Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I am joined by whitetail hunting coach and
Speaker 2: Habitat consultant Thomas Milsna to discuss how he uses the
Speaker 2: scientific method to kill big bucks. All right, welcome back
Speaker 2: to another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light and their Camel for Conservation
Speaker 2: initiative and the brand new line of whitetail hunting kits
Speaker 2: that just came out earlier this year. And today we've
Speaker 2: got a great episode of very interesting episode. If you
Speaker 2: are the kind of guy or girl who likes to
Speaker 2: get into the nitty gritty, if you are a detail
Speaker 2: oriented hunter, if you care about the little things, about
Speaker 2: getting a little bit better every single day, this is
Speaker 2: a conversation you will not want to miss. My guest
Speaker 2: today is Thomas Milsna. He was on the show earlier
Speaker 2: this spring during our Habitat series. Just like our guests
Speaker 2: last week. He came on for a Habitat podcast in
Speaker 2: the past. Well, Thomas came on for a Habitat podcast
Speaker 2: this past spring, but I knew we had to get
Speaker 2: him back on the show to dive into the hunting
Speaker 2: side of things, because he's got a very interesting approach
Speaker 2: to doing things. As Bobby was last week. He is
Speaker 2: very analytical, very thoughtful about how he does things, why
Speaker 2: he does things. The approach he takes to hunting is
Speaker 2: not something that happens by accident. It is something that
Speaker 2: happens because of careful decisions, data analysis, you know, thinking
Speaker 2: through the stuff that we learn as deer hunters, observations,
Speaker 2: camera photos, weather factors, historical patterns, time of the year,
Speaker 2: all of these different moving pieces. Thomas does a really
Speaker 2: good job of tracking them, studying them, and learning from them.
Speaker 2: And he likes to think about this the kind of
Speaker 2: with the language and the kind of structure I guess
Speaker 2: of the scientific method, the way that scientists go about
Speaker 2: researching and studying and then developing theories around different things
Speaker 2: in the world, whether it's physics, the natural world, whatever,
Speaker 2: you know. He is taking that same approach and applying
Speaker 2: it to deer hunting. It's very interesting. It's right up
Speaker 2: my alley. If you've been listening to this podcast, you
Speaker 2: are probably into the same kinds of things. Thomas is
Speaker 2: a you know, a dedicated, very successful deer hunter up
Speaker 2: there in Wisconsin. He worked for a decade for a
Speaker 2: trail camera company doing research and prototyping and helping develop
Speaker 2: products on that side. He has a wildlife biology background,
Speaker 2: and now he is a white tail hunting coach and
Speaker 2: a habitat consultant and works with folks all over the
Speaker 2: country to build better wildlife habitat and specifically to build
Speaker 2: better deer hunters. So that's exactly the kind of person
Speaker 2: we want to talk to you today. As we are
Speaker 2: here as I speak in October, with the best part
Speaker 2: of the hunting season right ahead of us. It's very exciting.
Speaker 2: So today Thomas is going to break down how he
Speaker 2: uses the scientific method, how he tracks deer observations and
Speaker 2: photos and behavior, How he tracks things like his food plots,
Speaker 2: his food sources, how deer are using them. He tracks pressure.
Speaker 2: He does something called a pressure audit. We discuss that,
Speaker 2: We discuss his thoughts on timing, so all the many
Speaker 2: different variables that maybe influence deer movement. Which of those
Speaker 2: does he care about? Which of those does maybe he
Speaker 2: not care about as much. We discuss a lot about
Speaker 2: tuition versus analysis. We get into some specific ideas that
Speaker 2: should help you here in October or in November, discussing
Speaker 2: stand site, you know, strategy, how to pick where a hunt,
Speaker 2: how to choose when to hunt, how to understand a
Speaker 2: deer's pattern, and a lot around making better decisions as
Speaker 2: a deer hunter. So that's what's in store today. It's
Speaker 2: a good one. You are going to learn something today
Speaker 2: that will help I can guarantee that. So let's just quit. Uh,
Speaker 2: let's let I'm gonna stop all at my head. I
Speaker 2: guess I'm want to say. Let's get to this conversation
Speaker 2: with Thomas. I hope you enjoy this, and here we go.
Speaker 2: Let's get into the episode. All right here with me
Speaker 2: back on the show is Thomas Mills. And Thomas, welcome
Speaker 2: back to the show.
Speaker 3: Mark, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you making time. This is a crazy time
Speaker 2: of year for a lot of us, and I know
Speaker 2: you just came off of a war, so thank you
Speaker 2: for being here. And I'm excited about this one because
Speaker 2: We had a really great chat this spring, but it
Speaker 2: was just habitat kind of land management philosophy, really good stuff,
Speaker 2: but I knew there was this whole other half of
Speaker 2: what you do that we didn't get to touch on
Speaker 2: at all. And I kind of noted back then like
Speaker 2: you got to get Thomas back on someday, and I
Speaker 2: just figure, why not do it sooner than later. So
Speaker 2: here we are hunting seasons on and the plan for today,
Speaker 2: Thomas is just to get deep into the weeds of
Speaker 2: how you approach deer hunting because something about you, I
Speaker 2: guess it's consistent with a lot of the best deer
Speaker 2: hunters that I really appreciate and that I learned from
Speaker 2: the most, at least, are those who are very analytical,
Speaker 2: those who are very detail oriented. You know, There's some
Speaker 2: deer hunters who kind of go by feel and it
Speaker 2: just just have like an intuition and their experience points
Speaker 2: them in the right direction, and they're very successful despite
Speaker 2: that or with that. But I have a harder time
Speaker 2: learning from that person because so much of what they
Speaker 2: do they can't quite describe. They just know to do it.
Speaker 2: But then there's other people who do things very thoughtfully
Speaker 2: who have very clear analytical reasons behind their actions, and
Speaker 2: you're one of those people. Mark Drury is one of
Speaker 2: those people. The guy we just talk to not too
Speaker 2: long ago. Bobby Kendall's like that. I really enjoyed diving
Speaker 2: into those people's approaches because I think they're you can
Speaker 2: translate that to action for other people. So it's a
Speaker 2: very long winded way of fluffing you up and getting
Speaker 2: you ready for this one time. But uh, you killed
Speaker 2: the buck recently, so maybe that's a good place to start. Huh.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I want to back up first, because I
Speaker 3: think you hit the nail right on the head right.
Speaker 3: I forever was one of those people that hunted with intuition.
Speaker 3: Right when I went full time consulting and coaching White
Speaker 3: Tail Coaching, then I had to kind of dial back
Speaker 3: and be like, how do I explain this to other
Speaker 3: people so that it makes sense to them and ultimately
Speaker 3: help them build that intuition Because I think innately we
Speaker 3: all have that intuition somewhere in there. But I also
Speaker 3: think that it's also easy to get distracted by, you know,
Speaker 3: things that you hear you know, you listen to there's
Speaker 3: a lot of great podcasts out there, obviously yours being
Speaker 3: one of them, and you might listen to that and
Speaker 3: think that you need to apply that to your specific
Speaker 3: situation where maybe it's not applicable, right, and you can
Speaker 3: get distracted by that, or you know, the latest gear
Speaker 3: trends on the market. Oh, I need that that's going
Speaker 3: to help me solve this problem or that problem, And
Speaker 3: it very well might, but at the same time it
Speaker 3: might just distract you, you know, be this other shiny object.
Speaker 3: So when I started consulting, I really really took the
Speaker 3: time to dig into every situation I was in, every
Speaker 3: experience that I had, and kind of reverse engineer it
Speaker 3: and figure out how I put myself in that position.
Speaker 3: And that's what helped me formulate this approach that I
Speaker 3: take now working with other clients and on my own too.
Speaker 3: So the buck that I recently killed, I applied to
Speaker 3: all the same tactics, right, and I don't have like
Speaker 3: a very specific strategy so to speak. You know, some
Speaker 3: guys are real geared towards food plots or you know,
Speaker 3: creating specified movements on their property, which we do that
Speaker 3: on client properties. When they're in a situation where they
Speaker 3: can manipulate habitat, or they have the budget or just
Speaker 3: the property itself where they can make these changes. My
Speaker 3: hunting situation, my personal hunting situation, I share a rather
Speaker 3: large farm. It's about a fifteen hundred acre dairy farm,
Speaker 3: about four hundred acres of its huntable land. I share
Speaker 3: that with seventeen other hunters, mostly family members, and because
Speaker 3: it's a functional farm, that's the priority, right So I
Speaker 3: can't go to my dad who owns and operates that farm,
Speaker 3: and say, hey, I want to get rid of this field.
Speaker 3: Back here this roll crop and put it in switchgrass
Speaker 3: for better betting, because it's more convenient. You know, I'd
Speaker 3: like to place deer here, so they move deer, or
Speaker 3: they move into this area and I can access it better.
Speaker 3: That's an ideal situation, which you know, again, if you
Speaker 3: have that control, that's awesome. It's going to create more opportunities.
Speaker 3: But I've never had that control on that particular property.
Speaker 3: So my approach has kind of evolved over time, and
Speaker 3: again it's mostly just how I can explain it better
Speaker 3: these days, because I have to relate that to other
Speaker 3: client properties and get them to be able to associate
Speaker 3: the things that I do, so it's again applicable to
Speaker 3: their situation.
Speaker 2: So start to jump in here. But when you're you
Speaker 2: bring up some really interesting questions for me, because you
Speaker 2: just said that you used to be kind of that
Speaker 2: intuitive hunter, and then you had to kind of drill
Speaker 2: into your own psyche to figure out like why am
Speaker 2: I doing what I'm doing? How am I doing what
Speaker 2: I'm doing? And so now you exist in a world
Speaker 2: where you have figured out a way to explain your
Speaker 2: approach and you have kind of laid it out. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, I imagine you still have some
Speaker 2: of that intuitive stuff happening in your mind. So when
Speaker 2: you go to make a plan for the day or
Speaker 2: for the season, how much of that is actually you
Speaker 2: sitting down and looking at your planner and looking at
Speaker 2: your notes and looking at like a very much a
Speaker 2: formulaic approach. I know you have the ability to do
Speaker 2: that because you've now broke it all down. So how
Speaker 2: much of it do you actually do yourself versus go
Speaker 2: by feel? And how do you know when to go
Speaker 2: by feel versus when to follow the formula?
Speaker 3: I would say the formula takes me about the first
Speaker 3: eighty five to ninety percent, and then that last ten
Speaker 3: percent has to be by feel. And you know that
Speaker 3: intuition has to come into play at some point because
Speaker 3: there's so many variables involved and things are always changing,
Speaker 3: and that's the thing. So I employ what I refer
Speaker 3: to as a scientific approach to hunting strategy, and simply put,
Speaker 3: it's utilizing the scientific method to figure out what's going on. Right,
Speaker 3: So the scientific method, you're observing, analyzing. Then you're researching
Speaker 3: or in the hunting world referred to that as scouting, right,
Speaker 3: So we're collecting information. Then you're putting together a theory.
Speaker 3: Then you're trying to test that theory, prove or disprove
Speaker 3: the theory. And then once you've if you've proved the theory,
Speaker 3: you know, you might prove it by a trail camera okay, yes,
Speaker 3: I'm getting a picture here, now I know that's happening.
Speaker 3: Or you might prove it by actually going out and
Speaker 3: hunting or observing from a distance, you know, firsthand experience.
Speaker 3: But once you've proved that theory, if you're not actually executing,
Speaker 3: then the next step is to plan and prepare and
Speaker 3: then finally actually execute. If you just keep repeating that
Speaker 3: cycle over and over again. You can either one fine
Speaker 3: tune your property. You know, here's my theory. Oh it
Speaker 3: worked up to this point, but oh, actually that's not
Speaker 3: that good of a betting area, or my access isn't
Speaker 3: that good. So these are things I need to work
Speaker 3: on in the off season, or you have to just
Speaker 3: adjust that and you know, recalibrate essentially. But ultimately, what
Speaker 3: it comes down to is the more information that you have,
Speaker 3: the more precise that theory can be. And you know,
Speaker 3: observation is such an important factor there, which in this
Speaker 3: day and age with technology, you know, trail cameras and everything,
Speaker 3: you can collect a lot of information. But again, I
Speaker 3: think it's easy to get us distracted by a lot
Speaker 3: of the information too, and I think that's.
Speaker 2: A big part of it. Yeah, I just have to
Speaker 2: say that I love so much that you just describe
Speaker 2: the scientific method on a deer hunting podcast, because that
Speaker 2: is that's so much in line with how I approach
Speaker 2: things and so key and I think a key thing
Speaker 2: is a lot of deer hunters will just go and
Speaker 2: do a thing, and we'll do it over and over
Speaker 2: and over again, so maybe they have a theory. Sorry,
Speaker 2: a hypothesis and they they try it out, but they
Speaker 2: just keep on trying it and they're never actually paying
Speaker 2: attention to the feedback they're getting and then adjusting. And
Speaker 2: that that's such an important part is you test to
Speaker 2: your hypothesis, but then you have to listen to the feedback,
Speaker 2: either confirm or deny your hypothesis, and then launch a
Speaker 2: new experiment try again. And that is that is a
Speaker 2: huge key to ever successfully figuring out how to kill
Speaker 2: mature bucks. You just lay it out there very clearly
Speaker 2: for if somebody wants a basic formula for how to
Speaker 2: go out and just do this and get better and
Speaker 2: better and better, it's that. If you want to oversimplify,
Speaker 2: it's right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's exactly it, you know. And that's how
Speaker 3: we can apply effective hunting strategy to any situation. It's
Speaker 3: by analyzing it, right, just kind of breaking it down,
Speaker 3: what you know, what does that situation offer? What type
Speaker 3: of opportunities are there? Or you know, there's two sides
Speaker 3: of that, right, what's there for the public land guy
Speaker 3: or the permission hunting person or maybe even lease a property.
Speaker 3: You're trying to take advantage of a situation versus what's
Speaker 3: there currently and what do I want to be there?
Speaker 3: So I call it the scientific approach. Technically, it's like
Speaker 3: a pseudo scientific approach, right, because there's a couple of
Speaker 3: things there. One, it's not really a repeatable process down
Speaker 3: to a t because every situation is going to be
Speaker 3: a little bit different. Right, once you've killed that deer
Speaker 3: and it's it's new variables the next time around. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of things that come into play time and
Speaker 3: time again, right, So you learn a lot every time
Speaker 3: you start to see deer with similar personalities over the years,
Speaker 3: or following certain trends or patterns on your property, But
Speaker 3: ultimately it's a little bit different every time. The other
Speaker 3: thing too is, you know, we were not completely objective
Speaker 3: with our analysis of the situation because we do have
Speaker 3: a very specific goal. But again that works in our favor.
Speaker 3: But then when it correct correct a lot of incomplete information, yep.
Speaker 3: But then the other thing, you know is when it
Speaker 3: comes to the hypothesis or creating that theory, there's two
Speaker 3: ways to look at that too. One is what's actually
Speaker 3: happening right now? You know, again, is it a situation
Speaker 3: where you have no control or is it game time?
Speaker 3: You know, are we in season like we are now,
Speaker 3: so what are we trying to analyze that we can
Speaker 3: make happen right now? But then the other side of it,
Speaker 3: and I strongly suggest people thinking that this way too,
Speaker 3: is what do we want to happen? Because if we're
Speaker 3: looking at the current situation and we're at the same
Speaker 3: time thinking about like how we actually want this to
Speaker 3: play out, then when it comes to the postseason stuff
Speaker 3: and the habitat work or or just these little what
Speaker 3: I refer to as micro adjustments, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: are these deer all moving through this area like we hypothesize,
Speaker 3: but we can't get a shot at all of them? Okay,
Speaker 3: let's pinch this down a little bit more, create a
Speaker 3: little bit better pinch point or again, you know, access
Speaker 3: all those things that come into play. So there's two
Speaker 3: ways to approach that with you know, what's actually happening,
Speaker 3: what we want to happen. But ultimately, yes, we just
Speaker 3: work through that process and we're just trying to learn
Speaker 3: every time, every time we try to build on that
Speaker 3: a little bit more, a little bit more. So to
Speaker 3: go all the way back and answer your question on
Speaker 3: the you know, the analytical approach versus intuition. The data
Speaker 3: for me generally is what points me in that direction.
Speaker 3: And you know, for example, this buck that I just
Speaker 3: killed tagged out my second hunt, should have tagged out
Speaker 3: my first hunt of the season, but ultimately my second
Speaker 3: time out there that deer, in particular, I had the
Speaker 3: data in the past experiences from trail cameras and you know,
Speaker 3: first hand observation and hunting to know where that deer
Speaker 3: was going to be around a certain time of the year.
Speaker 3: And then what it came down to actually was the
Speaker 3: most recent trail camera information that I had, and kind
Speaker 3: of going through that data, that's where I use that planner,
Speaker 3: and I just kind of fill out when you know, time, date, location,
Speaker 3: where that buck showed up. Really try to focus on
Speaker 3: pictures obviously during daylight or close to daylight during those
Speaker 3: hunting hours. You know, pictures in the middle of the
Speaker 3: night don't often tell you a lot. They tell you
Speaker 3: the deers in the area, but not always applicable to
Speaker 3: the hunting them, right. But I go through that information
Speaker 3: and I start to drill into these four key elements,
Speaker 3: which you probably saw some of that in those the
Speaker 3: habits before Habitat video, but those four key elements really
Speaker 3: are critical in simplifying but still quantifying all these variables
Speaker 3: and and that's, you know, ultimately what we use to
Speaker 3: apply to the research side of things and then also
Speaker 3: use those to create that theory. I think it just
Speaker 3: simplifies things and it goes back to being able to
Speaker 3: explain it to people in an easier way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, so can you can you redescribe or can
Speaker 2: you can you take what you just kind of detailed
Speaker 2: there a little bit and put it into like the
Speaker 2: scientific approach kind of formula that you have, Like how
Speaker 2: you took this historical knowledge and the recent knowledge and
Speaker 2: then built a hypothesis that then you're going to test hunting.
Speaker 2: Can you describe how you did that? I think it's
Speaker 2: it's a very interesting example of how we can think
Speaker 2: about taking this scientific approach and apply it to our
Speaker 2: own hunts.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, you know again step number one, observe, analyze.
Speaker 3: We're essentially what we're trying to do there is ask
Speaker 3: the questions based on our goals, So where is that
Speaker 3: deer going to be? When do I think I have
Speaker 3: the best opportunity to kill him? And then the second
Speaker 3: step is that research, collecting information and Again, more information
Speaker 3: you have, the more precise that theory can become. So
Speaker 3: in this particular situation, I've got three years of history
Speaker 3: with this deer as a three year old. He's a
Speaker 3: real nice ten pointer. Saw him a lot while I
Speaker 3: was hunting another deer on the property. You know, obviously
Speaker 3: I passed him up at that time to let him
Speaker 3: express his potential. But that's information. Knowing where that deer
Speaker 3: was during certain times of the year, certain times of
Speaker 3: the season, all comes into play. You go up one
Speaker 3: more year, now he's a four year old. What are
Speaker 3: his patterns, where his movements taking place, and where is
Speaker 3: he at certain times of the year, And then you know,
Speaker 3: from there we start to really drill into the specifics
Speaker 3: of the situation. So on the research side of things,
Speaker 3: that's where again these four key elements come in play.
Speaker 3: And those four key elements are wind. And by wind,
Speaker 3: I mean you know air movement in general, the wind direction.
Speaker 3: Weather is a factor there, thermal air movement. But how
Speaker 3: is that air flowing and how does that affect those deer.
Speaker 3: So wind is the first one, and I would say
Speaker 3: wind is king because that dictates so much and you
Speaker 3: have no control over it, right, you have to obey
Speaker 3: what the wind's doing and work with it. The second
Speaker 3: element is pressure, and by pressure, I mean anything that
Speaker 3: causes discomfort or puts, you know, stress on deer to
Speaker 3: a level that alters their behavior, either long term or
Speaker 3: short term. I have to clarify that because I'm not
Speaker 3: talking about like barometric pressure. That's more weather related. So
Speaker 3: pressure is the second key element. The third key element
Speaker 3: is food. The food is what's going to define the
Speaker 3: movement and obviously hold animals in an area, and that
Speaker 3: alters you know, changes throughout the season as well. And
Speaker 3: then the fourth key element, which is really the glue
Speaker 3: that ties everything together, is the timing element. You know,
Speaker 3: so as hunters were try to figure out where and
Speaker 3: we're trying to figure out when, those are the biggest things.
Speaker 3: So the where is often dictated by the combination of wind, pressure,
Speaker 3: and food. And then the timing element is obviously the
Speaker 3: when factor involved there. So with this deer in particular,
Speaker 3: knowing what I knew from previous seasons and then looking
Speaker 3: at the timing element of an early season hunt, I
Speaker 3: actually didn't even expect that deer to be as consistent
Speaker 3: as he was on the property early in the season.
Speaker 3: In the years past, he'd kind of hit the food
Speaker 3: plots a little bit. But I'm competing with four hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty acres of alfalfa on this farm, and generally
Speaker 3: early in the season, alfalfa wins. You know, Alfalfa is
Speaker 3: a hugely, very very attractive, very palatable food source for deer.
Speaker 3: So it's both an advantage and a disadvantage at the
Speaker 3: same time, which is where I've really evolved to pay
Speaker 3: attention to the wind more often than anything else, and
Speaker 3: that was what I looked at, so, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of bring the story element into this scientific method. Essentially,
Speaker 3: what happened was I was out in Wyoming for ten days,
Speaker 3: came back, and then before well, you know, season already
Speaker 3: started here in Wisconsin, it starts mid September. But before
Speaker 3: I really got full on into white tail hunting mode,
Speaker 3: I still had to wrap up some client property projects
Speaker 3: excuse me, and also my own property. And one of
Speaker 3: those things was spreading cereal rye on all my food plots.
Speaker 3: So I was top of them with cereal rye. It's
Speaker 3: a good cool season cover crop, extra food source, so
Speaker 3: I'm out doing that in client properties. I ZiT by
Speaker 3: our home farm. I spread ryan all those food plots there,
Speaker 3: and while I'm there, I just pulled a couple of
Speaker 3: cards from trail cameras. I don't run a ton of
Speaker 3: cell cameras. I can't even run cell cameras in most
Speaker 3: of the spots I want to anyways, because there's no
Speaker 3: cell service. So I checked those cameras, and then I
Speaker 3: checked one camera in particular that's actually just off the
Speaker 3: access road. So this valley where I harvested this year,
Speaker 3: there's two food plots, two main food plots in this valley,
Speaker 3: and then the access road goes through the valley up
Speaker 3: to this back ridge to you know, the back ridge
Speaker 3: full of fields, egg fields, and there's one spot in
Speaker 3: particular where the deer kind of drop off one ridge
Speaker 3: and then go up on the other ridge. So I've
Speaker 3: got a camera there. It's an awesome setup for a
Speaker 3: camera because it tells me the human activity going up
Speaker 3: and down that road, but it also monitors those deer.
Speaker 3: And it's really easy to get to. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of times where I'll show up on the property and
Speaker 3: I'll just drive my truck right down there. You know,
Speaker 3: I take one step out the door, swap the card
Speaker 3: and I'm out of there, doesn't really disturbed the deer.
Speaker 3: So that camera, in combination with these two food plot cameras,
Speaker 3: painted this picture for me that this deer was in
Speaker 3: the area. And one photo in particular is what really
Speaker 3: drew me in to actually take the steps to go
Speaker 3: after this deer as early as I did, because I
Speaker 3: actually only had a few pictures of him on that
Speaker 3: food plot. And it's important to note, you know, I
Speaker 3: talk about these trail camera rules and everything, but one
Speaker 3: of my rules of trail cameras is that they only
Speaker 3: tell you what's going on twenty feet in front of them, right.
Speaker 3: My research background, we refer to that as a sampling rate.
Speaker 3: So you know, I hunted that food plot two nights
Speaker 3: before I killed that deer, and both nights I saw
Speaker 3: you know, ten fifteen deer flowing through that area. They
Speaker 3: all kind of flowed through this transition food plot and
Speaker 3: then worked their way off. And that buck included one
Speaker 3: night he was on that plot for over an hour.
Speaker 3: I never had a picture on that camera any of
Speaker 3: those nights, so it just kind of, you know, solidifies
Speaker 3: that concept of you know, not banking too much or
Speaker 3: relying too much on those trail cameras, but using them
Speaker 3: to collect information to prove or disprove theories. But the
Speaker 3: one picture in particular that really kind of triggered me
Speaker 3: to go that route was on that road, that crossing
Speaker 3: on the road between Betting areas, on these ridges, and
Speaker 3: the picture was at like twelve forty pm, I believe.
Speaker 3: So I went back and I look at the weather
Speaker 3: history data. You know, I log all these pictures. I
Speaker 3: just simply time and date.
Speaker 2: So it's start twelve forty pm, so like middle of
Speaker 2: the day, middle of the day on this ridge road.
Speaker 3: Yep, correct, correct, yep. So so I start and I
Speaker 3: just you know, as I'm going through my trail camera cards.
Speaker 3: And this is one of the reasons why I'm not
Speaker 3: a I'm not anti cell cams, but I'm not a huge,
Speaker 3: huge propolling of cell cams. I think having a few
Speaker 3: cell cams on the property it is kind of a
Speaker 3: temperature check, is great. But I think there's this big
Speaker 3: disconnect with the information you're getting from cell cameras, the
Speaker 3: way you receive that information versus going out You're putting
Speaker 3: yourself in this information collection mode and swapping a card.
Speaker 3: You know, when you're out there you're observing. Okay, is
Speaker 3: there any fresh sign around this camera? What's the brows
Speaker 3: look like on this food plot?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Wa, and they're really chewing down the food plot. You
Speaker 3: know how many times you go out check a camera
Speaker 3: and you see a row of fresh scrapes or rubs
Speaker 3: in the area, stuff like that, and then you go
Speaker 3: back and you sit down and you scroll through that
Speaker 3: card in chronological order, and it really paints this picture
Speaker 3: of what's happening in the area. You do that with
Speaker 3: two or three cameras in the area, and now you
Speaker 3: kind of get a feel like, Okay, you are kind
Speaker 3: of moving around the property doing this or doing that,
Speaker 3: versus a cell camera where more often than not, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to speak to generally, but more often
Speaker 3: than not, you get that cell cam pick oh big buck,
Speaker 3: screenshot it and that's it. Like a lot of people
Speaker 3: don't even look at the time and date. They're not
Speaker 3: even storing that information, but it just doesn't really help
Speaker 3: your brain process that information real Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm beginning to feel that same way too, as
Speaker 2: I've been looking at, you know, putting together my plans
Speaker 2: for some deer this year, and I've just been thinking
Speaker 2: about how it's a different it's different. I mean, you
Speaker 2: described it right. Instead of looking things at a big picture,
Speaker 2: you just kind of get this steady, light trickle of
Speaker 2: information that requires a little bit different kind of work
Speaker 2: to then create the effect that you described, which happens
Speaker 2: naturally when you get a dump, you know, every couple
Speaker 2: weeks or something, and you look at all of it
Speaker 2: all right now, And it's easier to log for some
Speaker 2: reason for me too, when you have to go through
Speaker 2: that card. I've had a harder time keeping track with
Speaker 2: cell cameras the way I used to when I had
Speaker 2: all my pictures actual hard copy pictures, not hard copy,
Speaker 2: but you know, I would organize them and folders on
Speaker 2: my computer, and now everything that lives in the cloud
Speaker 2: and you have to do it with tags and folders
Speaker 2: in your app, and it's different. I think you're I
Speaker 2: think you're right. I kind of want to go back
Speaker 2: to that somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, technology is great, but technology it
Speaker 3: separates us from the natural connection. Right. So I'm not
Speaker 3: here to knock trail camera companies by any means, But
Speaker 3: the more we rely on technology, the more disconnected from
Speaker 3: nature we get. And again this kind of goes back
Speaker 3: to that primitive or innate ability to to use our
Speaker 3: intuition to track dear. I mean, we're born to do
Speaker 3: those things. We're born to hunt like that. So but yeah,
Speaker 3: so I scroll through those cards and I'm logging information.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't go crazy on details. I'm just
Speaker 3: scrolling through. Okay, there's that book time date, location, time date,
Speaker 3: location time date, location, and certain pictures will really catch
Speaker 3: my eye. But a lot of times what I do
Speaker 3: is I'll just go back and then I go I
Speaker 3: use weather Underground, So I just go to Weather Underground
Speaker 3: or just just google weather history by location, and I'm
Speaker 3: specifically looking at the AM wind direction and the PM
Speaker 3: wind direction. That AM wind direction is what's going to
Speaker 3: place those deer in those betting areas. Right, So if
Speaker 3: we just think about what we know about how mature
Speaker 3: bucks like to bed, you know, it's simply put as possible,
Speaker 3: back to cover wind at their back, right, and then
Speaker 3: you know they like to have a site advantage, so
Speaker 3: a little bit elevations usually a good spot, but back
Speaker 3: to cover wind at their back. So in an area
Speaker 3: with topography or you know ungulation and topography, those topographical changes.
Speaker 3: You can a lot of times just look at the
Speaker 3: hills and the ridges and stuff and go by process
Speaker 3: of elimination. On this wind, He's probably not going to
Speaker 3: bed here, He's probably not going to bed there. He's
Speaker 3: probably not going to bed there. Because topography is the
Speaker 3: greatest form of cover there is, so as long as
Speaker 3: it provides those other survival advantages, you can really drill
Speaker 3: in on where those deer are. And then so with
Speaker 3: this particular card poll, going through those pictures and that
Speaker 3: one picture at twelve forty PM, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: some you know, something had that deer on his feet,
Speaker 3: either pressure, something bumped him, or a wind shift. So
Speaker 3: I go back and look at the weather history, and
Speaker 3: sure enough, the wind was out of one direction in
Speaker 3: the morning and it changed at like eleven forty five,
Speaker 3: and at twelve forty he moved, so he was probably
Speaker 3: relatively close, you know, And they don't get up and
Speaker 3: move instantly because that wind it bounces around a lot.
Speaker 3: So but that drove him to change his betting location.
Speaker 3: So then when it came to the actual hunt, I
Speaker 3: just started drilling in, going, okay, we have a cold
Speaker 3: front moving in, And that was really what drove it
Speaker 3: more than anything. Right, I posted that on social media,
Speaker 3: this is going to be a good hunt, and I
Speaker 3: was thinking to myself, I like, damn, I should probably
Speaker 3: get out there at hunt. Right, But in my brain,
Speaker 3: you know, back to painting this picture of how I
Speaker 3: thought my season was going to pan out. I wasn't
Speaker 3: actually anticipating pursuing this buck very much until the end
Speaker 3: of October early November. That's when he was more visible
Speaker 3: on the property. But the older of deer gets, the
Speaker 3: more predictable they are. You know, they really narrow their
Speaker 3: range and if you can pick up on where they are,
Speaker 3: they're more predictable. But then also early season, you know
Speaker 3: that timing element. Early season, if they're not messed with,
Speaker 3: which the pressure is pretty low, then they don't really
Speaker 3: change their pattern a whole lot. So looking at the wind, Okay,
Speaker 3: we've got north wind. I just started looking at the
Speaker 3: map and going, where do I think the best food
Speaker 3: sources are in this area. Well, I've got this one
Speaker 3: food plot down on this bottom that's very attractive. It's
Speaker 3: a really really good food plot, but it's really hard
Speaker 3: to hunt. In fact, I just moved I had a
Speaker 3: box blind over that food plot for like five years
Speaker 3: and I just moved it to a different location because
Speaker 3: it was an access issue. You know, there's deer on
Speaker 3: that plot almost every night according to the camera, but
Speaker 3: every time you hunt it, you don't see a deer.
Speaker 3: So that tells me the deer know you're entering that valley,
Speaker 3: they know how you're accessing that plot. This situation. This year,
Speaker 3: there's a on the other side of this access roads.
Speaker 3: This plot's literally right off this access road in the valley,
Speaker 3: on the other side of the access roads in Aggfield.
Speaker 3: And this year it's alfalfa, or excuse me, it's corn.
Speaker 3: Last year was alfalfa, so it's corn. So look at
Speaker 3: the map based on the wind direction forecasted going okay,
Speaker 3: I think on that wind, if that buck is in
Speaker 3: this valley, which it seems like he is hanging out
Speaker 3: in this valley, he's going to bed here or here,
Speaker 3: And both of them kind of fed into this food
Speaker 3: plot as a setup. So the next thing is access
Speaker 3: with that, and I'm like, well, I know I can't
Speaker 3: come down that road and I don't have a box
Speaker 3: blind there anymore to even hunt over this food plot.
Speaker 3: But with that cornfield being up, I think I can
Speaker 3: come in from the bottom of the valley and just
Speaker 3: stay in the corn the whole time. Get into location
Speaker 3: where I can see this food plot, and then I'll
Speaker 3: just make myself a little blind and sit on the
Speaker 3: ground in the cornfield. And ultimately that's what happened. And
Speaker 3: then you know the other factors involved there. When we
Speaker 3: talk about the four key elements, the second key element
Speaker 3: being pressure, and pressure is what's going to limit potential
Speaker 3: in every situation, right, is that stirring up deer. You know,
Speaker 3: if there's too much pressure, they've become less predictable at
Speaker 3: some level. Sometimes pressure can be a tool to really
Speaker 3: move dear to certain areas. But the pressure concept there
Speaker 3: or element where that deer was betted potentially betted, you know,
Speaker 3: again backing up to this just being a theory in
Speaker 3: my head, right where that deer was betting moving to food.
Speaker 3: He's either going to drop down in this valley and
Speaker 3: go to this food plot or he's going to go
Speaker 3: up on top of the hill and hit an alfalfa field. Well,
Speaker 3: with pressure in mind, they had just chopped the corn
Speaker 3: off the top of that ridge, so there's contour strips,
Speaker 3: but there's been a lot of activity up there on
Speaker 3: top of that, we're actually we're planning to start logging
Speaker 3: this chunk of woods right next to this betting area
Speaker 3: and part of that betting area. In fact, I called
Speaker 3: the logger on Tuesday morning. I killed that deer on
Speaker 3: September twenty fourth, Tuesday. I called him that morning. I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, I need one more day. It give
Speaker 3: me one more day before you go in there. I
Speaker 3: just need one And it worked out, obviously, But they
Speaker 3: were in there kind of scouting out what they were
Speaker 3: gonna do with logging, so I knew someone was in
Speaker 3: there bumping around on the top of that ridge. And
Speaker 3: when this buck was betted was kind of like second
Speaker 3: level down there's like a little a little bowl area
Speaker 3: with a elevated position, and then it drops down even
Speaker 3: further from there into kind of a swamp. Then you
Speaker 3: come back up the other side. That's where the food
Speaker 3: plot is. So all those factors at play, you know again,
Speaker 3: wind pressure and the food being the most attractive thing
Speaker 3: early in the season, and that timing element was kind
Speaker 3: of glues out all together. That's what prompted me to
Speaker 3: go in after that deer and make that move.
Speaker 2: One more question on the timing. You mentioned the cold front,
Speaker 2: and you mentioned the daylight photo in the middle of
Speaker 2: the day, but was that the only daylight activity you'd
Speaker 2: seen with cameras for him? Had everything else been at
Speaker 2: night there in that area.
Speaker 3: Yes, there were a few daytime pictures again on that
Speaker 3: road crossing so close to betting areas, and there there
Speaker 3: might have been a couple, like really close to the
Speaker 3: Donner Dusk on that food plot. But actually I only
Speaker 3: had like one or two pictures of him on that
Speaker 3: actual food plot.
Speaker 2: Okay, but again basically sorry, the photos confirmed he's in
Speaker 2: this valley, and then the timing of the cold front
Speaker 2: came coming through. Said, Okay, he's in the valley based
Speaker 2: on these photos and based on history, and now the
Speaker 2: front is a thing that I think will shift him
Speaker 2: to daylight and this is my window before pressure gets worse,
Speaker 2: Which brought you down to that specific scenario.
Speaker 3: Which, yeah, that's exactly it. That cold front is going
Speaker 3: to promote early movement, you know, not saying he wasn't
Speaker 3: already shown up there a little bit early every day
Speaker 3: because again the camera doesn't show you everything. But that's
Speaker 3: gonna increase the chances of success on that sit So
Speaker 3: you know, ultimately that comes back to the pressure element too, right,
Speaker 3: It's like, I don't want to hunt that if I
Speaker 3: think I'm going to add pressure without the opportunity of
Speaker 3: harvesting that deer, knowing that you can only get it
Speaker 3: in out of those spots so many times adding pressure
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 2: Right, So that brings up kind of the final situation
Speaker 2: because you went in there, you slipped in through the corn,
Speaker 2: you hunted your little ground blind, you made there hiding
Speaker 2: in the standing corn on the ground, and crept me
Speaker 2: from wrong. But I think you saw him the first
Speaker 2: night and you couldn't get a shot at him, how'd
Speaker 2: you manage to still get him killed, how'd you get
Speaker 2: out of there without spooking him in the other deer,
Speaker 2: and how to end up actually coming together?
Speaker 3: So you know, this was kind of an impromptu setup,
Speaker 3: but it's basically the same as what we're trying to
Speaker 3: engineer on most client properties, which is good screen to
Speaker 3: access and exit. And with the wind blowing the direction
Speaker 3: that it was that first night he came in and actually,
Speaker 3: you know, I couldn't one hundred percent confirm it was him,
Speaker 3: but I could see across the swamp into the shadows
Speaker 3: in the timber, and actually I caught my eye was
Speaker 3: there's one apple tree across the swamp and a dope
Speaker 3: popped out in the sunlight for a minute. And then
Speaker 3: when I started glassing across there, I could see in
Speaker 3: the shadows more deer and I could see antlers, So
Speaker 3: there were bucks in that. And what they basically did
Speaker 3: was they worked down that timber into this creek bottom
Speaker 3: and they got the wind at their face, and then
Speaker 3: they came up on the south end of this food plot.
Speaker 3: It was a north wind, right, so they came into
Speaker 3: the south end of this food plot that night. And
Speaker 3: actually this goes into the trail camera thing too, which
Speaker 3: is kind of a little pro tip. The first year
Speaker 3: that showed up on that food plot was this smaller buck,
Speaker 3: like a three year old nine pointer, and right away
Speaker 3: I recognized him as kind of a running mate of
Speaker 3: this this five year old buck that I was after.
Speaker 3: So right when I saw him, I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: maybe this buck's with him. And the tip there is
Speaker 3: you know, again, this camera's only tell you so much,
Speaker 3: but you might get pictures of that running made of
Speaker 3: that buck, especially early in the season, right, and it's
Speaker 3: you don't want to assume, but there's a good chance
Speaker 3: that if he's in the area, the other bucks in
Speaker 3: the area with him as well. So both those bucks
Speaker 3: entered the plot, and almost simultaneously, another small buck entered
Speaker 3: the plot from the north side, and pretty soon there's
Speaker 3: some doze in the plot. And it was kind of chaotic. Actually,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm sitting on the ground trying not to move,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, I really enjoyed taking video
Speaker 3: and taking pictures of these deer. And actually it kind
Speaker 3: of it kind of burned me because that eight pointer
Speaker 3: or nine point, excuse me, he picked out some movement
Speaker 3: in the corn and he was locked on to me
Speaker 3: as I'm trying to videotape this bigger buck, and he
Speaker 3: spooped right away, like he kind of got on alert,
Speaker 3: and he took one step towards me, and then he
Speaker 3: freaked out and took off running. But there's just enough
Speaker 3: of a knoll in this food plot, and the bigger
Speaker 3: buck was still in the south end and he was
Speaker 3: feeding heavy. And then on the north end, the smaller buck,
Speaker 3: this little basket eight, was just raking a tree along
Speaker 3: the side of the plot, and that buck when he
Speaker 3: looked up. I think he took a couple of steps forward.
Speaker 3: He looked up to kind of acknowledge what just happened,
Speaker 3: and he saw that buck making noise, and deer don't
Speaker 3: think they react right, So he's not thinking like, oh,
Speaker 3: what what spooked that deer? I should probably be on alert.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, what was that noise or what was
Speaker 3: that chaos there? Oh, it's just him. So I ended
Speaker 3: up watching my target buck for almost an hour a
Speaker 3: little actually a little over an hour, And there were
Speaker 3: many times where I almost took a shot, but there
Speaker 3: were long range shots, and I, you know, I just
Speaker 3: came from out west. I shot two animals at pretty
Speaker 3: long ranges. I shoot a lot, so I'm confident in that.
Speaker 3: But the difference between a mule deer or even an
Speaker 3: antelope and a white tail with how they react to
Speaker 3: that arrow is completely different.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Most of the time, those western animals they just watched
Speaker 3: that arrow sail until it hits them or hits the dirt.
Speaker 3: But the white tails, they're so flighty, right, So I
Speaker 3: was hesitant to take a shot, and I ultimately this
Speaker 3: buck came in. He circled around. Finally, the closest he
Speaker 3: got was forty six yards and he wasn't in one
Speaker 3: of my shooting windows, so I had this little window
Speaker 3: and I watched him forever, you know, and finally he
Speaker 3: turns kind of open up that shoulders, like, okay, I
Speaker 3: got to make this happen. And right when I was
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how I could kind of maneuver
Speaker 3: that shot, he turned and fed away. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: not going to force it. You know, missing a deer
Speaker 3: is one thing, but the absolute worst feeling in the
Speaker 3: world as a hunter, especially when you're pursuing a specific animal,
Speaker 3: is to injure that animal and then you know you
Speaker 3: don't find them or you just wonder how that conclusion
Speaker 3: or how that results, right, So I didn't want to
Speaker 3: force anything. Ultimately, he worked his way down back into
Speaker 3: that swamp and was sparring with this younger buck, and
Speaker 3: as the light faded, I slipped out of the corn
Speaker 3: while it was still light enough that I could see,
Speaker 3: so I didn't have to use the light or anything.
Speaker 3: I just got out of there. And then I actually
Speaker 3: had the following night, I was going to go back,
Speaker 3: but the wind was more like northeast and forecasted to
Speaker 3: switch out of the east a little bit, and I
Speaker 3: wasn't sure how that would happen down in that valley,
Speaker 3: you know, if it would push my scent on that plot.
Speaker 3: But I was actually like ten miles from my house,
Speaker 3: all packed up, sent free shower and everything, and I'm
Speaker 3: just like, no, I can't do it. So I turned
Speaker 3: around and came back home, and then I waited. The
Speaker 3: next night, the wind was back out of the north.
Speaker 3: I slipped back in there and I relocated. I moved
Speaker 3: down about twenty yards twenty five yards closer to the
Speaker 3: south end of that plot, thinking, these deer are going
Speaker 3: to come in the south of the plot. Now I
Speaker 3: know what's happening. Now I'm going to have a nice
Speaker 3: twenty five yard shot on this deer. Well, lo and behold.
Speaker 3: He was the first gear to enter the plot, and
Speaker 3: he entered straight on the north end. So he cut
Speaker 3: straight across the swamp and actually he went straight to
Speaker 3: this apple tree on the north end, barely touched the plot,
Speaker 3: and they disappeared for a while. For like an hour,
Speaker 3: I couldn't see him. So I'm waiting and waiting and waiting,
Speaker 3: and when the other deer started to show up, they
Speaker 3: all came in the south end of the plot, and
Speaker 3: they all did what they did the night before. For
Speaker 3: the most part, they just kind of feed slowly across
Speaker 3: the plot, never really stopping for too long, just feed, feed,
Speaker 3: feed back into the swamp up into the woods, and
Speaker 3: what I assume they're doing is kind of transitioning from there.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're hitting some a corns and then they're ending
Speaker 3: up on those bigger destination food sources on top of
Speaker 3: the hill that those alfalfa fields. But I'm watching these
Speaker 3: dos and I was actually videotaping this group of dose
Speaker 3: that were walking by me like twelve yards away, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's an intense moment already, but it's it's fun
Speaker 3: and exciting because your eye level with these deer in
Speaker 3: the open air, and I'm kind of panning sideways, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I look over. There he is, and
Speaker 3: he's feeding towards me into one of my shooting lanes.
Speaker 3: I couldn't see him unless I leaned forward a little bit,
Speaker 3: but there he was, and you know, I videotaped him
Speaker 3: for a little bit and then he started to turn
Speaker 3: broadside into that shooting lane. I'll say, okay, I gotta
Speaker 3: I gotta make this happen now. Ultimately, I shot him
Speaker 3: at forty five yards. If I would have been in
Speaker 3: the original blind location, I would have had a twenty
Speaker 3: five yard shot. But that's just the way it works out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's incredible. Looked like a one heck of a buck.
Speaker 2: So congratulations, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was like I said he was. He was
Speaker 3: only dear. I was going after this year. So I
Speaker 3: try to pick one target, and I think he can
Speaker 3: learn a lot more when you focus on one deer. Obviously,
Speaker 3: if another mature buck shows up, I'm going to take
Speaker 3: advantage the opportunity. But yeah, thank you. So what would
Speaker 3: have happened?
Speaker 2: Kind of going back to like the scientific approach or
Speaker 2: scientific method approach, can you can you kind of imagine
Speaker 2: how you might have taken that approach forward if you
Speaker 2: didn't kill him on that night. So you go out there,
Speaker 2: let's say you see him again but no shot, and
Speaker 2: let me take the back. Let's say you don't see
Speaker 2: him that night. I'm curious about that. And now we're
Speaker 2: moving through September and October is either arriving or soon
Speaker 2: to be. And now you're, you know, having to continue
Speaker 2: hunting this year. But using that kind of approach, can
Speaker 2: you just kind of walk me through some hypotheticals of
Speaker 2: how that might have looked as we moved into and
Speaker 2: throughout the month of October. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when I when I apply that scientific approach, I
Speaker 3: generally try to have a couple different plans in place.
Speaker 3: You know, again theories. You put these theories in place,
Speaker 3: and then you build a plan around that theory. So
Speaker 3: that was that was plan number one, was if there's
Speaker 3: an early season opportunity to try to capitalize on it. Again,
Speaker 3: knowing that mature bucks generally don't go far early season
Speaker 3: if they're not disturbed and there's more predictable movement there.
Speaker 3: Had I not seen that buck that night or not
Speaker 3: been able to connect with him within the next couple
Speaker 3: of weeks, that cornfield's coming off, so I'm going to
Speaker 3: lose the ability to even hunt that food plot from
Speaker 3: there on out. Addition to that, like I said, we're
Speaker 3: starting to log We already started logging that betting area.
Speaker 3: So my game plan from that point was to work
Speaker 3: with them on the logging project, do some TSI right away,
Speaker 3: and ultimately hope that it doesn't disturb that deer too
Speaker 3: much to where after the logging's done, you know, they're
Speaker 3: going to be in and out of there in ten
Speaker 3: days or so, and it's going to produce a lot
Speaker 3: of good cover. You know, they're logging these trees with
Speaker 3: all the leaves around, so it puts really good cover
Speaker 3: and pretty good woody brows on the ground instantly for
Speaker 3: those deer, And from my experience, it doesn't really affect
Speaker 3: the overall movement of those deer too much. They don't
Speaker 3: generally go too far, you know, assuming that they have
Speaker 3: some other safe places in the general location where they can,
Speaker 3: you know, just go hang out there and come back.
Speaker 3: So the game plan was ultimately to kill him on
Speaker 3: top of that hill. There's a little bit of a
Speaker 3: saddle there between a betting area or a couple of
Speaker 3: different betting areas, and then it feeds into those egg
Speaker 3: fields on top. And I've had a lot of good
Speaker 3: success up there in the past, good and count I
Speaker 3: should say, I've killed a couple deer there, but one
Speaker 3: deer there, I should say, because I've only I've never
Speaker 3: killed two deer in the same spot on our farm. Ever.
Speaker 3: I've had a lot of good encounters, but it's always
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes it's moving fifty yards, but never from
Speaker 3: the same location. And a lot of that again is
Speaker 3: I just don't have a ton of these tailored setups.
Speaker 3: All that's changed in the last couple of years. I
Speaker 3: finally have my dad on board for a management plan.
Speaker 3: I finally have these seventeen other hunters on board to
Speaker 3: help out and work with me on these things. So
Speaker 3: things are improving in that front. But my second plan,
Speaker 3: or Plan B, was working off of this theory based
Speaker 3: on historical information, based on past experiences with this specific deer,
Speaker 3: that he was going to be betting in that general
Speaker 3: area and working through that pinch point on top of
Speaker 3: that hill. There's a couple dough betting areas closer to
Speaker 3: the food source, and as the rut progresses, you know,
Speaker 3: we get into October here and those deers shift into
Speaker 3: their fall pattern. He became a lot more consistent in
Speaker 3: that area, and then once rut hit, he was up
Speaker 3: there quite a bit. So then just comes down to
Speaker 3: again the timing, because the access up there is hard.
Speaker 3: You have to cross this destination food source, so getting in,
Speaker 3: you know, is kind of iffy, but getting out it's
Speaker 3: even worse. Because if you're trying to cross that destination
Speaker 3: food source in the dark, you're blowing deer off there,
Speaker 3: so you only get one or two good sits up there,
Speaker 3: and then your chances of success go down. So that
Speaker 3: was kind of the secondary plan with that theory. Now
Speaker 3: last year I had the same exact approach, and you
Speaker 3: can kind of summarize that and how that panned out
Speaker 3: again utilizing the four key elements this scientific method or
Speaker 3: scientific approach to come up with a game plan. My
Speaker 3: initial plan for my target buck last year was early
Speaker 3: season again, same thing. Okay, I know knew where he
Speaker 3: was early season. He was actually hanging out and fairly
Speaker 3: visible from the farm itself. I've got some younger nephews.
Speaker 3: My older sister works on the farm, so my nephews
Speaker 3: are on the farm quite a bit in the summer.
Speaker 3: They're glass in these fields at night. For me, they're
Speaker 3: all starting to hunt out too, so they're on board,
Speaker 3: and it's really fun to get more people involved in it. Right.
Speaker 3: But they had this deer I don't want to say pattern,
Speaker 3: but they were seeing this deer and then they'd let
Speaker 3: me know, and then you know, you had trail cameras
Speaker 3: on top of that. So I had a really good
Speaker 3: plan early season, but the timing of the cold front
Speaker 3: early season last year didn't work out. My wife usually
Speaker 3: has one or two work trips this time of year,
Speaker 3: and she just happened to be gone, so I couldn't
Speaker 3: be gone. That property is like an hour or twenty
Speaker 3: minute drive from my house to hunt, so you know,
Speaker 3: it's not like I can zip there, hunt and pick
Speaker 3: up the kids from school, so I had to kind
Speaker 3: of nix my early season plan. My secondary plan was
Speaker 3: a dough betting area that I knew that this buck
Speaker 3: spent some time in in the early stages of the rut,
Speaker 3: like late October timeframe, So I had put a cell
Speaker 3: camera on a community scrape just off the edge of
Speaker 3: this dough betting area. I put that cell camera there
Speaker 3: in like August, and all the way through August, all
Speaker 3: the way through September, all that was on that scrape
Speaker 3: were doze as anticipated, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it was like October twenty third or twenty fourth, there
Speaker 3: was twelve bucks on that camera. In one day, one
Speaker 3: twenty four hour period, there was twelve different bucks on
Speaker 3: that camera, and one of them was my target buck.
Speaker 3: So the next day it actually there's rain in the forecast.
Speaker 3: But you know, I got to take advantage of that
Speaker 3: information when you can, So I slipped into that edge
Speaker 3: of that betting area. I didn't have a stand placed already,
Speaker 3: because I like to be flexible, you know, so I
Speaker 3: can hunt that betting location, or not specifically in the
Speaker 3: betting area, but downwind to the betting area, right, I
Speaker 3: could hunt that a few different locations. And that's why
Speaker 3: I like to just go in mobile so that I
Speaker 3: can set up according to the wind. So I went
Speaker 3: in there in the rain, hung the set, sat all
Speaker 3: day and at the very first light I had a
Speaker 3: couple does come into there, and I swore that I
Speaker 3: heard this like nasally grunt, But you know, in your mind,
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, was it a grunt? Was it two
Speaker 3: trees rubbing on one another? And as it turned out,
Speaker 3: it was a good sit. All day, I saw a
Speaker 3: handful of bucks, had a couple come in bed down
Speaker 3: near me, watch these doughs. But the last hour of
Speaker 3: daylight I looked over, in fact, the trail that I
Speaker 3: came in on, there was a really fresh scrape. I
Speaker 3: looked over and that buck that I was after was
Speaker 3: bedded in that scrape like fifty yards away from me.
Speaker 3: So I think he came in at first light and
Speaker 3: he betted down, and then he repositioned himself at one
Speaker 3: point and betted down again, and I wasn't able to
Speaker 3: get a shot. You know. I threw some grunts at him.
Speaker 3: He eventually got up, and basically all he did is
Speaker 3: he tried to work around and catch my wind. And
Speaker 3: there's a cornfield on the ridge above me. And as
Speaker 3: soon as he cut into that cornfield, I got down
Speaker 3: from the stand and I got out of there. Because
Speaker 3: the way the wind was blowing that day, he would
Speaker 3: have had to go about one hundred more yards and
Speaker 3: he would have caught my wind, and that could have
Speaker 3: screwed up the whole situation. It was already getting too
Speaker 3: dark to where you know, probably wasn't gonna happen. So
Speaker 3: I just got out of there right away. Fast forward
Speaker 3: a little bit again, coming up with a new theory. Okay,
Speaker 3: So now plan A and Plan B didn't work. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I know this deer is in the area, but I
Speaker 3: also know that there's three fall turkey hunters and four
Speaker 3: bow hunters that are going to be showing up to
Speaker 3: hunt this property in the next couple of weeks. And
Speaker 3: the real kicker is the hunting cabin on our property
Speaker 3: is right at the bottom of the hill from this
Speaker 3: bedding area. It's like the best deer hunting valley on
Speaker 3: the farm, worst spot you could put a hunting cabin,
Speaker 3: but it's you know, it's very scenic, I guess, right.
Speaker 3: But I knew that the pressure was going to increase
Speaker 3: exponentially within the coming weeks, so I had had to
Speaker 3: keep that in the back of my mind. So I
Speaker 3: hunted kind of the fringes of that area a couple
Speaker 3: more times, and and one day I went back to
Speaker 3: the edge of that bedding area and on my way in,
Speaker 3: I bumped that deer. You know, at the time, I
Speaker 3: wasn't a hundred percent sure it was him, but I
Speaker 3: cut through that cornfield and was not anticipating deer being
Speaker 3: that close to betting an hour before daylight. And when
Speaker 3: I stepped out of that cornfield, the woods just came alive.
Speaker 3: Deer were running everywhere, and you know, I bumped them
Speaker 3: fast enough and hard enough that they didn't really know
Speaker 3: what was going on. They just freaked out. Who out
Speaker 3: of there, and when they took off running, there was
Speaker 3: like that stereotypical like grunting chasing sound and that nasally
Speaker 3: grunt again. So I'm like, oh, it's got to be him.
Speaker 3: So I hunted that spot in the morning, and then
Speaker 3: the wind picked up as the day went on, and
Speaker 3: then I dropped down in the afternoon. I just got
Speaker 3: that stand. I dropped down in the bottom of the valley.
Speaker 3: I had a food plot there with the box plant.
Speaker 3: I slipped in that blind, and sure enough that buck
Speaker 3: popped out on that food plot at like three o'clock
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, but he kept on looking back in
Speaker 3: the woods like he had a dough with him. I
Speaker 3: had a decoy out and everything he wouldn't commit. It's
Speaker 3: got some really cool footage of him. It was a
Speaker 3: great encounter. But that was that. And then after that
Speaker 3: the pressure increased in that valley and things got more
Speaker 3: and more chaotic. So I was getting pictures of him,
Speaker 3: but I couldn't figure out where he was hanging out,
Speaker 3: and he wasn't showing up on food sources consistently, at
Speaker 3: least not on the camera. So again I was hunting
Speaker 3: the fringes, trying to play it safe, pressure wise, just
Speaker 3: trying to collect more intel to lead me to a
Speaker 3: theory that I could be more aggressive with, and ultimately
Speaker 3: what it came to down I was talking to my
Speaker 3: cousin the night before this all played out, and you know,
Speaker 3: this kind of goes back to being able to explain
Speaker 3: this approach. So over the past decade or so, there's
Speaker 3: been some tension in our family, you know, in the
Speaker 3: hunting side of things, like me being more successful than
Speaker 3: most of them but putting in a lot more time,
Speaker 3: and ultimately just trying to get them to understand, like
Speaker 3: if we work together on this, we're all going to
Speaker 3: be more successful. And you know, I was always like
Speaker 3: the young kid following them around in the woods. I'm
Speaker 3: like one of the youngest cousins in the group, So
Speaker 3: I was a kid following around with a stick when
Speaker 3: they were all hunting. So then when I've evolved to like,
Speaker 3: you know, more serious hunter, like trying to tell them
Speaker 3: like how we should approach things that you know, at
Speaker 3: first there's like no, no, no, you listened here, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: But last year I think was a huge turning point
Speaker 3: in that relationship or all of those relationships in general.
Speaker 3: First and foremost they started to understand, like, you know
Speaker 3: this work. I'm doing this for everyone, and I finally
Speaker 3: just like, you guys, go hunt these spots, go hunt
Speaker 3: these blinds. As long as you're hunting them on the
Speaker 3: correct wind, you're gonna have opportunities. And they did, and
Speaker 3: they start having some really good sits. But the bigger
Speaker 3: thing was explaining the decisions that I was making in
Speaker 3: real time to these cousins. In years past, I would
Speaker 3: try to avoid them. They'd be down hunting mostly weekends.
Speaker 3: I'd hunt during the week just to try to avoid
Speaker 3: the situation. But last year I tried to make a
Speaker 3: conscious effort to at least overlap a couple days. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to time it on the days I think our
Speaker 3: best for the win that I need the cold fronts
Speaker 3: and everything, but I try to overlap those days and
Speaker 3: kind of bring them into the whole situation. So the
Speaker 3: night before I ultimately harvested this year, I was talking
Speaker 3: to my cousin. I was just like, you know, it's
Speaker 3: the weekend before rifle season, so for us, for me personally,
Speaker 3: that's like go time, Like that's when I get as
Speaker 3: aggressive as I'll ever get because once rifle season hits.
Speaker 3: There's seventeen gun hunters on this property, everybody in the area.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's very much like Michigan, right, you know
Speaker 3: the infamous pressure in Michigan. All of our neighbors are Amish,
Speaker 3: all of them. So the woods, you know, the Orange Army, right,
Speaker 3: it's a thing. Right. So talking to my cousin, No,
Speaker 3: this is mid November. November eleventh would have been the
Speaker 3: evening that we had this conversation. November twelfth. That's what
Speaker 3: I harvested this deer. So I was talking to my cousin,
Speaker 3: you know, I basically said, this deer is showing up
Speaker 3: on cameras in the same area I was hunting him in.
Speaker 3: But he's showing up like an hour after dark or
Speaker 3: half hour after dark. And I had sat nine all
Speaker 3: day sits on the fringes of these betting areas, these
Speaker 3: dough betting areas, anticipating him showing up there, bumping does
Speaker 3: or being with these dos and moving in and out
Speaker 3: of these betting areas at dawn of dusk, and purely
Speaker 3: sitting there all day because I was afraid to get
Speaker 3: down mid morning and put pressure on these betting areas
Speaker 3: and screw things up. Right. I told my cousin, I said,
Speaker 3: my theory is that this buck is betting in this
Speaker 3: other bedding area. There's a on the other side of
Speaker 3: the ridge. There's a real tight draw. This valley tightens up,
Speaker 3: and actually half of the valley is open MFL so
Speaker 3: it's public land and there's a ton of people hunting it,
Speaker 3: and then the other half of the valley's in the pasture,
Speaker 3: so it's not There's not a lot of great cover there,
Speaker 3: but topography itself creates this nice little bowl in there
Speaker 3: that's impossible to hunt. And I knew this because I've
Speaker 3: tried to pursue bucks in there the last few years.
Speaker 3: I find these mature bucks spending time in this area,
Speaker 3: and I try and set up in there on all
Speaker 3: different wind directions, and I'd always get busted the dose.
Speaker 3: The first doze that came through their bust me. I'd
Speaker 3: just pulled the set and get out of there to
Speaker 3: try not to disturb the area. So I told my cousin,
Speaker 3: you know, my theory is this buck, because of the
Speaker 3: pressure across the farm, he's betting in this tight little bowl,
Speaker 3: and then right at dark he's just popping out of
Speaker 3: that chunk of woods, and he's crossing the wide open
Speaker 3: field and he's making the rounds and doing his thing
Speaker 3: at night. And the forecasted wind was supposed to be
Speaker 3: out of the south pushing right up that valley the
Speaker 3: next morning. But it was supposed to be like fifteen
Speaker 3: to twenty mile an hour winds and gusts of like
Speaker 3: thirty miles an hour, and it was supposed to be warm.
Speaker 3: It was going to warm up. So I told him,
Speaker 3: you go hunt your stand. He's got his favorite stand
Speaker 3: at the bottom end of this valley, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to still hunt through this betting area in the morning
Speaker 3: and just try and figure out what's going on. My
Speaker 3: first game, or my first goal or objective was to
Speaker 3: see if that deer was in there, if there's fresh
Speaker 3: sign in that area, and then you know, again try
Speaker 3: to come up with a plan on how to set
Speaker 3: up on him and hunt him, you know, one or
Speaker 3: two more days this week before gun season hit the
Speaker 3: following weekend. My secondary goal, or you know, like the
Speaker 3: optimistic side of things, I was like, maybe I'll just
Speaker 3: come across this deer. I'll just get it done right.
Speaker 3: So I told him, like, you go hunt that sand
Speaker 3: end of the valley because if I bump this deer,
Speaker 3: he's going to run into the wind, and you're gonna
Speaker 3: be in a perfect situation to get a shot at
Speaker 3: this deer. And long story short, I slipped it in
Speaker 3: that betting area and just kind of still hunted my
Speaker 3: way in. From first light, I saw a deer bedded
Speaker 3: behind a log about eighty yards out, and I relocated,
Speaker 3: got a better advantage point glass for a little bit,
Speaker 3: and lo and behold it was the buck that I
Speaker 3: was after, and took me four hours, four hours and
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes actual to get into position. But I shot
Speaker 3: him in his bed at thirty seven yards after four hours.
Speaker 3: So but again, you know, the stock side of things
Speaker 3: seems crazy. You know, I never never would have anticipated
Speaker 3: stalking a mature white tail in our area, especially or
Speaker 3: shooting him in his bed. But that part, you know,
Speaker 3: hunting out west, I've kind of fine tuned that I'm not,
Speaker 3: by any means like an expert stalker compared to a
Speaker 3: lot of those guys. Right, But I've screwed up a
Speaker 3: lot of stalks, a lot of stocks, And every single
Speaker 3: time he screw up a stock, it's because he either
Speaker 3: didn't pay attention to the wind, or he moved too fast.
Speaker 3: It's usually because he moved too fast. And in my mind,
Speaker 3: I was just like, it's you and me. I've got
Speaker 3: all day. You know, best case scenario, you stay there
Speaker 3: and I get into position, I have control. Second best
Speaker 3: case scenario is you stand up and relocate and give
Speaker 3: me the opportunity. But as I'm playing through these scenarios,
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, every one of these shot opportunities is
Speaker 3: going to be like a fifty yard shot from this location,
Speaker 3: trying to range him through the brush, pick a spot,
Speaker 3: set a pin, and you know it would have been
Speaker 3: a rodeo. So it all worked out that way. But ultimately,
Speaker 3: again using that scientific approach to come up with a
Speaker 3: theory based on those four key elements is what took
Speaker 3: me to that spot. And the one in a million
Speaker 3: shot was me getting to advantage point to see that
Speaker 3: deer without him knowing I was there. And I think, actually,
Speaker 3: you know, when I dial that back, when I relocated
Speaker 3: to that secondary location, that buck had his head looking
Speaker 3: straight away from me. His attention was drawn down the
Speaker 3: valley and I basically saw him. I sat down, like
Speaker 3: hunkered down behind this tree, pulled out my camera and
Speaker 3: this other buck came up from the bottom of the valley,
Speaker 3: so he was drawn to that other buck coming towards him.
Speaker 3: And then after that he really settled in and went
Speaker 3: back to like you know, high alert. It's it's hard.
Speaker 3: You can get really close to deer when they're moving
Speaker 3: if you're you know, quiet and sneaky, but when they're
Speaker 3: stationary and they're like so in tune with their environment,
Speaker 3: it's it's tricky. So I think that was really the
Speaker 3: one of a million chants there, but you'll ultimately just
Speaker 3: finding them where they are.
Speaker 2: So so a big part of this approach, it seems like,
Speaker 2: is you know, to get to the point where you
Speaker 2: have a theory, and to get to the point where
Speaker 2: you can run these experiments which are a fancy word
Speaker 2: for saying hunts or scouting trips where you test a
Speaker 2: theory by observing. Right, you have to input like all
Speaker 2: this data and something you've talked about it, and then
Speaker 2: also from just other things I've seen and read from
Speaker 2: you and heard from you. You take your data collection
Speaker 2: to a different level than a lot of people. And
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about how you can't hunt them
Speaker 2: where they were. You have to hunt them where they
Speaker 2: will be. So it's all about anticipating where he's going
Speaker 2: to be, which you did in that case, like you
Speaker 2: thought he was going to be in that area because
Speaker 2: of you know that data you collected and these theories
Speaker 2: you've tested in other places that proved to be false.
Speaker 2: You can you just tell me a little bit more
Speaker 2: about the kind of data that you're collecting. We've talked
Speaker 2: about cameras a little bit, but I know you do
Speaker 2: something like food source tracking, you do pressure audits on stands,
Speaker 2: You track a lot of different things which are a
Speaker 2: little bit different than other people. And you've got this
Speaker 2: planner that you develop and that you use yourself that
Speaker 2: you're tracking a lot of these things we've talked about
Speaker 2: and more that is pretty extensive, and I think that's
Speaker 2: an important thing as we as we're into the season now,
Speaker 2: I imagine all of us could probably do a better
Speaker 2: job of tracking everything that's going on, because it's one
Speaker 2: thing to have these ideas, these theories to go do
Speaker 2: this stuff, but most of us throw something at the wall,
Speaker 2: We throw a hunt at the wall, and then we say, oh,
Speaker 2: it didn't go well, or hey, it went well, great,
Speaker 2: and then we're onto the next one. We could probably
Speaker 2: benefit more if we were actually tracking it so we
Speaker 2: can look back on this stuff a year after year
Speaker 2: or in more detail throughout a year. Can you just
Speaker 2: expand on how you do that, why you do that
Speaker 2: in some of these specifics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the planner you spoke about, I refer to
Speaker 3: as Annual Success Planner, And ultimately, you know, there's nothing
Speaker 3: in there that's that crazy or proprietary, but it's a
Speaker 3: way to kind of formulate a thought or collect that
Speaker 3: data and then help you formulate the thought or those theories.
Speaker 3: It all revolves an almost four key elements, so it
Speaker 3: lays out, you know, the initial concept of these four
Speaker 3: key elements, and then each one of those elements has
Speaker 3: an associated chart or table tool in there, and and
Speaker 3: what it does is it allows you to collect information
Speaker 3: directly related to those elements and then it helps you
Speaker 3: put together that theory. So, for example, with the wind,
Speaker 3: I have a tool and that I refer to as
Speaker 3: pattern tractor, and that's I was talking about earlier, where
Speaker 3: I'm logging time and date location of these animals and
Speaker 3: ultimately looking back at the wind direction so that it
Speaker 3: can tell me, you know, where I think those deer
Speaker 3: are going to be and that helps me anticipate, you know,
Speaker 3: when I'm looking ahead, if I'm gonna you know, whether
Speaker 3: I'm a weekend warrior just working off of the opportunities
Speaker 3: I have, or trying to predict where to be at
Speaker 3: the best time. I'm using that wind as such a
Speaker 3: valuable tool. The other tool and there is the pressure tracker.
Speaker 3: So I do a couple of those things, like you
Speaker 3: said the pressure audit. Like if I'm if I'm setting
Speaker 3: up a property for a client or we're on a
Speaker 3: coaching call, one of the things that we do is
Speaker 3: a stand location pressure audit, where we look at stand locations,
Speaker 3: either current or potential stand locations, and rank them based
Speaker 3: on the amount of pressure that they put on the property.
Speaker 3: And simply put, we just want to get a temperature
Speaker 3: check for how hunting that stand is going to affect
Speaker 3: us down to downstream. Right. So one of the things,
Speaker 3: a good example would be like the set up where
Speaker 3: I killed that buck early season, if I would have
Speaker 3: had a box blind there and a field of switch
Speaker 3: grass or some pine trees or low and behold and
Speaker 3: mascant this or you know, sorgum, whatever I had for
Speaker 3: a screen to get to and from that blind that
Speaker 3: would have been pretty good access. That would have been
Speaker 3: a low numbered stand, that would have been a one
Speaker 3: or a two, depending on the situation. That's a stand
Speaker 3: location I can hunt a lot of different winds, especially
Speaker 3: being a box blind that contains your scent so well.
Speaker 3: You don't have that open air pushing your scent all
Speaker 3: over the valley, so I can hunt that a lot. Inversely,
Speaker 3: we'd have a higher numbered stand, like on the fringe
Speaker 3: of one of those betting areas, where if you're gonna
Speaker 3: hunt that stand, you should really only hunt it if
Speaker 3: you have the intel that supports the decision to move
Speaker 3: in there, knowing that it's it's potentially high reward but
Speaker 3: also very high risk. You can only hunt that spot
Speaker 3: one or two times, and then you're probably gonna screw
Speaker 3: up that spot. And if you're hunting a small property,
Speaker 3: you might burn out your whole entire property by hunting
Speaker 3: that location. So I was keep that in mind. But
Speaker 3: the tool that's in the planner, you can list all
Speaker 3: your stand locations and rank them, But the tool that's
Speaker 3: in there for tracking pressure. Ultimately, I'm either taking note
Speaker 3: from again observations in the field or what I see
Speaker 3: on trail cameras. But I'm trying to log activity that
Speaker 3: I see that might put pressure on deer. Most of
Speaker 3: it's human activity because there's so much other pressure.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I talk about how environmental pressures affect deer, biological pressures
Speaker 3: affect deer, herd, social pressure, number of dos, and the
Speaker 3: property effects deer, but ultimately the human pressure is the
Speaker 3: most trackable side of things. So when I see the
Speaker 3: neighbor out there again, either visually or the trail camera,
Speaker 3: If I see the neighbor out fixing fences, or you know,
Speaker 3: one of our neighbors runs beef cattle, one of the
Speaker 3: Amish neighbors runs sheep. You know, they're always out there
Speaker 3: doing stuff on the fences and stuff. If I know
Speaker 3: that neighbors in the area, I simply log that time
Speaker 3: and date in the general location, and then a lot
Speaker 3: of times I can go back and I can can
Speaker 3: cross reference that pattern page again. When I see those
Speaker 3: anomalies or those one off pictures in the middle of
Speaker 3: the day, why was that deer moving through that area
Speaker 3: at this time? What promoted that movement? Okay, it was pressure, Well,
Speaker 3: then I drill that or I dial back a little
Speaker 3: bit further and I go, okay, well, if he was
Speaker 3: in this area, you know, and looking at the wind
Speaker 3: history that day, yeah, okay, the wind was out of
Speaker 3: this direction, that would have potentially placed him in this
Speaker 3: betting area. But then this guy came through here and
Speaker 3: bumped him out. Now I can kind of prove that theory.
Speaker 3: So it all goes back to helping prove or disprove
Speaker 3: these theories I have on where they're betting, where they're feeding,
Speaker 3: how they're moving. The food source tracker, that one's a
Speaker 3: little bit trickier it. You know, you can get as
Speaker 3: detailed as you want with something like that. I don't
Speaker 3: go out some properties. I will, but I don't go
Speaker 3: out and go so far as to like log every
Speaker 3: single acorn producing tree, you know, every oak out there,
Speaker 3: every white oak versus red oak, all those things. But
Speaker 3: I will log years where there's a very noticeable acorn
Speaker 3: crop versus years that there's not, and then I can
Speaker 3: look back on like that, I'd be like, Okay, this
Speaker 3: year there wasn't very good acorn crop, and it's pretty
Speaker 3: obviously deer were hammering these food plots this year. You know,
Speaker 3: lfalfa is a big one. I talked about A big
Speaker 3: thing with alfalfa that I've noticed over the last decade
Speaker 3: is the first year that alfalfa's planted, it's the most attractive.
Speaker 3: You know, they're gonna eat that alfalfa all the time.
Speaker 3: But a new seting field is night and day different
Speaker 3: from a stand of alfalfa that's two or three years old.
Speaker 3: And the second year it's still pretty attractive, but less
Speaker 3: attractive than the first year. And every year that goes by,
Speaker 3: it's less and less attractive. And I've seen, you know,
Speaker 3: a new seating in alfalfa. You can't outcompete that with
Speaker 3: most food plots, But second year alfalfa, I can out
Speaker 3: compete that with a lot of my food plots, especially
Speaker 3: when I'm using that bioegg fertilizer. That mineralized fertilizer really
Speaker 3: seems to increase the palatability and nutrient content of those plots,
Speaker 3: and those deer are really drawn to it. So that's
Speaker 3: a big one. But as far as food source tracker goes,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a lot of it's just keeping record.
Speaker 3: So that again, and like every year that comes around,
Speaker 3: you're trying to predict that movement ultimately driven by food.
Speaker 3: You can look at what those food sources are and
Speaker 3: what they were and if they've changed. Because the more
Speaker 3: consistent these elements become year to year to year, and
Speaker 3: if I'm tracking a specific year year to year to
Speaker 3: year and those elements are the same, then I can
Speaker 3: anticipate him following a similar pattern historically, you know. And
Speaker 3: that's where that timing element comes in, where short term
Speaker 3: timing and again pattern tracker comes into play there and
Speaker 3: just tracking these deer over the years, but short term
Speaker 3: timing we're looking at wind and weather long term or
Speaker 3: you know, the annual scale, we're looking at that historical data.
Speaker 3: And I think it was I don't know if it
Speaker 3: was at MSU or University of Tennessee. They had a
Speaker 3: really good I think they did a podcast on it,
Speaker 3: but they had a really good research article talking about
Speaker 3: the specific gene that's linked to the time period that
Speaker 3: does come into estrus. So they been able to track
Speaker 3: that to genetics. And it makes perfect sense because you know,
Speaker 3: it's influenced on a big, you know, big big timeline environmentally,
Speaker 3: but it's it's passed on genetically to the offspring of
Speaker 3: those dough so you know, deer in northern climates they
Speaker 3: the ruts later because if that dough gets bred too early,
Speaker 3: then that fawn is born too early. A late snowfall
Speaker 3: reduces the survivability of that dough. So just in time evolution,
Speaker 3: these deer have this genetic code that they pass on
Speaker 3: that says we're going to come into heat around this time.
Speaker 3: And it can fluctuate, you know, a couple of weeks
Speaker 3: on a property and I see that, you know, one
Speaker 3: corner of our farm every year around Halloween it's the
Speaker 3: hot spot to be. Go over the ridge it's November fourth,
Speaker 3: you know, go down the valley it's November tenth, or
Speaker 3: whatever it might be. So when I look back at
Speaker 3: the historical information, whether it's a specific buck showing up
Speaker 3: in a certain area, you know, that's something this podcast
Speaker 3: comes out. Everyone should be anticipating the October shift, and
Speaker 3: if you don't have a game plan right now. Usually
Speaker 3: I see that shift happen between like the seventh the
Speaker 3: fourteenth here in southwestern Wisconsin. But if you don't have
Speaker 3: a game plan right now, and I've had years like
Speaker 3: that where I had no deer on my radar and
Speaker 3: I just went back I go through my historical data
Speaker 3: the last couple of years certain areas, and when we're
Speaker 3: the mature bucks starting to show up on camera in
Speaker 3: these areas, and that's when I start, you know, that's
Speaker 3: what kind of directs me towards narrowing down my focus
Speaker 3: and trying to zone in or hone in on that
Speaker 3: information specific to that area of the farm. But it's
Speaker 3: very predictable, and I'm sure you've probably talked about before
Speaker 3: people will understand. You know, you see these bucks show
Speaker 3: up on your property the same three to five day
Speaker 3: window every year. Sometimes they're there, you know, all fall,
Speaker 3: they shift at a certain time, and sometimes they're literally
Speaker 3: only there for a week and then they're gone. So
Speaker 3: you know, that's a good way to anticipate and plan
Speaker 3: out your rut caation if you have, you know, a
Speaker 3: finite amount of opportunities to attack.
Speaker 2: So a lot of that, a lot of that data,
Speaker 2: some of at least some of this, like you know,
Speaker 2: specific deer behavior data that you're talking about logging and
Speaker 2: looking at the wind and the weather conditions and everything
Speaker 2: that's trail camera related in addition to observations. You mentioned
Speaker 2: something earlier that I just wanted to make sure I
Speaker 2: asked you about which is some trail camera rules. Can
Speaker 2: you walk me through what your trail camera rules are,
Speaker 2: because if we're trying to collect data with trailcms, we
Speaker 2: got to be using in the right way. I'd love
Speaker 2: to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, to preface this a little bit,
Speaker 3: I spent ten years working for a trail camera company, right,
Speaker 3: So I went to college for wildlife biology, and you know,
Speaker 3: my goal was to be a wildlife biologist or researcher,
Speaker 3: and then this weird turn of events, I actually worked
Speaker 3: for a trail camera company, so I was helping these
Speaker 3: researchers on the technology side. So I've put together, you know,
Speaker 3: five rules or considerations for trail camera success based on
Speaker 3: my experience working myself, you know, the research background, but
Speaker 3: also working with hundreds of thousands of customers over the years.
Speaker 3: So it is you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 3: It's it's absolutely critical to understand these things to use
Speaker 3: these trail cameras the right way, you know, and not
Speaker 3: saying there's not other ways to utilize them, but if
Speaker 3: you follow these rules, you'll have significantly higher levels of
Speaker 3: success with the information that you collect for these cameras.
Speaker 3: So those five rules are five considerations. The first one
Speaker 3: is a trail camera only tells you where he should
Speaker 3: have been, not where he should be, and a cell
Speaker 3: camera just tells you where he should have been a
Speaker 3: lot sooner. Now, there's situations where if you're planning ahead,
Speaker 3: you know, that's ultimately what you want to do with
Speaker 3: these cameras again, is use them to prove or disprove theories.
Speaker 3: But if you're planning ahead, and you know, like the
Speaker 3: dough betting area thing from last year, once I got
Speaker 3: intel on that camera that bucks were in the area,
Speaker 3: I was going to make a move. And that's that's
Speaker 3: the closest I've ever come to killing a deer directly
Speaker 3: based on cell camera data. But usually what I'm doing
Speaker 3: with just these trail cameras is using them to collect
Speaker 3: historical data. And a lot of times, you know, I
Speaker 3: have cameras across the farm that I don't even check
Speaker 3: most of the year. And we'll get to that here
Speaker 3: in a second with these other rules, But the cameras
Speaker 3: tell you where he should have been, not where he
Speaker 3: should be, So use them to anticipate that movement and
Speaker 3: prove these theories, and then when the when the elements,
Speaker 3: those four key elements kind of come into play again
Speaker 3: or you know, those variables are coming into play or anticipated,
Speaker 3: like the forecast, the wind, the food sources are the same,
Speaker 3: you know, the pressure is the same. That's when you
Speaker 3: can move on those. So it's it's really important to
Speaker 3: understand that, or else you're just always going to be
Speaker 3: a step behind. The second one, which we talked about already,
Speaker 3: is that trail cameras only tell you what's going on
Speaker 3: directly in front of them, right, so it's only giving
Speaker 3: you a sampling rate. And you know, again, look at
Speaker 3: the running mates of these bucks early in the season.
Speaker 3: Just use them to get a feel for deer activity
Speaker 3: in general. But don't one hundred percent rely on that
Speaker 3: camera to tell you if that deer is in the area.
Speaker 3: If you get one picture of that deer, there's really
Speaker 3: good chance that he's probably been in that area quite
Speaker 3: a bit and or at least a fair amount, right,
Speaker 3: you know, And depending on the timing of that picture,
Speaker 3: it might might dictate how often he's there. But you know,
Speaker 3: a big thing people need to consider, especially with mature books,
Speaker 3: is they're very tactful with their movements, right, they don't
Speaker 3: use the same trail every day. They might say they
Speaker 3: might use the same travel corridor, but most of the time,
Speaker 3: when they get up from their bed and they're moving
Speaker 3: to a food source, they're browsing along the way, right,
Speaker 3: they're trying to take advantage of that route. So if
Speaker 3: they follow the same trail every day, there's not going
Speaker 3: to be browse on that trail every day. And also,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe they stay in a little bit thicker
Speaker 3: cover than what the younger deer do, So that's an
Speaker 3: important thing to note too, But they only tell you
Speaker 3: what's going on directly in front of them. The third thing,
Speaker 3: and arguably one of the most important things here, is
Speaker 3: to be intentional with your trail camera setups. You know, again,
Speaker 3: use them when you go out and put that camera out,
Speaker 3: or you're checking that camera or you know, looking at
Speaker 3: it on your cell phone, think about the location of
Speaker 3: that camera and how that plays into this whole system.
Speaker 3: You know, you're using it to prove a theory. So
Speaker 3: is that deer showing up on this food source, is
Speaker 3: that deer using this adjacent bedding area, or you know,
Speaker 3: maybe it is just purely inventory, But inventory is only
Speaker 3: going to tell you that that deer is in the area.
Speaker 3: It's not going to tell you, oh, I need to
Speaker 3: hunt this mineral lick or this corn pile that this
Speaker 3: deer showed up on in August, right, It's not going
Speaker 3: to tell you where to hunt in October or November.
Speaker 3: So be intentional with those setups. The fourth one is
Speaker 3: to understand the pressure trail cameras put on mature books
Speaker 3: and try to avoid it. And that's where it kind
Speaker 3: of comes back to the second rule of I'm only
Speaker 3: telling you what's going on directly in front of them.
Speaker 3: These bucks they know that these cameras are there a
Speaker 3: lot of times, you know, so I always try to
Speaker 3: put the camera as high as I can reach angle
Speaker 3: it down. There's limitations to that because when you place
Speaker 3: it high and angle it down, you trigger range or
Speaker 3: your target range is shortened quite a bit. You know,
Speaker 3: if it's low looking out across an open area, you're
Speaker 3: going to trigger way out. But most of the time
Speaker 3: you have a very specific target area, whether it's a scrape,
Speaker 3: a mock scrape, a water hole, you know, a specific
Speaker 3: trail or something, so you can get away with raising
Speaker 3: that camera up and pointing it a really well defined air,
Speaker 3: and that kind of goes hand in hand with the
Speaker 3: setup itself and try to keep pressure off. What I've
Speaker 3: seen over the years is you could put cameras low
Speaker 3: on food plots, you know. I think that's where you
Speaker 3: can get away with like a pick and stick type setup.
Speaker 3: You can put them lower on food plots where those
Speaker 3: deer can see that foreign object from a distance and
Speaker 3: then they get to choose if they want to approach
Speaker 3: it or not. Versus in the woods where you know
Speaker 3: they're kind of going down that trail milling along, maybe
Speaker 3: they work that scrape and also they picked their head
Speaker 3: up and boom, there's this thing there that they haven't seen. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it freaks them out. And that analogy that I
Speaker 3: always used when I worked for the trail camera company
Speaker 3: when people will be like, oh, I thought this was
Speaker 3: supposed to be a covert camera. These deer are clearly
Speaker 3: looking at it like if I went in your house
Speaker 3: and I put a can of beer on your nightstand
Speaker 3: and you came home, You're going to notice it and
Speaker 3: it's going to make you feel really uneasy that someone
Speaker 3: was in your house.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It's no different with those mature bucks you put foreign
Speaker 3: object there in the woods. It surprises them, they notice it.
Speaker 3: They're not necessarily going to vacate the area, but they're
Speaker 3: to avoid that trail. And a lot of times, you know, again,
Speaker 3: if you're not following these rules, a lot of times
Speaker 3: I can really throw you off on your intel or
Speaker 3: trying to create these theories. Oh that buck was on camera,
Speaker 3: I'll fall and now I haven't had any pictures though
Speaker 3: he's clearly gone. Well he might be he maybe he shifted,
Speaker 3: but I've seen it time and time again where I'm
Speaker 3: in the woods hunting, I can see the trail camera
Speaker 3: and the adjacent pinch point, and that buck comes up
Speaker 3: and he goes around behind that camera, skirts it by
Speaker 3: twenty yards back on the trail, just completely avoids it.
Speaker 3: So that's a big one. And then the last one
Speaker 3: is simply just sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna pause you before you give me the last one,
Speaker 2: because I've got one foll up to that. Given your
Speaker 2: experience working for a trail camera company for a decade,
Speaker 2: and i don't know if this came up or not
Speaker 2: during your time frame or not, but I'm starting to
Speaker 2: hear people questioning if cell cameras are spooking deer in
Speaker 2: a different way than standard ones did. Like, is this
Speaker 2: signal that's beaming up into the sky from a cell
Speaker 2: camera in some way being detected by dear? Have you
Speaker 2: heard anything about that? Have you seen anything to that? Is?
Speaker 2: Is that crazy hogwasher something?
Speaker 3: I think that it's plausible. I really do, actually funny
Speaker 3: story on that, So not to get too crazy far
Speaker 3: out there, but so I worked for this trail camera company,
Speaker 3: uh Raconics trail Cameras. I worked for Iconics, and I
Speaker 3: did most of the testing and development and all the
Speaker 3: prototyping on the cameras, and then I ran the whole
Speaker 3: customer service department. And one of my actually one of
Speaker 3: my favorite customers over the years was this absolutely brilliant
Speaker 3: human being, brilliant, like on the spectrum, a brilliant human being,
Speaker 3: incredibly smart. But he was part of the Bigfoot research organization, Okay,
Speaker 3: And I wanted to preface that because you know, it's
Speaker 3: easy to be like bigfoot hunter. You know, actually we
Speaker 3: want to refer to them as researchers. They always appreciate that.
Speaker 3: But the reason I appreciated this guy so much was
Speaker 3: one again, he was just brilliant and He actually dropped
Speaker 3: out of the organization when it started to get more
Speaker 3: popular with all the shows and stuff on Discovery Channel
Speaker 3: because he didn't want that hype. He was convinced that
Speaker 3: he was going to find these cryptic animals, and he
Speaker 3: was using trail cameras heavily for that. That's how I
Speaker 3: got connected with him. But he built his own high
Speaker 3: frequency noise test chamber because he was convinced that they
Speaker 3: weren't getting high quality pictures of Bigfoot because the sasquatch
Speaker 3: could hear these high frequency noises emitted from electronics. And
Speaker 3: he sent me all the test files and it was
Speaker 3: pretty crazy. Some of these cameras, and you know, we
Speaker 3: don't need to go in the details on them. And
Speaker 3: this was years before cell cameras were really a thing.
Speaker 3: But some of these cameras made zero noise until they
Speaker 3: were triggered, and then there'd just be this insane high
Speaker 3: frequency squeal. And some cameras had like a constant little
Speaker 3: squal and then when they took pictures, it was insane
Speaker 3: like the noise.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So we think about like high frequency noise, you know,
Speaker 3: like a dog whistle, right, it's at a frequency that
Speaker 3: humans can't really hear, but dogs can hear it. So
Speaker 3: to think that wild animals can hear these noises that
Speaker 3: we can't hear is very very plausible. And a cell
Speaker 3: camera where it has a radio that's constantly connecting, you know,
Speaker 3: however many times a second. You know, just like your
Speaker 3: cell phone and cameras are a little bit less because
Speaker 3: they don't have to be you know, on point all
Speaker 3: the time. But that concept there of those radios communicating
Speaker 3: all the time, it's very very possible that they're emitting
Speaker 3: high frequency noise that animals can pick up on. And
Speaker 3: you know, not to go crazy down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: But I've had some really good hunts. I've killed so
Speaker 3: of my biggest deer on days where I didn't take
Speaker 3: my cell phone with me. You know, there was one
Speaker 3: night you can see over my shoulder here this two
Speaker 3: hundred inchure, my first two hundred inch I killed. They're
Speaker 3: technically one hundred ninety seven inch. That night, I was
Speaker 3: like stressed out with work. I got to my truck
Speaker 3: and I've just shut my phone off and left it
Speaker 3: in the truck and I went out out there, had
Speaker 3: gotten the stand and I killed that deer, you know,
Speaker 3: it could have just been coincidence. But you know, I
Speaker 3: think cell phones in general kind of affect us either
Speaker 3: from distractions or potentially noise. But but the camera thing,
Speaker 3: I think is very plausible because the electronics in those
Speaker 3: trail cameras are obviously not as advanced. You know, it's
Speaker 3: a lot of the same chips and everything, but they're
Speaker 3: not the same as like your cell phone camera, right.
Speaker 3: A lot of them are bigger, clunkier, lower cost components.
Speaker 3: They're bigger, you know, some of these inductors and capacitors
Speaker 3: in these circuits that are charging up and dumping all
Speaker 3: this energy and stuff. They're probably not fine tuned to
Speaker 3: be as efficient in general. But overall that concept and
Speaker 3: knowing that there there are you know, significant high frequency
Speaker 3: noises emitted from these electronics, from that researcher's results and
Speaker 3: testing them, it's very very plausible, very plausible. And I've
Speaker 3: had situations actually this year over here, the year before
Speaker 3: I killed him, I had a camera on the back
Speaker 3: end of our farm and it was a cell camera.
Speaker 3: It was up in the tree and this like back
Speaker 3: corner of the field where the deer kind of cut
Speaker 3: this corner, you know, between two betting areas was also
Speaker 3: a food source. It was a good hybrid type setup,
Speaker 3: but it was up in the tree high enough where
Speaker 3: I had to drive my ATV up to it and
Speaker 3: stand on the handlebars to reach the camera. So ten
Speaker 3: plus feet up in the air, in the middle of
Speaker 3: a snowstorm, the middle of a snowstorm, that deer came
Speaker 3: across that field and his eyes went straight up to
Speaker 3: that camera and he turned around and ran off. So
Speaker 3: you can't tell me that he saw the flash or
Speaker 3: heard a click or anything. In that snowstorm, something drew
Speaker 3: his attention to that camera.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Again, maybe it was a coincidence. I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I think that is a very plausible theory that cell
Speaker 3: cams affect deer. And I think it's you know, for
Speaker 3: any anyone out there who wants to argue at the point.
Speaker 3: I think it's very similar to like the white flash
Speaker 3: systems on cameras where some guys were like, oh, white flash,
Speaker 3: don't spook deer, or even just you know again, general
Speaker 3: camera set up. You know, some people put their cameras
Speaker 3: low all the time, never really affects their deer. Every
Speaker 3: deer is going to be different. Every property is going
Speaker 3: to be different. Every area is going to be different.
Speaker 3: But in general, I think that it's very, very plausible.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing to keep track of. I guess
Speaker 2: if on the theory of tracking things, that's one thing
Speaker 2: that I think, you know, we just need to keep
Speaker 2: tabs on it and kind of see if that means
Speaker 2: we need to adjust in any kind of way. But
Speaker 2: you had one more trail camera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the last trail camera rule is pretty straightforward and simple.
Speaker 3: It is just simply to put high value on that
Speaker 3: information right and catalog it. You talked about earlier, cataloging
Speaker 3: and folders and saving it. I cannot stress the importance
Speaker 3: of that. Even if you are running cell cameras, and
Speaker 3: most guys, I shouldn't say most guys, but a lot
Speaker 3: of guys nowadays are running all cell cameras. Try to
Speaker 3: get in the habit at the end of the season
Speaker 3: to swap that card, dump that car on your computer,
Speaker 3: catalog it by location, because then next year it's way
Speaker 3: easier to go back on your computer and scroll through
Speaker 3: those pictures. Then try to scroll through that app and
Speaker 3: find you know, a little tiny thumbnail or something, or
Speaker 3: you know, even better yet is go through those pictures
Speaker 3: and catalog the information. Whether you're using a planner like
Speaker 3: this or you know what Xcel spreadsheet or whatever it
Speaker 3: might be, but catalog the important information there and save
Speaker 3: that because that historical data is so important and it
Speaker 3: really will help you anticipate, even if it's a completely
Speaker 3: different deer that you're pursuing. That historical data is going
Speaker 3: to help you kind of reveal those trends and prove
Speaker 3: those theories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, there's there's a few more things I
Speaker 2: want to make sure we hit on before we go.
Speaker 2: But we're also I've been keeping here a long time,
Speaker 2: so I want to kind of move a little more.
Speaker 2: I want to say, like rapid fire, but like we're
Speaker 2: going to shift the tempo up just a little bit
Speaker 2: so we can cover a handful more things. One thing
Speaker 2: really quick, I've heard you talk about playing defense for
Speaker 2: Big Bucks, and this is a kind of a similar
Speaker 2: concept to something that came up last week. So I
Speaker 2: just want to get your thoughts on that real quick.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by playing defense and why is
Speaker 2: that important?
Speaker 3: Yeah, playing defense? You know, this kind of goes back
Speaker 3: to that pressure thing. And at the time we're recording this,
Speaker 3: this next weekend is the youth hunt. And that's when
Speaker 3: I talk about it a lot, because you know, maybe
Speaker 3: it's little different this ye because I'm actually taking my
Speaker 3: son out on the youth hunt, so I want my
Speaker 3: neighbors to not play defense. But ultimately, you know, if
Speaker 3: we're trying to harvest mature deer, we have to have
Speaker 3: mature deer to begin with. So this comes into play
Speaker 3: whether you're pursuing a specific deer or you're trying to
Speaker 3: grow or increase the age class or age structure of
Speaker 3: deer on your property. But it ultimately goes back to
Speaker 3: that pressure thing. You don't want to push deer off
Speaker 3: your property. You don't want to disturb those deer. You
Speaker 3: want to make sure that when you're hunting, you're utilizing
Speaker 3: the high quality sits versus just getting out there to
Speaker 3: get out there. And that's where having a easy access stand.
Speaker 3: Whether it's box blind or just a non invasive location
Speaker 3: where maybe you do only have a couple of days
Speaker 3: to hunt. Okay, go hunt that, but don't go into
Speaker 3: the depths of your property unless you have a good plan.
Speaker 3: And back to the wind element and again the pressure.
Speaker 3: Understand that if you bump deer they're going to run
Speaker 3: into the wind, and they almost always run into the wind,
Speaker 3: and then they're going to go to the next best cover,
Speaker 3: depending on how hard they're bumped or what the quality
Speaker 3: of that cover is. You know, they might just go
Speaker 3: to the other side of the valley on your property,
Speaker 3: or they might vacate your property altogether. Then they end
Speaker 3: up on the neighbor's property and some kid that's you know,
Speaker 3: never step foot in the woods goes out and shoots
Speaker 3: a giant buck, which you know, that's great, but I
Speaker 3: think that they should earn it right, So that's a
Speaker 3: big thing. But also again, like you put in all
Speaker 3: his time and effort and work on your property or
Speaker 3: just the time that goes into pursuing these deer, you
Speaker 3: want to take smart or make smart moves when you
Speaker 3: pursue them so that you don't bump them off your
Speaker 3: property because once they're dead, they're dead, right then there's
Speaker 3: no opportunity. So that's what I always mean by playing
Speaker 3: defense in that situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned the wind thing and how oftentimes they'll
Speaker 2: escape into the wind. I guess using that to tell
Speaker 2: where safety is. And you mentioned earlier, you know, when
Speaker 2: you were discussing the wind is king that all things
Speaker 2: being equal, when possible, a buck is going to bet
Speaker 2: with the wind to his back so he can smell
Speaker 2: what he can't see. But what about when they travel?
Speaker 2: This is one of those things that a lot of people
Speaker 2: talk about. Some people will say, man, bucks will almost
Speaker 2: always travel with the wind to their advantage in some way.
Speaker 2: Other people will say, geez, I've seen deer walking with
Speaker 2: the wind at the back plenty of times, and there's
Speaker 2: no way they could go around all the time through
Speaker 2: their daily life. So the wind in their favorite because
Speaker 2: they'd walk in circles half the time, or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: What's your take on that? Real quick?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think i've kind of dialed this in. Actually
Speaker 3: this year confirmed it for me, and I've heard all
Speaker 3: the same things that you just said. I think bucks
Speaker 3: specifically will travel with the wind at their back if
Speaker 3: they're in cover, and that's a big thing, you know.
Speaker 3: I've talked to guys and I've seen it myself. A
Speaker 3: buck walking through tall grass through a swamp bottom traveling
Speaker 3: with the wind at their back. I think that's actually
Speaker 3: advantageous for them. Right, they can't see a whole lot,
Speaker 3: but they can smell what's coming from behind them, and
Speaker 3: they're moving forward, then they have a little bit of
Speaker 3: advantage there. They really in there's a direct relationship between
Speaker 3: how deer used the wind and the pressure on the
Speaker 3: property or in the surrounding area. So the higher the
Speaker 3: pressure is, the more they're going to use the wind.
Speaker 2: Bar none.
Speaker 3: But what I saw the other night, that first night
Speaker 3: that I saw that my target buck was they came
Speaker 3: from cover of betting and the wind was ultimately at
Speaker 3: their back. I guess I can't one hundred percent confirm
Speaker 3: that because across the valley maybe the wind was swirling
Speaker 3: a little bit more over there, But just looking at
Speaker 3: a map and drawing some lines, the wind would have
Speaker 3: been at their back. But they maintained cover the whole
Speaker 3: time they dropped down on this creek bottom, and then
Speaker 3: they approached the food source with the wind at their face.
Speaker 3: So I think if you're hunting a food source or
Speaker 3: the fringes of a dough betting area during the rut,
Speaker 3: in a food source during the rut is a really
Speaker 3: good spot to hunt too. I would stay on the
Speaker 3: down wind side of it, or anticipate movement from the
Speaker 3: downwind side, because whether that buck's approaching that food source
Speaker 3: to feed and anticipating, you know, the potential of an
Speaker 3: ambush from a predator. Or he's approaching that food source
Speaker 3: to pick up a cent trail from a dough and
Speaker 3: follow her back to a bedding area. He's gonna follow,
Speaker 3: he's gonna get down wind of it. So I think
Speaker 3: that's a big thing there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. We've talked a lot
Speaker 2: about the four key elements. We've talked about building this
Speaker 2: data source to then inform you of where the right
Speaker 2: places are to be. We've talked about being careful with
Speaker 2: your sits and playing defense, but really key thing and
Speaker 2: all that, and one of the things you mentioned as
Speaker 2: kind of the glue to this whole thing is the timing.
Speaker 2: So when to take your shots, when to make your plunge,
Speaker 2: when to get aggressive, when to sit that best spot
Speaker 2: or that spot you've been waiting and waiting and waiting for.
Speaker 2: You touched on in your hunt earlier this year that
Speaker 2: the cold front was the trigger for you. But there's
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of other kind of variables that different
Speaker 2: people really assign a lot of value to when it
Speaker 2: comes to timing their hunts. Can you run me through
Speaker 2: really quick the most important variables you look at from
Speaker 2: a weather perspective, you know, whether it be precipitation or temperature,
Speaker 2: or barometric pressure, or wind or moon. Those are things
Speaker 2: that some people have got strong opinions on. Would love
Speaker 2: to hear yours real quick.
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't track the moon very much. You know.
Speaker 3: I'll look at that, and you know the same thing.
Speaker 3: You know, Mercury is really good talking about that stuff
Speaker 3: and how they anticipate, you know, before a full moon,
Speaker 3: after full moon, what that's going to do for feeding patterns,
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So I'll take it into consideration if
Speaker 3: it if I'm building a theory, you know, again, it's
Speaker 3: more information that's either going to lend to that theory
Speaker 3: and give me more precise information. But for the most part,
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't invest a ton in that. I
Speaker 3: don't invest a ton in the in the red moon
Speaker 3: or anything like that. I mostly look at the weather
Speaker 3: and the wind, specifically the wind direction and temperature changes.
Speaker 3: So I really really really like to hone in on
Speaker 3: wind direction changes. I've killed my biggest deer on wind changes.
Speaker 3: You know, whether that wind changed midday and I went
Speaker 3: out that afternoon or that wind changed overnight and moved
Speaker 3: them to a new area, and then I went out
Speaker 3: and hunted them. But I really try to dial in
Speaker 3: on that, and more often than not, when there's a
Speaker 3: wind change, there's a temp change. You know, it either
Speaker 3: maybe it flips and it warms up, but a lot
Speaker 3: of times it flips and it cools down. Now, when
Speaker 3: it comes to cold fronts in general, I think, honestly,
Speaker 3: I think that those are harder to really be super
Speaker 3: precise with. You know, some cold fronts, like last night,
Speaker 3: we had a cold front move through here, but it
Speaker 3: wasn't really that good of a night for movement. You know,
Speaker 3: I talked to a lot of guys that were oute.
Speaker 3: I've got a handful of cell cams out on food
Speaker 3: sources right now, and there really wasn't much movement. I
Speaker 3: would anticipate tonight that there's more movement, and that's a
Speaker 3: lot of times what I'll see is especially like as
Speaker 3: we progress into the fall and we get like real
Speaker 3: cold fronts, you know where it goes from fifty degrees
Speaker 3: to twenty eight degrees and a little bit of snow.
Speaker 3: A lot of times that first day of that cold front.
Speaker 3: The deer just shut right down, they don't move, and
Speaker 3: then the next day they start moving a lot. More So,
Speaker 3: to answer your question, I try to just collect as
Speaker 3: much information as possible, and I start with the wind,
Speaker 3: but most of the time I'm looking at that timing element.
Speaker 3: So again, and I think this is probably gonna be
Speaker 3: the most helpful for anyone listening to this, try to
Speaker 3: hone in on your timing in general. You know, we're
Speaker 3: already getting past the early season by the time this
Speaker 3: podcast drops, I would say we're already out of early season,
Speaker 3: not saying that there's not some early season stuff still trickling.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've seen bucks pretty consistent on food
Speaker 3: plots patternable into mid October before. But for the most part,
Speaker 3: think timing, think ahead, and i'd be looking at historical information.
Speaker 3: Where are those doughs, And if you don't have this
Speaker 3: data yet, start tracking your does, start following those doughs,
Speaker 3: and try to figure out where those doughs are spending
Speaker 3: their time, because obviously the bucks are going to start
Speaker 3: showing up there. But once I drill in on my timing,
Speaker 3: so say I've got this three to five day window
Speaker 3: that I'm trying to target in you know, whenever it is.
Speaker 3: It could be early October, could be late October, early November.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out the timing there and then
Speaker 3: ultimately I'm looking at my setup. Right. So one thing
Speaker 3: that we didn't really touch on earlier is that, you
Speaker 3: know the second half of my holistic approach, and just
Speaker 3: to kind of hit that on a high level quick,
Speaker 3: what I what I do is, you know, I refer
Speaker 3: to it as holistic hunting land management. So we in
Speaker 3: the first podcast we talked about the habitat itself, but
Speaker 3: it's I think it's important to talk about the setups
Speaker 3: and the systems on property. So from a holistic standpoint,
Speaker 3: what I'm always doing is I'm looking at the properties
Speaker 3: and how that property functions as a system as a whole, right,
Speaker 3: you know, again, habitat is a big part of that,
Speaker 3: but specifically talking about the hunting side of things, how
Speaker 3: does that property function as a system where dear betting,
Speaker 3: how are they moving, where are they feeding? And then
Speaker 3: I you know, we dial back a little bit on
Speaker 3: that and how does that property fit into a bigger
Speaker 3: system on the landscape, especially if you have a small
Speaker 3: property and even our farm you know, IVE got fifteen
Speaker 3: hundred acre farm. One of the big advantages I always
Speaker 3: had was it's broken up. It's connected, but it's broken
Speaker 3: up by topography so much so that it almost hunts
Speaker 3: like four different properties. And those deer, you know, they
Speaker 3: might spend a lot of time on our farm, but
Speaker 3: it's only a small amount of their actual range, and
Speaker 3: whether they're not on our farm, we don't know where
Speaker 3: they are. So it's part of a much bigger system.
Speaker 3: So kind of anticipating and understanding that, but more importantly
Speaker 3: than anything else is to drill in to see how
Speaker 3: the property is made up of these smaller systems or setups,
Speaker 3: and that's a big one. So we talk about timing,
Speaker 3: and I've got my time frame kind of narrowed in. Okay,
Speaker 3: I really need to focus on this time frame, whether
Speaker 3: it's the ideal time frame or I need to schedule
Speaker 3: a week off of work period. Right. I haven't had
Speaker 3: to deal with that for a while now because I
Speaker 3: make my own schedule. But for a long time it
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, I got to put in a notice
Speaker 3: a month or two in advance of when I'm going
Speaker 3: to be gone from work. Looking at that historical information
Speaker 3: drilling in that timing, and then within that timing, I'm
Speaker 3: looking at my specific setups. Where is that buck going
Speaker 3: to be, where do I anticipate him going to be,
Speaker 3: and what wind direction do I need to hunt that setup? Now,
Speaker 3: not specifically the safe wind to you know, this is
Speaker 3: obviously important, but I think that's one oh one level
Speaker 3: of like how do I get in and out of
Speaker 3: there and hunt it without deer busting me? More importantly
Speaker 3: is what wind is going to place that buck in
Speaker 3: that betting area or that adjacent betting area that feeds
Speaker 3: that setup. You know, so simple at setup possible, right,
Speaker 3: just think food, where they're going to end up betting,
Speaker 3: where they're coming from. If it's an afternoon setup or
Speaker 3: you know, inverse of that in the morning, and a
Speaker 3: pinch point in between. You know, it could be a
Speaker 3: lot of different types of pitch points. But that's a
Speaker 3: setup at a high level. So what is the wind
Speaker 3: that I need to hunt that? And if I'm looking
Speaker 3: at that time frame and I plan that out now
Speaker 3: I'm looking at that and I might get screwed and
Speaker 3: oh the wind's out of the same direction the whole week,
Speaker 3: Well then I'm just going to hunt it the best
Speaker 3: I can, but it's not really putting me in a
Speaker 3: position where I'm I have the highest donds possible. But
Speaker 3: if there's some fluctuation in the wind that week, and
Speaker 3: I know the wind, that's gonna again have the wind
Speaker 3: at that bucks back in that betting area, or it's
Speaker 3: a betting area where he's gonna cruise down window to
Speaker 3: pick up do set. I'm gonna stay out of that
Speaker 3: setup until that wind is perfect for that situation. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna hunt the fringe. You know. Maybe I'll just sit
Speaker 3: in the truck and glass a field that night, you know,
Speaker 3: rather than adding pressure to that location. But I think
Speaker 3: that's probably the most important element there again, the wind
Speaker 3: in combination with the timing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what you just described I think is going
Speaker 2: to greatly apply to my final set of questions here,
Speaker 2: but maybe not. Let's imagine you're sitting at the diner
Speaker 2: or the bar or something with a really good deer hunter,
Speaker 2: like he or she has killed good mature bucks, let's
Speaker 2: say every other year for a decent amount of time. Now,
Speaker 2: so I've done this pretty well, but they're also hard
Speaker 2: charging driven want to get better. You know, every other
Speaker 2: year is not good enough. I should be getting it
Speaker 2: done every single year. So that person is sitting with
Speaker 2: you at the table, and you've got five minutes to
Speaker 2: tell them one thing that would help them take that
Speaker 2: final next step for the late October time period, and
Speaker 2: then one piece of advice for like peak run, because
Speaker 2: those are maybe the two windows where most people think
Speaker 2: they've got their best chance, right that late October window, Man,
Speaker 2: there's this great opportunity to still have a pattern on
Speaker 2: a deer that big boy might be getting on his feet,
Speaker 2: So that's a special window. And then there's that special
Speaker 2: window when everything's just on their feet. Can you give
Speaker 2: me that one advanced idea for each of those windows
Speaker 2: for that person?
Speaker 3: I think that's that's probably a tough, tough answer, you know,
Speaker 3: without having background info on that specific person, because I
Speaker 3: might tell them something they'd be like, yeah, dude, I
Speaker 3: already know that, right. I will say that the bulk
Speaker 3: of the clients that I do virtual coaching with are
Speaker 3: those people. They're they're pretty successful hunters in general, but
Speaker 3: they're trying to take it to the next level. And
Speaker 3: I think that it's exactly what I just said on
Speaker 3: that wind direction thing. You know, I've consulted on some
Speaker 3: properties with some pretty successful hunters, some fairly big names
Speaker 3: in the industry, business owners within the outdoor industry. You know,
Speaker 3: they've killed a lot of good deer over the years,
Speaker 3: a lot of great deer over the years. But it
Speaker 3: comes back to that wind thing. And you know, again,
Speaker 3: I could explain this to one guy like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: already know that, but looking at the wind and how
Speaker 3: it places those deer is such an important things, so important,
Speaker 3: you know, I think all too often we just look
Speaker 3: at simply that's a stand I can hunt on this
Speaker 3: wind direction, but it's not necessarily going to put that
Speaker 3: buck in the area because of that wind direction. You know,
Speaker 3: in combination of where they bed and also how they travel.
Speaker 3: You know, those bucks really want to travel on that
Speaker 3: leeward side of the hill, the down wind side of
Speaker 3: the hill more often than not, not saying they won't
Speaker 3: travel on the other side, but they usually are going
Speaker 3: to spend most of their time on the down wind
Speaker 3: side of the hill when they're traveling. If you have
Speaker 3: topography or just in general, you know, I say the
Speaker 3: hill a lot or topography. Topography is the greatest form
Speaker 3: of cover. Just think of topography as cover, plain and simple.
Speaker 3: It's cover without food value, and that's all it is.
Speaker 3: So if you're hunting flat land in Iowa or Illinois
Speaker 3: or something, those bucks are going to travel more on
Speaker 3: the down wind side of the cover while still maintaining cover.
Speaker 3: So having those buffer areas or transition areas is important.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure you talk about all the time the
Speaker 3: hard edges and different edges and stuff. Right, they're going
Speaker 3: to follow that edge on the down wind side. But
Speaker 3: I think it's the most important thing to consider there
Speaker 3: is that wind element in general, and most of the
Speaker 3: properties that I'm on they have one or two really
Speaker 3: good stands. You know, maybe there's some that are not
Speaker 3: in the best locations to hunt and wind swirls or
Speaker 3: it's just not great. But more often than not, guys
Speaker 3: have stands in pretty good locations. They just hunt them
Speaker 3: on the wrong wind directions or they access them the
Speaker 3: wrong way. So understanding the wind and how it places
Speaker 3: those deer is one going to give you a huge
Speaker 3: advantage in anticipating when to hunt that location, but it's
Speaker 3: also going to give you an advantage of how to access
Speaker 3: that right. So just trying to avoid a potential betting area,
Speaker 3: so your sense not pushed into that to access that
Speaker 3: stand is obviously what's going to create the opportunity. Because
Speaker 3: if you blow them out of there or just alert them, right,
Speaker 3: I've seen this time and time again, where dose deer
Speaker 3: know you're there, it doesn't necessarily mean they're blown out
Speaker 3: of the country, right because most areas it's deer are
Speaker 3: going to see, smell, or hear people on a daily basis.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean they're running all the time, but they're
Speaker 3: simply not going to move towards the direction of a
Speaker 3: potential threat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right. If folks, which I think many
Speaker 2: folks have enjoyed this, If folks enjoy this and want
Speaker 2: more of what you have to offer, whether it be
Speaker 2: your videos or your consulting or the planner you mentioned
Speaker 2: or anything like that, where should folks go to connect
Speaker 2: with you and your work?
Speaker 3: Yep? So the Untamed Ambition dot com is my website
Speaker 3: and you can click on white Tail Ambition there or
Speaker 3: untamed Ambition dot com slash white tail ambit. That's where
Speaker 3: you're going to find all the white Tail related stuff.
Speaker 3: I offer a handful of different services on there, a
Speaker 3: lot of online stuff you know, especially this time of year,
Speaker 3: people trying to get you know, a more one on
Speaker 3: one look at their situation. One of the most popular
Speaker 3: services I offer this time of year specifically is what
Speaker 3: I call the Golden Hour. It's a one hour consultation.
Speaker 3: It's going to give you access to kind of like
Speaker 3: a little mini course talking more about the scientific approach
Speaker 3: and now we sit down and we break down your
Speaker 3: situation and talk about all these concepts and how it applies,
Speaker 3: and that a lot of times will will be all
Speaker 3: all most guys need, just kind of shift their perspective
Speaker 3: and get them going to where they're collecting information that
Speaker 3: they can build off of and you know, again start
Speaker 3: putting together these theories. The other thing actually pretty exciting
Speaker 3: from my position is I'm actually working with the white
Speaker 3: tail Master Academy now. So if you go to whitetail
Speaker 3: masteracademy dot com and actually it gave me a code
Speaker 3: so you can get twenty dollars off WA for white
Speaker 3: tail Ambition WA white tail Master Academy. There's gonna be
Speaker 3: a lot more detailed videos coming out on my approach,
Speaker 3: which you know, white tail Master Academy's got a lot
Speaker 3: of great videos Bobby Kendall's on there. He's got a
Speaker 3: lot of great videos with land plans. Don Higgins obviously
Speaker 3: he's got all his land plans and stuff on there.
Speaker 3: I think what I offer is probably a little bit
Speaker 3: different from those guys, where mine's again trying to address
Speaker 3: more common scenarios where you have less control or limited control,
Speaker 3: trying to make the most of the situation. So you
Speaker 3: can go there, sign up for that. You can get
Speaker 3: access to all those videos and all this stuff I'm
Speaker 3: talking about, and use that code w A twenty on there. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: social media, the Untamed Ambition and White Tail Ambition. Again,
Speaker 3: white the Untamed Ambition is my primary business. White Tail
Speaker 3: Ambition is kind of the coaching division specifically for white tails.
Speaker 3: But you can find me on social media Instagram the
Speaker 3: Untamed Ambition, and then on YouTube the Untamed Ambition.
Speaker 2: All right, perfect, well, Thomas, this is great. I thoroughly
Speaker 2: enjoyed geeking out with you. You speak my language, so
Speaker 2: this is this is right my alley. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Mark, all right, and with that, I think we should
Speaker 2: wrap this one up. Definitely take Thomas's suggestion there. Check
Speaker 2: out his website, check out the opportunities that he has
Speaker 2: there for you to connect with him or check out
Speaker 2: his videos, et cetera. Good stuff all across the board.
Speaker 2: So without any further ado, let's wrap this one up
Speaker 2: send you out there to the woods. Best of luck
Speaker 2: out there. Hope you guys are having a great start
Speaker 2: to your hunting season so far, and until next time,
Speaker 2: stay wired to Hunt.