Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and today in the show, I am joined
Speaker 1: by the mad scientist, the greatest of all times, some say,
Speaker 1: Mark Drury, for an absolute masterclass on the art of
Speaker 1: patterning bucks. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
Speaker 1: brought to you by First Light. It's good to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm very very excited. We have got a great episode
Speaker 1: for you today and it is kicking off a series.
Speaker 1: This has been the year of series. It's been a
Speaker 1: fun way to organize our months as we've gone throughout
Speaker 1: the year. And after killing my buck last week in Chigan,
Speaker 1: I spent some time thinking about what, you know, what
Speaker 1: led to that success? What was I doing? What was
Speaker 1: I geeking out about? And it was really patterning. I
Speaker 1: was having so much fun looking at all the data,
Speaker 1: thinking through what are these deer doing and why are
Speaker 1: they doing it? And where are they going to do
Speaker 1: it again? And when are they going to do it again?
Speaker 1: And all that was part of what led me to
Speaker 1: you know, hunting where I did and killing that buck
Speaker 1: the way that I did, and I got to think
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot more we could be discussing on
Speaker 1: this idea of patterning bucks, and the month of October
Speaker 1: is a great month to pattern a buck. So October
Speaker 1: is the month of the pattern and we're going to
Speaker 1: kick that off. If we don't include last week's which
Speaker 1: was kind of like a soft kickoff today, the real
Speaker 1: kickoff of this month is this masterclass with Mark Drewy.
Speaker 1: You should all know Mark. He's been the podcast many times.
Speaker 1: He's one of the co founders of Drewy Outdoors, host
Speaker 1: of many different deer hunting TV shows. You can find
Speaker 1: him on the deer Cast app, the Dury Outdoors YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: all over the place, and he is an absolute wealth
Speaker 1: of information. And there's two things that I think he
Speaker 1: specializes in, maybe three, but one of them is really
Speaker 1: dissecting and deep dive understanding how environmental and weather factors
Speaker 1: impact dear movement. We've talked to him several times deep
Speaker 1: on that topic. But another one that we haven't gone
Speaker 1: quite deep on in the past is patterning deer. How
Speaker 1: he kind of collects and analyzes data about specific deer
Speaker 1: and then helps develop a pattern of what they're gonna
Speaker 1: do and when they're gonna do it, so he can
Speaker 1: be there to get a shot when they do. And
Speaker 1: that is our topic today. We go into all facets
Speaker 1: of patterning deer, everything from how he collects the data
Speaker 1: to how he correlates different factors with his observations and pictures,
Speaker 1: all the way to how he chooses when to actually
Speaker 1: act on that stuff and try to take a shot
Speaker 1: at these deer. We talk early season patterning, we talked
Speaker 1: learning during the rut, we talk late season, all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff in between. This is a banger episode. And
Speaker 1: if you want to kill a deer this month in October,
Speaker 1: shoot even if you want to kill in November or December,
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn something today that will help you do it.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I think you will too. I want
Speaker 1: to give you a couple of quick updates before I
Speaker 1: let you go. H one. The final episode of my
Speaker 1: show Deer Country drops this week, so if you haven't yet,
Speaker 1: headed over to the Meteor YouTube channel and check out.
Speaker 1: Deer Country is the six episode series that documented my
Speaker 1: hunts last year as I traveled the country, met with
Speaker 1: different regional experts, sent spent one day learning from them
Speaker 1: in their neck of the woods, and then I spent
Speaker 1: the next three days to seeing if I could replicate
Speaker 1: their style in their general area and pull it off myself.
Speaker 1: This last episode was all about looking behind the curtain
Speaker 1: of how you know folks in the Midwest managed for
Speaker 1: Big Deer and actually in this case run an outfitting situation.
Speaker 1: Very interesting, very new kind of situation for me. I
Speaker 1: would love it if you could check it out. So
Speaker 1: that's number one. Number two. This is a big one
Speaker 1: this week. If you're listening to this when we dropped
Speaker 1: this episode, this episode is coming out October. If you're
Speaker 1: listening on October two or the next couple of days afterwards,
Speaker 1: I want you to know that this week is meat
Speaker 1: Eaters white Tail Week. We got a whole lot of
Speaker 1: exciting stuff happening when it comes to white tails at Metator.
Speaker 1: One of them his first Lights white Tail Sale, all
Speaker 1: of first Lights white Tail gear. Inspector is off off
Speaker 1: any of that first Light white Tail stuff you might need,
Speaker 1: the Catalyst, the Solitude, whatever. Check it out if you're
Speaker 1: in need of some last minute stuff. Twenty off Number
Speaker 1: two Phelps game Calls. It is the game call company
Speaker 1: that's part of metator right. They've done duck calls, they've
Speaker 1: done elk calls, they've done turkey calls. This week they're
Speaker 1: launching year calls. We've got a bunch of new grunt
Speaker 1: tubes Fond Distress call bleats uh I personally have really
Speaker 1: been liking and using the Beta Pro and the Alpha
Speaker 1: I believe in the names of these two grunt tubes.
Speaker 1: I've gotten to test them so far this year. I
Speaker 1: really like the sound. There's some really good things with them.
Speaker 1: I'll get into more detail in these calls in the future,
Speaker 1: but just a heads up. Phelps has got new grunt tubes.
Speaker 1: If you need a grunt tube, this is worth checking out.
Speaker 1: More to come later. If you have been thinking about
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, this is probably going to be
Speaker 1: one of the best opportunities. You've got to do it
Speaker 1: to get it for cheap, so heads up on those
Speaker 1: type of things. There's several of the Deer's deals from
Speaker 1: timber Ninja, there's discounts on our white tail logo where
Speaker 1: there's uh she, some deals from f HF. There's a
Speaker 1: lot going on. I don't want to drag us out anymore,
Speaker 1: but Mediator Whitetail Week is going on to October six.
Speaker 1: Heading over to the mediator dot com, go to the
Speaker 1: Mediator store, go to first let dot com. You're gonna
Speaker 1: find it all their good stuff. And that's it for me.
Speaker 1: That's my only other update. We got a master class
Speaker 1: to get too, folks. So enough of me jabbering on
Speaker 1: h I love patterning bocks. I love this stuff. I
Speaker 1: love nording out on the data on what these deer
Speaker 1: we're doing and what they might do, on where I
Speaker 1: should be to maybe take advantage of it. It's so
Speaker 1: much fun. And Mark Jury is just one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: I love this guy. I love his approach. Uh, I
Speaker 1: have nothing else to say. Let's get to it. Mark
Speaker 1: Jury on the podcast master Class Patterning Box one. Dud.
Speaker 1: They go all right back with me. We have the
Speaker 1: great privilege of having Mr Mark Drury on this show. Mark,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming back on the show. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. How are you doing this morning, Mark?
Speaker 1: I'm really good. I'm really good. I fill the bucktagon
Speaker 1: Michigan opening night. I went to Ohio and did some
Speaker 1: scouting yesterday, so I'm I'm just basking in the glory
Speaker 1: of deer season, man, pick here you in the family.
Speaker 1: I mean that that really put a smile on my face.
Speaker 1: And I know your smile is probably still there from
Speaker 1: that moment. That was pretty awesome, dude. It was it
Speaker 1: was the first time that the whole family could be
Speaker 1: together for that and um my, my the first track
Speaker 1: job for my youngest So I'm a two year old,
Speaker 1: so so yeah, super cool. And it was funny after
Speaker 1: we recovered that. Buck, We're all sitting there together, and
Speaker 1: my oldest son ever, he's four, he kind of turns
Speaker 1: and looks at the family and he like shouts, like
Speaker 1: really loud. He says, it's our first family Buck. I
Speaker 1: loved it. I just loved you. That's a true statement,
Speaker 1: those bucks. You know, the family allows you the time
Speaker 1: and allows you to have the passion you allow right
Speaker 1: that you have. So that's a cool thing when they
Speaker 1: get who you are and embrace it. Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. When they don't, it's it's a rough, rough
Speaker 1: time for most others. Because I've known guys like that
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you do too, where the bouse or
Speaker 1: the children and probably maybe get a little jealous over
Speaker 1: the time and the selfishness that we all have when
Speaker 1: it comes to this time of the year. So you're
Speaker 1: blessed to have a family that is aware of your
Speaker 1: passion and embraces it. Yeah, very very very true. Uh,
Speaker 1: speaking of things worth celebrating, I saw that you had
Speaker 1: a pretty exciting night last night too, and probably late night.
Speaker 1: So I gotta thank you again for for hopping on
Speaker 1: the phone here this morning after what seemed like a
Speaker 1: pretty uh eventful night. Can you uh, can you fill
Speaker 1: us in on what happened? Dude? It was such a
Speaker 1: cool day yesterday. I did an interview in the Blind
Speaker 1: and I had intel on a really nice dear that
Speaker 1: I was in on last night, Wade, which is the
Speaker 1: one you're referring to. I had intel on him, and
Speaker 1: Terry had intel on a giant. So all three of
Speaker 1: these deer like one plus type deer, and all three
Speaker 1: of them were on them. And I did this interview
Speaker 1: and I told Harry, I said, I don't ever recall
Speaker 1: all where we had intel and all three of us
Speaker 1: are on giants the same night, And I said, I
Speaker 1: feel really good. Somebody's gonna kill And I said, I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be weighed because that buck. We had
Speaker 1: a self picture of his going to bed that morning
Speaker 1: at eight oh nine something like that, and he was
Speaker 1: he was heading south out of the field or a
Speaker 1: south wind, and the access to that spot is very good.
Speaker 1: In fact, I don't know if you recall the deer
Speaker 1: that I killed Leicester December twentieth. We called him the
Speaker 1: fork buck, and he grows a little over one ninety. Well,
Speaker 1: the last time that blind was sat was that night
Speaker 1: December twenty, and then last night and then Wade killed
Speaker 1: eight out of it. So the hit was just a
Speaker 1: little bit back but quartering away. So I got opinions
Speaker 1: from tracker John and Bobby Coverts in the same two
Speaker 1: guys that are in deer cast track, you know, giving
Speaker 1: me advice in there on track jobs. And we waited
Speaker 1: the appropriate time and then took up the trail. And
Speaker 1: you're right. It was a late night. The deer travel
Speaker 1: about five or six hundred yards, but we found him
Speaker 1: dead in this first bed on a really good blood trail.
Speaker 1: It went stomach, liver, lung, and uh, the celebration began
Speaker 1: and then all the of course, all the work begins.
Speaker 1: So I went to bed about about two thirty and
Speaker 1: I was I still saw three o'clock UM last night,
Speaker 1: and then I woke up this morning about six thirty
Speaker 1: the normal times, so it was it was a sharp night.
Speaker 1: But you know what, that's what, that's what we do,
Speaker 1: and we love it. We live for those nights, you know,
Speaker 1: we live for those because no sleep nights. You know,
Speaker 1: who cares about a night where you get seven or
Speaker 1: eight hours? I'll take those two our rights every time.
Speaker 1: That's what. That's the good problem to have right there.
Speaker 1: You you want to have reason to miss sleep this
Speaker 1: time of year, big time, big time. And it was
Speaker 1: Wade's biggest deer. It was a main frame eight point
Speaker 1: and it had ten kickers, so it had eight team
Speaker 1: total score for points. It was a six and a
Speaker 1: half year old deer. And the cool thing about this deer,
Speaker 1: and it really really kind of blends into what we're
Speaker 1: talking about today. When this deer was four and a
Speaker 1: half in two thousand and twenty, I had a few
Speaker 1: pictures of him scattered throughout the fall on this tractor ground.
Speaker 1: This farm is about four acres. It's right on a
Speaker 1: major highway. I lose deer to the highway and um
Speaker 1: I had a sprinkling of pictures, So I didn't consider
Speaker 1: him like one of those dear you know how it is.
Speaker 1: You could get him every day and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's a homeboy. And I never considered homeboy. Last year
Speaker 1: and that year he was probably a hundred high thirties
Speaker 1: type eight point, but he wore it well. He had
Speaker 1: that white friend. Last year he was probably high forties,
Speaker 1: low fifties. Had him all summer. I got one hard
Speaker 1: hearted pick and he vanished, I mean gone. And all
Speaker 1: year I kept waiting to get a picture of him,
Speaker 1: had more cameras out, couldn't get him. And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, late December, he shows back up, and I
Speaker 1: was like that son of a gun, he left the
Speaker 1: entire fall, at least presumably left. I didn't have I
Speaker 1: didn't have photography of him. We hunted the farm a
Speaker 1: good bit that was where the four buck lived lived,
Speaker 1: and I never saw the buck, never encountered him. I
Speaker 1: just assumed he was dead from the highway or another hunter.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of pressure around that farm. And then
Speaker 1: he shows back up late December. So this summer, when
Speaker 1: he showed up in Velvet, we knew he was a giant,
Speaker 1: you know, right away I guess the deer in the
Speaker 1: one eighties somewhere and I'm like, oh, that's that's the
Speaker 1: deer that disappeared last year. And uh, you know, this
Speaker 1: year he shed his velvet. I got more pictures and
Speaker 1: I'm like, he's sticking around. But in my heart, I
Speaker 1: was like, this year is gonna again transferred to a
Speaker 1: fall range in my opinion, which I I eventually talked
Speaker 1: to a gentleman that that had the buck off all
Speaker 1: and they passed him, uh because because he was an
Speaker 1: eight point and they were on another different target deer.
Speaker 1: That farm is probably a mile all mile and a
Speaker 1: half east of mind. So my assumption was he was
Speaker 1: again going to switch home ranges this year or fall ranges,
Speaker 1: and that's why when he stuck around, we made an
Speaker 1: extra effort to get on with cell cams and and
Speaker 1: the food plots that he was using went back to
Speaker 1: when he was for researched where he was the most,
Speaker 1: and ended up killing him in one of those two
Speaker 1: fields where he was at the most what he was
Speaker 1: there during this period. So it really speaks to exactly
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, how patentable they can be when
Speaker 1: their home range overlays from one year to the next,
Speaker 1: they really do a lot of the same things. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is a this is a great example, and
Speaker 1: maybe we can kind of dial in on a few
Speaker 1: things with this story. You know, the focus I really
Speaker 1: am hoping to dive into is just everything on how
Speaker 1: you pattern these bucks mark And the first thing I'm
Speaker 1: wondering with with a buck like this or any deer,
Speaker 1: when do you start the patterning process? Like when does
Speaker 1: a buck show up on your radar and you say, okay,
Speaker 1: this is what we have to you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: label him as X, or we're gonna create a folder,
Speaker 1: or we're gonna you know, when does that start? Are
Speaker 1: these two year old bucks a three year old bucks? Like?
Speaker 1: When does the the file start getting developed? You know?
Speaker 1: I have a lot of trail cameras, as you know,
Speaker 1: and I run probably nine cells and another hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty normal reconics cameras annually. Now that's across three states,
Speaker 1: has crossed a lot of different farms and leases and
Speaker 1: so and so forth. And I will answer that question
Speaker 1: by this. I have a a file of photos that
Speaker 1: starts in two thousand and seven that includes every racked
Speaker 1: buck I've ever taken a photo of and every photo
Speaker 1: of that rack buck from the time that they are
Speaker 1: two and a half until they disappear or we kill
Speaker 1: them or whatever. So I try to start putting a
Speaker 1: pattern on them the moment they have a decent rap
Speaker 1: and if it's a year and a half old, that
Speaker 1: that shows real promise. You know, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: keep spikes in four corns and six points and that stuff.
Speaker 1: But if it's a year and a half, that shows
Speaker 1: real promise. I keep files on them as well. So
Speaker 1: you know, my my entire fall is just swallowed up
Speaker 1: looking at photography. I don't know how many pictures I'm
Speaker 1: at now. I mean, I used to always feel like
Speaker 1: I was at a million, but I'll bet you i'm
Speaker 1: one point five to two million photos annually. Of that,
Speaker 1: I'll keep maybe a hunter thousand. And I've got those
Speaker 1: all stored in in my computer and in hard drives
Speaker 1: from OS seven through present day. Oh that's a lot
Speaker 1: I've got. I've got like nine different directions we could
Speaker 1: go with this, and I'm not sure where where I
Speaker 1: want to. I'm like, I'm like the child that's addicted
Speaker 1: to candy that goes to Willy Wonka's candy shop, you know,
Speaker 1: and just sees every thing all around him that he
Speaker 1: wants to that he wants to have. I wanted this
Speaker 1: is like the thing I nerd out about the most too,
Speaker 1: So I guess, I guess let's just jump into something
Speaker 1: you just said right there, which was you have a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand pictures that you might be keeping, and you
Speaker 1: are keeping photos of bucks from the time they're noticeably
Speaker 1: you know, unique, So maybe oftentimes that's two and a
Speaker 1: half years old. When you get a deer like this
Speaker 1: one that Wade was on, and you realize, okay, this
Speaker 1: was a buck that you know, we noticed last year,
Speaker 1: we passed him. Now this year he's back and he's
Speaker 1: he's definitely want to shoot. How do you go about
Speaker 1: sorting through everything you had, Like, how do you make
Speaker 1: how do you find all the past pictures of his?
Speaker 1: How do you have it organized so you can then see, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's all the photos of this buck. Here's the way
Speaker 1: I'm going to think through pictures from last year versus
Speaker 1: this year. How are you able to find it, compile
Speaker 1: it in a way you can actually analyze and then
Speaker 1: make the scissions from Given the fact that you have
Speaker 1: just so much out there already to sort through. I
Speaker 1: guess my big big questions, how do you sort through
Speaker 1: and find the most important pieces within a haypile. It's
Speaker 1: it's it is a haypop because it's a time consuming
Speaker 1: deal to go through and and and find him again.
Speaker 1: Because I have in Iowa, I probably have you know,
Speaker 1: fifty different locations within reconics buckfew. And that's the program
Speaker 1: I've used in so seven and it it has served
Speaker 1: me quite well. Um, and you know, so I will
Speaker 1: I would designate a farm, call it the the this farm,
Speaker 1: for instance, call it the two seven, all right, because
Speaker 1: this track was two fifty seven. I eventually I bought it,
Speaker 1: uh and attached it to a one sixties that I owned,
Speaker 1: So now it's four seventeen. But this particular pieces two
Speaker 1: seven acres, So I have it in there as the
Speaker 1: two seven. I have a long bottom file. I have
Speaker 1: to fifty seven ridge. I've got every different can camera
Speaker 1: on that farm label accordingly. And then as I look
Speaker 1: at the cards and as I look at the pictures,
Speaker 1: I am shuffling them into all those different files so
Speaker 1: I can go back, you know, to thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
Speaker 1: whatever year it is, and and look at that particular
Speaker 1: camera area and see how the how the deer deer moved,
Speaker 1: and then I can start finding that buck once he
Speaker 1: appeared within that farm and find out what days he
Speaker 1: daylight and when he was there, so and so forth.
Speaker 1: So I don't then peel him out and create a
Speaker 1: following him. Sometimes I do, but that's not the file
Speaker 1: I'm looking at. I'm looking at all the other aspects
Speaker 1: that might affect a deer's movement during daylight, So I'm
Speaker 1: looking for other deer um. I have notes within deer
Speaker 1: cast our app as to what the uh crop rotation
Speaker 1: was on that field or in that area, not only
Speaker 1: on my farm, but on the outlying farms. I have
Speaker 1: files of the weather data from those years, so that
Speaker 1: if I find a daylight picture, call it when he
Speaker 1: was four and a half years old and two thousand
Speaker 1: and twenty, and I find two or three in a row,
Speaker 1: I can go back and research what was the weather like,
Speaker 1: what was the food like, what was the mass crop like,
Speaker 1: what was the rainfall like, and then start to put
Speaker 1: together why he did what he did. So it's it's
Speaker 1: data at a fairly high level, but that's how we're
Speaker 1: killing them. And I do these deep guys. When we
Speaker 1: get a target buck, I go backwards in my file.
Speaker 1: So that's why it's important that I keep every single
Speaker 1: rack Buck photo because you're building that buck's history and
Speaker 1: that buck's life. And then when he if he stays
Speaker 1: around and if he gets the five or six, and
Speaker 1: if he becomes a target, which by and large most
Speaker 1: do not. They fall off the map at age three
Speaker 1: h four eag. You know, through time, you lose a
Speaker 1: lot or they they're there here today, gone tomorrow. They're
Speaker 1: on a walk about outside of their home range. You
Speaker 1: get pictures and I keep them just in case they
Speaker 1: walk about again. But a deer that is a semi
Speaker 1: homeboy like this, I had some pretty good data points
Speaker 1: that I could go back on and and and figure
Speaker 1: him out. So and he really wasn't that hard to
Speaker 1: figure out because he was so so confined. Two spots
Speaker 1: that were in both years, uh we're bean fields. Actually
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twenty, he who was on a
Speaker 1: bean field that I did a green to green transfer,
Speaker 1: and then he did it again this year and that's
Speaker 1: where he killed him. The other field where Wade and
Speaker 1: counteredy mat the end of the night, which is only
Speaker 1: about two yards from where he killed him, is a
Speaker 1: big ridge field that they love to go bed on
Speaker 1: this north face on hot days. That's the other thing
Speaker 1: I learned about the farm. And then this bug. And
Speaker 1: right below that there was a big giant bean field
Speaker 1: and twenty and its beans again this year, so you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps the crop rotation had something to do. And it
Speaker 1: was also a good acrn near in twenty and two.
Speaker 1: So all of those things come into play um when
Speaker 1: it when it comes time to kill a deer, So
Speaker 1: it's not about the deer always, it's also about the
Speaker 1: environment and that's one of the reasons we did the
Speaker 1: things we did within deer cast. You know, we we've
Speaker 1: always had the predictive bottle. We extended that to fourteen
Speaker 1: days this year. But this year we came up with
Speaker 1: our mapping solutions. Well within that, we have the wind,
Speaker 1: and we have mass crop, and we have overall rain
Speaker 1: with our rain stations, all the things that people really
Speaker 1: need to focus in on, I think to help them
Speaker 1: take their game to the next level. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's better mapping solutions out there. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: I think there's absolute better mass. But I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any out there with better tools to help you
Speaker 1: kill a white tail than than what deer cast is.
Speaker 1: We stayed in our lane and focus directly on the
Speaker 1: white tail deer and the hunter and the armor that
Speaker 1: they lived in. Yeah, that's some pretty cool stuff. I
Speaker 1: love that rain gage feature. That is that one just
Speaker 1: jumped out to me as gosh, I would die to
Speaker 1: have that kind of information for over over the years
Speaker 1: of food plots and whatnot, exactly like it's it's so
Speaker 1: important to not only like our success. Like okay, basics.
Speaker 1: I put the sea in the ground, I don't get rain,
Speaker 1: it doesn't grow. I put the seed in the ground,
Speaker 1: I get two tents of inch of rain. The seed swells,
Speaker 1: it doesn't grow. I get a two inch rain. Holy cow,
Speaker 1: I've got the best looking food plot I've ever had.
Speaker 1: So that in it's the way we look at it,
Speaker 1: you know, on the surfaces, like that's important to my success. Well,
Speaker 1: what happened in April, May and June that this deer
Speaker 1: grew forty five inches versus the last two years when
Speaker 1: he was a one forty one fifty and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden this year he's you know, well, guess what,
Speaker 1: we had a wet spring. What happened five years ago?
Speaker 1: We had a wet spring, and when he was a fawn,
Speaker 1: he was off to a good start because we had
Speaker 1: a tremendous acorn crop that year. So rainfall is so
Speaker 1: important to the overall health of the herd. You know
Speaker 1: what happens when we don't get the right amount of
Speaker 1: rainfall here at the right times of the year, All
Speaker 1: of a sudden you have the h D and that
Speaker 1: affects overall daylight pictures and overall daylight movement. So I
Speaker 1: think outside of just the um, the trail photos that
Speaker 1: you keep, the notes you keep about your environment also
Speaker 1: help you put patterns together through the decades because as
Speaker 1: things occur. Now, Terry and I have been hunting long enough.
Speaker 1: I'm fifty five. I started hunting when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1: Terry sixty five. Well, we've seen many falls come and go.
Speaker 1: We've seen great acorn crops, we've seen terrible ones. We've
Speaker 1: seen crops fail, we've seen them succeed to the point
Speaker 1: that they're two hundred bushel corn and you know, seventy
Speaker 1: bushel beams. We've you know, we've seen it all before,
Speaker 1: so therefore when it repeats, we have a better understanding
Speaker 1: how to succeed. And and a lot of this is
Speaker 1: mental notes, but a lot of it is written notes
Speaker 1: and stuff that I've I've journaled through the years about
Speaker 1: what happened when the weather was like this, and that's
Speaker 1: how we came up with the algorithm for deercast. So
Speaker 1: it's just really paying attention to every detail. But it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a time stuck for you if you want
Speaker 1: to take it to that level, like it's it's almost
Speaker 1: seven throughout the entire fall to really hone in on
Speaker 1: all these different things I'm talking about, because the environment
Speaker 1: and the food sources are just as important to the
Speaker 1: deer ultimately his health and how he's going to move,
Speaker 1: you know, daylight versus nighttime that year, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different factors that to plug in on. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: really gotta love it. I was for now, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's two nights before opening day here in Michigan.
Speaker 1: I was sitting at like eleven o'clock at night at
Speaker 1: my computer, had both monitors up, and I had a
Speaker 1: spreadsheet with all of my daylight trail camera photos of
Speaker 1: my main target buck and all the different weather factors, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: all the different data points there that I had a
Speaker 1: note document open where I had listed out everything this
Speaker 1: buck had done in within like a ten day window
Speaker 1: of opening day. And then I had everything he'd done
Speaker 1: this year so far for the last three weeks, and
Speaker 1: then I had notes on the two locations I was
Speaker 1: considering and what other deer had been in there last
Speaker 1: year and this year. And was looking at all this
Speaker 1: stuff and I'm having the time of my life. And
Speaker 1: I texted some of my buddies in my group chat
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh my god, that looks miserable. You're
Speaker 1: a nut job. And in my head, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is the best part of it. This is the best
Speaker 1: You really got to love that. I agree. I love data,
Speaker 1: you know, and I love stats, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool because they are potable, but you've got
Speaker 1: to have the pieces of the pie to pattern them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned, you know, keeping track of the environmental
Speaker 1: factors and all the other things outside of just pictures.
Speaker 1: And this is one thing that I have struggled with
Speaker 1: actually over the years and not done a good enough
Speaker 1: job of that. Is like keeping track of all of
Speaker 1: those outside things. Um, I've I've started and stopped multiple
Speaker 1: hunting journals where I'm every year I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep track of everything. And I do it for
Speaker 1: a few days or a few weeks, and then I
Speaker 1: lose I lose it. Uh what does that look like
Speaker 1: for you? Do you keep a consistent journal? Do you,
Speaker 1: you know, do track stuff just during the hunting season
Speaker 1: or are you writing something down online or in a
Speaker 1: book or you know, how do you personally do that?
Speaker 1: I keep a lot of notes within deercast because we
Speaker 1: allow for it, you know, within the different way points
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But a lot of it is honestly in
Speaker 1: my mind. Like I don't know. I think I was
Speaker 1: lucky that I have a mind that Like I think
Speaker 1: it's because I'm so hyper focused on killing them, Like
Speaker 1: I know how important it is, so therefore I remember it,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Like I can't remember. My wife
Speaker 1: can bring up ten subjects in a row and I'll
Speaker 1: have barely a memory of any of them. But when
Speaker 1: it comes but it comes to a d R the
Speaker 1: barametric pressure, the wind speed, the wind direction, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's not a deer I've ever killed that. I couldn't
Speaker 1: spit it out if you ask me, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I've been very lucky to have it. And again,
Speaker 1: I think that's probably a selfishness on my part because
Speaker 1: I'm so obsessed with them. Uh, you know, so a
Speaker 1: lot of it is just memory. Now, yeah, I can't,
Speaker 1: I can't say I have that same memory. So jealous
Speaker 1: of that, I've got to figure out a better way
Speaker 1: to lock the stuff down on paper. Um, we'll see
Speaker 1: if this is the year I can finally do a
Speaker 1: better job of it. Here. Here's something I'm curious about,
Speaker 1: historical weather data. Right, that's something that, of course you've
Speaker 1: mentioned as being something you'd like to take a look
Speaker 1: at and see, you know, how it correlates with daylight
Speaker 1: pictures in the past or daylight observations. This is a
Speaker 1: two part question, and one part maybe you don't want
Speaker 1: to answer, and if you don't want to answer, you
Speaker 1: don't need to. Second part you can tell me. But
Speaker 1: part A is can we get historical other data in
Speaker 1: deer cast someday? Because I would love it if I
Speaker 1: could see that right in my dear cast app firsts
Speaker 1: having to go to a different website. That's part day,
Speaker 1: and then part two is where do you personally go
Speaker 1: to get your historical weather data. I've created my own okay,
Speaker 1: so two answers. Deer Cast looks at the future and
Speaker 1: the past. Okay, So on a on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: if it's giving you a prediction, it's looking backwards and
Speaker 1: it's looking forward. So say you wanted to rewind the
Speaker 1: clock five years, it would have to look backwards several
Speaker 1: days and look forward several days to recreate the prediction
Speaker 1: for that day. That was an algorithm and the cost
Speaker 1: of an API that was cost prohibitive by not by
Speaker 1: a little, but by a lot, like put puts got
Speaker 1: a business, you know, when we asked the question, can
Speaker 1: we do this because we have an ap I like
Speaker 1: weather is for the most part, a predictive model in
Speaker 1: an itself. So the API comes in, we pipe that
Speaker 1: into our algorithm and it all works right because it's
Speaker 1: all recent, it's all right there in their computers to
Speaker 1: go back and dig it up. Was they're They're like, well,
Speaker 1: no one's ever asked for that before, you know, and
Speaker 1: and other words, it was impossible and the quote was
Speaker 1: cost prohibitive. So I do it myself. I screenshot my
Speaker 1: dear cast every day and I keep a file and
Speaker 1: I have since it came out, so I've got every
Speaker 1: day's weather data for where I hunt since the start
Speaker 1: of it. So that's the best way to do it, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I uh, because then it's is all there. If you
Speaker 1: look at our screen, everything you want to know is
Speaker 1: all on on that hourly forecast. Put it at you know, noon,
Speaker 1: or put it at eight am or six pm, and
Speaker 1: screenshot it, and you've got every single readout you want.
Speaker 1: But going back and doing it is just absolutely cost prohibitive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that. Uh, well, I can dream, I guess,
Speaker 1: and it's cost prohibitive because of how many days equal
Speaker 1: into the prediction for that moment. Right, We're giving you
Speaker 1: an hour by our forecast, but in reality, it's looking
Speaker 1: forward and looking backwards to give you that hour, and
Speaker 1: then if you wanted to rewind the clock five years,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost it's so tangled up you can't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a doozy. Well back to back to pictures then, Um,
Speaker 1: one of the things I don't want to spend a
Speaker 1: ton of time on, but I do want to just
Speaker 1: run by you real quick. We've had previous conversations over
Speaker 1: the years about how you use trail cameras, how you
Speaker 1: place them, Um, you know, when you're checking them, when
Speaker 1: they're when you're moving them, stuff like that. But when
Speaker 1: it comes specifically to patterning bucks, like not just getting
Speaker 1: a basic inventory in the summer, uh, not just trying
Speaker 1: to get you know, what's around, but when you are
Speaker 1: actively trying to pattern a specific buck like this deer
Speaker 1: for example, that way just killed when he showed back
Speaker 1: up and you realized, oh wow, we've got a chance
Speaker 1: of this dear, but we gotta figure him out asap
Speaker 1: before he disappears. How does your camera placement change, if
Speaker 1: at all, in that kind of situation when you're like,
Speaker 1: we need to learn this deer and put together a pattern. Now,
Speaker 1: just do things change or do you always have your
Speaker 1: cameras in the same places and they just stay there.
Speaker 1: They are historical cameras everywhere that stay there, that are
Speaker 1: on great travel routes or hubscrapes or places. You know,
Speaker 1: when you watch a farm or watch a field and
Speaker 1: you're hunting it, you go, I need a camera right there,
Speaker 1: and then it always produces for you you know, and
Speaker 1: you watch a certain food plot and that's got the movement.
Speaker 1: The rest of the plot's got twenty right, so you know,
Speaker 1: but then when we find a target, then we might
Speaker 1: go from three broad looking cameras in that area to ten.
Speaker 1: I call it the blitz creeg with with cams. So
Speaker 1: you know you're going you're trying to win the war, right,
Speaker 1: everybody knows from history that the term blitz grieg. Well,
Speaker 1: you're going there. You gotta be wise about it. You
Speaker 1: can't run him out of there. Got to be smart
Speaker 1: and get as much intel as you can. And you know,
Speaker 1: you know, six seven years ago, before the advent of
Speaker 1: the cell cams, you didn't have real time information. Now
Speaker 1: you do. So my my methods have changed from strictly
Speaker 1: looking at historical patterns and trying to predict the future
Speaker 1: to that coupled with real time in the now um
Speaker 1: information through cell cams, and it's uh. I can tell
Speaker 1: you those subcams are are a deadly deadly tool. When
Speaker 1: coupled with historical infusion from a file that you've you've
Speaker 1: kept on a deer, it is a one to punch
Speaker 1: that is unbeatable for mature bucks, particularly particularly in phases
Speaker 1: like this one on on Greener Pastors were in phase
Speaker 1: two from our show start team, and they're just not
Speaker 1: moving very far. If you put a buck to bed
Speaker 1: and you've got a decent deercast prediction that afternoon, chances
Speaker 1: are you going to see when you do this blitz
Speaker 1: creek and you go and you increase the concentration of cameras.
Speaker 1: What are what are the kinds of places you're going
Speaker 1: to place those extra cameras, and how are you doing
Speaker 1: it so that you don't mess up you know, your
Speaker 1: chances of still seeing him. What's what's the best way
Speaker 1: to do that in a low impact way where you
Speaker 1: get enough information that's relevant but not so much so
Speaker 1: that you never see him again. It changes throughout the year.
Speaker 1: This time of the year, they're not moving very far
Speaker 1: because they're on food source. They haven't started expanding their
Speaker 1: home range hardly at all. And I'm on entry and
Speaker 1: exit trails in and around a food source that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to take the deer, or I'm on an acorn
Speaker 1: flat that has a bunch of you know, acorns falling,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to figure out where he's coming from,
Speaker 1: where he's been, and I probably have an idea based
Speaker 1: on historical you know, hunting of the farm, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm trying to kill him in and around that food
Speaker 1: source of an afternoon, unless by chance I get a
Speaker 1: strong north wind, then I'll try him of the morning.
Speaker 1: First north is always gold, and we've talked about that
Speaker 1: before on your podcast. I love the first morning the
Speaker 1: winds out of the north Tomorrow morning? Is that for
Speaker 1: us here? So, um, if we don't have too many
Speaker 1: cocktails when Matt us here tonight, we might have to mark.
Speaker 1: If not that we'll be out there tomorrow afternoon. But um,
Speaker 1: I love that. Now that will change as you get
Speaker 1: into late October. Then I'm I'm on scrapes, man. I've
Speaker 1: got every scrape covered that I can find in what
Speaker 1: I anticipate to be his home core. And then suddenly,
Speaker 1: instead of the blitz Creek being very concentrated on a
Speaker 1: small area, it expands as I anticipate the home range
Speaker 1: is going to expand. In other words, Wade's deer was
Speaker 1: fairly fairly consistent two hundred yards apart two major fields.
Speaker 1: He was daylighting on both of them in the evenings.
Speaker 1: Very rare for a six and af year old deer
Speaker 1: to do. But you get into late October, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, home range is gonna expand, and you've got
Speaker 1: to have a lot more scrapes covered to figure out
Speaker 1: where he's gonna because that's what he's hitting at that time.
Speaker 1: Right now, he's hitting food source. Late October, early November,
Speaker 1: he's hitting scrapes. Get back through the rut, then I'm
Speaker 1: on just where the heck is he gonna be at
Speaker 1: a lot of randomness, so I'm on trails oftentimes then
Speaker 1: and then late November I'm back into scrapes and food sources.
Speaker 1: So you know, as we transition through the season, these
Speaker 1: light switch events that we talked about in thirteen and
Speaker 1: in Deer Season twenty two, then you know you can
Speaker 1: you can adjust your tactics and all of this is
Speaker 1: laid out in Deercast, like we talked, we break these
Speaker 1: phases down, um, you know, as as deeply as we
Speaker 1: can to help people understand what the deer doing at
Speaker 1: different times of the year. Well, if you adjust your
Speaker 1: camera strategy to what they're doing, you're gonna be so
Speaker 1: much more effective. If you find a target buck, put
Speaker 1: a lot of cameras on him, you're gonna up your
Speaker 1: eyes for killing definitely seeing possibly killing him. Where does
Speaker 1: where does glassing or observation fit into your data kind
Speaker 1: of mix these days? Is that something you do much
Speaker 1: still or with the advent of sell Kam's, do not
Speaker 1: need to do that as much? I still do a
Speaker 1: lot of it, a lot because a camera only shows
Speaker 1: you one little spot right like they tell you a lot.
Speaker 1: But they also don't tell you a lot if you will.
Speaker 1: And that gets especially true in terrain and country that
Speaker 1: is more difficult to anticipate and interpret. In other words,
Speaker 1: like big open country throws hunters for a curve because
Speaker 1: there they can be anywhere everywhere. You know tall grass,
Speaker 1: big swampy areas that's all the same, all flat river bottoms,
Speaker 1: big crp expanses, big tillable, those types of examples where
Speaker 1: the it's really really big cover, they oftentimes are much
Speaker 1: more random within and they're far much more difficult to pattern.
Speaker 1: Contrast that with where we were last night, brushy, brushy,
Speaker 1: heavy security cover, food right next to it. He's not
Speaker 1: moving very far, he's got bet, he's got food, he's
Speaker 1: got water. When that gets big, it's much more difficult
Speaker 1: to pattern them. So I spread out and I watched that. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: as opposed to depend on cell cams, sometimes cell cams
Speaker 1: or cameras in general will almost lock you into a
Speaker 1: pattern and handcuff you or put you in a straight
Speaker 1: jacket to where you can't make a good decision. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you've got to get back out there, put eyes
Speaker 1: on the ground, boots on the ground, and figured out
Speaker 1: that way. So it really depends on the environment that
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with. Yeah, and like when would you do
Speaker 1: that kind of thing? Is that like, let's say you're
Speaker 1: an environment or situation where you realize that I need
Speaker 1: this additional intel, I need to go out and watch.
Speaker 1: Are you just doing that on the nights and the
Speaker 1: conditions aren't right to actually go in for a strike
Speaker 1: and for a kill And you're like, well, there's not
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to kill something right now, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to sit back and watch. Or are you doing
Speaker 1: this every morning in October when you're not hunting? Or
Speaker 1: what does that actually look like? You hit two nails
Speaker 1: on the head. Both of those examples are exactly when
Speaker 1: I do it, and then I do it when the
Speaker 1: camera reports and the cell cams have me scratching my head.
Speaker 1: In other words, is like this buck was here last year,
Speaker 1: but I'm not getting him this year. Did he switch
Speaker 1: to one part of the field, you know as buck's age.
Speaker 1: That's another part of the equation and another part of
Speaker 1: of pattering a deer. What they do at age three
Speaker 1: varies differently from four or five, and then when they
Speaker 1: get to six or seven, suddenly things start to shrink.
Speaker 1: If you took a circle, and it would be very
Speaker 1: large at age three, it's slowly but truly shrinks. As
Speaker 1: a deer age is you get into six, seven or eight,
Speaker 1: if you could find where he's at, you could kill
Speaker 1: it because he's not moving very far. They get slow.
Speaker 1: Their metabolism slows way down. They get almost a little
Speaker 1: bit lazy. I oftentimes use an analogy of an older
Speaker 1: pet and older dog as you watch them age through life.
Speaker 1: Take a cat, you know that's you know, age one
Speaker 1: or two. That thing's bouncing off the walls half today.
Speaker 1: You know, by this time that's ten or twelve, it's
Speaker 1: laying around, sleeping all day. And dogs are are very
Speaker 1: much the same. Puppy versus you know a dog that's ten,
Speaker 1: eleven or two, well and deer are this exact same way,
Speaker 1: So you have to always keep in mind what age
Speaker 1: is he and water His mannerism is gonna be like,
Speaker 1: and am I off of him just a little bit?
Speaker 1: Is he here but my cameras aren't seeing him? I
Speaker 1: need to go watch from afar if it's possible, and
Speaker 1: perhaps try to find him, and that that has worked
Speaker 1: many times for me. So it's it really comes down
Speaker 1: to the environment and the age of the deer now
Speaker 1: and and the weather right like we're in this terrible
Speaker 1: pattern two years in a row of these every day
Speaker 1: it's ten degrees above normal temperatures. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's like that three oup in Michigan, but it has
Speaker 1: been for us here. And it's like the Law Ninia
Speaker 1: force that's out in the Pacific has set a new
Speaker 1: normal to the to the deer movement. What used to
Speaker 1: be a poor on deer cast is now really and
Speaker 1: okay because the deer have adjusted to these warmer temperatures.
Speaker 1: That's gonna switch in March or April when it turns
Speaker 1: over to to an l Nno. But the Law Union
Speaker 1: has really smoked us here in the Midwest, both in
Speaker 1: overall rainfall an overall average temperature the last couple of seasons.
Speaker 1: And we've gone through these before, um you know, in
Speaker 1: years past, so we kind of know how to adjust
Speaker 1: to it. I don't have you been above norm there
Speaker 1: where you live. It's been pretty warm throughout the summer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're in a little bit of a better place the
Speaker 1: last like seven eight, nine, ten days. It's finally can't
Speaker 1: drop down. Finally got two normal, right exactly, So now
Speaker 1: normal is the new coal front. It hasn't get for
Speaker 1: the last seasons. It's it's crazy. And that's all through
Speaker 1: that Londini's effect on us out there in the Pacific.
Speaker 1: It's it has a huge effect on overall environment rainfall
Speaker 1: and thus, dear moment. That's interesting, this this situation in
Speaker 1: which we realize that we need to get more intel
Speaker 1: and we need to go out and actually watch. The
Speaker 1: perfect situation, I think is is where you can drive
Speaker 1: to somewhere and sit in your truck and glass from
Speaker 1: a hill, let's say, a super safe, great view. You've
Speaker 1: got an opening you can looking down down into. That
Speaker 1: sounds easy, like that's an easy option. But what about
Speaker 1: a situation where you don't have that hill that you
Speaker 1: can safely get up on top of and you if
Speaker 1: you wanted to learn more about what this deer is
Speaker 1: is doing, you would have to get in there and
Speaker 1: climb up into a tree or something. Do you ever
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing anymore, like an actual observation
Speaker 1: sit And if so, how do you do that in
Speaker 1: a way that you feel confident you can get the
Speaker 1: intel you need without damaging things? Is that you know?
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts on that? I actually absolutely do it,
Speaker 1: and um I did it on the nine of October two.
Speaker 1: I was sharing that story with you before we started recording.
Speaker 1: There was a buck that I had pictures of them
Speaker 1: in brand new spot, and you know, I went in there.
Speaker 1: We have a blind kind of set up where we
Speaker 1: think we can kill him, but we're also like, we're
Speaker 1: probably gonna have to move this or go to a
Speaker 1: different tree or whatever, so let's go have to sit
Speaker 1: there and see if we see him. And what do
Speaker 1: you know, he walks in twenty five yards and I
Speaker 1: goofed the whole situation up and I don't even get
Speaker 1: my bow draw because I was in a bad position.
Speaker 1: I kind of had my head out of the game,
Speaker 1: and I got very excited, very quickly, and I really
Speaker 1: really botched it up and and just screwed up on
Speaker 1: a really big deer. But I was doing it that night.
Speaker 1: So I do a lot of observation sits. And I
Speaker 1: think one of those situations would be, you know, like
Speaker 1: say it's a big timber track and it's just lots
Speaker 1: of timber, and you know the deer in there, but
Speaker 1: you know outside of camera photos, or you're not gonna
Speaker 1: observe that timber because you can't see him there. You've
Speaker 1: just got to be very wise about the days you'll
Speaker 1: go in there and where you're gonna sit and how
Speaker 1: you're gonna set up. Like I love. I love high
Speaker 1: pressure days thirty point give me thirty point one and rising,
Speaker 1: and I feel much more confident going into a timber
Speaker 1: and affecting less then on a point eight with cloud
Speaker 1: cover and swirly winds, where you're gonna affect a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. So be wise about the weather conditions when
Speaker 1: you choose to go do it, and be wise about
Speaker 1: your access and then affect less. I don't walk and
Speaker 1: scout a tremendous a lot tremendous amount during the season.
Speaker 1: I do all of that in the off season, I
Speaker 1: walk the you know, leather off the bottom of the
Speaker 1: shoes shed hunting and the off season, but come season,
Speaker 1: I am really cautious about getting in there and scouting
Speaker 1: an area unless the weather is just absolutely pristine and perfect,
Speaker 1: because I think the worst thing you can do as
Speaker 1: a hunter is bounce a deer out of where you're
Speaker 1: trying to kill him. I mean, unless you just don't care,
Speaker 1: you know, unless you're you know, like you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not in it trying to pattern the bucket. I'm in
Speaker 1: it to go and enjoy myself, and I want to
Speaker 1: go cover some ground on this track of ground today
Speaker 1: and see what the deer sign looks like and jump
Speaker 1: into tree saddle and see if I kill one that's okay.
Speaker 1: The great thing about deer hunting, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different techniques where you can kill them. My personal technique
Speaker 1: and my personal desire is to never affect the deer
Speaker 1: and try not to let them know they're being haunted.
Speaker 1: That's because that's worked for me in the past. So
Speaker 1: therefore I'm very cautious about those days that I'll go
Speaker 1: do that that technique where I'm actually trying to gain
Speaker 1: intel by going into their world, if you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when you're doing an observation sit or you're glassing,
Speaker 1: what specifically, And I'm sure the answer is everything, but
Speaker 1: I guess I'm looking for a little bit more nuanced
Speaker 1: as far as what specifically are you looking for? Like
Speaker 1: what are the things like you sit, you see the
Speaker 1: buck pop out in your mind? What are the key
Speaker 1: data points that you need to preserve from that observation? Uh?
Speaker 1: And how do you then do that? So you you
Speaker 1: you see the buck, let's say, do you go home?
Speaker 1: Do you go pull up deer cast and put in
Speaker 1: the notes like Okay, I saw him and he came
Speaker 1: from here and he did X and and all that,
Speaker 1: or how do you take advantage of a sighting and
Speaker 1: squeeze that for as much as possible? Maybe That's what
Speaker 1: I'm getting at. It definitely goes back into that overall
Speaker 1: data bank, if you will, of what's the crop rotation,
Speaker 1: what phase are we in, what time of the year
Speaker 1: is it, what is the weather like today? What made
Speaker 1: him move during daylight? Where did he come from? Where
Speaker 1: is he going? It's really as simple as what I
Speaker 1: just said right there, Where did he bed? Where is
Speaker 1: he heading to feed? Or if it's a later and
Speaker 1: I'm speaking in terms of where I'm at right now
Speaker 1: in the season, which is you know, early October, and
Speaker 1: they're they're on food patterns. That's going to change drastically
Speaker 1: coming up here because the home ranges are going to expand.
Speaker 1: And then in November it's you know, bar the door there,
Speaker 1: they're all over the Dad Come place. So all of
Speaker 1: those different factors have to be either journals are remembered,
Speaker 1: are put into that overall data bag of of your
Speaker 1: personal dear memory slash history, slash predictive model, whatever that
Speaker 1: is for you as a person. It has to be
Speaker 1: documented some way so that you can and eight years,
Speaker 1: ten years, seven years, go back, not necessarily to reflect
Speaker 1: on that dear, but reflect on what the dear in
Speaker 1: general do with those conditions when they repeat, because when
Speaker 1: weather conditions repeat and mass crop repeats and crop rotation repeats,
Speaker 1: the dear in general will most likely act and bed
Speaker 1: the same way that they are when you made that observation.
Speaker 1: So something you said there made me. It triggered a
Speaker 1: situation that I've oftentimes found myself in wondering about UH,
Speaker 1: and I think it has it's tied to this kind
Speaker 1: of observation type situation where you see a deer do
Speaker 1: something and then you think about, Okay, what was the
Speaker 1: wind doing on at that particular time, and why did
Speaker 1: he come from where he came from, and why was
Speaker 1: he going where he was going. One of the dilemmas
Speaker 1: I oftentimes find myself is that I'm looking at a
Speaker 1: daylight photo or I'm looking at some piece of data
Speaker 1: that says, okay, that buck was in here on this day.
Speaker 1: What was the wind you know that day? And I'll say, okay,
Speaker 1: it's a northwest or whatever. But then maybe it was
Speaker 1: different in the morning versus the evening. And I guess
Speaker 1: I'm curious, what do you think matters more when it
Speaker 1: comes to predicting what a buck's going to do? Is
Speaker 1: is the wind in the morning when he went back
Speaker 1: to bed the most important thing to predict what he's
Speaker 1: gonna do? Or is it the wind in the evening
Speaker 1: when he comes out to his food source, like which
Speaker 1: is influencing his behavior more? Um, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm explaining this question, what does that make sense? Mark?
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you talking in terms of speed or direction?
Speaker 1: I was thinking direction, but both of the interesting um,
Speaker 1: wind speed is what I pay most attention to. I
Speaker 1: pay almost no attention to win direction as it pertains
Speaker 1: to a bucks paninable and predictive movements as much as
Speaker 1: I do speed. Um, I am not one that conforms
Speaker 1: to the thought that the direction of wind will dictate
Speaker 1: a lot for a deer. I'm sure it does, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's as important as as I as
Speaker 1: I think some people think it is. If that makes sense,
Speaker 1: just that's just based on my observations. I'm much more
Speaker 1: interested in the speed and his overall demeanor, which I
Speaker 1: think speed has a great deal to do with. Then
Speaker 1: I am the direction of the wind, So tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that then. So if if
Speaker 1: the speed is really what might be influencing, I mean,
Speaker 1: are you saying my influence whether or not a buck
Speaker 1: were to come out in daylight again, or if you
Speaker 1: know he's will be more active? Absolutely? Yeah. And that's
Speaker 1: combined with a lot of other weather factors, and when
Speaker 1: when a lot of them optimize, that's when you see
Speaker 1: those magical days. It's like, holy shoot. So three shooters tonight,
Speaker 1: you know, or I saw thirty deer, But you know,
Speaker 1: the other night I set the same place, and I
Speaker 1: saw three deer, and you know, a lot of things
Speaker 1: were similar, but all of a sudden when several things optimized,
Speaker 1: like we're about to do that tomorrow and the next
Speaker 1: day at least here in the Midwest, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of weather factors that are optimizing, and we're we're very
Speaker 1: anxious for this this next three or four day period here,
Speaker 1: can you can you in a way that won't you know,
Speaker 1: give away too much information? Would you be willing to
Speaker 1: walk me through you know what you're how you're gonna
Speaker 1: take advantage of this optimal set of conditions, and how
Speaker 1: you are going to you know, pattern or try to
Speaker 1: take advantage of a pattern that you've been developing with
Speaker 1: with the buck of your own. Is there in the
Speaker 1: example you could share of like this is what he's
Speaker 1: done in the history, this is what the pictures tell me. Now,
Speaker 1: this is how this lines up with the current weather pattern.
Speaker 1: And is there a case study that we have here
Speaker 1: that might work to discuss Uh? No, because of the
Speaker 1: three of the I shouldn't answer it that way. Yes
Speaker 1: there is, but in this year this instance, three of
Speaker 1: the bucks that I'm hunting are bucks that don't home
Speaker 1: core on my farms, like I'm waiting for them to
Speaker 1: show and then I'm gonna go hunt them, and none
Speaker 1: of them are on there right now, so because I
Speaker 1: hunt a lot of small parcels and therefore I'm just
Speaker 1: off oftentimes, so i gotta wait for them to come in.
Speaker 1: Um So, in direct answer to your question, and then
Speaker 1: the other one that I'm hunting, I've really got four
Speaker 1: targets that I'm hunting this year, and the other one
Speaker 1: I think does live there a lot. However, the wind
Speaker 1: direction is completely wrong to hunting over the next few days.
Speaker 1: So um So, that's why my simple answer was no.
Speaker 1: In terms of who I'm hunting right now. However, Mattson
Speaker 1: Perry's got a tag. So there are other bucks that
Speaker 1: I think are going to play quite well through these conditions,
Speaker 1: and that's looking at historical data. They're bucks that have
Speaker 1: been there at their lives and the conditions are lining up.
Speaker 1: If we can put them to bed, we should see
Speaker 1: them and possibly kill them. It's exactly what we did
Speaker 1: last night with Wades. So and the reason I say
Speaker 1: that is because I've had many days over the past
Speaker 1: ten days where I've had a buck early morning on
Speaker 1: a sub cam and go he's not coming out tonight.
Speaker 1: The weather conditions aren't right. I don't think he's gonna
Speaker 1: daylight tonight, and therefore we choose not to go in there,
Speaker 1: and more often than not, he did not. That's going
Speaker 1: to change um here with this weather front, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be below normal temperatures. We've got cold north winds, and
Speaker 1: these weather fronts, I will say that through an union,
Speaker 1: when you get them, they're that much more important because
Speaker 1: we get so few. When you get one, Holy cow, man,
Speaker 1: they're all on the feet, and they're moving a little
Speaker 1: bit further than moving earlier than moving a little farther,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. What's about to happen here in the
Speaker 1: middle of So that raises another question. Then we've got
Speaker 1: maybe three main categories of data. I guess you could
Speaker 1: say that might help us make a decision. One of
Speaker 1: those categories is historical data, so past sightings, past pictures.
Speaker 1: This The next thing is like our recent intel. So
Speaker 1: what are our cell cameras are telling us right now?
Speaker 1: Or what is the regular camera that we checked within
Speaker 1: the last few days tell us right now? That's the
Speaker 1: second category, and the third category is all of the
Speaker 1: weather conditioned environment type stuff that might impact something. Now
Speaker 1: that we have that recent you know, now that cell
Speaker 1: cameras have entered the picture, how is that? You know,
Speaker 1: how has that changed the value of one of the
Speaker 1: those different categories. Is historical patterns? Is that less important
Speaker 1: now because you've got this recent intel or is it?
Speaker 1: Is it still on equal plant Is it in equal
Speaker 1: playing field? It just makes it that much more effective
Speaker 1: and validates what your assumptions are much quicker for you, right,
Speaker 1: are invalidates right? So Raconics has a saying, see what
Speaker 1: you've been missing? Well, South Camp's also you have what
Speaker 1: you haven't been missing, Like I've got suitors that we
Speaker 1: had summer to intel on that I have anticipated to
Speaker 1: show up on certain forms that they just haven't yet.
Speaker 1: So it tells you not to go there until they do.
Speaker 1: So the fourth piece of that, you name three very
Speaker 1: important ones. I would divide the weather in the environment
Speaker 1: literally into those two categories. So weather data guess and
Speaker 1: then environment which I always look at prop rotation and mascots,
Speaker 1: so food source. You know, weather is going to affect
Speaker 1: how they feed, what's planted where, and what the mass
Speaker 1: crop is going to affect where they feed. So those
Speaker 1: two things in combination can help you get ahead of
Speaker 1: where he's going to be as as opposed to behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about when some of these things conflict? So what
Speaker 1: if you have a uh, what if the weather is lousy,
Speaker 1: if it's not as good as it should be, but
Speaker 1: you have a two year in a row kind of
Speaker 1: annual pattern that this buck always starts cruising through here
Speaker 1: the last week of October and he's been rock solid here,
Speaker 1: you know, going crazy the last two years, and now
Speaker 1: that arrives this year and you're just not loving the weather.
Speaker 1: But you know the historically he's been moving in daylight
Speaker 1: during that time period. In that kind of example or
Speaker 1: some other example where two or or three of these
Speaker 1: different things don't all line up, do you, dude, which
Speaker 1: do you trust? Like do you always fall back and say, well,
Speaker 1: history says he's going to start moving through here, so
Speaker 1: I to give it a shot, or do you now
Speaker 1: wait until the cell cameras confirm it? You know, irrefutably,
Speaker 1: it's it depends on the time of the year. So
Speaker 1: in answer to that question, at I'm hunting him whether
Speaker 1: it's great weather or not, because his testosterones at a
Speaker 1: level it's gonna kind of trump the weather a little bit.
Speaker 1: You don't need nearly as great a weather to kill
Speaker 1: them then as you do now. When they're in a
Speaker 1: food pattern and moving the hundred yards from their bed
Speaker 1: to their feed each day, even though it's less of
Speaker 1: a distance, it takes much better conditions for them to daylight.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm speaking in terms of older deer. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that a year and a half or two
Speaker 1: and a half won't do it. But if you're hunting
Speaker 1: five or six year old deer, man, things better be
Speaker 1: awfully perfect to get that sucker up and seem during daylight,
Speaker 1: because they're walking slow, they stand up, they stretch, they
Speaker 1: browse around. They're just late moving during daylight, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's it's very difficult to get close enough to
Speaker 1: see a deer of age six of an evening or
Speaker 1: of a morning. It's extremely difficult to get in that
Speaker 1: short period are a short distance that they're going to
Speaker 1: move during daylight. It's much easier to do so in
Speaker 1: late October earlier November, when the distance increases and when
Speaker 1: testosterone is higher and they're actually moving moving better. You know,
Speaker 1: they just move better this time of the year. They're finicky. Man,
Speaker 1: it's got to be all the all systems have to
Speaker 1: be green light to really expect to see a deer
Speaker 1: of that age class. So I answered that a little long,
Speaker 1: but I believe that's the correct answer to your question. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I follow you kind of back to the annual pattern thing.
Speaker 1: One other thing, I'm curious about how cell cameras have
Speaker 1: I guess you kind of said it. Sometimes they confirm
Speaker 1: what you what you believe, or you confirm your assumptions.
Speaker 1: But how has your thoughts on annual patterns evolved over
Speaker 1: the years, especially now that you maybe we can confirm
Speaker 1: them or or disprove them more accurately. Do you do
Speaker 1: you still see this to be a a pretty consistent
Speaker 1: thing that you can plan on. And how how tight
Speaker 1: of a repeat have you, you know, now seen things
Speaker 1: to be. Do you look at this and think, ma'am,
Speaker 1: if they did it the last year, they're likely to
Speaker 1: do it again on the same day, the same week,
Speaker 1: the same condition. Like what, I guess give me more
Speaker 1: on any better? I hear you and I get where
Speaker 1: you're going. And yes, I still believe that with every
Speaker 1: fiber of my being. However, there are factors that affected slightly.
Speaker 1: And I've mentioned in a few times in our conversation
Speaker 1: the environment with mass crop and and overall. You know,
Speaker 1: crop rotation affects it, cover affects it. You know, a
Speaker 1: farmer cutting a field one year, here's a great example,
Speaker 1: um brush got out of control on the CRP farm
Speaker 1: and that's where the buck was betting. And ff A
Speaker 1: got on that farmer's tail and said, you've got to
Speaker 1: clean that brusho off of their Last year it was
Speaker 1: all six but tall. This year it is seven inches tall.
Speaker 1: Those types of factors affect deer's bed and behavior greatly.
Speaker 1: So your overall awareness to your environment is just as
Speaker 1: important to the patterning of a deer as it is
Speaker 1: sitting in a computer and writing down all your notes
Speaker 1: and then looking at the notes and then looking backwards,
Speaker 1: like I always say, why, no matter whether it's a
Speaker 1: picture or a siting or anything else, why is he
Speaker 1: doing what he's doing today, whether that be direction of travel,
Speaker 1: whether that be moving, whether that be not moving, whether
Speaker 1: that be a neighbor saying, hey, I just saw this
Speaker 1: certain deer and you go, wait a minute, that's the
Speaker 1: deer I'm hunting over here. You know, I always go
Speaker 1: why what made things happen, whether that be something that
Speaker 1: happened consistently or whether it's something that changed. So, yes,
Speaker 1: I believe it with every fiber of my being, but
Speaker 1: you also have to be very nimble in the moment
Speaker 1: to accept change and go, dang it, my plan that
Speaker 1: I made in July in August is not coming to fruition.
Speaker 1: Why is it not coming to fruition? I had all
Speaker 1: this laid out, Man, I was gonna kill him on
Speaker 1: October the five. Well, why aren't you killing him? Um?
Speaker 1: There there's reasons because they it's the chess match that
Speaker 1: I think people get so addicted to. UM. So if
Speaker 1: you figure out the wise, and the more of the
Speaker 1: wise that you figure out, the more dear and the
Speaker 1: more mature dear you're you're gonna kill. So so let's
Speaker 1: go back to a little bit of the um, you know,
Speaker 1: the analyzing of all this data. So there's these different
Speaker 1: categories of data we've we've been discussing, and then there's
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen tomorrow or what's gonna happen next week,
Speaker 1: and we're trying to decide, okay, based on all this
Speaker 1: data we have of what's he gonna do tomorrow? And
Speaker 1: where stead I hunt? There's these different pieces of data
Speaker 1: that we can connect back to, back to history. So
Speaker 1: back to the picture we got yesterday, or back to
Speaker 1: the pattern he had last year. How tight of a
Speaker 1: connection or how many of these things have to line
Speaker 1: up before you were to go in there. And so
Speaker 1: my example would be, let's say you're trying to decide
Speaker 1: where to hunt the first week in October. Let's let's
Speaker 1: say later we'll say that, you know, last week of October,
Speaker 1: and you have daylight pictures of him, you know, yesterday
Speaker 1: and the day before with a certain wind speed and
Speaker 1: you know, good cold front kind of conditions that came
Speaker 1: passing through. Now you're saying, what should I do the
Speaker 1: next day? If the next day, if if you don't
Speaker 1: have that same condition, the same set of conditions in place,
Speaker 1: do you still move on it? Or do you want
Speaker 1: to have like Okay, I want the same location matched
Speaker 1: up with the same conditions before I jump in there
Speaker 1: and try to kill him again. I generally it's more
Speaker 1: often than not, you know, it's it's really about the weather.
Speaker 1: For me, Like, as you know, I am a slave
Speaker 1: to it. And I mean it's why we create a
Speaker 1: deer cast. Like I firmly believe that there are windows
Speaker 1: of opportunity each year that you're given with a daylight opportunity,
Speaker 1: and that all revolves around the weather and how close
Speaker 1: you can get to that dear's bed depending on the
Speaker 1: time of the year and and how far they're moving
Speaker 1: at that time of the year. So I'm pretty pretty
Speaker 1: discipline when it comes to making sure it's the right
Speaker 1: opportunity because I go back to my statement earlier saying
Speaker 1: I never want them to know that they're being hunted
Speaker 1: like that's I just I don't want them to kill
Speaker 1: me right like I'm trying to kill them. So in
Speaker 1: my mind, it's this me against them game of chess,
Speaker 1: and I want to be the one saying checkmate. I
Speaker 1: want to be the one. I don't want him to
Speaker 1: smell me, because to me, if a deer smells me
Speaker 1: and figures me out like it's it's just dangner over
Speaker 1: every time. I don't know if you've noticed that through time,
Speaker 1: but when they when they get you, they got you,
Speaker 1: So don't let them get you. Said, that's that should
Speaker 1: be a tee shirt when they get the gut because man,
Speaker 1: when they figured you out. Buddy, they're a lot better.
Speaker 1: They're a lot better at this than we are. And
Speaker 1: they're good at living. I said all the time. They
Speaker 1: are good at living, and they're terrible at dying. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is hard to kill a mature dear. And if
Speaker 1: you mess up and goof him up man alive, does
Speaker 1: it make him tougher that year and years years in
Speaker 1: the future. So I'm always I'm always betting on the
Speaker 1: come and betting terms. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting,
Speaker 1: and I try to strike when when things line up,
Speaker 1: I want optimized everything to go in there and try
Speaker 1: and kill that deer. That's just me um. So you know,
Speaker 1: other days I'm out shooting those other days I'm filming someone.
Speaker 1: But if it's a specific target that I'm trying to hunt,
Speaker 1: I actually hunt him very few days, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I think back to the deer I've killed over the
Speaker 1: last few years. I've spent very few days actually where
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to kill him. You got
Speaker 1: a target buck that shows up, you get sell picture
Speaker 1: of him. Let's say two days in a row with
Speaker 1: north wind, nice good weather, and for whatever reason, you
Speaker 1: you couldn't be out hunting in this location because you
Speaker 1: went to Texas or you were somewhere else. But he's
Speaker 1: day letting twice in a row, day three totally different
Speaker 1: conditions though not as good, but he was daylight two
Speaker 1: days in a row. Are you Are you saying drop wind, speed,
Speaker 1: dropped clouds, rolled in, Yeah, or I may not go
Speaker 1: try him, but you're already behind a little bit like
Speaker 1: that's have you ever noticed about a mature buck? They
Speaker 1: seldom almost never daylight every single day for a week, right,
Speaker 1: If you you know you'll get a day here and
Speaker 1: a day there, there's some randomness to win their daylight.
Speaker 1: And that again, it's another reason we did our predicted model.
Speaker 1: It's like, why why did you day Oh? There, it
Speaker 1: is there, it is there, it is You put it
Speaker 1: all together in an algorithm with thirteen different variables, and
Speaker 1: we try to help people predict when the best movement's
Speaker 1: going to be when the optimized conditions are there. So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pick those days for me personally, and
Speaker 1: I'm using historical data that I've compiled on that deer,
Speaker 1: on that farm, on the crops, everything all combined together
Speaker 1: to go there it is. There's the day. Here's where
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and just try to be right more
Speaker 1: than you are wrong. But I'm still wrong a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot more than I'm right. I still I
Speaker 1: make a lot of bad judgments. We all are right,
Speaker 1: you know, like in in baseball they say you're very
Speaker 1: successful if you get you know, you're about two fifty.
Speaker 1: Your your successful one fourth at the time. Well, and
Speaker 1: in hunting, what would it be it was one hundreds
Speaker 1: of a time. You know, it's you're batting, you're batting
Speaker 1: under a hundred. I know that for a mature buck,
Speaker 1: you're batting way under average, very low. If you just
Speaker 1: what do you get the whole season? Maybe a chance
Speaker 1: to a chance to two or three and that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's hunting a lot. You don't get many chances. So
Speaker 1: when you take your shot, you know you need to
Speaker 1: try and have everything in your favor that you can.
Speaker 1: And that's one side of the equation. The other side
Speaker 1: of the equation is persistence and the numbers game does
Speaker 1: come up, there's a d factor and everything. In fact
Speaker 1: that night that I sat there and I saw that target.
Speaker 1: In my pre hunt interview, I talked about I haven't
Speaker 1: had a daylight photo of this deer. I've had one
Speaker 1: in the last month since he shut his velvet. I
Speaker 1: had had one daylight photo of him. And I said,
Speaker 1: but I believe he's here because I'm getting nighttime photos
Speaker 1: and there is a dow factor in hunting, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna daylight again soon. Sure enough, he daylighted that night
Speaker 1: and I goofed it up. I jacked it up terribly.
Speaker 1: But the two factor does come into play. But I
Speaker 1: have a locked in, freaking access. I had a perfect
Speaker 1: wind speed, I had a perfect wind direction to access it,
Speaker 1: so I felt safely that I could get there and
Speaker 1: then leave into that what is kind of a quasi
Speaker 1: observation set. Yet I might still kill him here. Well,
Speaker 1: it worked, but I goofed it up. So there's one
Speaker 1: of my chances this year. I know that I knew
Speaker 1: when it happened, got out there, I'm like, that's one
Speaker 1: of my few opportunities I'll have. And he's he's a
Speaker 1: he's a whopper man. This steer is really really big,
Speaker 1: and I jacked it up. I left there that night
Speaker 1: thinking I'll probably not have that chance again this year.
Speaker 1: That was my exact thoughts. So when you have this
Speaker 1: is this is off topic, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1: Ask like, when you have something like that happened, even
Speaker 1: someone has experienced and who has had as much success
Speaker 1: as you have, how do you, like says, deal with
Speaker 1: that and move on from it? Like, how how did
Speaker 1: you handle that night sitting and sitting in bed at
Speaker 1: home after you had this monster within range and you
Speaker 1: couldn't pull it together? What what do you do? Closer?
Speaker 1: In baseball's mentality, I have a lot of baseball analogies
Speaker 1: because I I watched every single pitch of every Cardinal
Speaker 1: game since I was like Ted right, I'd love baseball.
Speaker 1: So closer's mentality really terrible memory. Get over it quickly
Speaker 1: and move on. That's the best thing you can do
Speaker 1: um when it happens, because if you if you wear it,
Speaker 1: if it's in your mind and it's working on you,
Speaker 1: you're gonna goose the next one up and the next
Speaker 1: one up. Like you have to get over it within
Speaker 1: seconds and move on. That's all you can do. It happened,
Speaker 1: It's ancient history. Now use it to better yourself in
Speaker 1: the next situation. But get eliminate emotion from making mistakes.
Speaker 1: You have to or it will eat you up the
Speaker 1: full season. You're gonna goof it up. Trust me on experience,
Speaker 1: because when I was younger, I was I was the
Speaker 1: dumbest hunter man. I get so mad at situations because
Speaker 1: those bucks met so much to me. Right well, as
Speaker 1: I've aged, I've learned that you've got to get over
Speaker 1: and move on to the next, the next opportunity, because
Speaker 1: if you're not thinking with a clear head, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna put yourself in the right position the next time.
Speaker 1: And that's that's kind of mental side of the game.
Speaker 1: We're getting off topic here a little bit, but I
Speaker 1: think it is a very important part of the game,
Speaker 1: is keeping a clear head and keeping a positive attitude.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you I'm like a very optimistic person
Speaker 1: in general. And like I've learned a long time ago
Speaker 1: from a legend in our county, Paul sex Are. I
Speaker 1: was like maybe fourteen or fifteen, and he took the
Speaker 1: time to sit down and talk to me about turkey
Speaker 1: hunting and turkey hunting tactics, and the one thing that
Speaker 1: he said in that moment that night I had with him,
Speaker 1: he said, and it was really Joe, his brother that
Speaker 1: pointed it out. He said, Paul hunts like he's about
Speaker 1: to kill a turkey every single second of every single hunt,
Speaker 1: and that's kill so many and that type of focus
Speaker 1: and so it's reality you're talking about focus that will
Speaker 1: help you kill more game, especially with a positive attitude.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill him. I know I'm gonna kill him.
Speaker 1: He's here tonight. And you know what, Mark, I didn't
Speaker 1: have that on October the second I mentioned before we
Speaker 1: got on the phone. I went in a little rusty.
Speaker 1: This was my only second set of the season, and
Speaker 1: I was a little nonchalant about things that night, and
Speaker 1: it cost me a giant I should have been ready,
Speaker 1: I should have lived by the advice that I've lived
Speaker 1: by for all these years. And I didn't, and it
Speaker 1: cost me a deer. I didn't even get my bow drawn.
Speaker 1: I was so little prepared, and you know, and I've
Speaker 1: been in that situation a lot of times, but my
Speaker 1: mental games sucked that night and it cost me a deer.
Speaker 1: So it's not meat. But you know what, by the
Speaker 1: time I got to the truck was over it and
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the weather for the next night's time.
Speaker 1: I have learned that, like you gotta have a closer mentality,
Speaker 1: get over it quickly. Yeah, that's that's great advice. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of your target Bucks, I did want to return
Speaker 1: to a question I had related to your other target bucks.
Speaker 1: You mentioned how most of these deer are all like,
Speaker 1: not homebodies. They live somewhere else and they just occasionally
Speaker 1: come into your neck of the woods. How does your
Speaker 1: approach to patterning a deer change in that scenario when
Speaker 1: you when you have a deer that you know it's
Speaker 1: just an infrequent visitor. Does does anything we've talked about
Speaker 1: Is it different because of that circumstance in anyway? Deeper dive, man,
Speaker 1: deeper dive find every That's why I keep every picture.
Speaker 1: They're on their seldom. So every piece of every piece
Speaker 1: of the puzzle you get is so much more important
Speaker 1: than a homeboy who you get all the time. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, um, you know, it's like that friend that
Speaker 1: you can see every day at the bar and go
Speaker 1: have a beer with him. You know what he's gonna do, right,
Speaker 1: you know when he's gonna be there. You know what
Speaker 1: he's gonna say when you sit down and have the
Speaker 1: beer with him. You know what stories he's gonna tell
Speaker 1: when he's had too many beers. Okay, the guy that
Speaker 1: you only see once a year, you can't wait to
Speaker 1: have that conversation. What are you gonna learn new? And
Speaker 1: you you're a little bit more in tune with that
Speaker 1: guy because it's it's it's something that occurs seldom. So
Speaker 1: there far, I have files on all of these deer.
Speaker 1: I know exactly when I've had pictures of them in
Speaker 1: the past. I know what the conditions were, I know
Speaker 1: what the crop rotation was. And in fact, the deer
Speaker 1: that I'm what I would consider my number one targets,
Speaker 1: he's really really large, but he was he was only
Speaker 1: on me I think, based on what I can tell
Speaker 1: a few hours last season. However, when the crop rotation
Speaker 1: was the same in two thousand and twenty, he was
Speaker 1: on me several days. So therefore my confidence is much
Speaker 1: higher about him this year. Who he is aged, he
Speaker 1: is aged, he was five six, he's seven and a
Speaker 1: half this year. My confidence is fairly high that when
Speaker 1: he gets to my farm, he if he's still alive,
Speaker 1: is if he hasn't been killed by another hunter or
Speaker 1: a car or e h D or something like that.
Speaker 1: If I get him I think he may stay enough
Speaker 1: days that I'll possibly have a shot at him. So
Speaker 1: that goes back to that environment. Cross rotation is exactly
Speaker 1: what it was in two thousand and twenty, not only
Speaker 1: on my farm but all of the surrounding area because
Speaker 1: I look at everything when it comes to deer hunting. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I know this is going to be situation dependent.
Speaker 1: But if we had to generalize, if you have a
Speaker 1: buck like this, do you in this kind of case
Speaker 1: in the world of cell cameras, are you always going
Speaker 1: to wait until you get the camera pictures say always back?
Speaker 1: Or is that sometimes too late? I want to be
Speaker 1: the camera, so I'm gonna be sitting there waiting because
Speaker 1: I've never taken very many pictures of him, so I
Speaker 1: damn well better be there the day I do. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use historical data to be there and try
Speaker 1: and be the camera. If that makes sense. So is
Speaker 1: it different different type buck, different type personality? Man? If
Speaker 1: you miss your opportunity, you're out. I've got great locations,
Speaker 1: I've got great access in and out. I'm gonna use them.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hut them, and I'm gonna hunt on much.
Speaker 1: I will take my shots on lesser weather than what
Speaker 1: I normally would on a homeboy. On a homeboy that's
Speaker 1: not leaving, I don't want to run him out on
Speaker 1: a deer that seldom there. I better be there when
Speaker 1: he's there. So I'm gonna hunt a little more often. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: what about you know, we've we've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: how patterning, you know, can be a pretty important thing
Speaker 1: in these earlier parts of the year, but when we
Speaker 1: get into the rut, things are a little bit different.
Speaker 1: How how does your approach to patterning deer change once
Speaker 1: we get into those rut phases? And and do you
Speaker 1: even think you can pattern a deer during the rut?
Speaker 1: My pattern changes ahead to texas well? There it is, there,
Speaker 1: it is. I am one of those guys that I
Speaker 1: don't want to say I hate the rut, but I
Speaker 1: much prefer hunting October and December O October and deer
Speaker 1: scemmer than I do November because the way that I
Speaker 1: hunt me personally. I hunt based on expectation and data
Speaker 1: and data points rather than hope. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to so it's expectation rather than hope. We're real good
Speaker 1: in and around the food source I mean, we kill
Speaker 1: a lot of deer, you know, food source, tuck close
Speaker 1: to cover. That's a that's an equation that has worked
Speaker 1: well for Terry and I for for quite a while. Now.
Speaker 1: When you get to November and they start spreading out
Speaker 1: and suddenly home core ranges get just go like shotgun approach,
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult to run into a deer. They're
Speaker 1: chasing those and and uh, we still kill them during
Speaker 1: that period and I still hunt them, but it gets
Speaker 1: much tougher to kill a specific deer, which is what
Speaker 1: I'm typically trying to do in November than it is,
Speaker 1: say in October and December. Yeah, does does any does
Speaker 1: any of this stuff still applied during the rut? Like
Speaker 1: are you gonna get you know, annual pattern type data
Speaker 1: and say, well, I'm hunting here the second week in
Speaker 1: November and he did this thing last year. Do you
Speaker 1: ever expect that kind of stuff to repeat during that
Speaker 1: part of the year or do those things it's just
Speaker 1: two random Yeah, they still repeat, like different things repeat though,
Speaker 1: Like let's fast forward out of October. Let's fast forward
Speaker 1: thirty days and go into early November. Fifth, seven, three
Speaker 1: or four of the best Dad Gum days, they're still
Speaker 1: hitting scrapes, they're still checking food sources for the first
Speaker 1: available dough. They're covering a lot more ground, so you
Speaker 1: can go back and look at that data and kill
Speaker 1: that deer doing those exact same things. When I speak
Speaker 1: of my disdain for the rut, it's really in and
Speaker 1: around once they start locking down. So twelve Levet's twelve
Speaker 1: and November through about the tenth eighteenth, that period right
Speaker 1: there is a very frustrating time for me. Um. I
Speaker 1: would much rather be in Missouri with a rifle in
Speaker 1: my hand, or where my range is extended, or in
Speaker 1: Texas where I feel like the bucks are still doing
Speaker 1: things like they were doing here in late October, because
Speaker 1: the run is later down there, so I kind of
Speaker 1: I kind of go south to get on a more
Speaker 1: palatable period, or I go to Missouri where we can
Speaker 1: have a good time and it's rifle season and you
Speaker 1: can stretch it out a little bit if you see
Speaker 1: a buck tending a dough, those types of things. However,
Speaker 1: just prior to lockdown and just after, absolutely you can
Speaker 1: go back and look at pictures and figure out a
Speaker 1: buck's pattern. It's just that they're covering more ground. And
Speaker 1: and and walking more during daylight. So therefore you you
Speaker 1: change where you're sitting. You're no longer sitting on a
Speaker 1: food plot, right, You're not. One of the dumbest places
Speaker 1: you can be is on a greenfield. You know, I
Speaker 1: get into transition, I get into the bedroom. I start
Speaker 1: hunting mornings, I start hunting full day sits. So the
Speaker 1: tactics changed drastically. But yes, you can absolutely kill buck
Speaker 1: in his bedroom. Uh, during that period of the year,
Speaker 1: especially when he ages. You take a deer, say you've
Speaker 1: been you know, fooled by this deer when he's three,
Speaker 1: four or five, and suddenly six, he may not move
Speaker 1: as much. Uh when he's seven, when he's eight, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, he's gonna daylight a little bit more.
Speaker 1: It gets hungry a little bit more often, and you
Speaker 1: can start taking advantage of his weaknesses. One of the
Speaker 1: toughest did dear to kill is like a price, a
Speaker 1: deer in his prime at age four and five, They
Speaker 1: just they don't daylight quite as much. So six is
Speaker 1: also another another challenging year. So you always keep in
Speaker 1: mind the age of the deer, the overall environment. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you can you can smoke him during the run, you know,
Speaker 1: before they get with the does. Once they're with the does,
Speaker 1: that's when it gets a little real challenging. And I think,
Speaker 1: if you kill a deer that's tending a dough, you
Speaker 1: should really go buy a lottery ticket that day because
Speaker 1: you probably got fairly fortunate on that day. And that's
Speaker 1: the truth. But that's where that's where DO factor comes in.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm in good country. I know he's here.
Speaker 1: I Am going to spend every single solid daylight hour
Speaker 1: in a stand every single day to increase my odds.
Speaker 1: That's how you kill them once they're locked down, just
Speaker 1: absolute seat time in the stand. Yeah, let's say we're
Speaker 1: after one specific buck in a scenarre like you're describing.
Speaker 1: There's there's just the one guy that I really want
Speaker 1: to get and we do all the things you describe
Speaker 1: that do factor get out there, spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time being the general area. Is it a waste of
Speaker 1: time to chase cell camera pictures or to chase um?
Speaker 1: You know, well he did this two days ago. I
Speaker 1: think I got to be in this little corner um
Speaker 1: during that particular time of year, you know, November three
Speaker 1: th or something like that. Um, specifically, it's not a
Speaker 1: waste of time because you know he's there, and that's
Speaker 1: part of the equation that time of the year. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you get in the rut, you go, oh, uh,
Speaker 1: where's my target. I haven't had a picture of him
Speaker 1: in six seven days. Well he's standing there looking at
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, you know. So when you get a self
Speaker 1: picture and you're like, I'm still here. So that's important.
Speaker 1: Just just having the deer in your hunting area is
Speaker 1: half the battle. So therefore get in there and hunt
Speaker 1: his butt, you know. Uh. Not having him changes that
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh So the rut brings about like
Speaker 1: if we were having this conversation, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of what I would be talking about might switch up
Speaker 1: a little bit because right now my mind is so
Speaker 1: center focused on greener pastors early October, you know, food bad,
Speaker 1: that type of stuff. If we're having this conversation November five,
Speaker 1: I might answer some of these things differently, But my
Speaker 1: mind's wrapped around this right now, So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: fast forward and think how I will be thinking that time,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's it's different, you know, But I
Speaker 1: love fifth, six, seventh, eighth, and ninth absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: Mornings are great, does crisp cool mornings, you get good weather,
Speaker 1: You've got buck walk until nine ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: It's pretty exciting. I mean it can be a buck
Speaker 1: factory in certain days. When you get the right weather
Speaker 1: and and uh the right hot dough in the area,
Speaker 1: you you find the magic circle and you're gonna kill
Speaker 1: a deer. So it's it's an exciting time of the year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that you you really prefer for your
Speaker 1: style of hunting the early part of the year and
Speaker 1: the later part of the year. Uh So, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the later part real quick. Is anything different in
Speaker 1: the late season when it comes to patterning deer compared
Speaker 1: to what we just described for that early, earlier stuff,
Speaker 1: or do you go right back to the same plane
Speaker 1: the vastly different that similar plan, but vastly different strategy
Speaker 1: in terms of food source, your keying in on, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, the thermal cover you're king in on where
Speaker 1: those bucks bed right now is going to be different
Speaker 1: than where they're bedding in December. Right now, they're trying
Speaker 1: to stay cool and they've got cover everywhere because there's
Speaker 1: leaves on all the trees. Get rid of all the leaves,
Speaker 1: change the temperature by thirty or forty degrees for daytime,
Speaker 1: and you've got a different system in place in terms
Speaker 1: of what the white tails trying to do. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: also in recovery mode as opposed to the mode he's
Speaker 1: in right now, which is eating everything he can because
Speaker 1: he's about to go crazy during the rut. So a
Speaker 1: lot of dynamics change there. Does that change it? Although
Speaker 1: how you actually try to pattern him like is the
Speaker 1: same kind of data. I understand that the the environmental
Speaker 1: factors are different. But when you sit down at night
Speaker 1: and try to say, Okay, what's this buck going to
Speaker 1: do tomorrow? Where should I hunt tomorrow? Are you are
Speaker 1: you weighing things differently? Are you more confident in behaviors, repeating,
Speaker 1: or anything else when you're actually trying to develop that
Speaker 1: pattern In December, I'm a little less confident, and in
Speaker 1: in December, I think December requires a much more optimized
Speaker 1: win or not win. But whether um occurrence then does
Speaker 1: October October, they seem a little more patterned bowl and
Speaker 1: a little more likely todaylight with perhaps a little less
Speaker 1: weather than in December. Man, it's got to be perfect
Speaker 1: and again I'm speaking in terms of not deer in general,
Speaker 1: but a target buck like a five six seven year
Speaker 1: old deer. Uh, they just act different in December. They're
Speaker 1: very tired. They may all of a sudden, if there's
Speaker 1: a little secondary estros, all of a sudden, you'll go
Speaker 1: do that. So you know, right now, in October you
Speaker 1: don't have much of that. December you do get a
Speaker 1: lot of it, especially if you're your herds out of balance,
Speaker 1: so that comes into play. Uh, December can be tricky,
Speaker 1: But I look back at historical patterns and I honestly
Speaker 1: like I almost preferred to Christmas and later. Like you
Speaker 1: take December third, somewhere and there all the way through
Speaker 1: the end of the season January ten, with the right
Speaker 1: weather conditions on a major thermal block, with the right
Speaker 1: food source, you're gonna go in there and see a
Speaker 1: pole of deer and possibly kill your number one target. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that does sound pretty pretty good to me. It sounds
Speaker 1: good right now. On the hot side, we can dream,
Speaker 1: we know what's in front of us, but you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta take each each day as it comes. And
Speaker 1: it's it's exactly why we did the show thirteam because
Speaker 1: so many things changed throughout the season, and as they change,
Speaker 1: our tactics have to change. Yeah, so let's let's zoom
Speaker 1: out a little bit. Let's talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: generally here again, thinking patterning deer, what is the most
Speaker 1: common or the most egregious mistake that you see other
Speaker 1: folks making when trying to pattern deer. You talked to
Speaker 1: a million deer hunters, You've been exposed to the whole
Speaker 1: community for decades. Now, what's that thing that you see
Speaker 1: keep on popping up that just makes you scratch your
Speaker 1: head or makes you want to, you know, shake somebody
Speaker 1: by the shoulders and say, don't do that anymore. I
Speaker 1: get asked this question a lot, and I answered consistently.
Speaker 1: But I'll add to this answer in this question because
Speaker 1: of the sub matter. Today, people underestimate the quarry. I
Speaker 1: think white tails are so good at living that they're
Speaker 1: almost impossible to go kill. They are so tough, and
Speaker 1: again I'm speaking of mature bucks that have been around
Speaker 1: the block. You take a six year old buck, and Buddy,
Speaker 1: he's a tough, tough son of a gun to even
Speaker 1: see during daylight. He's tough to take a picture of.
Speaker 1: He's even tougher to see, and then you got to
Speaker 1: have the capacity and the ability to kill him and
Speaker 1: then make a good shot and all the things that
Speaker 1: it's it's so hard to kill a giant. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you couple that with what all they've been through and
Speaker 1: the overall you know, health of the deer, and I
Speaker 1: think people just group deer as a deer. A buck
Speaker 1: is a buck is a buck. A deer is as
Speaker 1: good as gonna be just as healthy this year as
Speaker 1: he is next year. And I think they just the
Speaker 1: side of the fact of all the things that are
Speaker 1: affecting a white tailed deer on a daily basis. Imagine
Speaker 1: what they go through on a daily basis. First of all,
Speaker 1: we're trying to kill them. Second of all, you know,
Speaker 1: they're dealing with all these different changes, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: as acorns everywhere one year, next year there's none. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're going through a drought. This year. You've got the
Speaker 1: h D hitting them, Kyle populations up. Holy cow, I
Speaker 1: got harned in the side. I've got an infection starting.
Speaker 1: I'm older. Oh I broke a leg. Oh oh, Trulie
Speaker 1: got hit by a car. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different things that affect white tail behavior. And I
Speaker 1: think people gloss over that, and they look at every
Speaker 1: deer as a deer as a deer, and I think
Speaker 1: there are as different as people are um and and
Speaker 1: I will I will extend this answer into a general
Speaker 1: lack of organization. If you're trying to pattern a deer.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with not being organized, because I know
Speaker 1: guys that aren't, and they go out and there they
Speaker 1: kill dandies every year because they they're just good and
Speaker 1: their prowess is good, and they're they're skillful. But I
Speaker 1: think people can help themselves if they're having an organizational
Speaker 1: trade and they keep good notes and they keep all
Speaker 1: their pictures. We all know this guy that's got a
Speaker 1: handful of SD cards and he just went through all
Speaker 1: of them and then he goes and puts them back
Speaker 1: in his cameras and he never kept one picture off.
Speaker 1: On one car cringe, there's duck, there's dust on them,
Speaker 1: they're sitting in the truck, there's soda and coffee spilt
Speaker 1: on them. You put him in the camera, they don't work.
Speaker 1: You go to the camera the next time. You didn't
Speaker 1: get any information. We all know that guy, right, And
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking that guy, because he's got every right
Speaker 1: to do that, as I have to be anal and
Speaker 1: obsessive over it. But I do think a general approach
Speaker 1: with more organization would help put people in better positions
Speaker 1: more often. Yeah, he you know that, Mark, I do
Speaker 1: know that guy taking by the shoulders. Next time you
Speaker 1: see I will. Oh. I'm curious and I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's many opportunities for you to have this happen anymore, Mark,
Speaker 1: But can you think back to the last time that
Speaker 1: you learned something from another really good deer hunter about
Speaker 1: patterning deer, so specifically about this idea of patterning deer.
Speaker 1: Is there someone you can think of who's really really
Speaker 1: good at it. Do you have that buddy that is
Speaker 1: as good or better than you at this and that
Speaker 1: you said, oh, wow, you know that's a good idea,
Speaker 1: or wow, I never thought of that. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that comes to mind? Brother Terry? Um, we talk almost
Speaker 1: daily during the deer season, and um, we just compare notes.
Speaker 1: What are your deer doing? What are you seeing? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's almost like coaches meeting or something, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. We just talk and we pick up stuff
Speaker 1: from each other every day and I I love collective
Speaker 1: UM strategizing, so myself, Wade, Perry, it is ad nauseam
Speaker 1: for our wives Tracy Marista style like I. I think
Speaker 1: if they had shock callers with controls, they would buzz
Speaker 1: us every single dinner we have together during the deer
Speaker 1: because it is all we talk about from the moment
Speaker 1: we see each other in the morning. We're together usually
Speaker 1: ten two hours a day, every day, seven days a
Speaker 1: week deer hunt, deer season. But that collective thought comes
Speaker 1: to really good UM decision making. I do it with Terry,
Speaker 1: I do it with Wayne and Perry. I do it
Speaker 1: with Josh and Carson. I do it with matt Um.
Speaker 1: You know, Grant Woods, He's the all time goat as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned when it comes to dear behavior
Speaker 1: in the science of white tail deer, like Bobby Culvertson
Speaker 1: Tracker John. There's certain people in my circle that I
Speaker 1: talked to a lot, and I talked to him Um
Speaker 1: as much as I can so that I can pull information.
Speaker 1: I'm selfish, man. If there's something that somebody's gotten his mind,
Speaker 1: I want it, you know, because it's it's going to
Speaker 1: help you, and I'm happy to share it too. Like
Speaker 1: I think the more we talk and the more communication
Speaker 1: we have, the better we all get. It's why I
Speaker 1: think your podcast is so popular. Uh, you're constantly trying
Speaker 1: to teach. I think it's why, by and large, we've
Speaker 1: survived thirty three years in the outdoor industry. I say
Speaker 1: it all the time. We're not very good looking, we're
Speaker 1: not very funny. We better be informational. So um, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you fit in that category. You know. I
Speaker 1: think if you're trying to teach and your teachers learn right,
Speaker 1: they're they're hungry for information. So I do it all
Speaker 1: the time every day. I think that what just what
Speaker 1: makes us better. And also I'm at a very interesting
Speaker 1: time in my life because I'm fifty five, and I
Speaker 1: think I forget as much every day as as I remember.
Speaker 1: So therefar there are things that Wade and Perry will
Speaker 1: tell me, you know, last year you were saying this,
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's right. I've forgotten
Speaker 1: some of what I knew. And if people out there
Speaker 1: that are in their fifties will relate to that comment.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a little tongue in cheek, but it's honestly,
Speaker 1: there's a little truth to that. So I use these guys,
Speaker 1: I use their eyes and ears when we're in the blind,
Speaker 1: and I'm starting to use their mind to remind me, hey,
Speaker 1: what did we do in this situation when this occurred
Speaker 1: last time? And they they have better memories than I do,
Speaker 1: so uh, it's I think collective organization and collective thought
Speaker 1: is a beautiful thing and it's gonna lead you down
Speaker 1: really good paths in life, whether that be you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of deer hunting, or whether that be in
Speaker 1: terms of your business, or whether that is in terms
Speaker 1: of relationship. I love communication on all facets, sports, life, religion, politics,
Speaker 1: deer hunting, you name it. I'll sit and talk with
Speaker 1: anybody for for hours, because man, just just be the
Speaker 1: sponge out there and learn all you can. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that idea of collective decision making and it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun doing it that way. But
Speaker 1: then also I do think, you know, like when you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what this buck's pattern is, you
Speaker 1: can sometimes get stuck in your own head or stuck
Speaker 1: in your own assumptions. But if you just get one
Speaker 1: other set of eyes on it all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they might notice the one thing that you never saw
Speaker 1: there in the corner, but actually is the key to
Speaker 1: the whole thing. So talking these things out, you know,
Speaker 1: getting other perspectives on it can help you see the
Speaker 1: larger pattern within the data sometimes. So that's such a
Speaker 1: great point. Um, absolutely open mind. Right. We also know
Speaker 1: that guy, we know that guy knows everything. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna tell him anything. You've met him, you know, And
Speaker 1: don't be that guy, you know, don't be the guy
Speaker 1: that already knows it all, because that's the me I'm
Speaker 1: learning every day I try to figure something out new.
Speaker 1: I love that collective thought because you hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head man. You never know when somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: bring something to the party that helps the collective group.
Speaker 1: Last night, Wade shot the deer, but we all as
Speaker 1: a group killed the deer. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: different people that were involved in that moment, and we
Speaker 1: were all there when we recovered him. And that's every
Speaker 1: hunt in this camp. It takes a village and one
Speaker 1: guy shoots it, but the whole village killed it. And
Speaker 1: and and that's why it's so important to enjoy the
Speaker 1: process going through it as you lead into the hunt,
Speaker 1: and then after the hunt enjoy it together. That's what
Speaker 1: makes this sport so cool. You get emotions and and
Speaker 1: this unbelievable range of emotions and gratitude and happiness that
Speaker 1: I can't find anywhere else in life. I've been looking,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't exist. It's right out there in the
Speaker 1: great outdoors. Man. It's so cool. There's some really, really
Speaker 1: good stuff, that's for sure. I want to tie a
Speaker 1: bow on this mark with one last question, and feel
Speaker 1: free to take a second to kind of collect your
Speaker 1: thoughts on this. But if, but if we had to
Speaker 1: create right now, Mark Druries three rules to successfully patterning bucks.
Speaker 1: If you had to have three statements, three things that
Speaker 1: everyone's got to keep in mind, or that the three
Speaker 1: rules they have to follow to become as good as
Speaker 1: you are at patterning bucks, What would those three final
Speaker 1: things be that we need to keep in our heads
Speaker 1: this season. First and foremost, keep every single solid picture
Speaker 1: you can um and then study them often. So pictures
Speaker 1: are one part of the equation. Make sure that you
Speaker 1: keep them all and then every single picture you look at,
Speaker 1: ask why and then figure out why Even that two
Speaker 1: year old did what he did, and that will help
Speaker 1: you become better in the future. That's step one. Step two,
Speaker 1: be a slave to the weather and everything you do
Speaker 1: deer hunting. And I don't care if it's July one,
Speaker 1: November one, or February one. Pay attention to the weather,
Speaker 1: and pay attention to what you're doing, how it affects
Speaker 1: the deer movement, how it affects your personality, your movement,
Speaker 1: and be a slave to the weather. Uh. Number three,
Speaker 1: when it comes to patterning, bucks, start taking really detailed
Speaker 1: notes about mass crops, about um overall crop rotation, about
Speaker 1: hunters habits. That's another thing you can pattern, not necessarily
Speaker 1: the dear, when's your neighbor hunting? Uh? When am I
Speaker 1: in your hunting? Am I being too patternable for this? Dear?
Speaker 1: So analyze yourself and your environment and everyone around you
Speaker 1: as much as you analyze the deer. If you do
Speaker 1: those three things and then collectively add them all up
Speaker 1: and try to create plans for the future, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be a much better deer hunter and and and find
Speaker 1: some rewards out there that you aren't finding now. Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: great advice. I love this stuff. This is my favorite
Speaker 1: thing to talk about. So so thanks for humoring me,
Speaker 1: Mark and getting on here to talk through these things.
Speaker 1: And I want to give a one last chance to
Speaker 1: uh tell folks where they can connect with you, where
Speaker 1: they can see all the great stuff you guys are
Speaker 1: putting out. How can they find deer Cast? What do
Speaker 1: we need to know about all those things? Absolutely deer
Speaker 1: cast dot com. Best way to get it. We've got
Speaker 1: a free version. We've got a version that's just prediction,
Speaker 1: that's either nine or ten dollars. And now if you
Speaker 1: want your environment a lot of things I've been talking
Speaker 1: about here today, we've got a version that's that will
Speaker 1: give you one stake's plat data or unlimited for for
Speaker 1: seventy nine nine. So we've got a price point for
Speaker 1: everybody from free up to seventy five bucks. Deer cast
Speaker 1: dot com that you see everything in there, every social post,
Speaker 1: every deer that gets killed, every every deer season twenty
Speaker 1: two are semi live series. You can catch it there
Speaker 1: or you can catch it on YouTube. Our staff is
Speaker 1: doing an amazing job bringing the stories out within sometimes
Speaker 1: within hours of when the deer goes down, or of
Speaker 1: course Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, where wherever you can find there
Speaker 1: outdoors we're there and happy to happy to talk to people.
Speaker 1: We've got a team of people that are that are
Speaker 1: just the best to the industry. In in my you know,
Speaker 1: biased opinion, I just think our team is just amazing.
Speaker 1: We you take what Matt and Taylor and Josh and
Speaker 1: Carson and all our guys in St. Louis are doing,
Speaker 1: and Wade and Perry and Forest and Ben, I mean,
Speaker 1: they are really putting some unbelievable content out there for
Speaker 1: people right now to and we stay in our lane.
Speaker 1: We try to. We just stayed in our deer hunting
Speaker 1: and turkey hunting lane and we try not to get
Speaker 1: out of that. And you know, we try to love
Speaker 1: up on people as much as they've loved on us. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you guys, UH continue to do world class work. I
Speaker 1: love it. I've loved it for decades. I appreciate you, Mark,
Speaker 1: and Uh. I personally appreciate you, you know, always being
Speaker 1: willing to hop on here and chat and to answer
Speaker 1: my questions and to help sew so many people out.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you, Thank you absolutely. Mark. You're
Speaker 1: You're not the guy at the bar that I get
Speaker 1: to see every day. You're that guy I get to
Speaker 1: talk to once or twice a year, and well, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear some some more stories from me
Speaker 1: down the road once you close the distance again on
Speaker 1: that big guy who evaded you the other night, or
Speaker 1: one of these other guys. So it's a good luck,
Speaker 1: my friend. I appreciate you, Mark, good luck out there.
Speaker 1: Be safe and that's a rap. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that one. I hope that you,
Speaker 1: just like me, are going to be studying some trail
Speaker 1: camera photos tonight or maybe looking back on your journal
Speaker 1: of observations and thinking, m, what is this son of
Speaker 1: a buck gonna do? I am looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, dear. Season is here. This is the
Speaker 1: good stuff, my friends. I'm having a blast. I hope
Speaker 1: you are as well. And until next time, stay wired
Speaker 1: to hunt.