2: With this series, was just the idea that, hey, it's July,
Speaker 2: it's scouting season, and guess what two months from now,
Speaker 2: when your season kicks off, it's scouting season. And this
Speaker 2: is something that you know, we could have ran this
Speaker 2: series in September and it would have been just as
Speaker 2: relevant as important, you know, as it is now as
Speaker 2: it could have been if we were in it in February.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure. And I think I think it's important
Speaker 3: to kind of just like clarify that it's it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be like and I know we say this
Speaker 3: a lot, but it doesn't have to be like this
Speaker 3: terminate or endeavor where it's like I'm getting into the
Speaker 3: woods and I'm looking at this waypoint, this waypoint, this
Speaker 3: point point, I'm checking these spots out, and like, it
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be like a militant exercise. It has
Speaker 3: to be just something that is built into your life,
Speaker 3: because I've noticed with me, like I think there's like
Speaker 3: two really distinct advantages there is if you get into
Speaker 3: the habit of just like I gotta go check this
Speaker 3: spot out, or I gotta go out tonight and watch
Speaker 3: or you know, I'm just gonna go drop a trail
Speaker 3: camera here or whatever whatever little task you're gonna do
Speaker 3: on any given day, it's so much easier for me
Speaker 3: to go, oh, okay, well the condition's changed here. So
Speaker 3: what I thought from when I was here in March
Speaker 3: or April, I got to rethink this this part, and
Speaker 3: it just it helps me like frame up my plan
Speaker 3: for the season and just get into the mode where
Speaker 3: I sort of expect some changes and I expect things
Speaker 3: to just be a little bit different or not work
Speaker 3: out the way I want them to, and that's okay.
Speaker 3: It's I think it's easier to adapt than just being like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to take one long Saturday in July and
Speaker 3: I'm going to scout and I'm going to hang a
Speaker 3: bunch of stands, and that's going to be good. I
Speaker 3: just I don't think that's the best method. I think
Speaker 3: it's better to be in the habit of like I'm
Speaker 3: going to do a little bit each week or every
Speaker 3: couple of days and just accumulate a better strategy that's
Speaker 3: like evolving with the conditions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: So this topic is super exciting for me right now.
Speaker 2: The idea of scouting properties, especially the new properties, scouting
Speaker 2: old properties, is still very valuable and it's always a
Speaker 2: good idea. I'm not telling you anything new, but you know,
Speaker 2: looking at old properties with new eyes and clear eyes
Speaker 2: is always a good idea. Always keeping up to speed
Speaker 2: and what's changing, what have you missed, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: But it's hard to beat the blank slate when you
Speaker 2: come onto a new piece of public or privately you
Speaker 2: have access to and you just have to figure it out.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like a brand new puzzle poured
Speaker 2: out on the table in front of you, and it's
Speaker 2: it's all fresh, all new. The sky is the limit
Speaker 2: and I actually just got that. I got access to
Speaker 2: a new property that I am very excited about. It
Speaker 2: is two hundred acres, which is by far the biggest
Speaker 2: piece of private land i've well, I guess that's not
Speaker 2: entirely true, but one of the biggest pieces I've ever
Speaker 2: had access to in Michigan. At least half of it's
Speaker 2: just a big open field, but the back half, so
Speaker 2: about one hundred acres ish is.
Speaker 1: Like really good. It looks really good at least.
Speaker 2: But this is all based on East scouting, because this
Speaker 2: is a piece that, like, I've not been to, but
Speaker 2: it's been something I've known someone has, you know, access
Speaker 2: to they manage it, and I thought maybe someday and
Speaker 2: it finally came together.
Speaker 1: So I haven't got to walk it yet. I've just
Speaker 1: been able to study maps obsessively.
Speaker 2: And now I actually do have the opportunity to walk
Speaker 2: it when I get back in town. And and you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred acres of primo whitetail ground in an awesome
Speaker 2: area that just screams like great terrain, pinch points and
Speaker 2: funnels and good food and good bedding and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. That amazing playground of white tail goodness
Speaker 2: is like right in front of me, and I am
Speaker 2: so excited Tony to start scouting it and learning it
Speaker 2: and figuring out this new piece, Like I am ecstatic
Speaker 2: to dive into this.
Speaker 1: I'm excited, is what I'm trying to get across.
Speaker 2: And so right now I'm just doing step one of
Speaker 2: what a lot of folks scouting efforts is, which is
Speaker 2: lots and lots of just staring at the map and
Speaker 2: thinking about different things, going from like big picture like
Speaker 2: zooming away out and looking at the aerial and thinking about,
Speaker 2: you know, where does this property fit in the big
Speaker 2: scheme of things, like where does this fit in the
Speaker 2: larger landscape? How do pet or how do do you
Speaker 2: move in and off of this block the square mile block?
Speaker 2: Like where does this stand? And then you know, zooming
Speaker 2: way in and thinking about, okay, what's going on in
Speaker 2: this little corner where the cree comes around the bend
Speaker 2: And it seems like there's a drop in topography here,
Speaker 2: and this looks like a wet spot based on this map,
Speaker 2: But if you flip over to another app and look
Speaker 2: at that, like, well is that wet or is that
Speaker 2: just like a crp grass?
Speaker 1: Or you know what I mean. Where you're sitting and
Speaker 1: dissecting every little bit. I love that. So what about this?
Speaker 2: Maybe this is useful, maybe this isn't, Tony, But what
Speaker 2: do you think about taking the ideas that you and
Speaker 2: that all of us learned from Andy Adam Clinton ted
Speaker 2: over the last month, and what if we filter it
Speaker 2: through this example, Like what if we walk through everything
Speaker 2: that I have to do over the coming months, and
Speaker 2: then you and I kind of think, Okay, well, what
Speaker 2: would what would Andy? What could take from Andy when
Speaker 2: it comes to the summer scouting, or what would you
Speaker 2: do Tony when it comes to when I show up
Speaker 2: there on day one and get to walk for the
Speaker 2: first time, You think that might be a useful exercise
Speaker 2: to kind of illustrate some of the stuff we're talking
Speaker 2: about here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna love.
Speaker 3: I have to say, though, I'm a little bit I'm
Speaker 3: I'm jealous, and it makes me a little bit sad
Speaker 3: because very briefly here I thought I had permission on
Speaker 3: a new place, and I can feel like that permission
Speaker 3: is not going to actually happen. And so this high
Speaker 3: that you're in of like e scouting and getting ready
Speaker 3: to go see this property and do this stuff, I
Speaker 3: was like, right on the cusp of that, and now
Speaker 3: I feel depressed and sad because I think I think
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna get it just by the way the
Speaker 3: landowners kind of acting, and so it makes me a
Speaker 3: little sad.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, buddy.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, those like these acts if you don't
Speaker 2: own your own land, these private permission type things are
Speaker 2: so fleeting, right, So it's so exciting when you get
Speaker 2: permission on new piece, but then you also need to
Speaker 2: like hold it lightly, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Because you know, like at any moment it could be gone.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna I'm gonna try to appreciate this because
Speaker 2: you know, who knows, it might be just this season. Heck,
Speaker 2: I mean by the time this errs, who knows, maybe
Speaker 2: I won't even for this. For this brief moment in time,
Speaker 2: I can look at a map and think to myself,
Speaker 2: I will hopefully be able to hunt this spot in
Speaker 2: a couple months, And that is a good feeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ride that high, buddy.
Speaker 1: I'm going to I'm gonna milk it for all it's worth.
Speaker 2: So, so you know, something you guys didn't talk about
Speaker 2: a lot in the series with the crew was the
Speaker 2: scouting side of things. There wasn't a ton of emphasis
Speaker 2: on that, but I would you correct me if I'm
Speaker 2: wrong here, But I think all of them would probably
Speaker 2: look at that as a very very important first step
Speaker 2: to being efficient in any of their efforts on the
Speaker 2: ground after that.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 3: Sure? I absolutely? And you know that was sort of
Speaker 3: intentional because I didn't. I feel like we've covered est
Speaker 3: scouting quite a bit, and I feel like East scouting
Speaker 3: is so valuable in some ways, but it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: unless you're willing to do the other part.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like kind of like trail cameras, Like
Speaker 3: I feel like trail cameras can be so valuable, but
Speaker 3: you have to do that other part otherwise it just
Speaker 3: doesn't matter the same way.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense, Yeah, it absolutely does. It's like
Speaker 2: a way both of those tools can make your efforts
Speaker 2: on the ground more efficient. I think this is the
Speaker 2: biggest thing. Like they provide really good starting points. They
Speaker 2: provide like really good anchors. You know, if we're looking
Speaker 2: at a puzzle, like, okay, take that puzzle on analogy
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, you dump a new puzzle out onto
Speaker 2: the table. Very exciting if you didn't have any flat
Speaker 2: pieces or corner pieces, it would be a lot harder
Speaker 2: to get that puzzle going. But since you've got those
Speaker 2: corner pieces and those flat sides, you've got somewhere to start,
Speaker 2: you know, like, okay, all of these flat sides, all
Speaker 2: these corners.
Speaker 1: I know where that goes.
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of how e scouting or trail
Speaker 2: cameras you know, come into the mix. Is they give
Speaker 2: you those starting points, those anchor points, where you know something.
Speaker 2: I now know this, but you can't extrapolate that to
Speaker 2: knowing everything. So I know a corner piece, that does
Speaker 2: not mean I know what the entire center looks like.
Speaker 2: So the same thing goes for when you look at
Speaker 2: you know, I'm looking at the aerial of that new property,
Speaker 2: and I see a really cool looking, you know, cover,
Speaker 2: thin strip of cover that winds this way through a
Speaker 2: big open field that screams out, you know, pinch point,
Speaker 2: screams out a cover funnel that man, there should be
Speaker 2: deer cruising that in the rut from that thick cover
Speaker 2: down in the southeast up to the thick cover up
Speaker 2: to the northwest.
Speaker 1: But if I.
Speaker 2: Don't show up on the ground and fact check that
Speaker 2: you gotta you gotta proof it, you gotta confirm. If
Speaker 2: you don't there's there, you know it might work out,
Speaker 2: but then you also might waste a lot of time.
Speaker 2: So I think you know, the way I look at
Speaker 2: East scouting is the same way I know you do.
Speaker 2: Is you know, you're you're getting those starting points, You're
Speaker 2: marking a bunch of places that you think this, this
Speaker 2: should be high quality, this could be really good. And
Speaker 2: then when you go out there on the ground, you're
Speaker 2: not walking willy nilly blindly everywhere. You can go and
Speaker 2: hit those spots you know efficiently and fact check and
Speaker 2: use our limited time the best possible way for sure.
Speaker 3: And it's you know, the est scouting thing. I mean,
Speaker 3: part of the reason it's so cool is it does
Speaker 3: give you I mean, it just does give you, like
Speaker 3: a really good idea of what you're going to run into.
Speaker 3: But there's nothing like seeing it in person. And so
Speaker 3: you know, you pick out a spot and you do
Speaker 3: this with a property like you're talking about, or you
Speaker 3: go travel somewhere to hunt and you pick out a
Speaker 3: spot and you walk in there and sometimes it is
Speaker 3: as good as you expect, and that's such a rush. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and sometimes you walk in and you're like, this is
Speaker 3: definitely not it. But it's like a ET scouting and
Speaker 3: then your first like ground truthing trip in there, it's
Speaker 3: like being a gambling addict or something. You're like, I'm
Speaker 3: just like waiting for that high of the of both
Speaker 3: things coming together where what I believed it to be
Speaker 3: and then seeing it actually be that or something even more.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's pounded more with your tracks or sign or something.
Speaker 3: So there's like there's like a neat motivation to it.
Speaker 3: Once you put in enough time ET scouting, it just
Speaker 3: makes the whole process of ground trew thing that much
Speaker 3: more fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so tell me this really quickly. You know, when
Speaker 2: what I'm doing on the east scouting side is I'm
Speaker 2: doing those two things I mentioned. I'm looking at the
Speaker 2: big picture, like trying to understand where this property fits
Speaker 2: into the larger landscape. And then I'm also zooming in
Speaker 2: and thinking very you know close or what you know.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking micro here and thinking to myself, Okay, this
Speaker 2: block of timber looks like it connects in here and
Speaker 2: looks like there might be betting here. It looks like
Speaker 2: there's a hill here, YadA, yad ydah.
Speaker 1: But so I do.
Speaker 2: I spend a lot of time picking this apart, and
Speaker 2: then I'm marking all my different areas of interest. I'm
Speaker 2: marking like, man, this looks like a good pinch point,
Speaker 2: put it away point, and I'll label it like good
Speaker 2: pitch point question mark. And then I'll find a spot
Speaker 2: that think, man, I bet you this would be a
Speaker 2: great stand site because of this and this, and so
Speaker 2: I'll put you know, standsite question mark, and I'll have
Speaker 2: all of these question marks scattered all over the property
Speaker 2: before I ever step foot. So I try to find,
Speaker 2: like where I think good betting could be. I try
Speaker 2: to mark where I think, you know, good travel quarters
Speaker 2: could be. I will mark where I think there might
Speaker 2: be a crete cross, all of these different things so
Speaker 2: that when I show up that first day, what I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do is, you know, perfect world, this would be
Speaker 2: in the you know, February March April timeframe, but my
Speaker 2: case is going to be dead of the summer, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go out there on day one and that's
Speaker 2: going to be cover as much of the place as
Speaker 2: I can and really make sure I hit those priority
Speaker 2: points that I'm marked, and the whole time I walk
Speaker 2: a new property, I have my phone out and I'm
Speaker 2: matching up where I am on the map to what
Speaker 2: it looks like on the ground so that I can
Speaker 2: as i'm walking, like, Okay, here i am, and this
Speaker 2: is that little block with the with the point and
Speaker 2: that little ditch that runs through it. And now I'm
Speaker 2: seeing with my own eyes what it actually looks like.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking at the map and I'm saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what the map looks like. This is what
Speaker 2: the ground looks like, so that by the end of
Speaker 2: that day, and I'm doing this kind of every other
Speaker 2: day i'm out there scouting, I'm constantly bouncing back and
Speaker 2: forth between those two things, so that eventually, by season
Speaker 2: or next season or whenever it is, I have like
Speaker 2: a two layer map in my mind where I know, like,
Speaker 2: when I'm standing here, this is where I am in
Speaker 2: the map in my mind, and this is what it
Speaker 2: looks like on the ground.
Speaker 1: Do you do something similar?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Man? I Not only that, but I've also started
Speaker 3: using the what is it the track feature? What is
Speaker 3: the one that, yeah, dude, or the tracks feature? I've
Speaker 3: been using that like crazy. When I go in and
Speaker 3: I you know, if I'm looking at a spot and
Speaker 3: I get in there and I'm like, yep, I'm definitely
Speaker 3: gonna hunt this, I will walk out the way that
Speaker 3: I think I need to access it. I'll run that
Speaker 3: track feature, and I'll actually time how long it takes
Speaker 3: me to go out now, and I'll make a note
Speaker 3: of that so when I show up there. I did
Speaker 3: this for one week in November that we're going to
Speaker 3: drop this fall and the stand that I ended up
Speaker 3: having a pretty good hunt out of and Wisconsin, even
Speaker 3: though it was like a I mean maybe a couple
Speaker 3: hundred yards and probably two thirds of that was through
Speaker 3: an open field, but I didn't want to expose ourselves
Speaker 3: getting in there because it was going to be tight,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to take a very specific route through
Speaker 3: the woods to get to the stand, so I didn't
Speaker 3: lay down any scent where the deer probably were going
Speaker 3: to come from. And so even even though I could
Speaker 3: have walked there in the dark, I mean without hardly
Speaker 3: thinking about it, using that feature was just so nice
Speaker 3: to be like, you are exactly on the line you
Speaker 3: want to, you know, the line that I created in
Speaker 3: the daylight, And I've started doing that on when I'm
Speaker 3: looking at new properties and new places, and it gives
Speaker 3: me so much more confidence to go back in there
Speaker 3: and actually hunt just the way I want to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done that in like some nasty hell holes
Speaker 2: where like if you don't cross this draw in this
Speaker 2: one spot, like you're gonna be cliffed out or something crazy.
Speaker 2: But I've never paid attention to timing it. And that
Speaker 2: timing thing actually is kind of a nice thing to
Speaker 2: know as far as like when you're trying to plan,
Speaker 2: all right, how really do I need to get up?
Speaker 2: What time do I need to be at the trailhead
Speaker 2: or what time do I need to be parked at
Speaker 2: the side of the road, and know, okay, it's going
Speaker 2: to take me exactly twenty three minutes at you know,
Speaker 2: expected walking speed during the season to get to my stand.
Speaker 2: That would be a smart thing to time out, at
Speaker 2: least for someone that's as type A as me who
Speaker 2: likes to know exactly what time it gets somewhere.
Speaker 3: You probably don't need to do it because you get
Speaker 3: out there, what four or five hours before first light?
Speaker 1: Not quite, but I do get out there pretty early.
Speaker 3: But I think that stuff part of it comes from
Speaker 3: just like you know, think about how often you go
Speaker 3: out and you hang a set and you're like, man,
Speaker 3: I'm coming back here tomorrow morning. The deer we're definitely here,
Speaker 3: and you're like, it's an easy walk. I go across
Speaker 3: the wetland here and I just look for this big
Speaker 3: oak tree. And then you go out there in the
Speaker 3: dark and you're like, ah, son of a bitch, Like
Speaker 3: everything's different. And even if you're off by like ten feet,
Speaker 3: you might make twenty times as much noise as you'd
Speaker 3: make if you just stayed on the right course. And
Speaker 3: I know that it probably doesn't sound that important to
Speaker 3: a lot of people, but if you do a lot
Speaker 3: of mobile hunting and you hunt mornings a lot, man,
Speaker 3: that trick is like it's just so worth getting in
Speaker 3: the habit. Let me say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so after that first back to my example here,
Speaker 2: after that first walk through, where I'm going to go
Speaker 2: through and cover as much as I can with the
Speaker 2: time I have while trying to map my mind to
Speaker 2: like what I see on the ground to what I
Speaker 2: see in the map. I'm gonna be that first day
Speaker 2: or if it's a weekend or whatever, the amount of
Speaker 2: time I have is I'm going to try to get
Speaker 2: like that big picture over for you of like here's everything,
Speaker 2: and here's I confirmed all the things I thought I
Speaker 2: knew and I crossed off the things that didn't end
Speaker 2: up being what they really were. But probably in that
Speaker 2: first day or first weekend, assuming I have time. In
Speaker 2: this case I do have time, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: be trying to scout for like the kill spot that
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to collect. I'm trying to collect, collect, collect, click, collect,
Speaker 2: and then I will come back at a later date
Speaker 2: and I will do like my fine tune scouting, which
Speaker 2: will be like I'm gonna take that time after my
Speaker 2: big picture scout, and I'm gonna think a lot, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna look at the map again a lot and
Speaker 2: try to think through all the things I learned, and
Speaker 2: again kind of think, Okay, big picture, here's what I
Speaker 2: now know, and micro level here's what I now know,
Speaker 2: and really start fine tuning. Okay, given all that, where
Speaker 2: do I think the best locations will be for the
Speaker 2: early season? Where do I think those best locations will
Speaker 2: likely be for middle of October? And kind of just
Speaker 2: think through my season and maybe I'll also learn like man,
Speaker 2: this just isn't gonna be an early season spot, or
Speaker 2: this isn't gonna be an October spot, this is maybe
Speaker 2: it's only gonna be a peak rut, or maybe it's
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, maybe it's gonna be a place that Jesus,
Speaker 2: it's probably not gonna be that great until gun season
Speaker 2: pushes all the deer out of everywhere else.
Speaker 1: And funnels them all into here. Whatever it is.
Speaker 2: I will then try to think through, Okay, what are
Speaker 2: those places that I need to have prepped to start
Speaker 2: hunting season as like those starting points, And then I'll
Speaker 2: go back out prior to the season, still in the summer,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to try to scout for a handful
Speaker 2: of starting point stands, So knowing that I'm going to
Speaker 2: learn and scout a lot in season, but I want
Speaker 2: to have some places prepped ahead of time so that
Speaker 2: I've got something.
Speaker 1: To start with to observe and adjust from.
Speaker 2: So then I'm going to go out there and I'll
Speaker 2: maybe i'll mark let's just hypothetically say that I find
Speaker 2: like a sweet little bedding area coming off of a
Speaker 2: hilltop that drops down to this ag field, and I
Speaker 2: can see old a bunch of old rubs, from last season,
Speaker 2: and there's a ditch crossing that drops right into this
Speaker 2: little skinny finger of what's now standing corn, and I'll think, man,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised if there's a big buck betted
Speaker 2: off of that point. And I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 2: he drops down off of this point and comes down
Speaker 2: and kind of mills around in this transition area after
Speaker 2: he crosses that ditch here, that might not be a
Speaker 2: bad place to hunt him in October. So let's just
Speaker 2: hypothetically say I find a place like that after my
Speaker 2: big picture scouting in my east scouting. Now I'm going
Speaker 2: to come back in in August and try to the
Speaker 2: spot within that spot. So I'm gonna go in there
Speaker 2: and then I'm gonna do some fine tune scouting. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna walk that area thoroughly, really think they're okay? Is this?
Speaker 2: Is this the exact spot on the ditch that I
Speaker 2: think is most likely for deer to cross, and YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 2: And that would be what I would play out a
Speaker 2: handful of times across this property.
Speaker 1: And I would want all of this done, you know, in.
Speaker 2: As few trips as possible, So I would probably It'll
Speaker 2: probably be like one big picture scouting day like I
Speaker 2: talked about, and then it will probably be one you know,
Speaker 2: fine tuning scouting day like I'm discussing, in which I
Speaker 2: will pick these spots and prep a few spots, and
Speaker 2: then I'll probably hand cameras and that will probably be
Speaker 2: what I will start with until we get to the
Speaker 2: next phase of my scouting. Does any of that bring
Speaker 2: any questions to mind or additional thoughts as far as
Speaker 2: you know, a last minute kind of scouting and prepping
Speaker 2: situation that I'm in here.
Speaker 3: One thing that you said right at the beginning of
Speaker 3: that that makes me question a lot of what you
Speaker 3: do is really you said that you're going to go
Speaker 3: in and not look for kill spots right away.
Speaker 1: Well well no, but sorry.
Speaker 2: It's not that I'm not looking for them, but it's
Speaker 2: that I'm trying to be in like big picture. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to be a vacuum of everything right now. Of course,
Speaker 2: like I will be paying attention to spots that stand out.
Speaker 2: If there'll be a spot, I'm sure like I will
Speaker 2: see things. Man, this is a kill spot, but I'm
Speaker 2: not going to spend six hours in that one spot.
Speaker 1: Fine, tuning it. I will be like, Okay, man, this
Speaker 1: looks awesome. I'm gonna grid it a little bit more,
Speaker 1: and then okay, keep moving.
Speaker 2: Got to move to the next place because I'm planning
Speaker 2: on doing the deep dive the next time I come.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah. For a little while there, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I think I needed to explain to Mark what deer
Speaker 3: scouting is for, because I was like, I think he's confused.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely not going to look for a good spot
Speaker 3: to kill a big buck yet.
Speaker 2: No, it's just like, wow, the level of time I'm
Speaker 2: going to spend a certain parts of this process.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You do you know that that field is planted
Speaker 3: in corn.
Speaker 2: I do know that, Yes, okay, yes, so I do
Speaker 2: know that. What I don't know is like, there looks
Speaker 2: like there might be some that's in CRP or or
Speaker 2: just too wet for crops, So I don't know how
Speaker 2: much is planted and how much is kind of set aside.
Speaker 3: Now you're speaking my language.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, and I'm hoping.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping there are some of that stuff because it
Speaker 2: looks like in the maps that some of it is
Speaker 2: like that, and you. But you can also see, like
Speaker 2: when you go to different maps or different apps, they've
Speaker 2: got different date ranges for when the aerial photography was taken.
Speaker 2: I can see sometimes where it looks like it was
Speaker 2: planted and sometimes when it was not planted. So I
Speaker 2: just don't know what it is this year so interesting.
Speaker 1: That is interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm still jealous. I'm actually a little more jealous.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: You were talking a decent bit with Ted there at
Speaker 2: the end about his trail camera strategy, and I think
Speaker 2: you talked you, oh gosh, Clint a little bit about
Speaker 2: his trail cam strategy, especially like summer to fall and
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff when it comes to scouting. You know,
Speaker 2: I thought that something that Ted said really resonated with me,
Speaker 2: or an example he shared at least, and that being
Speaker 2: you know, how he ended up there was a property.
Speaker 2: So hopefully folks heard this last week, but if not,
Speaker 2: I'll give you the very quick cliff notes him.
Speaker 1: Ted and I don't think.
Speaker 2: Aaron or someone were out hunting a new property and
Speaker 2: they'd put a trail camera out on this little fence
Speaker 2: line I think, or a trail that they thought would
Speaker 2: be good and they let it run through late summer
Speaker 2: into like just before opening day, and they had a
Speaker 2: group of bucks that was on there like over and
Speaker 2: over and over, really well patterned. And then when they
Speaker 2: checked the camera, like just prior to opening day, they
Speaker 2: saw it they were here, here, here, here, And then
Speaker 2: the last few days of the last week or something,
Speaker 2: they totally disappeared. And what Ted and Aaron did was,
Speaker 2: rather than saying, oh, the bucks are completely gone, or
Speaker 2: just thinking oh man, and you know it's all blown
Speaker 2: up and move off to some other property, they asked why,
Speaker 2: Like they thought, okay, well, why aren't the bucks here
Speaker 2: and where must they be now? And they use that
Speaker 2: again like kind of like the puzzle piece thing. You know,
Speaker 2: if this piece does not fit into a corner, it
Speaker 2: must fit somewhere else. And so in this case, they thought, well,
Speaker 2: if the bucks are not on trail camera here anymore,
Speaker 2: they must be somewhere different, and so let's think about
Speaker 2: where else they could have pivoted to and what additional
Speaker 2: information do we need. So they use a camera and
Speaker 2: not to say, oh, the buck was here yesterday, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna kill him here and kill them there. They instead
Speaker 2: said the bucks used to be here now we know
Speaker 2: they are not here. That will force us to move
Speaker 2: away from what we thought was good and scout this
Speaker 2: new area, which led them to this ridge, tore up
Speaker 2: with sign and that confirmed, oh this is where they are.
Speaker 2: They hunted there, they killed the deer. Did that kind
Speaker 2: of like did that make you smile the way it
Speaker 2: made me smile?
Speaker 3: Yeah? But dude, that story that is just And I
Speaker 3: might love it because it's kind of concert confirmation bias
Speaker 3: for me because I'm really getting into that kind of
Speaker 3: mindset about almost all of my hunting where instead of
Speaker 3: going to find the easy one, I'm trying to find
Speaker 3: a concentration of animals and just work them, you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's elk or turkeys or white tails or whatever.
Speaker 3: And that was such a prime example that he told
Speaker 3: of just having them dial, losing them and finding them
Speaker 3: again and killing one. And the beauty of it is
Speaker 3: they didn't fill in the blanks, like they didn't go, well,
Speaker 3: they're nocturnal or somebody must have bumped them out. They
Speaker 3: had so much faith in their scouting. They said something
Speaker 3: changed and we're just going to figure it out, and
Speaker 3: they did. And I think that lesson is like way
Speaker 3: poignant and I'll tell you what I've been. I've been
Speaker 3: over in northern Wisconsin quite a bit recently, scouting and
Speaker 3: catching a future out and doing you know, looking for
Speaker 3: some bears with the girls or whatever. But we've been
Speaker 3: we've been scouting quite a bit over there. And the
Speaker 3: woods over there right now are almost like unwalkable. The
Speaker 3: way the winter happened last year with super heavy wet snow,
Speaker 3: It's like so many trees or tree tops fell down,
Speaker 3: and then so many of the right aged you know,
Speaker 3: kind of like poplar type trees are bent like completely
Speaker 3: over to the ground, and so you know, like i'll
Speaker 3: give you an example to frame this up. We went
Speaker 3: to fish the stretch of this Brook trout stream. I
Speaker 3: fished dozens of times, just a nice little stretch. It's
Speaker 3: got nice rock walls. It's like a nice, picturesque, beautiful
Speaker 3: little brook trout stream. We walked in there and started fishing,
Speaker 3: and for most of it you couldn't hit the water
Speaker 3: because it was there was so much so many trees
Speaker 3: over the water now, it was like an underground tunnel.
Speaker 3: And I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, it was
Speaker 3: a nightmare. And then I went into other spots that
Speaker 3: I hunt over there just to look around, and it's
Speaker 3: like I'm hunting a different kind of property. And so
Speaker 3: I know from years and years of hunting there and
Speaker 3: just seeing the general population, I'm like, Okay, those deer
Speaker 3: are still here. I got to work them differently than
Speaker 3: I'm used to. So if I was living off of,
Speaker 3: you know, ten years of hunting experience there, it's not
Speaker 3: the same. Now it's going to be a totally different hunt.
Speaker 3: So yeah, when you think about, okay, mother nature could
Speaker 3: hand you that and basically, like you said earlier, kind
Speaker 3: of give you a blank slate. It's not a new property,
Speaker 3: but it's it damn well, might it might as well be,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Or you might get a
Speaker 3: situation where those bucks just decide that they're going to
Speaker 3: go eat acorns one ridge over, and your job, whether
Speaker 3: you're in either spot, figure it out. You know they're there.
Speaker 3: You've been doing some of the foundational work to get
Speaker 3: yourself in a good spot. When mother nature throws you
Speaker 3: a little curveball like that, it's like, Okay, what do
Speaker 3: we do? How do we figure this out? Instead of
Speaker 3: just making up a reason or just saying, well, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna come back when it's the rud or the pre
Speaker 3: rud or whatever. I'm like, no, you got to go
Speaker 3: now and work through that stuff. That's that's like the
Speaker 3: beauty of deer hunting. That's why white tails are so fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, well, it's a question, how would
Speaker 2: you in a situation like that then, like where does
Speaker 2: your when you're set back to square one to a degree,
Speaker 2: how if it all, will cameras be involved in your
Speaker 2: re scouting of it, knowing that you know, we're trying
Speaker 2: to avoid the temptation to be overly dependent on them,
Speaker 2: which I think is you know, I'm gonna go on
Speaker 2: a brief tangent here, So remember that question, Tony. But
Speaker 2: I feel like if you listen, especially the last year
Speaker 2: or two years, as sell camera have become ubiquitous, like
Speaker 2: just everyone has him now You've just you hear now
Speaker 2: so so so so so many of the stories you
Speaker 2: hear are well, I waited until he showed up on
Speaker 2: my cell cam. He came in that day, and then
Speaker 2: I went after him a hunted him. And you know,
Speaker 2: either you saw him or he didn't, or he killed
Speaker 2: him or you didn't. But there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: doing that now, and I think, without a doubt, like
Speaker 2: these cameras are great tools, but it's so important to
Speaker 2: remember that they are this tiny little snapshot of a much, much, much,
Speaker 2: much much big, bigger picture. So again the puzzle analogy,
Speaker 2: a cell camera gives you one single piece of the
Speaker 2: thousand piece puzzle. If your entire hunting strategy is based
Speaker 2: on whether or not that single puzzle or single piece
Speaker 2: in the thousand piece puzzle is flashing on that given
Speaker 2: day and saying hey, I'm here, you are missing so
Speaker 2: so so much. And I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people that are being tempted to believe that that's all
Speaker 2: you need to know is put a sweet little cell
Speaker 2: camera out in a cool little spot and wait till
Speaker 2: it gives you that ping. And I think, while sometimes
Speaker 2: I know there are stories of that being successful, but
Speaker 2: if that is your thing going into the season, you
Speaker 2: are going to be hitting a hard wall many, many,
Speaker 2: many times and missing a lot.
Speaker 3: Yep. I mean, sure, you know, I look at them.
Speaker 3: I'm actually a little more excited for trail cameras this
Speaker 3: year than I usually am, at least over there, because
Speaker 3: I don't know how those deer are getting through that stuff,
Speaker 3: but I know they are. And so even even just
Speaker 3: what I saw when we were when we were trout
Speaker 3: fishing that spot before we turned around and went to
Speaker 3: a different spot, the difference between the trees that were
Speaker 3: big enough to weather that winter and not become this
Speaker 3: tangled jungle is tangible. And so you used to have,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, thousands of acres of that it's
Speaker 3: big woods, and now you have these these areas that
Speaker 3: are just so gnarly. They'll function as a betting area,
Speaker 3: maybe some browse or whatever, but those deer are probably
Speaker 3: going to be traveling through a certain type of woods
Speaker 3: more and at least I suspect that. So I'm going
Speaker 3: to run some cameras and find out and if I
Speaker 3: get you know, between now and whenever I get a
Speaker 3: chance to go over there and hunt, if I get
Speaker 3: some confirmation of that. It's not necessarily like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: I've gotten pictures of this buck going through here once
Speaker 3: a week for six weeks, I'm going to go hunt him.
Speaker 3: It's just a clue into how they're using that terrain,
Speaker 3: and I think that's just important. But it's again, it's
Speaker 3: just this complimentary piece of the bigger puzzle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent agree. And I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, hunting this new property, it's gonna be the
Speaker 2: same thing for me. I'm going to go out there
Speaker 2: in the summer and put up some cameras, but it's
Speaker 2: going to be simply to you know, I'm gonna place cameras.
Speaker 2: This will probably August when I'm doing this. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be putting up cameras in places, you know, to
Speaker 2: get me in season information. But I'm not going to
Speaker 2: be getting a picture in August and then thinking, oh man,
Speaker 2: this bucks showed up five days in a row in
Speaker 2: this spot, and then think I'm gonna go there and
Speaker 2: kill them on October fifth or whatever. I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: in there simply trying to confirm, like what's around, What
Speaker 2: are some general ideas I can get about, maybe a
Speaker 2: trend or maybe just how dear use certain areas. But
Speaker 2: I'm going to be depending on that as just like
Speaker 2: a very small piece of the larger picture that then
Speaker 2: I'll have to figure out based on what I learned
Speaker 2: in those first couple of days of summer scouting, but
Speaker 2: then really learning a lot on the go, you know,
Speaker 2: hunting that's going to be scouting my way into whatever
Speaker 2: I'm hunting.
Speaker 1: On every given day.
Speaker 2: It's going to be basically every hunt will be a
Speaker 2: scouting session and probably doing some you know, begin a
Speaker 2: little exterior, observe, adjust, observe, adjust, and slowly learn my
Speaker 2: way as I go scouting with a bow in my hand,
Speaker 2: and then every once in a while getting those camera
Speaker 2: pictures that will then give me a little bit of
Speaker 2: color that I think camera if you look at those
Speaker 2: pictures as like adding color to you know, it's like
Speaker 2: you're reading a book and then there's a color photo
Speaker 2: in there. It's pretty nice, but it doesn't tell you
Speaker 2: the whole story. You gotta read what's on the pages there.
Speaker 2: And so I will appreciate the color photography throughout the
Speaker 2: book to illustrate things a little bit more, to add
Speaker 2: a little bit more flavor to what I'm you know
Speaker 2: how I'm interpreting things. But give me the text and
Speaker 2: I'm going to be getting that, you know, every day
Speaker 2: when I'm out there. It's going to be getting on
Speaker 2: the road and glassing with the spotting scope as many
Speaker 2: evenings as I can. If there's any kind of opening
Speaker 2: I can see, or if there's like a neighboring field
Speaker 2: where I can see down to a CRP patch, or
Speaker 2: if I can, you know, if there's a bean field
Speaker 2: in August, I'll be checking that out, just to know,
Speaker 2: like what's out here, what's the deer density at this
Speaker 2: point of the year, what does the age structure look
Speaker 2: like at this time of the year. Knowing that that,
Speaker 2: you know, some of that's going to change, but some
Speaker 2: of that will give you a big picture idea of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this area has a ton of and very few older
Speaker 2: bucks that might you know, sort of translate at least
Speaker 2: gives me a starting point of how to think about
Speaker 2: things as I get into the season. So long distance observation,
Speaker 2: it's going to be scouting on foot, it's going to
Speaker 2: be observing from the stand. It's going to be you know,
Speaker 2: as much as I possibly can make it be, you know,
Speaker 2: similar to the Andy May model or the Jesse Coots model,
Speaker 2: or the Justin Wright model, the ted it's the scout
Speaker 2: more hunt less, hunt smarter, not you know, beat him
Speaker 2: over the head with time on stand.
Speaker 3: Can I say something about that too, because when you
Speaker 3: were talking about that, it reminded me of I don't
Speaker 3: I actually don't remember if Andy, Andy and I had
Speaker 3: this conversation on the podcast or we had it in
Speaker 3: the many many hours we spent in my boat trying
Speaker 3: to catch some bass. But Andy talks about woodsmanship all
Speaker 3: the time, and you and I have talked about this
Speaker 3: a lot, and that's like a I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: sort of a blanket term that really doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: much to a lot of people, because you know, when
Speaker 3: we talk about you know, Okay, I'm in a long
Speaker 3: distance glass, I'm gonna run cameras and I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: in there and I'm gonna ground truth this stuff, it
Speaker 3: sounds like a complete plan to figure out what the
Speaker 3: deer do, right, And so it's like, is that woodsmanship
Speaker 3: kinda But one of the things when you think about
Speaker 3: the example with Ted, you know, those guys had that
Speaker 3: Bachelor group dialed in. It disappeared, but they knew where
Speaker 3: there were some oak trees that those deer might have
Speaker 3: moved to. That's so important And I know it seems dumb,
Speaker 3: but they didn't panic when they lost those deer. They
Speaker 3: just said, what's the likely culprit for pulling these deer away?
Speaker 3: And the more time that you spent in the woods, like.
Speaker 3: We had this experience just just recently when we were
Speaker 3: over there in Wisconsin. We were actually driving back from
Speaker 3: this spot we were fishing, and it's I don't hunt
Speaker 3: this place. This is a private place, but it's really
Speaker 3: close to this huge chunk of public land that I
Speaker 3: do hunt. And we're just driving by and I saw
Speaker 3: this dough off the road, so we pulled over to
Speaker 3: look at her, and I was shooting a few photos
Speaker 3: of her, and she was just munching away on this bush.
Speaker 3: And as I zoomed in with my camera, I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 3: she's eating raspberries. And I've never seen like in my life,
Speaker 3: I've never watched a deer walk up to ripe raspberries
Speaker 3: and just eat the crap out of them. And I
Speaker 3: was like, I actually wrote about this for Foundations. It's
Speaker 3: coming up here. I'm like, just spending more time out
Speaker 3: there exposes you to things like that. We actually saw
Speaker 3: three tom turkeys eating on the same raspberry bush, which
Speaker 3: is fascinating to me. But when you think about it,
Speaker 3: you know, I've been hunting white till since I was twelve.
Speaker 3: If you just said, hey, Tony, do you think deer
Speaker 3: eat raspberries? I'd be like, I don't know, probably it
Speaker 3: seems like something they would do, but I'd never actually
Speaker 3: observed it. And then now I'm thinking I've had times,
Speaker 3: especially in states where the opener is in like September,
Speaker 3: where I'll be walking down the trail over there and
Speaker 3: I'll see raspberries or blackberries or some kind of berry
Speaker 3: and just assume that it was bears eating them. You know,
Speaker 3: sometimes you can tell it was bears or whatever. But
Speaker 3: I'm like, I've never considered a berry as any kind
Speaker 3: of white tail draw in my life, and it maybe
Speaker 3: really doesn't play into the season that much, but for
Speaker 3: scouting it might. And it was just one of those
Speaker 3: little moments where I was like, I just have so
Speaker 3: much left to learn, Like there's so much that I
Speaker 3: don't know about their life. And I think that when
Speaker 3: you look at scouting the way we've been talking about it,
Speaker 3: you learn those things like, yes, deer on this property
Speaker 3: use this ridge to go from point A to B,
Speaker 3: or deer on this property like to bed in this
Speaker 3: CRP because it's a badass spot to bed. But there's
Speaker 3: so much more out there to learn, and the more
Speaker 3: time you spend deserving in person and walking through and
Speaker 3: running those cameras, the more you just figure out like
Speaker 3: what their daily lives are like. And I think that's
Speaker 3: so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and man, this is gonna be for people that
Speaker 2: have listened to the podcast for a long time. They're
Speaker 2: going to roll their eyes because they've heard both of
Speaker 2: us say this like two hundred times.
Speaker 1: But it's just so true. And it's the fact that.
Speaker 2: This this I think this woodsmanship ability. I think one
Speaker 2: way to think about it is kind of like getting
Speaker 2: a new pair of glasses, is the way at least
Speaker 2: it's been for me. So like when I first started,
Speaker 2: like a deer hunter, I've deer heard sounds, little kid,
Speaker 2: but I you know, followed kind of a family program
Speaker 2: that was like very very very basic, and for you know,
Speaker 2: a long time, that's all I ever knew.
Speaker 1: And so I was like walking through the woods wearing like.
Speaker 2: The blurriest, fuzziest, creuddiest cheap gas station glasses you could
Speaker 2: ever get. I could see the basic things, like I
Speaker 2: knew enough basics to know this is a deer trail.
Speaker 2: I could see a deer trail. I knew what a
Speaker 2: rub was. I knew a rub was rub equals good
Speaker 2: and so I could see a couple things like that,
Speaker 2: but I just I didn't have enough context and experience,
Speaker 2: having seen a bunch of different places, having seen a
Speaker 2: bunch of deer, having been able to confirm what deer
Speaker 2: do in real life, I didn't have enough to actually
Speaker 2: even consume, like all this stuff was around me, but
Speaker 2: I couldn't even really see it because I was just
Speaker 2: focused on the only thing I could focus on, where
Speaker 2: the rubs and the trails and these basic things. And
Speaker 2: then you know, I learned a little bit more and
Speaker 2: I started getting a lot more serious about it. And
Speaker 2: then all of a suddenly I got a little bit
Speaker 2: better prescription glasses. And then when I was out there
Speaker 2: in the woods, like all of a suddenly, I was noticing, oh,
Speaker 2: that's an oak tree, and that means there could be
Speaker 2: some good food here. And then I could start to know.
Speaker 2: I say, okay, these are you know, fresher tracks, so
Speaker 2: that means this was more recent. Signed that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: And then you know, let's fast forward to now, you know,
Speaker 2: fifteen years since then, now I've got I feel like
Speaker 2: super high definition, very clean your glasses, where all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, the world is a totally different world now
Speaker 2: that I'm looking at when I walk in the woods,
Speaker 2: I'm seeing all the little details. I understand all these
Speaker 2: little details. But if someone's listening today, and if they
Speaker 2: are where I was fifteen years ago, you just there's
Speaker 2: so much out there you won't even be able to
Speaker 2: pick it up without the time out there and without
Speaker 2: diversity of experience. This is the cliche thing, which is
Speaker 2: that you and I Tony always talk about the value
Speaker 2: of going to new places and like just exposing yourself
Speaker 2: to new places where you can see different deer habitat,
Speaker 2: different deer behavior, different everything. The more you do that,
Speaker 2: I think, the more the acuity and the clarity of
Speaker 2: your your woodsmanship glasses improves to the point where you
Speaker 2: can finally actually, you know, start picking up on all
Speaker 2: these little fine tuned things that when you scout do
Speaker 2: make a big difference. But fifteen years ago, I could
Speaker 2: have listened to all these very same things, and I
Speaker 2: just would have walked through the woods and like I'd
Speaker 2: be overwhelmed with just the basics. You would never be
Speaker 2: able to get to the point where you could recognize
Speaker 2: the little things that matter, because you're still trying to
Speaker 2: figure out the big picture things that matter. So this
Speaker 2: is a long witted way of saying yes to what
Speaker 2: you're saying, Tony, which is, spend lots and lots and
Speaker 2: lots of time out there just consuming as much of
Speaker 2: the real world stuff as possible, and diversify as much
Speaker 2: as possible. So go to new properties, scout new areas,
Speaker 2: go to new regions, YadA, YadA, YadA, Because all of
Speaker 2: that is the only way that I know of to
Speaker 2: actually be able to scout and understand what you're seeing
Speaker 2: in any kind of real actionable way, which is I think,
Speaker 2: how you develop this woodsmanship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and would I would take it even a step
Speaker 3: further and say, you have to be open to all
Speaker 3: kinds like learning about all kinds of stuff. And so
Speaker 3: when I talk about like that raspberry example, I probably
Speaker 3: will never kill a deer on a raspberry pattern, like
Speaker 3: I just probably never gonna have I don't think it
Speaker 3: was interesting, But it also put me in a spot
Speaker 3: where I found some apple trees that were absolutely loaded
Speaker 3: with half grown apples, and that might come into play
Speaker 3: at some point. But it's also just a reminder to me,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I pointed this out to my little
Speaker 3: girls when we were we were in a spot in
Speaker 3: the woods. We just hit this spot where there were
Speaker 3: there was so much browse, like you could see that
Speaker 3: there's just tops were nipped off all over. And the
Speaker 3: more that you find stuff like that, the more it
Speaker 3: just like picture curiosity a little bit and you're like,
Speaker 3: what is what is this plant? And why are they
Speaker 3: eating it? And I think that feeds everything. Like you
Speaker 3: you talked about a you know, like oh, a ditch
Speaker 3: crossing or something earlier in this conversation. You know, one
Speaker 3: of the things I think about with stuff like that
Speaker 3: is we think about scouting and you go out and
Speaker 3: you're like, I'm gonna walk this river and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: find a good crossing and i'm gonna set up a
Speaker 3: stand on there. I'm gonna kill one or I'm going
Speaker 3: to walk that ditch and I'm going to find where
Speaker 3: they cross it. Now, how often do you do that?
Speaker 3: Or how often have you done that? Set up? And
Speaker 3: You're like, I am on a pounded crossing. They are
Speaker 3: all going to come through here, and what happens is
Speaker 3: a spike in you know, three dos walk through there
Speaker 3: and then the two big ones cross at a secondary crossing.
Speaker 3: You know, sixty yards downwin and bust you Yeah, and
Speaker 3: you could have walked to that. You could have just said,
Speaker 3: you know, this spot looks real good, but just in case,
Speaker 3: I'm going to check the rest of it out. And
Speaker 3: maybe you walk, you know, fifty sixty yards down there
Speaker 3: and you find another trail that has way bigger tracks
Speaker 3: in it, and you go, Okay, here's way more information.
Speaker 3: And then instead of just thinking the job is good
Speaker 3: enough because you've found what you think you're supposed to find.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's even more relevant, but also tricky.
Speaker 2: If this is an in season scouting situation, you know,
Speaker 2: where you are hunting a new place and you're learning
Speaker 2: it as you go, and then you're scouting along, you know,
Speaker 2: and then you find the spot and you're like, man,
Speaker 2: this looks pretty good. So there's the temptation of Okay,
Speaker 2: this looks great. If I go any further, you might
Speaker 2: blow it up. But at the same time, am I
Speaker 2: settling if I go further and then it's not as
Speaker 2: good that I did. I just then leave my scent everywhere,
Speaker 2: and then I got to go back to where I
Speaker 2: was and settle there. I mean, all of that is
Speaker 2: like the constant constant mental gymnastics. We have to navigate
Speaker 2: while trying to figure this out when you're actually trying
Speaker 2: to kill something at the same time too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and I mean that kind of leads back
Speaker 3: to you know, Ted's story about killing that buck, the
Speaker 3: way they did, the way that they moved in. I
Speaker 3: guess it's not the one that you're talking about. He
Speaker 3: talked about one that was in a using a little
Speaker 3: wooded draw on a small walk in property and how
Speaker 3: they kind of, you know, work their way in until
Speaker 3: they observe, Like man, every buck that comes through seems
Speaker 3: to go right through the middle of this little shoot
Speaker 3: of timber. And I think about that stuff so much because,
Speaker 3: you know, he kind of just glossed it over because
Speaker 3: that's what those guys do, is they just observe, move, observe, move,
Speaker 3: and kill. But it's so important. And there's like two
Speaker 3: lessons there, like you don't you know, like you said
Speaker 3: in in season scouting trip, like yeah, you want to
Speaker 3: be careful. You don't want to stomp all over there,
Speaker 3: so you might you might not get that crossing right,
Speaker 3: like you might just say I'm not pushing this any
Speaker 3: further and I'm gonna sit here and who knows right?
Speaker 3: But which which is a safe way to do it?
Speaker 3: And sometimes you're just gonna make mistakes and who cares?
Speaker 3: But it's it's like a good mindset to get into.
Speaker 3: But the other part of it that with like Ted's example,
Speaker 3: was they had something that was very limited that the
Speaker 3: deer wanted to use, which was cover. And I keep
Speaker 3: thinking about this with my scouting where like you know,
Speaker 3: he's talking walking stuff in Iowa, So trees are king right,
Speaker 3: Like they got food everywhere, They've got water in a
Speaker 3: lot of spots. What they don't have in many areas
Speaker 3: Iowa's cover. So that's real important to manage your presence there.
Speaker 3: You focus on that rarity, you move in, you're real careful,
Speaker 3: you handle it with kid gloves. Now you think about
Speaker 3: you know, like where I've been scouting in northern Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: there's no shortage of cover. It's freaking everywhere. So that's
Speaker 3: not rare. It doesn't matter. So what is rare not water,
Speaker 3: So it's like some certain kinds of food and some
Speaker 3: elevation and you just look at it and go, Okay,
Speaker 3: Now when I'm scouting, yeah, I want to be better
Speaker 3: at woodsmanship. I want to find this spot in this
Speaker 3: crossing and whatever, but also just thinking like what what
Speaker 3: is a limited factor here that deer really gonna like,
Speaker 3: you know, and you and I have both hunted places
Speaker 3: where that might be water and that dumbs the things
Speaker 3: down a lot. But also, you know, Andy talked about this,
Speaker 3: Clint talked about this, Adam talked about this, like how
Speaker 3: does it play into each part of the season, you know,
Speaker 3: like because you're not only hunting the rut, or most
Speaker 3: of us aren't. So if something's rare, you know, if
Speaker 3: I'm out there in July or August and I'm like,
Speaker 3: this thing's real rare, maybe I can use it, you know,
Speaker 3: like timber cover is not going to change. Water might
Speaker 3: not change it. Might food will change a lot, But
Speaker 3: what is it going to mean for me if I
Speaker 3: have an October one opener versus you know, being out
Speaker 3: there on Halloween or being out there in the late
Speaker 3: season and thinking through the stuff you find through the
Speaker 3: scope of an entire season, you know, like that puts you, again,
Speaker 3: like on such a good foundation, even if you do
Speaker 3: plan to go mobile and in season scout a whole bunch.
Speaker 3: The more you think about that and the more you
Speaker 3: work to that kind of season long plan and those
Speaker 3: those rare features out there that deer want to they're
Speaker 3: gonna need. Man, when that stuff starts to come together,
Speaker 3: like you, you find yourself having a lot fewer sits where.
Speaker 2: You Yeah, So what what if any other major takeaways
Speaker 2: did you have coming out of this month that we
Speaker 2: haven't covered yet? Is there any other major thing that
Speaker 2: you feel like needs to be hit on again to
Speaker 2: make sure that everyone kind of captured those key points.
Speaker 3: I think you got to learn to, if not love it,
Speaker 3: at least really like it, like when you when you
Speaker 3: talk to Andy, you talk to some of these guys,
Speaker 3: they even though the scouting thing in the summer can
Speaker 3: really suck, like you're gonna I mean, you're gonna get
Speaker 3: stung by bees. Eventually you're gonna be hot and sweaty
Speaker 3: and it's gonna be nasty. And you know, if you
Speaker 3: ask my daughter, you're gonna get you know, you're gonna
Speaker 3: hit stinging needles, not nettles, Like you're gonna have shitty
Speaker 3: stuff out there, but that find that information, you know,
Speaker 3: even jumping that buck out of that little swale or something,
Speaker 3: it's always worth it. And so you got to learn.
Speaker 3: You know, like you're a runner, you've been running some
Speaker 3: half marathons, like everybody, I'm sure you have this conversation
Speaker 3: ten times a month where people are like, I hate running.
Speaker 3: I can't do it. It's like nobody likes running like
Speaker 3: I mean, we like how it makes us feel, right,
Speaker 3: but you know, there are very few people are like
Speaker 3: I just love the process of running, like I feel
Speaker 3: so it's so fun to run. You're like, no, Like,
Speaker 3: that's not it's not what it's about. It's about like
Speaker 3: the reward, it's like the result. Like it's a good
Speaker 3: positive thing to do. And if you learn to tolerate it,
Speaker 3: or you learn to like not hate it, it eventually
Speaker 3: becomes a pretty good lifestyle choice. And I think with scouting,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of like the all day sits like
Speaker 3: people talk a big game, but it's not that easy
Speaker 3: right off the bat to just love that process. But
Speaker 3: if you can learn to get to a point, and
Speaker 3: this is why, right at the beginning, I said, like, man,
Speaker 3: if you can take a little bite sized chunks of
Speaker 3: this stuff versus you know, one eight hour stand hanging
Speaker 3: marathon or whatever every three months, the whole process is
Speaker 3: way way better. And you just you learn to just
Speaker 3: love it more. And I think that when I talk
Speaker 3: to all those guys, I think one of the takeaways
Speaker 3: was just like get to a place where you at
Speaker 3: least like it, like it's it's so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's another cliche, but you know, and this can
Speaker 2: be applied to a lot of different aspects of hunting.
Speaker 2: You can apply this to you know, some people can
Speaker 2: replace some of this scouting with habitat work or those
Speaker 2: kinds of things. But you know, the cliche idea that
Speaker 2: you kill your deer in the off season and you
Speaker 2: shoot them in the fall, and you could also say
Speaker 2: you kill your deer you know on well this is
Speaker 2: that would be eliminated in season, Scott. What I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say, scouting kills deer shooting when you're actually in
Speaker 2: the tree stand, that's very a relatively small part of
Speaker 2: the hunt, right. It's it's really the work done in
Speaker 2: the off season, in the spring, in the winter, in
Speaker 2: the summer, and on the days when you're not in
Speaker 2: the tree stand, when you're actually on the ground walking
Speaker 2: or glassing all of that stuff. It's so much of
Speaker 2: deer hunting is done ahead of the moment when you're
Speaker 2: in the tree stand versus like elk hunting or meal
Speaker 2: deer hunting, where like the hunt is happening right now,
Speaker 2: and so much of is the decision you make next
Speaker 2: based off of what the deer did just now. But
Speaker 2: you know, white tail hunting world at least ambush hunting
Speaker 2: the way we're talking about right now, So much of
Speaker 2: it is putting this whole puzzle together ahead of time,
Speaker 2: leading you to the one final piece that you then
Speaker 2: place on October first or November fifth or whatever. But
Speaker 2: you can't get to that point unless there's been all
Speaker 2: of this other stuff leading up to it. And it's
Speaker 2: very worthy of a full month of discussion, if not
Speaker 2: much more.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, buddy.
Speaker 2: So do you want me to keep you up to
Speaker 2: speed on the new property scouting and learning or will
Speaker 2: it be too bitter of a pill to swallow and
Speaker 2: you'll be bitter and jealous and you'd rather me just
Speaker 2: keep it all under wraps.
Speaker 3: Listen, I'm very used to you having this kind of
Speaker 3: sesame street life where everything's amazing and you're just this
Speaker 3: muppet with a big smile on your face, So you
Speaker 3: can I'm okay with it if you want to keep
Speaker 3: me posted on this beautiful new property that you got
Speaker 3: just because you're best friends with Steve Verneller or whatever.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 2: Well, it might also be a total clunker. I might
Speaker 2: go out there and it be like overrun with trespassers
Speaker 2: and you know, stolen trail cameras and all sorts of craziness.
Speaker 2: So it might actually be a lot of fun for
Speaker 2: you to follow a long dude.
Speaker 3: Everyone's in a while that happens, and it sucks so much.
Speaker 2: You just never know, And that's part of the fun
Speaker 2: of the new places that you just could be anything.
Speaker 2: So I will despite the sesame street dig I'm gonna
Speaker 2: keep on sharing the story with you, hey, and we'll
Speaker 2: see if I can figure it out.
Speaker 3: Speaking of Diggs, one thing that I've been seething about
Speaker 3: since you said it at the beginning of this podcast
Speaker 3: was metrout fishing with an ugly stick.
Speaker 1: Do you like that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I would probably be able to retire tomorrow
Speaker 3: if I had bought ugly sticks instead of the fishing
Speaker 3: rods that I've been buying my entire life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you and me both, man, They're a much better
Speaker 2: deal when it comes to pennies in the piggy bank
Speaker 2: at least. Oh okay, is there any other final thing
Speaker 2: you want to cover off on or are we good
Speaker 2: to wrap this up and move into August?
Speaker 3: Man, I think we're good. I think we've covered it
Speaker 3: pretty heavy.
Speaker 2: All right, buddy, Well, thank you for manning the Mothership
Speaker 2: and leading us into hunting season full blown crazy prep
Speaker 2: mode here with a really good foundation of new scouting
Speaker 2: ideas or reminders. And this coming month, as we lead
Speaker 2: into the openers that many of this will experience in September,
Speaker 2: we're going to kick off with another one of my
Speaker 2: series of the what would you Do? Themed episodes? So
Speaker 2: I think you recall these, Tony, I think you were
Speaker 2: a guest on one of them.
Speaker 3: I absolutely was.
Speaker 2: Presenting a series of folks with like very specific hypothetical
Speaker 2: situations and then asking them, you know, what would you do?
Speaker 2: How would you approach this? What would be your thought process?
Speaker 2: Walk me through all that? And these end up being
Speaker 2: some of my favorites every year. So we're going to
Speaker 2: get some new folks on, some new guests and really
Speaker 2: digging deep on you know how they would tackle some
Speaker 2: tough hunting situations and hopefully give us some new ideas
Speaker 2: for this coming.
Speaker 1: Season because it is going to be here soon.
Speaker 2: I can't believe it, but we are staring down like
Speaker 2: weeks until opening day for some states.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: I love it. I guess.
Speaker 2: With that, ill said Tony, let's wrap her up. Thank
Speaker 2: you everyone for tuning in. Appreciate you listening. As I
Speaker 2: managed at the top, there's those new products over all,
Speaker 2: first light dot Com, the new source vests, the Origin pant,
Speaker 2: and the trigger flip Mitt highly recommend him worth giving
Speaker 2: a little time on the website there. And with all
Speaker 2: that out of the way, good luck out there in
Speaker 2: the wood scouting. Hope you're shooting, Hope you're having fun.
Speaker 2: And until next time, stay wired to Hunt.