Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, which is brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. I'm your guest host, Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Today I'm joined by my good buddy Dylan Lentz, and
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about all kinds of topics, including
Speaker 2: scouting and hunting the Big Woods, the advantages and disadvantage
Speaker 2: of being a trail camera junkie, and what it's like
Speaker 2: to film a wide variety of hunters throughout the season.
Speaker 2: I had variety of hunters throughout the season. All Right,
Speaker 2: you might have noticed that this isn't Mark Kenyon here today.
Speaker 2: It's your old backup QB Antonio. Mark is off again
Speaker 2: this week, which probably won't come as much of a
Speaker 2: surprise to anyone who listens. Surprisingly, he isn't on vacation
Speaker 2: this week, but is recovering from another clarinet related injury. Now,
Speaker 2: while one of those little Kenyan boys didn't fire at
Speaker 2: football into his face while he was playing this time,
Speaker 2: what did happen is actually a lot more embarrassing. You
Speaker 2: guys don't know this, but Mark is trying to get
Speaker 2: into shape and it's not going very well. In fact,
Speaker 2: he tried to deadlift his clarinet case, which weighs about
Speaker 2: eleven pounds, and he pulled several of the muscles in
Speaker 2: his lower back. He also slipped a couple discs, popped
Speaker 2: out a hernia, and from what Missus Kenyon told me
Speaker 2: when she called me about it, had a bathroom related
Speaker 2: accident in his boxers. So he's laid up this week
Speaker 2: recovering from a litany of injuries. And I'm talking to
Speaker 2: Dylan Lenz, who is one of the best hunters I've
Speaker 2: ever spent time with in the field. And that's no joke.
Speaker 2: Dylan does a lot of camera work for his job.
Speaker 2: He films a lot of hunts and if you want
Speaker 2: to see how good he is, you can go over
Speaker 2: to the metater dot com and watch my North Dakota
Speaker 2: show from last year. Dylan is also a habitat Google
Speaker 2: who works with Jeff Sturgis to help clients create their
Speaker 2: dream deer ground. This is just a great conversation about
Speaker 2: a wide variety of deer hunting topics, but I think
Speaker 2: you're really going to enjoy Dylan Lenz, how are you, buddy,
Speaker 2: doing good?
Speaker 3: Man doing good? Long time to see.
Speaker 2: The last time I saw you was last week and
Speaker 2: you were hoofing it through the cattails with a fifty
Speaker 2: pound pack on your back, trying to catch some roosters
Speaker 2: in flight with a camera before I shot them out
Speaker 2: of the sky.
Speaker 3: That was a fun challenge though. I've talked to a
Speaker 3: couple people about that, and I was like, that was
Speaker 3: actually really fun to try and film.
Speaker 2: So enjoyed it. It was a different than our typical
Speaker 2: get togethers out there.
Speaker 3: Huh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: So for the guests that don't know you, you are
Speaker 2: a man who wears many hats. You have filmed me
Speaker 2: for a bunch of hunts. If anybody saw the North
Speaker 2: Dakota show of mine that we dropped recently, it's on
Speaker 2: the Mediator website. You film that. People freaking love it.
Speaker 2: You did a great job on it. You and I
Speaker 2: just did a you know, run out in North Dakota.
Speaker 2: We did a run here in Minnesota for pheasants. You
Speaker 2: film with Mark, You film with a ton of people.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah, And that's that's what's super fun about
Speaker 3: what I do is just how diverse I get to
Speaker 3: be just to try and make a living. So I
Speaker 3: enjoy hunting with a lot of different people, filming a
Speaker 3: lot of different things, and just trying to think about
Speaker 3: animals along the way. Like it's just just that's kind
Speaker 3: of like the binding theme is animals and being outdoors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have a you know you have that's
Speaker 2: not your only business, right, Like, that's not all you do.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about your other business that's also involved
Speaker 2: in Deer two. But your experience, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that I really wanted to have you on here.
Speaker 2: And obviously we've become friends filming together and hunting together.
Speaker 2: But I've filmed with I don't know how many camera
Speaker 2: guys over the years, quite a few if you go
Speaker 2: way back into my bow hunter days. And I was
Speaker 2: telling Mark this after our North Dakota. I was like, Man,
Speaker 2: Dylan is the the first cameraman that I've ever hunted
Speaker 2: with who I run stuff by him to actually like
Speaker 2: get his opinion instead of just being like a courtesy
Speaker 2: thing or something.
Speaker 3: Awesome. That's really good to hear and it's like that's
Speaker 3: it's fun too, because like all the people that I
Speaker 3: help with, like the most fun trips for me are
Speaker 3: when it's you're almost like working as a team.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like how we're both here for the same goal.
Speaker 3: We want to film something cool happen and be successful
Speaker 3: in the field, and like if we can work together
Speaker 3: on that, it makes it enjoyable for both of us then, right, so.
Speaker 2: Oh big time. And I mean that's I don't need
Speaker 2: to go too deep in the weeds on this, but
Speaker 2: you know, some of the some of the places I
Speaker 2: worked before this, where I filmed, you know, you'd get
Speaker 2: a cameraman who was like, I'm here to film a
Speaker 2: deer dying. Yeah, Like that's this is my job, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean I've told this a few times. When I
Speaker 2: had a guy one time years ago on a hunt
Speaker 2: down in Illinois who when I picked him up at
Speaker 2: the airport, he looked at me and he said, listen, man,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to see any deer coming in. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to look for them. I am. When you
Speaker 2: tell me to start filming, I will, but that's all
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do. And I'm not lying. We I mean,
Speaker 2: we had a miserable hunt. We ended up killing a buck,
Speaker 2: but I looked up at him the first day and
Speaker 2: he had his head down in his hand, and he
Speaker 2: was not interested in being there at all. But was
Speaker 2: Meat Eater is a different thing, you know, they look
Speaker 2: at video production. I think this is part of the
Speaker 2: reason that Meat Eater has been successful. You know, Steve's
Speaker 2: very I don't know how to put this without making
Speaker 2: him sound bad. Steve has a high standard for videos
Speaker 2: and that sort of trickles down to us peons who
Speaker 2: you know, aren't at Steve's level. And so we get
Speaker 2: a lot of camera operators who are, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: really good at running the camera, but have never been
Speaker 2: in a saddle. And then once in a while we
Speaker 2: get somebody like you who can do it all and
Speaker 2: and has a ton of white tail experience. And I'm
Speaker 2: telling you, man like it is a relief when I
Speaker 2: know we get to hunt together, because it's a different
Speaker 2: thing to, like you said, to work together on the
Speaker 2: project versus just having somebody who's kind of hired just
Speaker 2: to be there.
Speaker 3: Right right well, and that's that's what's fun for me too.
Speaker 3: I Mean, I film a lot of different stuff with
Speaker 3: a lot of different people. And there are times where
Speaker 3: I get there and I feel like I'm just there
Speaker 3: to film. I'm not part of the decision making. I'm
Speaker 3: just documenting, which you know, there's a time and a
Speaker 3: place for that. But when I hunt with somebody that
Speaker 3: that are open to hearing my thoughts and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe we should try this, Like I feel like we
Speaker 3: end up being a lot more successful because we're thinking
Speaker 3: about a lot more variables when we're more widespread then
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean this is this probably sounds crazy, but
Speaker 2: I've noticed this not not only filming hunts, but also
Speaker 2: hunting with my daughters, where the calculus for everything changes
Speaker 2: if you have to think about somebody else who isn't
Speaker 2: also thinking about the best of the process, And it's
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it's just kind of a weird
Speaker 2: thing where you're like, it's not just can I get
Speaker 2: two guys in that tree? You know, it's like what
Speaker 2: can you see? Yeah? Yeah, you know what movements can
Speaker 2: we get away with? Like where where are we gonna
Speaker 2: you know, like where's he going to come in? Hopefully
Speaker 2: what's he going to do? And it's a it's a
Speaker 2: different thing and Man, you and I have had some
Speaker 2: fun and we had you know, we had a good
Speaker 2: hunt last year in North Dakota. That was cool. We
Speaker 2: had a great hunt this year? Was I was that
Speaker 2: the biggest buck you've ever seen? Somebody missed the one
Speaker 2: I missed? Or have you seen somebody miss bigger?
Speaker 3: Man? I I hate to say it. That might be
Speaker 3: the biggest going miss. But I'm sorry, that's a terrible
Speaker 3: record to hold.
Speaker 2: It's okay, man, it's okay. That's not the first big
Speaker 2: buck I've missed. Uh, But let's talk about that because
Speaker 2: you you know, you just got back from Pennsylvania with Sturgis,
Speaker 2: Jeff Sturgis. You were out there killed a great buck
Speaker 2: on public land. Really cool, short hunt, awesome. You filmed,
Speaker 2: you know, the private land thing all over a lot
Speaker 2: of the public land thing with a bunch of different people.
Speaker 2: Like what do you pick up? Like, is there something
Speaker 2: that you've picked up hunting with a wide variety of
Speaker 2: people that you bring home where you're like, dang, I
Speaker 2: like that I took that out of his hunt and
Speaker 2: I brought it home or something like that.
Speaker 3: There's something I pick up. You know, it'd be cliche
Speaker 3: to say, like I learned something on every hunt, because
Speaker 3: there's definitely hunts that I'm just like, okay, whatever, you know,
Speaker 3: this is just another hunt. But there's a lot of
Speaker 3: trips that you take where it's like, man, I never
Speaker 3: thought about that this way, or I wonder if that
Speaker 3: would apply elsewhere, And you know, just kind of looking
Speaker 3: back at our north to go to hunt in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three when we were out there, you know, walking
Speaker 3: under that big oak tree that had a lot of
Speaker 3: sign under it, but it was close to the road
Speaker 3: and it was close to access. Like personally, I would
Speaker 3: have just kept talking. I wouldn't have thought about it.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, it's all nighttime movement here. You know,
Speaker 3: this gets blown out all the time, and you like
Speaker 3: took that and you put it in your hat like
Speaker 3: this this means something, and like that stuck with me
Speaker 3: a lot. You know, there's a lot of other people
Speaker 3: that I hunt with where you know, they think about,
Speaker 3: you know, certain concepts and yeah, I note that, and
Speaker 3: I kind of put that in my notebook as well.
Speaker 3: Of like, you know, if I'm in these scenarios and
Speaker 3: I'm come up short and my traditional tactics aren't working,
Speaker 3: then you start thinking about you know, how do I
Speaker 3: think outside of my box and start to utilize suff
Speaker 3: that makes other people's successful.
Speaker 2: You know, So when you talk about that, because I've
Speaker 2: had people say that to me about that North Dakota
Speaker 2: deal too. Where and I've done this a lot, right,
Speaker 2: Like I've walked past fresh sign deep you know, big
Speaker 2: concentrations of sign and I'm trying to remind myself every
Speaker 2: year because I feel like on public land, I run
Speaker 2: into that almost every year. Somewhere this year I ran
Speaker 2: into it with my daughters or one of my daughters
Speaker 2: over in northern Wisconsin where we encountered a great dear
Speaker 2: like a one thirty on public land, like two hundred
Speaker 2: yards from where the road is, oh Man. But it
Speaker 2: was just that concentration a sign again, And I always
Speaker 2: wonder about that because I bring and everybody does this,
Speaker 2: but we bring this personal kind of bias to wherever
Speaker 2: we go where it's like, okay, you're you're from Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Wisconsin has a ton of hunters, and so you're thinking
Speaker 2: I got to get away from them and being even
Speaker 2: no matter what, close to the road, Like you said, well,
Speaker 2: that's going to be nighttime movement, right because they're not
Speaker 2: going to move there in the daylight, but you're not
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin, and it's a hard thing to recalibrate yourself.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people we sort of
Speaker 2: make up our minds on stuff like that and go
Speaker 2: because I hunt, I'm from Georgia or wherever, like this
Speaker 2: is what deer do or this is the thing that
Speaker 2: hunters do. And that's one of the reasons I preach
Speaker 2: this travel to hunt things so much. When you go
Speaker 2: do that and you don't really have a choice, you're like,
Speaker 2: I got a couple of days, I got to try
Speaker 2: it out, you start to learn that those things you
Speaker 2: think just aren't necessarily.
Speaker 3: True definitely, And that's you know, that's what's really fun
Speaker 3: about getting to hunt in so many different places is
Speaker 3: you see those different scales, right, so you look at
Speaker 3: you know, here in you know way, northern Wisconsin, New York, up,
Speaker 3: all those kind of places. These deers, their their movement
Speaker 3: in a daily basis is a lot longer than when
Speaker 3: you're slammed in agricultural wood lot lands, where it's you know,
Speaker 3: these deer are moving sixty yards slammed in this little
Speaker 3: woodlot versus this dear might be moving three quarters of
Speaker 3: a mile from where he's betting that day to whatever
Speaker 3: food source of the moment. There is so kind of
Speaker 3: being able to like look at that and like whatever
Speaker 3: trip you're on, just kind of thinking like, all right,
Speaker 3: what are these two deer doing here? And it's so
Speaker 3: variable based on your region, Like different areas of different
Speaker 3: states are that way, you know, southern Wisconsin and northern Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: Holy cow, is it different right well?
Speaker 2: And I mean what you're talking about there too, partially
Speaker 2: is just a deer density issue as well to some extent.
Speaker 2: And this is this is one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes it so hard to hunt big woods. You know,
Speaker 2: you were just out in the Adirondacks up there in
Speaker 2: upstate upstate New York, like, oh yeah, you get very
Speaker 2: few deer and you get a ton of kind of
Speaker 2: mono habitat to work with. And you know, Southern hunters
Speaker 2: deal with that shit a lot too. Maybe they have
Speaker 2: a little higher population and deer in some places, but
Speaker 2: you get sort of that nomadic, uh, you know, small
Speaker 2: population thing, and it makes it so hard. But that's
Speaker 2: again sort of a lesson on those concentrations of sign
Speaker 2: right for sure.
Speaker 3: And that's what's so fun is like I feel like
Speaker 3: when you are successful in those places or even when
Speaker 3: you come upon that sign, like it feels like a
Speaker 3: gift almost like you're like in this sea of the same.
Speaker 3: I found this. This this means a lot. Now that
Speaker 3: I have this little token here, how do I extrapolate
Speaker 3: that and actually hunt it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And that's why it's so fun to hunt those big
Speaker 3: expanse places where it's a neil and a haystack. When
Speaker 3: you're talking about deer and you know that each encounter
Speaker 3: means that much more then, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, and you also have kind of a lesson
Speaker 2: there too when you talk about you know, if you
Speaker 2: if you go to a high deer density place, like
Speaker 2: you know, where you live in in Wisconsin, you probably
Speaker 2: have a lot of deer, right Like some of the
Speaker 2: places I hunt in southern Minnesota, we have a high
Speaker 2: population and so a concentration of sign is everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so so now how do you distill that? So, you know,
Speaker 2: I start to look at this stuff like the more
Speaker 2: I travel, and I'm sure you do too, where you
Speaker 2: kind of just go, okay, well this this hunt, you
Speaker 2: know that that ADIRONDACKX hunt where you're waiting for that
Speaker 2: snow to track one. You know, you're waiting for the
Speaker 2: right conditions to get there, but you're also looking for
Speaker 2: that concentration a sign, and you you really realize that
Speaker 2: there's like benefits to every place and there's like these negatives, right,
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, hunting a place where a ton of
Speaker 2: deer is awesome because it's easy to see deer, but
Speaker 2: how do you pinpoint the buck that you want and
Speaker 2: how do you get in without spooking all the other deer?
Speaker 2: And then you've got the other end of the spectrum
Speaker 2: where you're like, I can't even find a freaking deer
Speaker 2: in this section, right, and you know, like you said,
Speaker 2: and when you finally find that sign, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I'm onto something. Whereas somebody in you know, Nebraska
Speaker 2: and would lot would be like, well I can spin
Speaker 2: in a circle and count forty scrapes like who cares?
Speaker 3: Oh exactly, yeah definitely, And that that to me, like,
Speaker 3: you know, that's why it's so fun like hunting these
Speaker 3: different places, you find these different concentrations of deer. But
Speaker 3: it's just I love how no matter where you are,
Speaker 3: it changes so drastically that each place kind of has
Speaker 3: its own niche, right, So it's like you almost want
Speaker 3: to learn all these different areas and like, well, when
Speaker 3: I'm in this, that means I do this, you know.
Speaker 3: Like to me, that's just so fun about it is
Speaker 3: how these animals all kind of work off of the
Speaker 3: same basis, but it's so different when you extrapolate it
Speaker 3: out right.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the guys who I've talked to a
Speaker 2: lot about that is Clint Campbell with Truth from the
Speaker 2: Stand podcast. I just had him on a little bit
Speaker 2: ago and we talk about that a lot, where you know,
Speaker 2: he's hunting the mountains of Pennsylvania, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: He's not hunting egg He's hunting you know, big woods,
Speaker 2: lots of terrain. And then he goes out to Kansas
Speaker 2: and he's like, you know, some of the stuff you
Speaker 2: find or some of the stuff you're like this saddle
Speaker 2: or this bench or this you know, soft edge out
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. This plays like this soft edge in the
Speaker 2: CRP in Kansas or whatever.
Speaker 3: Exactly. It's that, you know, it's like those same kind
Speaker 3: of you know factors, right edge change like that is
Speaker 3: always going to be monumental, I feel like, but it's
Speaker 3: just how much does it mean here? And does that
Speaker 3: depend on the deer density? Does it depend on how
Speaker 3: far they're traveling or what food sources are there? You
Speaker 3: know that that's me is the fun part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that So again, I mean this, this is
Speaker 2: a message. I try to get out with foundations a
Speaker 2: lot too. So so you and I just filmed that
Speaker 2: pheasant hunt, right and we had one day that was
Speaker 2: super windy, real windy, Yeah, and we would get out there.
Speaker 2: You know, you're you're in western Minnesota, so that there's
Speaker 2: no trees to block that, there's no hills. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's howking across the landscape. But you get into those
Speaker 2: cat tails lows and you find a spot where you'll
Speaker 2: be just moving along and all of a sudden, there
Speaker 2: is like a little wind break somewhere and you can
Speaker 2: feel it. It's like palpable, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: that's where you flush the roosters, and that's where you
Speaker 2: jump those deer out of there. And you're like, even
Speaker 2: if you never hunt that term for white tails, being
Speaker 2: in there, following a black lab around hoping to shoot
Speaker 2: a rooster, all of a sudden you pick up on
Speaker 2: those little micro climates, that little micro habitat situation, right,
Speaker 2: and you go, man, I don't know how I'm gonna
Speaker 2: use that at home. I don't know what that means
Speaker 2: to me. But someday I'm gonna go out and it's
Speaker 2: gonna be super windy. I'm gonna be sneaking into my
Speaker 2: stand or something. I'm gonna hit a spot where I
Speaker 2: don't feel that wind anymore. I'm gonna bust a big
Speaker 2: buck and I'm gonna go, Okay, Now when I see
Speaker 2: that on the forecast, I know what to do.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, And that's fun too. You know, you talk
Speaker 3: about those microcosms of habitats, and you know that could
Speaker 3: be you know, a change in you know, density of
Speaker 3: stem count. That could be all right, there's a little
Speaker 3: bit higher amount of conifers in here that are breaking
Speaker 3: the wind or you know, hindering the snow a little
Speaker 3: bit more. And it's just you might not even notice
Speaker 3: it all that much when you're looking at an aerial
Speaker 3: because it doesn't stand out. But then you're walking through
Speaker 3: there and you're like, you know what this now that
Speaker 3: I'm here, this does look a lot different at ground level,
Speaker 3: and that absolutely matters. To a deer, right they they
Speaker 3: I don't know how they seek it out, But I
Speaker 3: don't know if they just feel it like it's more
Speaker 3: comfortable here, or do they look for those conditions, you know,
Speaker 3: but they feel it. They absolutely are relating to those changes.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's I think it's just a matter of
Speaker 2: they They have about a mile by mile they work
Speaker 2: with generally, And if you spent every day out there
Speaker 2: every condition, you'd be like, I know, if I go
Speaker 2: here when it's rainy, it's better than being there. And
Speaker 2: if the wind's blown out of the southeast during the rut,
Speaker 2: which sucks everywhere, I'm gonna look for does this way
Speaker 2: because there aren't gonna be any hunters there, And I
Speaker 2: think they just get to know it so well.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely so.
Speaker 2: You run one of the things that I you know,
Speaker 2: you and I have spent a lot of time talking
Speaker 2: about deer on these trips, you know, sitting in tents
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. You have kind of a couple
Speaker 2: different styles, and you're you're always checking your trail cameras.
Speaker 2: You have a lot of cameras out, yeah, but you're
Speaker 2: also going You're also going to places like the adrond ACKs,
Speaker 2: like you just did, or go to Pennsylvania where you
Speaker 2: have no intel, no intel nothing. Do you feel like,
Speaker 2: how does it make you feel going from one to
Speaker 2: the other, Because I know a lot of people are
Speaker 2: like really dependent on the cameras now, but you seem
Speaker 2: to have like a foot in both camps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. I it's tough because as a whitetail
Speaker 3: hunter and as somebody that's trying to make the most
Speaker 3: out of their time on these trips, if you have
Speaker 3: that intel, I feel like then you can kind of
Speaker 3: either cross areas off or circle areas and say, wow,
Speaker 3: I need to hunt here. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: it's a blessing and a curse where there's something super
Speaker 3: refreshing about when I do these hunts and I have
Speaker 3: no intel and I go in blind and you're just
Speaker 3: going back to basics and scouting sign or scouting those
Speaker 3: changes in habitat or clearcuts or whatever, and you're just like,
Speaker 3: there has to be deer here because the factors tell
Speaker 3: me that they're a deer here versus you know, this year,
Speaker 3: I my intention was to shoot a buck in the upa, Michigan.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's happen. I put some cameras up there.
Speaker 3: I think I have four cell cameras up there, and
Speaker 3: I was just so discouraged by the lack of deer
Speaker 3: sign or I'm sorry, not the lack of deer sign,
Speaker 3: with the lack of deer photos. I was getting buck
Speaker 3: pictures specifically, and you know, the amount of wolves I
Speaker 3: was getting on camera that it just discouraged me from
Speaker 3: planning a trip up there.
Speaker 2: You know, and you got a lot of wolves up there, huh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, quite a few wolves, I would say, yeah, at
Speaker 3: least once a week, if not every other week. But
Speaker 3: a lot of wolves on camera. And you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know how detrimental that necessarily is to the mature
Speaker 3: bucks or you know, mature deer that I'm hunting, but
Speaker 3: you know, it's just the fact that there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of deer on camera and the amount of predators
Speaker 3: I'm getting on camera. It discouraged me from planning a
Speaker 3: trip where had I gone, it would have you know,
Speaker 3: I would had a blast, no matter if I even
Speaker 3: saw a deer, I'm sure, but I think it would
Speaker 3: have made me become more resourceful and do more scouting
Speaker 3: and find that legit new fresh sign. And then I
Speaker 3: I would have been more successful instead of just writing
Speaker 3: it off like, well, I have the cameras up there,
Speaker 3: they're telling me there's no deer here. You know, had
Speaker 3: I gone and put the work in, I would have
Speaker 3: had a blast. And well, it's a huge regret I
Speaker 3: already have from this fall, and the fall is not
Speaker 3: even over. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to ask you about that, because
Speaker 2: I knew you didn't go up there, and I knew
Speaker 2: I think it was when we were coming back from
Speaker 2: North Dakota. You were pretty excited about that to get
Speaker 2: up there. And so there's the other side of it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you don't have that, if you hadn't put cameras
Speaker 2: up there, in the up, you would have gone up there.
Speaker 3: I would have gone, and I'm sure I would have
Speaker 3: had a blast. Maybe I wouldn't even seen a deer.
Speaker 3: Maybe I would have seen wolves, who knows, But I
Speaker 3: would have done some scouting, put some boots on the ground,
Speaker 3: and at least found areas where I felt confident in
Speaker 3: hunting versus watching these cameras. And I would have went
Speaker 3: up there and been like, why am I sitting here?
Speaker 3: There's no deer? For miles, I get a deer here
Speaker 3: every five six days. You know, I think I would
Speaker 3: have went into that hunt a lot more negative. And
Speaker 3: so I think next year what I'm going to do
Speaker 3: is I'm gonna go up there in Turkey out that
Speaker 3: area in the spring and hopefully look for some sign
Speaker 3: and kind of rezone in on some areas. But then
Speaker 3: next year, I think I'm just gonna go hunt and
Speaker 3: go for fresh sign and not put any cameras out.
Speaker 3: And I think that that's gonna encourage me to go
Speaker 3: a lot more because I'm like, man, there's got to
Speaker 3: be some big giant swamp bucks up there. I want
Speaker 3: to go shoot them, you know. So right, it's kind
Speaker 3: of one of those things.
Speaker 2: You were you hung some some cameras on scrapes, right,
Speaker 2: but you were, you know, however far you have those
Speaker 2: spread out when you look at that now, because I
Speaker 2: was just talking to a buddy of mine about our
Speaker 2: northern Wisconsin stuff where last year we had a wolf
Speaker 2: move in to his property. Big male got pictures of
Speaker 2: him all the time, and that's that's unusual. We get
Speaker 2: them swinging through, but we don't get them where they're
Speaker 2: like that that dude's just living there. Oh yeah, change
Speaker 2: things a lot right, like it just does. And so
Speaker 2: you know, but there we have, you know, a couple
Speaker 2: of private properties that are maybe ten miles apart, and
Speaker 2: then we have a huge chunk of national forest that
Speaker 2: I like to on a lot. Yeah, where even when
Speaker 2: something like that happens, I go, well, I've got Plan
Speaker 2: B and Plan C, so the area is still going
Speaker 2: to I'm going to go regardless. Do you think like
Speaker 2: next year, you know, you go up there turkey hunting,
Speaker 2: you think you'll try to find some pockets that are
Speaker 2: far enough apart where it's like if you do set
Speaker 2: some cameras this next year and you see those wolves,
Speaker 2: you can be like, well, I've got you know, fifteen
Speaker 2: miles away, I got another area I scouted and just
Speaker 2: give yourself that shot.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think my cameras were spread enough
Speaker 3: that I definitely had two separate areas that were very
Speaker 3: far apart. I think I was a little bit too
Speaker 3: tight in one of the areas on where I'd placed
Speaker 3: some cameras where you know, I actually had the same
Speaker 3: buck on camera at you know, two or three of
Speaker 3: those camera locations, and you know, then it's like, man,
Speaker 3: why didn't I just spread these out more, you know,
Speaker 3: and just kind of figure out what's in this area
Speaker 3: if there are deer in this area. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: think when you hunt those big expanses of public land,
Speaker 3: or even when I go out to South Dakota, I
Speaker 3: have like a plan ABCD e F where it's like,
Speaker 3: all right, this area, there's trucks parked at every spot.
Speaker 3: I go to this spot. If there's people there, I
Speaker 3: go here. If you know all these factors, you know,
Speaker 3: I have, I blew this place out and I just
Speaker 3: need to go somewhere else, Like I go into it.
Speaker 3: And this is one of those things when I can't
Speaker 3: fall asleep at night, Like I'm sitting on on X
Speaker 3: and I'm dropping pins where it's like you just you
Speaker 3: start and you just go down this rabbit hole and
Speaker 3: next thing you know, you have all these pins that
Speaker 3: you've never even seen before, and you're just like, someday
Speaker 3: I want to go check that out, you.
Speaker 2: Know, dude. So that your situation there with the up
Speaker 2: hunting specifically or the scouting and the hunting you didn't do,
Speaker 2: people are going to listen to that and like that's
Speaker 2: that's going to confirm some thoughts people have of like
Speaker 2: that's not worth it. But because we we often present this.
Speaker 2: So like last year we went to North Dakota, right,
Speaker 2: we hunted two days, killed an ice buck. I hunted
Speaker 2: that spot one other time in twenty nineteen a hundred
Speaker 2: it four days and killed a nice buck. And people
Speaker 2: see that and they're like, Okay, well you have to
Speaker 2: find a spot like that. But that spot that I
Speaker 2: just mentioned with my daughter that we went into that
Speaker 2: we had that big one come up on. I hunted
Speaker 2: that I killed a buck there and I think like
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen and then twenty nineteen, and then I was
Speaker 2: covered in people and so I gave up on it.
Speaker 2: And two winters ago we had that heavy snow that
Speaker 2: knocked down a bunch of trees and changed I mean,
Speaker 2: it made the woods nasty. And I've been driving by
Speaker 2: that spot looking at other stuff, and I'm like, I
Speaker 2: wonder if that spot came back, because there's no four
Speaker 2: wheeler trails going in there, like you could tell it
Speaker 2: wasn't getting used. And when I walked in there today
Speaker 2: or this year, there was more sign in there than
Speaker 2: I saw in Iowa when I was down there, and
Speaker 2: I go, okay, so this came back around and the
Speaker 2: first time I hunted it by myself, which was the
Speaker 2: only time I had because I hit a deer that
Speaker 2: night with my truck and I had to go home.
Speaker 2: I had a pretty good buck come in and I
Speaker 2: almost killed him, and I was kind to hunting on
Speaker 2: memories but also hunting on the fresh sign, and I go,
Speaker 2: you know, this is like a ten year process. No, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I don't know it like I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2: I can't walk into that place and just kill a deer.
Speaker 2: But like when you talk about this up experience, and
Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, well you found some wolves, you found
Speaker 2: some bucks. You didn't you didn't find enough to get
Speaker 2: you to go, Yeah, you're not done. You're gonna go
Speaker 2: turkey on up there going back. Yeah right, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna you're gonna devote that time to build those layers
Speaker 2: and eventually you're gonna learn that area enough where if
Speaker 2: you put those cameras out and the wolves are there,
Speaker 2: you're not gonna be like I'm not gonna go and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna regret it. You're like, I'm gonna figure it out.
Speaker 3: I'm not focusing on the wolves necessarily. I don't think
Speaker 3: the wolves are why there aren't deer there. I don't
Speaker 3: think that I think that there are deer there. I
Speaker 3: think my intel, my quick running gun scouting, like I
Speaker 3: wasn't on the X, you know. So it's it's a
Speaker 3: matter of pushing a little bit further, going to you know,
Speaker 3: maybe look at fresher aerials and say, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: there's different changes here that I didn't see based on
Speaker 3: the areals that I was looking. Maybe there's a fresh
Speaker 3: cut I don't know about, or something like that. But
Speaker 3: it's it's one of those things where and I'm sure
Speaker 3: you've had this too, where when an area kicks your ass,
Speaker 3: like you want to figure it out. Like now, it's
Speaker 3: like I'm going back because I'm not going oh for
Speaker 3: nothing on this, Like I want to experience this big
Speaker 3: wood success, you know. I want to go up there
Speaker 3: and I want to go to an area that everybody says, oh,
Speaker 3: there's no deer, what are you wasting your time for
Speaker 3: and have a hunt that I can be happy about,
Speaker 3: you know. And I think that's what I respect about,
Speaker 3: you know, especially the way that you hunt and the
Speaker 3: way that you hunt out of state is like the
Speaker 3: measurements for success are so different in all these places
Speaker 3: that you go. Right, So it's like North Dakota, you know,
Speaker 3: we go out there and here we have an encounter
Speaker 3: with an awesome giant buck, and then we shoot another deer.
Speaker 3: We're totally happy with that.
Speaker 2: Well, let's be honest, we had two encounters with that dear,
Speaker 2: well two miles apart.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to watch that film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're right. I mean, it's that is another
Speaker 2: thing that I'm trying to not be a dick but push.
Speaker 2: And it's that when you go do something else, even
Speaker 2: if you're in state, and you're like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: go hunt this part of the state I've never done,
Speaker 2: or I'm gonna hop across state lines. I'm gonna hunt
Speaker 2: the state I've never been to. Now, you don't bring
Speaker 2: that the standards you have at your lease at home
Speaker 2: or a gramma's farm that you get to hunt every
Speaker 2: day after work or whatever. And when you hunt under
Speaker 2: different rules for yourself, you hunt differently. Yeah, and now
Speaker 2: it's not just a sit and wait game like a
Speaker 2: lot of the whitetail stuff now is like I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for the cameras to show me the good stuff.
Speaker 2: I wait for the conditions to get right and then
Speaker 2: I go in and I kill You don't do that
Speaker 2: on when you're traveling, and that that really sharpens the blade,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I think so too, And it's just it's more fun
Speaker 3: to be honest with you. Like I have three properties.
Speaker 3: I can hunt here in Wisconsin. I can hang stands
Speaker 3: on them, I can hang cameras on them all year,
Speaker 3: water holes, food plots, you know, scrapes, whatever. But that
Speaker 3: only gets me so far to where I want to
Speaker 3: be in a fall, Like I want to experience that adventure.
Speaker 3: I want to go hang and bang and try new
Speaker 3: spots and just try and figure out an area where
Speaker 3: it's like you kind of dial these other spots down
Speaker 3: and it's like now it was just a waiting game,
Speaker 3: Like now I'm just waiting for a buck to start
Speaker 3: to do the things that I know they're going to do,
Speaker 3: versus going and figuring out what the bucks are doing
Speaker 3: here and how then you tap into that Like that
Speaker 3: to me is so much more fun. And not to
Speaker 3: say I don't have a blast shooting bucks on private land,
Speaker 3: I absolutely do, and I will do that forever. But
Speaker 3: there's something to be said about like every year. I
Speaker 3: want to go get my ass kicked somewhere.
Speaker 2: You know, right, I mean right before we got on here.
Speaker 2: I for some reason, I have never had a lot
Speaker 2: of interest in Kansas.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I huntred at one time years like two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine or something. I had a really big one and
Speaker 2: lost it. They found it later. Turkey hunted at one time.
Speaker 2: But I like, it just hasn't been on my radar.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, I gotta go give
Speaker 2: Kansas some effort. I don't know why, you know, like
Speaker 2: I know, I just there's something happening. But it's it's
Speaker 2: that thing you're talking about. I wanted to ask you
Speaker 2: when you when you went to the up and you
Speaker 2: were like, because I know you were, you were stoked
Speaker 2: about that, and you went up there and you scouted
Speaker 2: and hung some cameras. What were you looking for? Like?
Speaker 2: What were you like? I want to find this, I
Speaker 2: want to drop a camera on it, and I want
Speaker 2: to see what's going on here.
Speaker 3: Ah, you know, It's it's one of those things like
Speaker 3: and this is just because I was there in early October.
Speaker 3: What I was looking for was fresh sign, right, So
Speaker 3: like everywhere I went, if you got on a scene
Speaker 3: of change, some kind of change in the cover type.
Speaker 3: You would see those old scarred rubs right like you
Speaker 3: would see where you know, even like you see those
Speaker 3: like sapling asspen that are falling over because they rode
Speaker 3: it out in the middle from a rub that's twelve
Speaker 3: years old or whatever. You know, that tells you that
Speaker 3: that area has movement on it, right. But then it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: are there deer here right now? So that's what I
Speaker 3: was really looking for, is like is their brows fresh?
Speaker 3: Is there fresh nipped shrub tips? You know? Now? Is
Speaker 3: there a fresh rub near that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Is there some inkling of a scrape? And I'll be
Speaker 3: honest with you, I didn't find any fresh scrapes. But
Speaker 3: what I did find was some fresh rubs that told
Speaker 3: me like, Okay, a buck spent some time here. And
Speaker 3: I'm not just looking for like, you know, one inch
Speaker 3: sapling that's scraped and broken, like you're looking for that.
Speaker 3: A lot of the ones that I found up there
Speaker 3: were on tag alder where a tag alder that's or
Speaker 3: five inches around is worked and it's two feet and
Speaker 3: almost all the way around, And then you know that
Speaker 3: buck was mad for a long time while he was there,
Speaker 3: which tells me like he's not just out somewhere that
Speaker 3: he's never been before and spending all his time making
Speaker 3: all this noise. He lives here or he had he
Speaker 3: is familiar with this place, right So that's what I
Speaker 3: was looking for. And I only found a couple instances
Speaker 3: of that fresh sign. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: old pretty rubs, but I only found a couple that
Speaker 3: were like, dang, this is this is where I need
Speaker 3: to be focusing.
Speaker 2: And you didn't find any scrapes, no scrapes.
Speaker 3: But again, I was there, you know, early October, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't near a lot of cuts where I was
Speaker 3: focusing that time. I think if I had have gone
Speaker 3: near the cuts, I would have found like those early scrapes,
Speaker 3: you know, where they're they're spending a lot more time,
Speaker 3: like on their food sources, in the staging areas near
Speaker 3: those food sources. I was more or less going like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is the spot that I can get into an
Speaker 3: access quickly off the river and I can pop into here,
Speaker 3: be low invasive, and just find are there dear here
Speaker 3: right now? So I think if I would have looked
Speaker 3: in those other places, I would have found some scrapes,
Speaker 3: but I just I wasn't in the right areas for it.
Speaker 2: Right when you when you talk about tag alders, man,
Speaker 2: I find a lot of interesting woods buck signed when
Speaker 2: I hunt woodcock, oh yeah, oh yeah, because I mean
Speaker 2: you're always around those. And that's that's something after the
Speaker 2: last two years over in Wisconsin that I've tried to
Speaker 2: figure out more as those alder swamps, because they are
Speaker 2: just a special kind of cover, Like you can't go
Speaker 2: through them.
Speaker 3: Because like you look at them in an aerial and
Speaker 3: it just looks like this massive nothing. But you know,
Speaker 3: if you ever have to go through with all their swamp,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden you're going through and there's just
Speaker 3: a six to twelve inch change in elevation. It's just
Speaker 3: this little dry hump and that's where the rubs are,
Speaker 3: and it's like you would never find that or see
Speaker 3: it unless you're trudging through there. And then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden you get out in the spot and there's
Speaker 3: a couple of sprigs of raspberry or you know, maybe
Speaker 3: one aspen, and it's like now there's change, and that's
Speaker 3: why those deer there there's a little bit more brows
Speaker 3: there's a little bit different cover, you know, and so
Speaker 3: unless you're really putting in those miles, which sucks walking
Speaker 3: through those older swamps, right, but like that's where I
Speaker 3: feel like you find.
Speaker 2: A lot of that really valuable stuff, dude, you do,
Speaker 2: and that lesson there, you know, I think when you
Speaker 2: talk about elevation changes, I think, you know, I grew
Speaker 2: up in the bluffs down along the Mississippi, so I'm
Speaker 2: used to like big hills, right, And when you have
Speaker 2: big hills, you have big saddles, and you have big
Speaker 2: pinch points, and it's like to me, it's just so
Speaker 2: much easier to read the flat stuffs hard man, Like
Speaker 2: you can't control where they're gonna go, you know, with
Speaker 2: the wind, it's a different thing. But when you when
Speaker 2: you have like relatively flat ground, like you're talking about
Speaker 2: like an alder, swamps gonna be low and flat, just
Speaker 2: it is going to be. But you see that little
Speaker 2: pocket of you know, uh, some kind of some kind
Speaker 2: of pine trees or something that's like just like a
Speaker 2: species of tree that's gonna grow in a little bit more,
Speaker 2: like it needs a little bit more. It can't drown out.
Speaker 2: And then you're like you you know when you walk
Speaker 2: up to that, there's gonna be buck side definitely, like
Speaker 2: there's gonna be beds. It's the same thing those cat
Speaker 2: tails we were in. Yeah, you get out there and
Speaker 2: you're like this is all the same, and then you
Speaker 2: start walking through it and then you're like, Okay, there's
Speaker 2: a vein of willows over there, a little bit of
Speaker 2: dog would over here or something, and that's where the
Speaker 2: sign is, that's where the birds are, that's where the
Speaker 2: deer are. And it's like, man, you can't. You can
Speaker 2: sort of pick that stuff up on on X or
Speaker 2: you know, aerial photos, but until you walk it, you
Speaker 2: just don't know.
Speaker 3: Yep, absolutely, And that's that's what's so fun about Like
Speaker 3: playing around on aeriels is like trying to look at
Speaker 3: like I mess with like the leaf off cover and
Speaker 3: you know you're looking like, Okay, when was this photo taking.
Speaker 3: What's time of year? Is it in early spring? Where
Speaker 3: you know the aspens are popping a little bit different.
Speaker 3: Like it's so fun to like look and try and
Speaker 3: figure out just what clues the aerial gives you. And
Speaker 3: it's like it's this you know, dead piece of data, right,
Speaker 3: It's just like this is a photo that was taken.
Speaker 3: At some point you're trying to like figure out like
Speaker 3: what does this actually mean? What can it actually tell me?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: But then it's like, all right, now I drop some
Speaker 3: pins in there. Now I gotta go trudge through there.
Speaker 2: And actually look at it, right well, But it's just
Speaker 2: how it goes, you know, And it's that's the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff in you know, when you have nothing to
Speaker 2: do in February, that's good stuff to walk. The water's
Speaker 2: going to be frozen, you know. I just got permission
Speaker 2: last night to hunt this farm with my daughters by
Speaker 2: my house that I've you know, I've turkey hunted and
Speaker 2: I've hunted in the past, but I always got to
Speaker 2: go ask him. Yeah, and he was telling me about
Speaker 2: where they're seeing the bucks and you know, the usual stuff,
Speaker 2: right yeah, And I can't I gotta wait till I
Speaker 2: gotta go to Montana here in a second. But I
Speaker 2: when I come back, I can't wait to go walk
Speaker 2: that farm to just figure out, like I know where
Speaker 2: the I know those dear are going to be concentrated
Speaker 2: because we just wrapped up a long gun season and
Speaker 2: there's only so many spots. But doing that like just
Speaker 2: kill your buck and go take a walk or like
Speaker 2: it's so valuable. And I did this. You know, I
Speaker 2: had a entirely different plan for Wisconsin this year based
Speaker 2: off of the fact that I killed a buck last
Speaker 2: year and I had a couple of days to mess around,
Speaker 2: and so I went and walked swamps Oka and I
Speaker 2: dropped cameras and I was like, Okay, now I'm learning something.
Speaker 2: And I I built my whole plan around it this year, uh,
Speaker 2: until I got distracted by that public land stuff. But
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, and you know this, that boots on
Speaker 2: the ground stuff after review, like you said, when you
Speaker 2: can't sleep and you're scrolling through on X and just
Speaker 2: looking and then you get out there like we've got
Speaker 2: months of off season coming up. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and we've got.
Speaker 3: Funny when you get to this point in the season
Speaker 3: and it's like there's still time left to make plays
Speaker 3: and you're already like almost like writing it off like
Speaker 3: I want to. I'm already like looking ahead to like
Speaker 3: what intel can I find now? This could help me
Speaker 3: next year. Right, I'm at that point where you know,
Speaker 3: right now, like Muscloaders open, I'm home. I should be
Speaker 3: muscloader hunting, and it's like, you know, I should probably
Speaker 3: score some Brownie points while I'm home, and like I'll
Speaker 3: take a sit or two here like this week. But
Speaker 3: it's not like I'm like pushing as hard as I could,
Speaker 3: because it's like, I've already had a great year. This
Speaker 3: is awesome and I'm looking forward to next year so
Speaker 3: much that it's like I'm thinking about the scouting I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do for next year already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's so I mean, I know we pre
Speaker 2: this all the time. I look at winter scouting kind
Speaker 2: of like the all day sit thing, right, like we
Speaker 2: talk about it all the time. I feel like there
Speaker 2: aren't a lot of people who do it, and it's
Speaker 2: such a it's so valuable. And if you tie that in,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if you don't want to go
Speaker 2: out right now, like you said, you know, the muzzlar
Speaker 2: seasons are open or whatever. You know, maybe maybe not
Speaker 2: this month, but next month. In a lot of places,
Speaker 2: that deer season is going to be closed, and definitely
Speaker 2: by February. And there's so much to learn out there
Speaker 2: and a lot of your lessons from the last season
Speaker 2: are still super fresh, absolutely, and so you're like, and
Speaker 2: people think they don't really think about that stuff. Like
Speaker 2: if you you know, you went and ran those cameras
Speaker 2: in the up, didn't find what you needed, but you
Speaker 2: found something. You found some stuff, you got some information,
Speaker 2: you make a run up there and look around. All
Speaker 2: of that's fresher now than it would be when you
Speaker 2: go back in the summer, Turkey season or whenever that
Speaker 2: shit matters one.
Speaker 3: Hundred percent, And now like you look at it and think, like, okay,
Speaker 3: January February, depending on the winters that we have, like
Speaker 3: these deer are gonna be doing completely different things than
Speaker 3: they were doing all season. So then all of a
Speaker 3: sudden you get into these areas and there's cow paths
Speaker 3: and there's a ton of sign and there's shit everywhere,
Speaker 3: and you're just like, holy cow, I need to hunt here.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, now are they here because it's winter
Speaker 3: and they're they're living here now because the food sources
Speaker 3: and cover has changed, or were they here in October November?
Speaker 3: So then you have a lot more to like sift
Speaker 3: through versus like right now, it's so easy to go
Speaker 3: out and be like, holy cow, there's a big pad
Speaker 3: up up there. That's an enormous community scrape, right that's
Speaker 3: not covered in snow or whatever. Like there's so much
Speaker 3: to learn, Like as soon as that season is over,
Speaker 3: if you're done hunting, or you want to go take
Speaker 3: a walk with your muscleoader or whatever, Like there's a
Speaker 3: lot to learn right now.
Speaker 2: Big time. I want I remembered something I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you when you know, I asked you what you
Speaker 2: have learned kind of or like what you've picked up
Speaker 2: from some of the people you've hunted with. You know,
Speaker 2: that's like a very that's like a softball question, right,
Speaker 2: Like obviously you've hunted with a bunch of different people,
Speaker 2: You're gonna pick up some stuff. But I think about
Speaker 2: this a lot, like how do we how do we
Speaker 2: get information to our audience that they aren't getting from everyone? Right?
Speaker 2: And so I thought about this with you because when
Speaker 2: when we've hunted together, you kind of hang your own
Speaker 2: stands and you're like very capable of the whole process.
Speaker 2: But what have you picked up? Is there anything that
Speaker 2: comes to mind that you've picked up about like camping
Speaker 2: or like stand set up or gear, you know, blood trailing,
Speaker 2: like anything where you're like not not hunting strategy, but
Speaker 2: like the shit that the glue that keeps the whole
Speaker 2: thing together.
Speaker 3: I could do a whole episode on that kind of
Speaker 3: stuff if I like really thought about it, I would say,
Speaker 3: like what really jumps to mind quickly is just like
Speaker 3: and I think it's comes from being a cameraman, but
Speaker 3: like you want to be a fly on the wall
Speaker 3: until it's time to not be so like when you're
Speaker 3: hanging a set, you know, like I try and be
Speaker 3: so quiet, and I like I nerd out on my
Speaker 3: setup where it's like I tape where two pieces of
Speaker 3: metal connect. I have my strap in a way that
Speaker 3: as soon as I pull it out of unravels and
Speaker 3: I'd take it and I hang it around the tree,
Speaker 3: so it's not going to bang in anything. It's just
Speaker 3: like I think filming has just kind of honed me
Speaker 3: to try and be as minimally invasive as possible, because
Speaker 3: like when I hunt by myself, like, yeah, I can
Speaker 3: disappoint myself. But like if I looked look over and
Speaker 3: I made a noise and I look over and that
Speaker 3: hunter's looking at me because they heard the noise that
Speaker 3: I made, then it's like shame, right, So it's like
Speaker 3: it's like you're trying to not only keep yourself happy,
Speaker 3: but you're trying to keep the hunter happy. Or you know,
Speaker 3: you're sitting and you're trying to not spook the deer
Speaker 3: that are coming in, So your movements are just so
Speaker 3: much more small and sobtle, you know, I would say,
Speaker 3: like hanging a set. That to me, like I pride
Speaker 3: myself and I think I had mentioned this year, I
Speaker 3: wish there was like they do all these weird competitions,
Speaker 3: they should do like hanging a set competition style, Like
Speaker 3: I would love to sign up for that. I want
Speaker 3: to do the fastest, the quietest, the most efficient like that.
Speaker 3: To me, it would be so fun. And I know
Speaker 3: it's super nerdy, but like that to me would be
Speaker 3: super fun to watch. Like, Okay, what work I do differently?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's important, you know. I mean just
Speaker 2: when when we set up, when we when we encountered
Speaker 2: that buck in North Dakota the second time, when we
Speaker 2: didn't get a shot at him. That wood lot's tiny, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that would lot is maybe five acres and
Speaker 2: we had jumped some big deer out of that I
Speaker 2: think the day before or two days before, just sneaking
Speaker 2: in there looking and we got to the edge of
Speaker 2: that sucker and set up in really shitty trees because
Speaker 2: that's all that's there. And that buck came in and
Speaker 2: worked that tree twenty one yards away. And there's the
Speaker 2: way that that land is out there in the bad lands,
Speaker 2: Like he didn't come from a mile away, he was
Speaker 2: there and that So that stuff is like, you know,
Speaker 2: and I know we've pushed this, you know, the saddle
Speaker 2: and the mobile thing a lot, which of course makes sense,
Speaker 2: but it's not it's not just enough to get a
Speaker 2: saddle or you know, we were using those exopeace stands
Speaker 2: this year, which are freaking bad ass. Man. They don't
Speaker 2: we don't have I don't have any relationship with him.
Speaker 2: I fell in love with him. They are designed they're
Speaker 2: like somebody was reading my diary when they made those suckers.
Speaker 2: That's badass. But but that stuff is so important and
Speaker 2: you you do pick up on things like that when
Speaker 2: you hunt with other people, and that's that's one of
Speaker 2: the things that I don't know how to do this yet.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of working on this idea of like how
Speaker 2: do we how do we sort of isolate those lessons
Speaker 2: you know, from a hunt in a way to like
Speaker 2: share because there's so much little stuff, you know, and
Speaker 2: I've I've had people where like, you know, I have
Speaker 2: my own style of like butchering them in the field
Speaker 2: or butchering them on the back of my truck, and
Speaker 2: that you could film that stuff. But it's like there's
Speaker 2: so much, so many little things.
Speaker 3: Right, It's the little thing. It's the hey, you make
Speaker 3: this cut here on this deer, and that makes it
Speaker 3: that much easier to take out. Like that's maybe not
Speaker 3: something that's worth a whole video, but it's like those
Speaker 3: little tiny lessons that it's just like, oh, this guy
Speaker 3: showed me this one time. It makes a lot of
Speaker 3: sense and it makes my life easier. Like you know,
Speaker 3: you mentioned blood tracking and stuff like that, and like, man,
Speaker 3: I've been on so many blood trails with guys where
Speaker 3: it's like, seriously, this is how we're doing this, Like
Speaker 3: slow down, man, Like let's let's let's actually like sift
Speaker 3: through and figure out what's happening here. You know. I
Speaker 3: think like there's so many people that you do learn
Speaker 3: from that It's like I feel like a lot of
Speaker 3: the things you learn from people is like slow down, Like,
Speaker 3: don't just be in a hurry, like actually think about
Speaker 3: every move that you're making. And that goes for blood trails,
Speaker 3: hanging a stand, looking at signed whatever, like a lot
Speaker 3: of the stuff we want to do very quickly, but
Speaker 3: it makes way more sense to do it successfully and
Speaker 3: actually like quietly or you know, efficiently.
Speaker 2: I mean that that lesson. You can't you really can't
Speaker 2: overstate it, and that's you know you you just followed
Speaker 2: me through the cattail sou It's like, I'm I'm a
Speaker 2: fast walker. Like people bitch all the time. I get it,
Speaker 2: I get it, but I'm I intentionally do try to
Speaker 2: slow down because you know, like the blood training thing
Speaker 2: is a perfect example, right, like I can I can't
Speaker 2: bloodshow very many people because it's just not it's it
Speaker 2: is a it is a thing. It is a task
Speaker 2: that requires patience, Like it is a task that requires
Speaker 2: you to just throttle way back. And I think a
Speaker 2: lot of times we don't. We don't give ourselves enough time.
Speaker 2: Like I have one buddy who's like he's perpetually late
Speaker 2: for everything, so you know, like I know when he
Speaker 2: texts me and he's like, yeah, I got in a
Speaker 2: little late this morning, or like he was rushing and
Speaker 2: rushing and rushing and rushing. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that you know, a lot of these traveling trips, like
Speaker 2: we we had this in North Quota this year. That
Speaker 2: was the middle of October, so it wasn't rut, it
Speaker 2: wasn't all days sit time. But you're you're you're facing
Speaker 2: the reality of you walk out in the morning, do
Speaker 2: your morning sit and you're like, are you gonna go
Speaker 2: all hike all the way out and go back to
Speaker 2: camp or are you going to stay out there? I mean,
Speaker 2: we stayed out there on the river, you know coup
Speaker 2: that was great, awesome, but we stayed out there. And
Speaker 2: then you know, even though you end up sitting longer
Speaker 2: than you probably would need to, you also are walking
Speaker 2: into a situation where you're like, I don't know where
Speaker 2: we're going to hang this set. I don't know what
Speaker 2: we're gonna find. I don't know who we're gonna bump into.
Speaker 2: I don't know the level of impact we're gonna make
Speaker 2: on this little tank that I want to hunt. But
Speaker 2: we're gonna blow deer out of there. So if we
Speaker 2: can give it an extra hour or two or three
Speaker 2: to get our setup right and settle in and let
Speaker 2: let like let nature kind of come back and like
Speaker 2: find that balance that stuff matters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's you know, not that you need to
Speaker 3: go on these big long sits and give yourself all
Speaker 3: this time to enjoy nature or whatever. You know, it's
Speaker 3: like give yourself more time so that you can make
Speaker 3: less of an impact getting in. You know. It's like
Speaker 3: if you actually are not in a hurry, you're making
Speaker 3: a lot better decisions. I feel like too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and that's you know, this is this
Speaker 2: is something that I think we a lot of people
Speaker 2: kind of have this idea like I want this property,
Speaker 2: I want the box b linds, I want the set
Speaker 2: up ladder stands. If you have that situation, you don't
Speaker 2: need to do this. Really you should. You should have
Speaker 2: your work done ahead of time, but you still should
Speaker 2: have a mobile setup because those deer are gonna figure
Speaker 2: you out. They're gonna they're gonna they're gonna react to
Speaker 2: you in a way where you're still gonna need to
Speaker 2: do that. So this is like a this is a
Speaker 2: muscle you need to work. I get. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: let me put it this way. You don't meet anybody
Speaker 2: who could show up on public lands somewhere who's not
Speaker 2: really good at that. Yeah, like giving themselves time and
Speaker 2: figuring this stuff.
Speaker 3: Out, for sure, I mean you do. You do meet
Speaker 3: a lot of guys that are throwing it together. But
Speaker 3: the guys that are successful, like they have every variable checked,
Speaker 3: you know, they're they're thinking about it ahead of time,
Speaker 3: and that's you know that to me is again one
Speaker 3: of the nerdier parts about what we do. But I
Speaker 3: love like that feeling of like I'm super preferred for tomorrow.
Speaker 3: I have everything where I need it to be, and
Speaker 3: I know I'm gonna get up in the morning, pour
Speaker 3: myself a cup of coffee, and I'm gonna go and
Speaker 3: everything is set. You know that to me is like
Speaker 3: super satisfying. And then when you get in there and
Speaker 3: everything goes hey wire, at least you're ready for it.
Speaker 2: You know, right. So let me run a scenario by you.
Speaker 2: So one of our producers calls you up and says, hey, Dylan,
Speaker 2: we have a shoot for you if you want it.
Speaker 2: What I'm assuming I'm gonna fill in the blanks here
Speaker 2: for you a little bit. I'm assuming that you probably
Speaker 2: like personally enjoy like a public land hanging bang type
Speaker 2: of thing a lot. Oh yeah, what's it like? What
Speaker 2: would be a kind of hunt where they would be like, hey,
Speaker 2: can you film this where you'd be like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: just kind of a job. I'm gonna take it.
Speaker 3: Public land peasant hunting in western North Dakota wasn't like that.
Speaker 3: On an opening weekend of rifle season, I was definitely like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: all right, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: But it's going to pay those bills.
Speaker 3: But that's right, man, make cave while the sunshines, right.
Speaker 3: I I hate turning down work like that's you know,
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, you have to pay bills, right,
Speaker 3: So it depends on what jobs are thrown your way.
Speaker 3: But like, if I could pick, it would be going
Speaker 3: to a new state, a new area and hanging banging
Speaker 3: on public land like that to me is the most
Speaker 3: fun thing to do. And it's one of those things
Speaker 3: where even if we're not successful, like we have probably
Speaker 3: had a blast getting our asses kicked, where there's probably
Speaker 3: still one heck of a story to be told. And
Speaker 3: if it is successful and you do kill a deer,
Speaker 3: you probably have a heck of a story to tell.
Speaker 3: Because holy crap, that doesn't happen all the time, right, So.
Speaker 2: But what's what's a hunt that you would they would
Speaker 2: pitch to you where you'd be like, I'll do it,
Speaker 2: but I don't, like in your head like I do it.
Speaker 3: Like you know, I would hunt private land, white sail somewhere.
Speaker 3: I would absolutely I'd have a blast doing and I
Speaker 3: do it all the time with people. But it's one
Speaker 3: of those things where it's just like not that it
Speaker 3: necessarily feels like a grind or like work, but it's
Speaker 3: just like it's not as fun to me. I'll do it,
Speaker 3: but it's like, yeah, all right, it's not as exciting.
Speaker 3: That's what's so fun about what I do is most
Speaker 3: of the time I go on these trips or hunt
Speaker 3: with people, I'm excited just to be there. Like I'm
Speaker 3: grateful that I got the call to be there, right, So, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, there's nothing that really jump saw at me
Speaker 3: that'd be like, ah god, it.
Speaker 2: Is part of that just because there there's just less
Speaker 2: of a story to tell a lot of times, like
Speaker 2: you because you this is what people don't understand. Behind
Speaker 2: the scenes. My producer bitches all the time. He's like
Speaker 2: we gotta get transitions. We gotta get these shots, we
Speaker 2: gotta get these shots, we gotta get these shots. Because
Speaker 2: to build a story, you have to have the footage.
Speaker 2: Like it's not just filming a deer dying, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: you're you're providing them with hours and hours and hours
Speaker 2: of footage of specific shots so that they can piece
Speaker 2: together something that has this flow and this storyline and
Speaker 2: like a secondary through line. And your job is to
Speaker 2: gather all those pieces. And if you go someplace where
Speaker 2: the hunting is really good, and you know you're gonna
Speaker 2: sit this stand today and that stand tomorrow, it's just
Speaker 2: like a harder story to build.
Speaker 3: It. I wouldn't say that it's a harder story to build.
Speaker 3: It's just that this story's already been told a thousand times,
Speaker 3: you know. It's like, you know, for example, I used
Speaker 3: to film weddings to make ends meet. I hope I
Speaker 3: never have to film, and I hope I never have
Speaker 3: to edit another wedding because it is the same story
Speaker 3: every time, you know, And it's like you're literally just
Speaker 3: checking boxes of Okay, I got this leaf shot, I
Speaker 3: got the broadhead on the end of the you know,
Speaker 3: whatever I got. You know, as we're coming off of
Speaker 3: the side by side to go hunting or whatever. It's
Speaker 3: like it's the same story or over and again, over
Speaker 3: and over again. And that's not to say that I
Speaker 3: don't love telling that story. It's just not as exciting
Speaker 3: as going somewhere new and being like, Okay, this is
Speaker 3: completely different. Now I have to try and piece this
Speaker 3: story together as it's happening, versus, Hey, I know we're
Speaker 3: going to do this and I just have to be
Speaker 3: ready for it and.
Speaker 2: Have it again. That's to me if I could equate
Speaker 2: that to my work life. That's when my editor is like, hey,
Speaker 2: we did a bunch of SEO, you know, analytics and
Speaker 2: mature Bucks and the rut really perform well, so can
Speaker 2: you write a bunch of articles about killing Bucks Mature
Speaker 2: Box during the rut? And you're like, oh, there's nothing
Speaker 2: left to say, man, Like I don't know what to do,
Speaker 2: but it just is a part of the gig. Yep.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And then again like I'm not it sounds like
Speaker 3: a bitching or whining. I love what I do. I
Speaker 3: love no matter where I'm filming these hunts, as long
Speaker 3: as I'm in a tree and waiting for a deer.
Speaker 3: That to me, is it? I love it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well I can say from a guy who's hunted
Speaker 2: with you a lot, you do a lot of bitching
Speaker 2: and whining. It's really annoying.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Mark said that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's why it doesn't have me filmed anymore.
Speaker 3: I guarantee.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about your other business, because you also have
Speaker 2: another business that you're doing a lot of work in
Speaker 2: the white tail world. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And just to disclaimer this, it is not my business.
Speaker 3: I work with and for Jeff Sturgis at White Til
Speaker 3: Habitat Solution, So I do Habitat consulting Hunt Consulting basically
Speaker 3: under the umbrella of White Til Habitat Solution.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 3: And so he keeps me very busy doing that. And
Speaker 3: I absolutely love that too. And I'm actually switching over
Speaker 3: into that season here shortly.
Speaker 2: And what do you do for that?
Speaker 3: So, I mean long story shorts. I work with private
Speaker 3: landowners that are looking to develop their property to be
Speaker 3: a better white tail hunting property, and then I tell
Speaker 3: them how to hunt it once they've changed it into
Speaker 3: that hunting property, so you know, and a lot of
Speaker 3: times it's somebody that just bought a new piece of
Speaker 3: property and they've never hunted it before, and they're just like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I already spent this much on the land.
Speaker 3: I better set it up right so I'm not chasing
Speaker 3: my tail for the next five years or ten years
Speaker 3: or whatever. The other side of it is when I
Speaker 3: get calls from people that have owned a piece of
Speaker 3: property for a long time and they're just upset with
Speaker 3: how the results are shaking out, you know, or they
Speaker 3: bought the property and it gets worse every year. We
Speaker 3: see that all the time, where it's like you have
Speaker 3: this piece of raw ground, they buy it, and then
Speaker 3: they start hunting it, and they hunt it poorly, and
Speaker 3: now it's kind of like they're stepping on their own
Speaker 3: feet their whole hunt or the whole time that they're
Speaker 3: developing this parcel. And a lot of times it's just
Speaker 3: thinking outside the box and thinking like, Okay, where is
Speaker 3: this process getting messed up, and how do we start
Speaker 3: it over to avoid that from the beginning.
Speaker 2: So when you talk about those properties, are you talking
Speaker 2: because I feel like I see this a lot with
Speaker 2: people where to get their hands on an eighty or
Speaker 2: whatever they get and immediately turn it into something that
Speaker 2: like is easy for them to hunt, right, they've got
Speaker 2: the perimeter trail cut to drive the side by side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm typically a big fan of that perimeter trail,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that right now. I'm usually a very
Speaker 3: big fan of that.
Speaker 2: But like why is that?
Speaker 3: Why is that? Yeah, because then you're you're saving a
Speaker 3: lot more of your interior, your core, if you will,
Speaker 3: for deer. Right, So like if we can pull your
Speaker 3: access to the outside, you're now giving more to the
Speaker 3: deer in the center, you know. So we call it
Speaker 3: depth of cover. So like depth either goes away from
Speaker 3: a food source or from your access, right, So, like
Speaker 3: you're trying to build as much depth of cover as
Speaker 3: possible to encompass, you know, room for a mature book
Speaker 3: that doesn't put up with pressure, doesn't put up with
Speaker 3: social pressure from other deer as well. So like you're
Speaker 3: trying to make this property seem bigger in the eyes
Speaker 3: of a deer. And to me, like the more that
Speaker 3: we can leave in the center, the less that gets marginalized. Right,
Speaker 3: So like that's why we like to pull a lot
Speaker 3: to the outside, you know. But I would say, like
Speaker 3: the big mistake we see all the time is like
Speaker 3: big food plot right in the middle of the property,
Speaker 3: or their best favorite gun stand right in the middle
Speaker 3: of the property, where it's like, okay, this food source
Speaker 3: right in the middle of property. You're nixing your depth
Speaker 3: of cover. Then when you go and try and hunt
Speaker 3: this food plot that's in the middle of your property,
Speaker 3: you're probably blowing it off. Now you're blowing off this
Speaker 3: thing that's supposed to be very secure and it just
Speaker 3: so happens to be right in the middle of your property,
Speaker 3: you know. So it's like you're this attractor repel, you know,
Speaker 3: pattern of Now your neighbors are shooting your target bucks
Speaker 3: that you're getting on camera at midnight one in the morning,
Speaker 3: and you're like, ah, I just need them the daylight,
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, he's daylight twenty acres over, you know,
Speaker 3: So let's rethink the sweets daylight here, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: Because you I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here,
Speaker 2: but that that idea, right, you get your hands on
Speaker 2: that eighty put that food plot right in the middle.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's a metal there or something already to start with,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. Then you put that box blind in and
Speaker 2: then when you go hunt, of course you're going to
Speaker 2: center your cameras around that, right, Yeah, and then when
Speaker 2: you go hunt, you're gonna be like default to that,
Speaker 2: default to that, default to that. So you've made what
Speaker 2: you think is the kind of like primo set up
Speaker 2: for killing deer. But the way that you've set it up,
Speaker 2: you are forcing yourself to burn out your best stuff.
Speaker 3: And then we have like what we call the great deceivers. Right,
Speaker 3: So like then you have your local dough family group
Speaker 3: or you know a couple of buck fawns that live
Speaker 3: in or near that area that can tolerate your pressure.
Speaker 3: You're repeatedly seeing them, so you're like, I'm seeing deer.
Speaker 3: I'm not spooking my property out, but those mature box
Speaker 3: like they're just not gonna put up with that pressure.
Speaker 3: So now you're you're like checking the box, like there's
Speaker 3: deer here. I'm doing everything right, But it's the deer
Speaker 3: that can tolerate that pressure. Right, So it's like you're
Speaker 3: repeatedly conditioning those deer that, hey, I'm here, it's fine,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure buck just doesn't get conditioned to that
Speaker 3: kind of pressure, right, So like you're pushing them even
Speaker 3: further at that point because now you're pulling in deer
Speaker 3: that can handle that pressure, right, So it's it's just
Speaker 3: weird balance, and that to me is like the most
Speaker 3: fun thing about it is like no two designs are
Speaker 3: the same, Like no two hunting goals are the same. Typically,
Speaker 3: like usually you have you know, somebody on the property
Speaker 3: is super die hard. Maybe they're all die hard, but
Speaker 3: like a lot of times there's Uncle Terry that comes
Speaker 3: up for gun season and it's like trying to work
Speaker 3: with all these different styles of hunting and put together
Speaker 3: a plan that works, you know for everybody is so
Speaker 3: fun to me.
Speaker 2: I mean it is, and it that's that's the part,
Speaker 2: you know when you're talking about that with with how
Speaker 2: people kind of design their properties and then over over
Speaker 2: time burn them out. Yep. I have a little thirty
Speaker 2: acre property over in Wisconsin that I put a an
Speaker 2: ever expanding kill plot in, Like I go work on
Speaker 2: it every year and make it a little bigger and
Speaker 2: find some apple trees and mess around. But what I
Speaker 2: learned about that I put it intentionally very close to
Speaker 2: the road because I knew just the way that the
Speaker 2: land around me was set up, like deer probably not
Speaker 2: going to come in from that way. Anyway as much, sure,
Speaker 2: And so I'm like, if I cheated on that side,
Speaker 2: I have more usable land that I won't be going
Speaker 2: into a lot but still mine all and by accident,
Speaker 2: I guess not by accident. But I'd also have a
Speaker 2: little maybe like a four or five acre meadow that
Speaker 2: has some of the alders in there and dogwood and stuff,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of become a betting area, like there's
Speaker 2: always a few deer use it. And what I learned was,
Speaker 2: even though I kind of got lucky place in that
Speaker 2: food plot in the right spot, when it took me
Speaker 2: like five years of parking there to figure out that
Speaker 2: I have to go park on the one end that's
Speaker 2: closest to the two houses because they hear cars over there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And if I park anywhere else, I see fewer deer,
Speaker 2: especially in the evening when they're probably bedded in that
Speaker 2: meadow and they hear me park on the other end
Speaker 2: of the property. They're like, we're not nope.
Speaker 3: We heard him park.
Speaker 2: We heard him crunch down the gravel.
Speaker 3: They get conditioned so quickly, they learn so fast. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, even the deer here, and you know I
Speaker 3: live on three quarters of acre here. It's attached to
Speaker 3: my neighbor's own thirty five back here, and like our
Speaker 3: dogs run outside, we drive the side by side back
Speaker 3: and forth all the time. But there's bucks that use
Speaker 3: these woods back here, and it's like they've become accustomed
Speaker 3: to what we do here in our yards and they
Speaker 3: know what is normal. But as soon as my dog
Speaker 3: runs too far to chase the squirrel into those woods,
Speaker 3: or I get curious and I got to go take
Speaker 3: a look at the scrape that I can see from
Speaker 3: the field edge. Now the camera that I run in
Speaker 3: there like doesn't have deer on for a few days.
Speaker 3: It's like they learn so quickly what's normal, what's acceptable,
Speaker 3: and what's out of the ordinary, and what they need
Speaker 3: to avoid. Like that to me is like goes so
Speaker 3: far when it comes to pressure.
Speaker 2: It's it's so crazy. I mean, that was one of
Speaker 2: the things that just blew my mind when I'm moved
Speaker 2: here to the suburbs. How both turkeys and deer were
Speaker 2: fairly like tolerant of me just walking on through yep,
Speaker 2: you know, like and I see this, you know, this
Speaker 2: little property I'm hunting here that I picked up two
Speaker 2: years ago, and the one I'm gonna take the girls
Speaker 2: out on those deer smell people, hear people, and see
Speaker 2: people all the time. I mean, this this property that
Speaker 2: they killed my buck on here this year, I can
Speaker 2: I probably see people every time I sit in her
Speaker 2: in her yard. I mean, it just it sucks, but
Speaker 2: it just is what it is. But when I go
Speaker 2: out there to like hang a stand or something, if
Speaker 2: I just burn through there, go do my thing and
Speaker 2: walk out, you'll see deer looking at you. Like you'll
Speaker 2: see deer standing off in the brush, and they're like
Speaker 2: totally tolerant of that. When you walk in and you
Speaker 2: start messing around around them, they're gone.
Speaker 3: I don't like too far in the weeds here. But
Speaker 3: like there's studies on this where, like you know, they
Speaker 3: study in like parks or you know, areas where there
Speaker 3: are hiking trails or whatever, and like deer become accustomed
Speaker 3: to that intrusion of normal hikers or park goers whatever.
Speaker 3: And then if a hunter goes in there and tries
Speaker 3: to conceal his movements and conceal his scent and sound,
Speaker 3: whatever wears camo the deer. Like that's that right, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's like here, you think you're doing the right thing,
Speaker 3: and you'd be better off if you're wearing a you know,
Speaker 3: just a sweater going for a walk and carrying your boat.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's really crazy. I mean that that's
Speaker 2: the other thing you know about this travel stuff. Right
Speaker 2: Like when I hunt in northern Wisconsin, I get picked
Speaker 2: off all the time. Like those deer are just like
Speaker 2: a game deer, right, like they just they have another
Speaker 2: gear down. Oh dude, it's just I know, people like
Speaker 2: listen to it and they don't believe, like they don't
Speaker 2: believe it. But it's like it's for me, it's almost
Speaker 2: a guarantee if I have an encounter over there, they're
Speaker 2: going to look up unless I'm really tucked into a
Speaker 2: pine tree or like a multi limb, multi trunk deal.
Speaker 2: But that buck that I killed this year here in
Speaker 2: the Cities, that dude, I went it was the last
Speaker 2: chance I had. It was November seventh. I hung a
Speaker 2: stand where I've been seeing these years go through and
Speaker 2: I had one place where I'm like, God, I hope
Speaker 2: they don't come through there, because if they do, they're
Speaker 2: gonna win me. And I turned around at like two
Speaker 2: in the afternoon there was a buck standing behind me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well there, unless he comes straight at
Speaker 2: me around the pond, he's gonna get me. But one
Speaker 2: hundred yards away is a house and the wind is
Speaker 2: blowing from the house to me and me to him,
Speaker 2: and this is all I can think. That Buck wanted
Speaker 2: so bad to go to this little dough betting area
Speaker 2: in this person's yard. There's like five acres of just
Speaker 2: six scrub brush on this house. And I see does
Speaker 2: come and go there all the time, and that Buck
Speaker 2: was going there, but he winded me and had I
Speaker 2: had an ozonics unit going, but I was still like
Speaker 2: just no way right, Like he's twenty five yards away,
Speaker 2: but you could see him like wrestling with himself where
Speaker 2: he's like I want to go through there, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to wade through this pond. I can smell
Speaker 2: some asshole there. I don't know if he's hunting or
Speaker 2: if he's just like leaf blowing. And he like would
Speaker 2: come in, turn around and go away, come in, and
Speaker 2: it was like he was just like trying to talk
Speaker 2: himself into it. And one time he came in just
Speaker 2: a little too close and opened himself up and I
Speaker 2: pumped him. But I was like I think that deer
Speaker 2: was sitting there like calculating in his head, is this haunter?
Speaker 2: Is this like human like what? And you know, probably
Speaker 2: not to that level, but like what threat is this right?
Speaker 2: And he's like fighting that urge to go chase those
Speaker 2: because he's November seventh. It was freaking great. Man, Like
Speaker 2: I'm like, give me all these dumb ass deer that
Speaker 2: are like used to smelling people in their yards. I
Speaker 2: need them, Like I'll take all of them.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: But it's cool. I mean you don't, like you wouldn't
Speaker 2: see a fawn do that in so many places?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no kidding, And that's what's so cool too.
Speaker 3: And like, no matter where you hunt, you know, we
Speaker 3: talked about this, especially when you're in North Dakota, South Dakota, whatever,
Speaker 3: and you have a bear tree, it's the only tree
Speaker 3: to get in and you're like, oo, am I gonna
Speaker 3: get away with that, and you're like you're don't look
Speaker 3: up out here, and you just get up there and
Speaker 3: like you can get away with it. Versus Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan,
Speaker 3: it's like they'll pick you out if you peek around
Speaker 3: the tree. You're wrong, you know, it's so crazy.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I wrote a piece for last week
Speaker 2: about this, but you know, we'll take that first North
Speaker 2: Dakota hunt we filmed. I'm I'm really into natural ground blinds,
Speaker 2: and part of that, I think is and this this
Speaker 2: might be totally bullshit. I don't know, but I feel
Speaker 2: like a lot of times I get deer that just
Speaker 2: look right through me or past me, like they don't
Speaker 2: expect you, you know, And so some of those situations
Speaker 2: you get like out there, we could have been in
Speaker 2: a tree and been fine, right like, but we didn't
Speaker 2: have a tree right where I killed my buck. This
Speaker 2: year in Iowa, we tucked up and I've done this
Speaker 2: a few times, but we tucked up under a river
Speaker 2: bank and there's a bunch of willows and a bunch
Speaker 2: of yellow grass, and it was just kind of like
Speaker 2: it felt like those deer and we had dose come
Speaker 2: out and look right at us. That's awesome. Where You're
Speaker 2: like they just it's like they it doesn't register for them, right,
Speaker 2: And you know, like we got busted in the trees,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you know, it seems dumb, right, get
Speaker 2: on their level, but you put yourself in those positions
Speaker 2: and if you really kind of get brushed in. And
Speaker 2: I think it works with the landscape, like you can
Speaker 2: kind of override that a little bit, right, and that
Speaker 2: that shit's fun.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Oh I've had a blast hut with you
Speaker 3: that way the last couple of years. Like it's it
Speaker 3: like it almost feels like you're a kid again. Like
Speaker 3: I I personally, I haven't hunted like that in a
Speaker 3: long time. So when it's like can we piece this together?
Speaker 3: Can we make this happen? And then as it's happening,
Speaker 3: you're like, oh god, are we actually gonna make this work?
Speaker 3: This is this gonna happen? Like that to me, like
Speaker 3: it brings back that youthful of like I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's gonna work, but we're gonna try it, you know.
Speaker 3: Like to me, especially like building those ground lines and stuff,
Speaker 3: it's like we're trying to break up outline as much
Speaker 3: as we can and then we're gonna see if it works.
Speaker 3: Like there's something super fun about that, and it's been
Speaker 3: super fun watching it actually work.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it. It is a very viable option
Speaker 2: if you know how to do it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: And and I think I think I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people try it right, Like when when Steve and
Speaker 2: I were in Oklahoma last year, I found freaking ground blinds.
Speaker 2: Oh really everywhere. I mean you just find setups everywhere
Speaker 2: down there. Everybody in Oklahoma hunts. It's wild. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: but a lot of them you look at it and
Speaker 2: you go, there's just no way, like you're gonna get
Speaker 2: busted one hundred percent of the time, Like you gotta
Speaker 2: you have to have some depth, you have to like,
Speaker 2: you have to do it right. But what it opens
Speaker 2: you up to for spots is like incredible, and it's
Speaker 2: oh yeah. People have a hard time with it because
Speaker 2: it's oftentimes not like you're not gonna see a lot,
Speaker 2: but if they come in, you're gonna kill them.
Speaker 3: And that now to me, like that thought just usually
Speaker 3: like it scares me of like what if they come
Speaker 3: from this way and now I'm looking over and he's
Speaker 3: fifteen yards and now I have to pick up my
Speaker 3: bow and draw, you know, like I I like to
Speaker 3: see so if I can. I'm getting intrigued. But it
Speaker 3: has been super fun watching you and be like we
Speaker 3: can make this word, let's do it. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: all right, that sounds great, but holy cow. Would I
Speaker 3: be scared if I had to be the one to
Speaker 3: pick up my bow and draw it right now?
Speaker 2: But this is what I try to like, this is
Speaker 2: a message I try to get across. Is like if
Speaker 2: you have a tree, use it right, Yeah, Like I
Speaker 2: mean you just you just should mostly. But the thing
Speaker 2: about that stuff is is you you can get away
Speaker 2: with a fair amount if you do it right, and
Speaker 2: if you do get a shot, it's awesome. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And so it's like you know, I mean again, it's
Speaker 2: there's like a compromise to be made somewhere in there, right,
Speaker 2: Like you can't see as much if you have conditions
Speaker 2: like we hunted in last year, where it's like you're
Speaker 2: not going to hear them coming. Oh no way, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and if they come from behind you, you're screwed.
Speaker 2: But you get into a tree stand and they come
Speaker 2: from the wrong direction, you're screwed anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very good point. Definitely, damn if you do,
Speaker 3: damned if you don't.
Speaker 2: But I just I love that stuff because it's you know,
Speaker 2: like you said, it is sort of sort of goes
Speaker 2: back to like when a lot of us started, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure there's kids starting now because of
Speaker 2: the options they have, it's different, But we used to
Speaker 2: do that stuff a lot. Like we have one stand
Speaker 2: that weighed twenty nine pounds. Oh my gosh, you know
Speaker 2: it's screw in steps.
Speaker 3: Here's wild thinking about that, Like what a mobile set
Speaker 3: was five years ago, ten years ago versus now. It's insane.
Speaker 2: It's just really cool when you kind of you kind
Speaker 2: of put yourself in a position where you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I I got to make this work. And you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of ties back to what we started talking about,
Speaker 2: right where you're looking for that you know, concentration of sign. Right,
Speaker 2: so you go up into the up of Michigan and
Speaker 2: eventually find that swamp buck and where he's living. I
Speaker 2: think you might kill him out of a tree, or
Speaker 2: you might have to do that next to the alders
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: Who knows exactly. Yeah, it just depends on what the
Speaker 3: field gives you, right, And like I don't know. That's
Speaker 3: why again, going back to just hunting at different places
Speaker 3: and experiences in those different areas and how you have
Speaker 3: to play at a deer's level is so fun. How
Speaker 3: it's different, you know, from Kansas to North Daklada to
Speaker 3: Michigan wherever. Like what you're given and what the deer using,
Speaker 3: you know, puts you in so many different scenarios, and
Speaker 3: that to me is super fun.
Speaker 2: It's a blast. Let's talk. Let's wrap this up talking
Speaker 2: about the Adirondacks, because I'm I'm I have never met
Speaker 2: anybody who's gone out there who hasn't been like this
Speaker 2: place is amazing and I need to go back. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what is it? Man?
Speaker 3: The vastness, man like just the nothing and just you
Speaker 3: think about you know, I was in New York, but
Speaker 3: I've done this in Maine. I was out there with
Speaker 3: Mark Kenyan in twenty twenty one. Just something so different
Speaker 3: about just this sea of the same timber for miles
Speaker 3: and miles and miles and just just rolling soft mountains
Speaker 3: and just somewhere out there in this horizon that I
Speaker 3: can see there's a big buck and I want to
Speaker 3: find them, you know, to me, like that is awesome.
Speaker 3: And this year I got the invite from a good
Speaker 3: buddy of mine. He's been inviting me for a couple
Speaker 3: of years to go out there, and I finally was
Speaker 3: able to make it happen. And you know, I jokingly
Speaker 3: text him like, we keep some snow out there, right,
Speaker 3: He's like, we need the snow. I'm like, all right, awesome,
Speaker 3: Like we're are doing the tracking thing. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: only way to do it. I'm like, all right, this
Speaker 3: is gonna be awesome. And didn't have the snow. So
Speaker 3: we got there and you know, just took a mobile
Speaker 3: set and I started setting up on different kinds of
Speaker 3: habitat changes and cuts and where I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: concentrations of deer would be and found a lot of
Speaker 3: fresh signs. Saw a couple deer while I was sitting,
Speaker 3: but just you know, wasn't exactly on the X.
Speaker 2: And did you see any bucks out there?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: Not while I was hunting. No, But there was a
Speaker 3: couple of times where we were just like kind of walking,
Speaker 3: just like, hey, you know, we're gonna kind of kill
Speaker 3: a few hours here and do some scouting. There was
Speaker 3: two times where we walked up on a buck where
Speaker 3: you could smell it. You know, you're like, oh, he's close,
Speaker 3: and then you start tiptoeing and we're not even tracking
Speaker 3: because there's no snow. But it's just like, Okay, he's
Speaker 3: gonna get up any second, and he's close where's he
Speaker 3: going to be? You know? And we did end up
Speaker 3: jumping some deer in one of those spots, and I
Speaker 3: just didn't see the buck. You know, maybe he had
Speaker 3: already been gone or you know whatever, but very close
Speaker 3: to bucks, but just did not see any bucks. You know,
Speaker 3: sew plenty of dolls, and of course the day after
Speaker 3: I left, they got clobbered with snow, and so I'm
Speaker 3: literally like, what are the odds that this happens? Right?
Speaker 3: And my buddy texts me, He's like, it's beautiful out here.
Speaker 3: He went out that next day, day after the snowfall,
Speaker 3: killed a beautiful point buck, like nice mature. They go
Speaker 3: by weights out there a lot of times. I want
Speaker 3: to say, his was like one hundred and seventy five pounds.
Speaker 3: And he said, that's a really good buck out there
Speaker 3: for his region where he's at, you know. But there's
Speaker 3: just something so like, you know, romantic about just this
Speaker 3: idea of this big woods thing. And now I'm just
Speaker 3: looking for tracks and okay, is this a track that
Speaker 3: I want to pursue. What's the size of this track
Speaker 3: versus the other ones? Yeah, I think this is a buck.
Speaker 3: I think it's a good buck. And now I have
Speaker 3: to go follow him through his daily movements and try
Speaker 3: and close distance on him.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: That to me is just so cool. I want to
Speaker 3: do it so.
Speaker 2: Bad, kind of like a mix between a western hunt
Speaker 2: and a whitetail hunt. Yeah, could keep walking down and that.
Speaker 2: You know, I think almost everybody who hears about that,
Speaker 2: and we've heard about that kind of hunting the hell
Speaker 2: blood style for a long time thinks that you know
Speaker 2: you have to go to the Northeast to do it.
Speaker 2: You don't like I killed a dough years the first
Speaker 2: time I ever did this. I killed a dough in
Speaker 2: Minnesota with a muzzle order. This is back before we
Speaker 2: could scope them, so it was just an iron sight steal.
Speaker 2: I went out the last day a muzzlolder season. It
Speaker 2: was snowing and I'm just sneaking along and I looked
Speaker 2: up and there was a dough in a fawn ahead
Speaker 2: of me, and I missed her. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: I can't believe I just blew my chance on the
Speaker 2: last evening. But then I was like, I can just
Speaker 2: follow them, and if they didn't leave this property, which
Speaker 2: where I jumped him, I'm like, they're probably still on
Speaker 2: the place I can hunt. So I followed it around
Speaker 2: and I watched where it was going, or I could
Speaker 2: see where their their trail dropped down this valley, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I know, there's an outcropping over here
Speaker 2: that has a coyote don un or it's just a
Speaker 2: cool spot, Like I'm gonna crawl up on there and
Speaker 2: see if i can pick them up. And I crawled
Speaker 2: up there and I looked down and they were bedded
Speaker 2: beneath it. So I shot that dough in her bed
Speaker 2: and I was like, that was some of the most
Speaker 2: fun I've ever had. And I've talked about this, You
Speaker 2: and I talked about this when we were peasant hunting.
Speaker 2: I did that last year. I didn't shoot one, but
Speaker 2: I got the conditions to follow tracks and the cattails,
Speaker 2: and I think about it all the time. I'm like,
Speaker 2: that was the most fun I had last season. And
Speaker 2: we've stacked up the deer last year. But so what
Speaker 2: I'm saying is, and that was on public land, right,
Speaker 2: Like you could go do that in Wisconsin with a
Speaker 2: fresh snow if you could get it right. And so
Speaker 2: that's another thing where it's like you know your buddy
Speaker 2: going out and shooting a big buck. That's really cool.
Speaker 2: But if you're sitting on a dough tag and you
Speaker 2: have a muzzle loader and you get that fresh snow,
Speaker 2: you can go have a really fun hunt and it's
Speaker 2: not just your typical hunt and that that shit's so cool.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, we used to do that. We do
Speaker 3: that in college a few times where you know, especially
Speaker 3: like this time of year for scouting, right, like to
Speaker 3: go explore a new property figured out and carry a
Speaker 3: rifle or a muzzloader if there's a season open, like
Speaker 3: you know, for example, here in Wisconsin we have the
Speaker 3: holiday hum where it's an antlerless hunt. What a great
Speaker 3: time if you have a tag or you can pick
Speaker 3: up a tag on public land to just go and
Speaker 3: like explore new properties and hunt while you're doing it. Like, man,
Speaker 3: it doesn't doesn't get beat right, So like, as long
Speaker 3: as you have the conditions in the snow, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 3: And I definitely am going to be doing that.
Speaker 2: That more New Year's here, that holiday hunt. I'm torn.
Speaker 2: I got that little three hundred blackout for my daughters.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they want a rifle hunt. And you know,
Speaker 2: we have my buddy's place in southwestern Wisconsin. We can
Speaker 2: go to where the deer density is really high, and
Speaker 2: the girls are like, we should go down there and
Speaker 2: shoot some does, and I'm kind of like, how many
Speaker 2: dos do? I want? A butcher kind of thing, like
Speaker 2: I really want to take them, but I also know
Speaker 2: it could be one of those situations because you get
Speaker 2: like three free do tags when you buy down there
Speaker 2: because there's so many deer. And I'm like, I know
Speaker 2: me so for sitting there and some deer come in,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna let them stack them up and then I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be like, oh shit, and I got to butcher
Speaker 2: all these So I'm kind of like, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 2: kind of trying to figure that out. But anyway, to
Speaker 2: your point, there are opportunities out there, definitely, you know,
Speaker 2: not very obviously if you live down south.
Speaker 1: It's a different deal to wired to hunt.
Speaker 2: There's cool stuff out there. Your God, it's so much
Speaker 2: fun to hunt with you, and it's been so so
Speaker 2: much fun to get to know you. Where can people
Speaker 2: find you? They want to look you up? Maybe somebody
Speaker 2: wants to hire you to go film an awesome New
Speaker 2: Zealand hunt or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm on Instagram. It's Dylan Underscore larming, can you
Speaker 3: and Elli and z that's my last name, not a
Speaker 3: play on the camera, just that's actually.
Speaker 2: My sheer coincidence yep, pretty crazy.
Speaker 3: So yeah, find me there.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it, buddy, Thanks for everything.
Speaker 3: You bet, thank you.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week, folks, make sure to tune
Speaker 2: in every week for more white tail goodness. I've been
Speaker 2: your guest host. Well, I am your guest host, Tony
Speaker 2: Peterson and this has been the Wired to Hunt podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. Now, if
Speaker 2: you want some more whitetail content, feel free to head
Speaker 2: on over to the medeater dot com to get more
Speaker 2: than your fill.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: While you're there, maybe check out some other podcasts. Maybe
Speaker 2: check out Clay's Bear Grease podcast, you know, Brent's This
Speaker 2: Country Life podcasts. So much stuff. There are three different
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Speaker 2: you so much for your support.